The Mandalorian And Grogu First Reactions Are Mixed But Mostly Positive For Latest Star Wars Movie

The Mandalorian And Grogu First Reactions Are Mixed But Mostly Positive For Latest Star Wars Movie

The Star Wars franchise has been absent from theaters since 2019, but can The Mandalorian and Grogu restore its former big screen glory? The first reactions are in following the premiere.

News
By JoshWilding - May 15, 2026 09:05 AM EST
Filed Under: The Mandalorian
Source: SFFGazette.com

The Mandalorian and Grogu was finally screened to critics last night, and following the movie's world premiere, we have the first social media reactions (via SFFGazette.com).

Most are very positive, promising Star Wars fans a fun, pulpy summer blockbuster. There's plenty of action and heart, along with the expected Grogu cuteness. It also sounds like Jeremy Allen White's Rotta the Hutt is a scene-stealer, despite only being shown fleetingly in trailers and TV spots.

However, the consensus seems to be that, for better or worse, it feels like a feature-length episode of The Mandalorian (most are just happy to see the Star Wars franchise back on the big screen). 

Filmmaker Jon Favreau has confirmed that The Mandalorian and Grogu isn't a condensed version of Season 4, and it will seemingly be a standalone adventure with a similar feel to Season 1 and 2. That may disappoint fans hoping for world-building, whether it's a deep dive into Mandalore lore or Moff Gideon's apparent involvement with Supreme Leader Snoke's creation.

Ultimately, all signs point to this being an enjoyable Star Wars adventure, which might be exactly what the franchise needs after the mixed reaction to the sequel trilogy and the failed attempt to bring an icon like Han Solo back with a new actor. It may, however, be wise to temper expectations.

In The Mandalorian and Grogu, the evil Empire has fallen, and Imperial warlords remain scattered throughout the galaxy. As the fledgling New Republic works to protect everything the Rebellion fought for, they have enlisted the help of legendary Mandalorian bounty hunter Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) and his young apprentice Grogu.

Directed by Jon Favreau, the movie also stars Sigourney Weaver and Jeremy Allen White. It's produced by Jon Favreau, Kathleen Kennedy, Dave Filoni, and Ian Bryce,  with music composed by Ludwig Göransson.

The Mandalorian and Grogu arrives in theaters on May 22. 

About The Author:
JoshWilding
Member Since 3/13/2009
Comic Book Reader. Film Lover. WWE and F1 Fan. Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic and ComicBookMovie.com's #1 contributor.
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GComix85
GComix85 - 5/15/2026, 9:18 AM
Sounds like a movie that just "fine".

Unfortunately, media outlets won't be able to help themselves and can't portray a movie as such. Get ready for the "disaster" and "failure" headlines.
TheJok3r
TheJok3r - 5/15/2026, 9:36 AM
@GComix85 - 7 years since the last movie and the best they could come up with is just "fine" ? For a franchise as big as Star Wars, that kind of is a disaster.
GComix85
GComix85 - 5/15/2026, 9:42 AM
@TheJok3r - Oh yeah. Internet comments will be doing this too. Thanks for the reminder.
TheJok3r
TheJok3r - 5/15/2026, 9:45 AM
@GComix85 - Always happy to help.
supermanrex
supermanrex - 5/15/2026, 10:43 AM
@GComix85 - the site will be filled with Disney haters in comment sections of every story they do.
bobevanz
bobevanz - 5/15/2026, 9:19 AM
I'll see it and judge the movie on my own merit. Idgaf what anyone has to say about anything. If you look at reviews you end up being distracted the whole time. If you think something looks good, just watch it. who gives a [frick] what someone else thinks, and if you like it you get to tell them they're wrong!
JusticeL
JusticeL - 5/15/2026, 11:08 AM
@bobevanz - ' If you think something looks good, just watch' - that's the way I see it too, except nothing about this movie screams 'cinematic'.
TheVisionary25
TheVisionary25 - 5/15/2026, 9:44 AM
The reactions seems less mixed and more just mostly positive to me as of now tbh…

Honestly given it’s meant to be a standalone film and everything else we know so far , it just seems like it’s meant to be a entertaining action adventure film with 2 popular characters that has heart , humor & spectacle that reintroduces the franchise on the big screeen hence I’ll treat it such.

