The Mandalorian and Grogu may be a story about a Galaxy Far, Far Away, but bringing that galaxy to life requires an incredible amount of work behind the scenes. From Mando's weapons and Grogu's Yoda-inspired walking stick to Rotta's axes and the return of the iconic Amban phase-pulse blaster, every prop has its own story.
The movie is now available on Digital and coming to Disney+ on September 2. Earlier this week, we spoke with prop master Josh Roth, who has been helping shape Din Djarin and Grogu's world since The Mandalorian Season 1.
During our conversation, Josh opened up about the meticulous work that went into bringing Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni's big-screen adventure to life. He also takes us behind the scenes of some of the movie's coolest props, reveals how the team approached Mando's updated Amban rifle, discusses the Easter Eggs hidden throughout the film, and explains why even seemingly simple items can prove surprisingly challenging to create.
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.
"The Mandalorian and Grogu is a fun, pulpy reminder that Star Wars doesn’t need to grow up; it just needs to be entertaining," we said in our review of the movie. "Jon Favreau's action-packed love letter delivers exactly the crowd-pleasing adventure fans have been craving."
Check out our interview with Josh below and stay tuned later this week for more on The Mandalorian and Grogu.
There are so many great props we could talk about, but Rotta's vibroswords that we see Mando wield at one point were one of my favourites. What was it like to create those, and how did you make sure the size and scale would make it a weapon Din Djarin could realistically use in that fight?
That was so much fun to design. It was awesome. We work very closely with Doug Chiang and his team, who are just super talented people. We’ve been working with them since season one. It’s been a blast. And so when we build a prop, even if it’s a CG character, we’ll make one or two. If it’s like two, I will make them hero first. By hero, I mean we’ll make it fully out of metal. We’ll make it light up. We’ll make it the real weight. And these things go about this big. They’re maybe like 35—you know, it’s definitely a weight. It’s hard to hold. And so we wanted to make sure the size felt appropriate for Rotta, right? But then Mando, as you said, has to use it in the fight as well. So what we do is we’ll make this hero one. Now, obviously, we’re not going to do any stunts with those because they’re too dangerous. So we mould them and then make rubber versions. We make a lightweight rubber version. Then we have these lights inside. And then our painters—it’s amazing the way they can paint this rubberised stuff to look like metal. It’s fantastic. So that was a really fun one.
When we see Mando fighting the Dragon Snake, he gets that spear. I was wondering, did you give much thought to the history of where that weapon had come from and why it was the right fit for him to use in that fight?
Totally. So the Amani—that’s where they got the spear from. The original Amani action figure had that staff with the skulls on it and the bone. So we’re like, okay, so they have these spears. They have bones. We kind of see them in Jabba’s Palace in Return of the Jedi. So then we work with, again, Doug Chiang and his team, and then we started saying, okay, well, we pitched some ideas. We’re like, well, there’s bone, there’s wood, so then we got to figure that out. And then we’re like, but bone doesn’t seem very dangerous. How do we make it? We made it kind of like a spear. And Dave Filoni had a great idea. He’s like, what if you dipped the edge of the bone into, like, a space metal to give it an edge?
We’re like, 'Oh my god, that’s so cool.' So then—I mean, I thought the prop came out gorgeous. It’s got this metal edge but then bone. Basically, we went to this place called Bone Clones and got real bones—or, you know, fake real; they’re casts of real bones—and then we used those and tied them to real pieces of wood that we moulded. And then, of course, with the water, we were having issues with buoyancy. So we had to make them weighted so they could go under the water, but then also make them safe and make them out of rubber. That was actually a very complicated prop.
On the other end of the spectrum, one of my favourite props was the flask that Grogu collects water in because he’s using that to try and save his dad. There’s a lot of meaning behind it. A lot more work than people realise must go into making what seems like quite a simple prop on the surface.
