There Is No Ending Planned For ‘The Mandalorian,’ Which Seems Bad

If there was one central issue you could pinpoint about Disney’s Star Wars plans the past few years, it feels like a main one was that…they had no real plan.

This was fully on display with the central new Star Wars trilogy, which was not designed a coherent arc, but rather each director of each film was given license to do whatever they wanted. That led to Rian Johnson dramatically changing the direction in The Last Jedi, before it was dramatically changed back for Rise of Skywalker, making the whole thing somewhat incoherent as completed whole.

While The Mandalorian may not have that exact same problem, given that it’s one main man leading the storylines, Jon Favreau, it also does not appear to have much of a long term plan in place that includes some sort of definitive ending or finale for these characters.

That’s from Favreau himself, who talks about how he wants The Mandalorian to continue on indefinitely, and that there’s no specific end goal in mind.

“I think the beauty of this is that it’s a middle chapter of a much larger story,” Favreau told Total Film. “And though we’ll have resolution over time with these characters…it’s not like there’s a finale that we’re building to that I have in mind.”

“Quite the contrary. I love for these stories to go on and on. And so these characters potentially could be with us for a while. I really love telling stories in their voice, and I love the way the adventures unfold and I’m looking forward to doing much more.”

The Mandalorian has been a bright spot in Disney’s Star Wars line-up, but I do worry that some cracks are starting to show. The second season ended with Grogu being handed off to Luke Skywalker for training, a storyline that was course-corrected during two standalone episodes of The Book of Boba Fett where Mando and Grogu are reunited after Grogu rejects training, if it costs him his relationship with his surrogate father.

Now, we are headed into a continuation of Dave Filoni’s Rebels storyline with Bo Katan, the Darksaber and the idea of who is supposed to be ruling Mandalore. The show also has some flexibility because it often settles into “case of the week” mentality where there’s some specific settlement with some specific problem Mando and Grogu must solve, even if there is a larger overall arc to the season.

But I think having no ending in mind for this saga doesn’t feel like the best idea. I like Andor, for instance, but I am very glad that series is being packed into two coherent seasons that have a very clear ending point, the events of Rogue One. I’m not sure I’d like Andor to simply…go on forever, as much as I might like it. And we’ve already seen what a lack of planning does for Disney Star Wars in other areas.

I mean, I am not smarter or more talented than Jon Favreau, certainly, so I suppose I should just trust what he wants to do. But based on where we’ve already seen The Mandalorian go, I’m not sure if this strikes me as a series that should simply exist forever. And I also wonder about Pedro Pascal, as given how high profile he’s become in the wake of both this show and now The Last of Us, I’m wondering if he’s going to want to keep that helmet on for years and years to come as other offers come up. I guess we’ll find out.

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