I’m not sure what else people would want from a Star Wars film other then galaxy wide implications or lore expansion which this wouldn’t have since it’s meant to be a singular piece as of now.

Anyway , i think the movie seems fun (a word that weirdly has become bad on here) and im looking forward to checking it out!!.
MrDandy
MrDandy - 5/15/2026, 9:51 AM
Sounds like it is a really big episode of the TV show, which is what everyone was kind of expecting. Fortunately it sounds more like a S1 & 2 episode and less like a S3 episode.
Matchesz
Matchesz - 5/15/2026, 10:01 AM
@MrDandy - unfortunately its not more like a pre Grogu season 1 episode
AlexGSpeaks
AlexGSpeaks - 5/15/2026, 11:51 AM
@Matchesz - pre-Grogu episode? Does that even exist given Grogu has been there since Ep1 and was the focal point of it too?
Matchesz
Matchesz - 5/15/2026, 5:52 PM
@AlexGSpeaks - damn if thats true then its been awhile since I seen season 1, for some reason I feel like he didnt find him til later. But nah i still stand by what i said
MisterBones
MisterBones - 5/15/2026, 10:06 AM
"Yes it does feel like a supersized high budget few episodes of the tv show"
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TheVisionary25
TheVisionary25 - 5/15/2026, 10:10 AM
I think the issue becomes is SW is one of a kind when it first came out but as technology has progressed in terms of VFX and such , it’s become part of the mold rather then leading it from the forefront…

However if you also do try to do some new things with it then you have fans rebelling against that too for the most part saying “thats not SW” so it’s between a rock and a hard place.

Personally as a fan of the show (especially the first 2 seasons that really made the relationship between Mando & Grogu the core instead of 3 which i do think is still decent) , having a 2 hour or extended episode of an already cinematic show sounds enjoyable to me so I can’t wait to see that!!.
slickrickdesigns
slickrickdesigns - 5/15/2026, 10:19 AM
Let me guess too woke for some “fans”, not woke enough for other “fans”, just perfect for a minority of “fans”.

Cue the guy saying reboot the MCU, DCU, SWU & the IRLU
PedroSparkles
PedroSparkles - 5/15/2026, 11:48 AM
@slickrickdesigns - User Comment Image
slickrickdesigns
slickrickdesigns - 5/15/2026, 11:49 AM
@PedroSparkles - are you saying you want to grab Pedro’s butt?
PedroSparkles
PedroSparkles - 5/15/2026, 11:51 AM
@slickrickdesigns - he's an ass man too
Clintthahamster
Clintthahamster - 5/15/2026, 1:39 PM
@slickrickdesigns - Curious if you can point to an example (any example, really) of someone saying that Star Wars isn't woke enough.
Lucasberg
Lucasberg - 5/15/2026, 3:22 PM
@Clintthahamster - Without defining the term woke its likely impossible to please the question you asked here but still, I pasted two examples for you...run of the mill (old and new) articles complaining that the cast and crew were not diverse/female (woke) enough. I take woke to mean forced diversity and feminization of things.


https://geeksofcolor.co/reviews/star-wars-has-diversity-problem

https://www.wired.com/2013/02/opinion-star-wars-females-media/
slickrickdesigns
slickrickdesigns - 5/15/2026, 3:29 PM
@Clintthahamster - I’ll look it up but I remember before the Rey trilogy people were complaining about a Galaxy Far Far away with only two African American characters in it. Lando and Mace. Does that count? I’ll have to look up who the people were but I’m pretty sure a comedian was making fun of that for a while..
Clintthahamster
Clintthahamster - 5/15/2026, 4:30 PM
@Lucasberg @slickrickdesigns - It is wild the way different brains work, because those critiques don't clock as "not woke enough" to me, because I agree that one female co-lead and one black person per trilogy is just objectively not representative of the demographic realities of the world we live in. But of course, you're right. I suppose through a certain lens those could be boiled down to "not woke enough."