So that’s the flask that we actually see in season 3 with Mando. So Mando uses that flask in the living waters. Something we had already established. So we made it to say, like, okay, that’s part of what Mando has. It’s funny. That is one of those found-object props that we did very little to. We just kind of smoothed it out and did some sanding. And now, of course, people are like, 'What is that? Where did that come from?' So there was someone who had posted something. A lot of fans do replicas or links— 'Here’s where to find this prop.' And this guy had basically said, 'This is where it is on Amazon.' I said, 'No, it’s not. That’s not it.' So I actually went into his thing, and I responded because he said it was a toothpick holder. I’m like, 'No, that’s way too small.' And because I like to play these games. I want fans to find it, but I don’t want to make it too easy because if you go to Target and buy it, that’s not fun. So I shop globally. Plus, we’re staying with that aesthetic of the first three movies, right? So you want to find vintage. You’ve got to find ’70s, ’60s, ’50s. If they were using Sterling for the Stormtroopers, like, what are we using? So we’re using a lot of that kind of stuff, trying to find that aesthetic.
Grogu’s stick is very Yoda-esque as he’s walking through the forest. That must be something you guys put a lot of work into as well to figure out the look of that and to pay homage to Yoda.
Oh, for sure. And you know, that’s one of those things where we want it to look real, but then you also have to have four or five of them because you may have two different puppets, and then they also sometimes need to put that staff on a rod so that the puppeteers are also operating the staff as well. So we found some wood. We found what kind of wood, what max, and then we worked with our greens department. Richie, our greens guy, was amazing. That forest set was so cool. It was huge. It was one of the big ones, and it was awesome, and they put all these great little areas in it. So then we kind of follow his lead. We have to be like, what kind of vegetation is here? What kind of trees? And so then matching that, and then sanding off just a little bit at the right time and making sure it’s the right height. And then that’s approvals.
So I do a weekly prop meeting with Jon. Dave’s part of that—obviously Dave’s got a lot more responsibilities—but he would come as much as he could. And then we show stages. So we’ll show concepts, and I want to make sure the director’s involved the whole time. Otherwise, if I spend 12 weeks building something and he’s like, 'I didn’t want that,' that’s a waste of my time, a waste of my budget, and it doesn’t help the movie. So we show prototypes, pictures, scale references, and then yeah, it’s a long process, but it’s an approval that works really well.
Talking of Jon, that baby Rotta prop that he hand-painted—I know a lot of people have talked about that. What was it like to see it and to then incorporate it into the film? It's such a cool moment.
Well, that actually happened after we finished shooting. I think they needed something for the hologram. And so they’ll do like a little insert thing with ILM because ILM is so talented. And so Jon was like that. I didn’t even know about that until we did our exhibit. So that’s awesome.
In terms of bringing Mando to the big screen, this feels like a classic Mando and Grogu adventure, but was there ever any talk about maybe drastically changing what weapons he uses, or did you and Jon really want to stick to what worked in the series and keep it classic Mando, so to speak?
Well, so we started—we did have some discussions because he gets his weapons taken away. So I don’t know how much you really see, but when Embo comes and takes his stuff away, he loses his blaster. He had a rifle he had very briefly when they’re going to fight Coin. But then we don’t really feature much after that. I know Jon wanted to really bring back the Amban rifle. We love that. It’s such a great look. I thought it would be—we like it on the shoulder—but we didn’t, you know, obviously can’t be that same one. So there’s a plot line that was developed with Noah and Jon and Dave where they had this stash of weapons on the turtle—what we call the turtle ship. And then working with Doug Chiang on how do we take that. So it’s like you can have a Glock, but you have a Glock 17, a Glock 19—this is a different Amban phase rifle. It’s got more filigree. It’s a little bit more elaborate. But then getting to bring that back, I thought, was great.
I can tell just from speaking to you, Josh, you’ve got an amazing knowledge of Star Wars. I’d love to know when you’re making these props, do you hide any Easter eggs in there? Is there anything in particular you hid in this film or included in this film that you were particularly happy with?
I always try to sneak something in there. So, like, in season one, I got to be in carbonite. I’m the guy in carbonite in season one at the end before the Mythrol. They put me in the Star Wars visual guide. So instead of Josh Roth, it’s Rosh Joth. So I was pretty stoked about that. I was just mentioning in this one—let’s see—I always try to sneak in Fat Dragon. That’s the name of my prop company. So Rotta is actually eating these little blue Fat Dragons, and Jon suggested it. That wasn’t even me. Jon’s like, 'We should make them Fat Dragons.' So we did that.