At least we can agree that all "woke" really means now is "has women and/or black or brown people in it."
Lucasberg
Lucasberg - 5/16/2026, 12:45 AM
@Clintthahamster - no we don’t agree on that definition lol.

It’s forcing diversity and female this or that. It often leads to oddly bad characters like Holdo. Or seems to lead to half baked ideas like Finn. Finn was great at the start but sadly what seemed to be the natural progression of his character was lost - I imagine because they didn’t have much in mind for him other than “hey, it’s another black guy! 😃”…. Holdo sucked so bad for taking the place of Ackbar! Ackbar should have been the one to lay his life down with that awesome light speed attack. CMON!

I’m not even a hater of the sequels. I defend them here often but these things are noticeably bad in a trilogy that I think largely still worked.

You can’t create art by mandating diversity quotas. It sucks so bad.

Anyhow, sorry for the lecture
Clintthahamster
Clintthahamster - 5/16/2026, 7:28 AM
@Lucasberg - But what you're talking about has nothing to do with the race or gender of the actors and everything to do with writing, so what's with the insistence on tying the critique to culture war bullshit? Instead of "Woke" and "Forced Diversity," you could say "Hastily sketched out characters" or "odd story choices." There's a way to make the same critiques that won't result in people calling you a racist or a misogynist.
Lucasberg
Lucasberg - 5/16/2026, 7:59 AM
@Clintthahamster - well people will always call anyone anything for very little reason, especially online, so that doesn’t move me (unless I’m swayed by their reasoning).

It’s the South Park episode: “put a chick
in it and make her lame and gay”

Once you stop making your art based upon what works best for your story or characters, and instead, automatically make your stuff female or black, well now you’re willingly bypassing the attempt at making the most fitting or compelling art in favor of an alternative priority.

What you miss by just saying “oh you’re racist and misogynist” just because someone says they disagree with this as a priority in art, is that this wasn’t a point of contention over the myriads of black and female stars in movies up until like the past 10 years or so when Hollywood started embarrassing itself through engineering these movies and characters en masse in everything to service their vision of eQuItY and iNcLuSiOn.

I’ve been a Christian for like 25 years and I’ve largely avoided most all “Christian” engineered movies because they’ve largely been beholdened to a corny vision of life that doesn’t reflect lived experience. Hollywood movies went the same mistaken route in their own way through their slavish portrayal of life where their movies have a badaas girl boss and gay behind every corner now that just feels so corny and disconnected from regularly lived life.

South Park’s commentary on this landed so well because it was true: “put a chick in it and make her lame and gay” has been a dominant priority in Hollywood for a long time now and it’s distracting and unconvincing.

I’ll give it up though and say, I gotta almost admire your tenacity for keeping up the good fight for their corny lectures for years upon years at this point lol.

Lucasberg
Lucasberg - 5/16/2026, 8:16 AM
@Clintthahamster - just to reference context too:

His name was “Ackbar”. They bypassed Ackbar to shoehorn a purple haired General in their to lecture toxic masculinity for 10 seconds before having her lay her life down with that light speed attack lol

And Finn got sidelined because of Rose and Rey. I loved Rey but they just didn’t have space to give Finn his proper story because they were just too busy feminizing Star Wars (which was really an odd choice on Disney’s part as the record bears out that Star Wars and action fantasies writ large, attract males; similar to how romantic fiction attracts females). Sorry I didn’t make reality. Not everything is socially engineered. It would be really strange if they remade the Twilight saga with the emphasis being on Edward’s inner life. Would be disasterous for the property. Hollywood has been feminizing properties that have male appeal for awhile now. It’s likewise been disastrous for them.
Clintthahamster
Clintthahamster - 5/16/2026, 11:53 AM
@Lucasberg - "It’s the South Park episode: “put a chick in it and make her lame and gay”"

Oh, please believe that I'm well aware of that shit. It gave a bunch of dudes a meme to complain about something without really understanding what they're complaining about, and y'all haven't stopped using it as a short hand for "I've decided not to like this" ever since.

"this wasn’t a point of contention over the myriads of black and female stars in movies up until like the past 10 years or so"

I agree that there's been a push for greater equity and inclusion (oh, sorry, eQuItY aNd InClUsIoN) in the last ten years. Civil rights movements tend to have a beginning that's embarrassingly late. That push was a reaction to the fact that the vast, vast majority of lead film and televsion roles went to white folks, and mostly white men. Has there been an overcorrection? Maybe. Has it been handled poorly sometimes? Sure. Was Holdo's story arc an effort to sideline a squid man because of misandry? I don't think so.

"their movies have a badaas girl boss and gay behind every corner now"

Diversity has actually decreased over the last year, despite the fact that movies with more diverse casts perform better at the box office. Why do you think that is?

https://abc7.com/post/diversity-hollywood-drops-race-ethnicity-gender-2026-report-finds/18711573/

"South Park’s commentary on this landed so well because it was true"

It landed so well because it's a bumpersticker that reduces a complex topic into a meme, and it's designed to shut down discourse. You can just post the Cartman meme and chuckled to yourself that you've once again won the argument, despite not having to reckon with any of the complex issues at hand.

"the record bears out that Star Wars and action fantasies writ large, attract males"

You're telling me that a genre with mostly male leads has typically attracted a mostly male audience? That's crazy.

"Once you stop making your art based upon what works best for your story or characters, and instead, automatically make your stuff female or black"

Do you think it would have been possible for them to tell a better story with the same characters played by the same cast? If so, then it's a writing problem, not a diversity problem. If not, well . . .
Dotanuki
Dotanuki - 5/15/2026, 10:22 AM
I’m fine with a supersized episode of the series. This isn’t Fellini.
Clintthahamster
Clintthahamster - 5/15/2026, 1:41 PM
@Dotanuki - So you're saying the latest installment in a franchise that was launched on the concept of feeling like an episode in a science fiction serial, feels like an episode in a science fiction serial?

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Batmangina
Batmangina - 5/15/2026, 10:25 AM
Star Wars is fine. Pedro is a box office money machine. Everyone loves Baby Yoda.

The Mandalorian streaming numbers have skyrocketed with each new season and that will translate directly into theater tickets.

There has never been a more sound strategy built on a solid foundation in a franchise that has never had a misstep.
TheVisionary25
TheVisionary25 - 5/15/2026, 10:40 AM
Off topic:
@JoshWilding
@RorMachine

Main theme for MOTU released.

Composed by Daniel Pemberton & Daniel May of “Queen” Fame.
JabbaTheSus
JabbaTheSus - 5/15/2026, 10:56 AM
Wait to judge myself, but this is pretty well what was expected. I fine, play it safe movie to try n win the fans back. Unfortunate a lot of the fanbase is just insanely soured to the IP now. Hopefully this marks a bit of a turning point, and they can get Star Wars back on track, like they're doing with the MCU.
McMurdo
McMurdo - 5/15/2026, 11:56 AM
@JabbaTheSus - we are already judging yourself you fat little sex worm. We all know what you slipped in Leia's green milk.
JabbaTheSus
JabbaTheSus - 5/15/2026, 2:11 PM
@McMurdo - LOL I read this being like "wtf.." before realizing my own username 🤣
Lucasberg
Lucasberg - 5/16/2026, 12:47 AM
@McMurdo - bravo! lol
ThorArms
ThorArms - 5/15/2026, 11:23 AM
Sounds excatly as expected. Especially the one about Rotta...a gladiator Hutt never seemed like a good idea when we started hearing about it.

That being said, I will be there next weekend.
vectorsigma
vectorsigma - 5/15/2026, 11:40 AM
Ill still watch this with very low expectations but imagine switching this and getting a Maul Shadow Lord movie instead 🥲

Disney is really dumbing down SW and gave up with the old fans and want to appease the adhd-ridden young audience
tb86
tb86 - 5/15/2026, 11:49 AM
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McMurdo
McMurdo - 5/15/2026, 11:56 AM
@tb86 - that show's been low key fire in s3.
IAmAHoot
IAmAHoot - 5/15/2026, 1:53 PM
I prefer the show when it was being more hard-edged than kid-friendly. The movie feels entirely more like the latter.
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