And then I’m trying to think what else we can sneak in there. I always try to put stuff—not so much sneak, but I also try to use and pay tribute. So when we had the sequence with Coin, and they’re chasing, and we said we needed a big weapon, we wanted to go with a T-21, and we wanted something like the Sandtroopers had. But the only thing I didn’t like about that is it always felt unfinished because it’s a Lewis gun, right? And there’s a big round magazine in the real world that goes on top of that, and they pulled that off. So you kind of have this little stub, and it just always felt empty to me. So my team and I—it’s now canon—we built a little battery pack because there are no bullets in Star Wars. It’s energy, right? So we made a little power pack that lights up to try to fill that space, and to me it looks more finished. Little stuff like that where I just try to improve on it.
Was there anything you’d say that you worked on for this movie that maybe looked quite simple on screen, like the flask we were talking about, that was actually surprisingly difficult for you to pull off?
The pus was trickier. So the thing is, Gator has to make this medicine, but Gator at the time had these very—he went through a couple different design changes—and we had to make these gloves that are almost like Gator gloves. And so Dawn, one of our Legacy puppeteers, wore these gloves, and she’s trying to mash stuff and mix, and it’s very hard for her to actually use these because they’re these big, oversized gloves, and she can’t do this. And then opening up and tying a little thing and opening up that—we actually ended up using a tomatillo wrapper, right? So it’s like a little tomatillo flower that they put the pus inside. But then getting fingertips don’t really work, and Grogu’s fingertips don’t really work. So it’s actually very—John Null and his team have helped us and saved us a lot.
The other thing that went through a lot of different iterations—I do a lot of the droids. And so when Grogu goes inside one of those droids, we built this awesome little 4x4 cage, and we did all these amazing little rehearsals of like he’s going to pull this, he’s going to pull this, and a spark’s going to come. And then Jon’s like, 'No, no, it has—' And so we went back and forth and back and forth, almost as much as I did with Dave on Ahsoka’s sabers. But it was fun to build that, and we built it in a way so it could rock, it could shake, and then Grogu is trying to do this. And working with Legacy—I’ve been working with Legacy now since season one. Those guys are awesome. That sequence is actually challenging to make feel real.
I’ve seen some behind-the-scenes photos from Navarro of IG-11 on set for some scenes with Mando and Rotta. Was IG a character you worked on for this film?
Well, I think there was a challenge. I mean, there are main challenges. I think they wanted Greef, and unfortunately life couldn’t allow for that. So they were doing some stuff in the story to try to figure some stuff out. We had made IG a Marshal. So IG—that was actually a Legacy puppet. The only thing we provided for IG was his belt and the weapon. But I do love—we’ve gotten to establish certain things, like we did the marshal badge, which is kind of this red and white collection of stripes, and we put that on every marshal, whether it’s the Keredoon thing, whether it’s fans, whether it’s IG. We have this kind of standard now, this marshal badge. So I’ve gotten to help create some of these little things, like the little amnesty pin we used in season 3, which is great. Just stuff like that. It’s always fun.
I’d love to know what your favourite prop is from The Mandalorian and Grogu that maybe you would have liked to have taken home with you if you could have done so. I’m kind of shocked that your background isn’t just full of amazing props from the film that you’ve worked on.
Unfortunately, they’re all assets from Lucasfilm. So I may have a prototype or three, or I have some artwork, but everything is definitely—there was something that didn’t make it in the movie, but I loved it. It’s this little ticket machine that the Angerian uses, and we actually made it work so it could scroll through because, at one point, the script is that he’s trying to get a different match, trying to find the match. So the Angerian is scrolling through, finding the right match and selling a ticket to go see Rada. And we actually made the tickets come out.
I loved—we did see a nice shot. We made these gorgeous New Republic coins. We made those in season two. So those were still in there. I thought the lockpick came out great when he’s getting Rada out. That’s a variation of something we used from season one and episode 6. And then what else I really loved—I really did love Rotta's axes. I think those came out awesome. Getting to build Zeb’s bow rifle was great. That’s always special for me because he’s such a cool character, one of Filoni’s legacy animation characters. So I always love getting to contribute to that.
And I love doing food. So the sandwich is fun. We did food in the salt bar. You don’t really see much of it, but we did that. So yeah. I mean, it’s hard. There are so many. It’s like they’re all my children.
Do you have a favourite character to work on from the time you've spent in the Star Wars Galaxy?
Well, I’ve been very fortunate. I started The Mandalorian season one, so we’ve had all these fun little characters. I love the musical instruments. So we made a kear. There’s a band in Navarro that’s playing; at one point you see him, and there’s this character playing a kear, and I just love that musical instrument. He used these like paddles and just gave this really space look. The other thing that I really loved making was in Gar Saxon’s—in The Book of Boba Fett, we had a drummer droid, and we actually had the drummer droid programmed. So I do music too. I DJ as a hobby. And we had basically a little MIDI controller, like a drum pad, and so we had all the different arms. We had a real drum set up, and we had like a little hi-hat on the top, and we had all the different servos in, so I could play the drums on this pad, and it could be in beat for this drummer droid. So that was one of my favourite things we did.
The other thing I really, really liked is we did the train droid. So the train droid in Boba Fett, and that was four of us. So we tried to do it all old-school, and we did it all with found parts. There was a head that’s similar to one of the camera droids from the prequels. So Doug had done the head, and then he said, 'Okay, you guys do the body.' So I went out to all these different aeroplane salvage yards, these graveyards we have in California. We found a bunch of pieces, and then really it was two people—me, Mike Manzel—and then we hired in John Kriswell, who works at Henson sometimes. And then we all just kind of came together, and we just were like, 'Okay, what do we put here?' And we moulded certain parts. And Dave loves droids or trains—Dave Filoni loves trains—and so he named the droid after his dad. So it’s AL-42.
It was fun because we basically had it on a track. So we had one person underneath moving the droid left and right, and then it’s also like Kamaji, right? So Kamaji, the coal from Miyazaki’s movie. So we had one person on two arms, another person on two arms, and one person on the head. There are four people trying to get all this frenetic motion and trying to pull the levers, and it’s just so much fun. So yeah, it’s not a job. It’s fun.
One of my favourite things about this film is we’re back in the Razor Crest, and we obviously get to go to Mando and Grogu’s home as well. In terms of populating those with props and maybe telling a story through what these characters have been through and the life they’re living, is that quite a rewarding thing to do?
Well, I was really happy in this movie that we got the Razor Crest back. I love the Razor Crest. Such a great ship. And so one of the things that we—you know, it’s a very Star Wars thing. What’s the space tool? What’s our welding torch? What are we doing here? What are we doing there? So, doing all the different tools. And there’s this great little scene where Grogu’s climbing inside of the Razor Crest and he’s pulling out as the fuel thorens come.
And in terms of popping in the homeland, we have an amazing set decorator. Her name’s Amanda Serino. So she does a lot of that dressing. But if it’s a hero called-out action prop, that’s what I do. So then the other thing that was awesome. In addition to creating the tools for Mando and making those look right, all the tools for the Anzellans—and they come out with these little tool boxes—and so we had to make all these little scale tool boxes and did all these little tools and flashlights. And then—does such a great job with the voice—and then Mooney Myrtle, I forget her real name. I apologize. But she’s awesome, and she’s so funny. And then they’re all coming out and just giving them those little tools, and that’s so much fun.
As you said, you’ve been working on The Mandalorian since day one. Now they’ve been brought to the big screen. It’s a stunning-looking film with those IMAX sequences. What does it mean to you to see these characters you’ve been with since day one to see them on the big screen where they deserve to be?
It was great. We had a couple premieres where we saw—sometimes an episode here or there. After Ahsoka episode five, we did it because that was with Hayden. We were able to do a crew screening, and we were able to watch that on the big screen and have a little party afterwards. But this was still great. And the one thing I guess I forgot to mention is that I’m so happy Grogu still—even if it wasn’t his—he still had a pram. Every season he has to have some sort of a pram, and so even though he steals it from that poor little Rodian boy.
But no, it looked great. It looked just so good on the big screen. I mean, John Null and his department kicked butt. JJ and the stunts kicked butt. And then I thought Jon did just a fantastic job, and Dave directed all the puppet stuff. And yeah, I was so happy. It’s rewarding. It’s very rewarding because we all—every department—we all spend a lot of time. As you said, it takes a lot. And you’re talking about props—remember there are costumes, there’s set dressing, there’s construction, there’s sound, grip, everybody. Camera. Everybody’s working so hard. So it’s the best. And yeah, I’m really glad you enjoyed it.
The Mandalorian and Grogu is now available on Digital and coming to Disney+ on September 2.