The Mandalorian was the saving grace that the Star Wars franchise needed during a difficult creative period. Despite the brilliance of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, the box office disappointment of the underrated Solo: A Star Wars Story and the baffling creative choices on the disastrous The Rise of Skywalker threatened to ruin the franchise’s future. However, The Mandalorian showed signs of the pulpy, entertaining space opera that made many fall in love with the saga in the first place. The success of The Mandalorian led to a goldmine of Star Wars content on Disney+ including the excellent finale to Star Wars: The Clone Wars, the unexpected surprise of Tales of the Jedi, and the genuine masterpiece that was Andor. However, showrunner Jon Favreau revealed that not only was The Mandalorian’s fourth season written, but the creative team has not decided how the series will end.

This wouldn’t be the first time in recent history that the Star Wars franchise has faced a creative hurdle. Both Rogue One and Solo went through significant reshoots, The Rise of Skywalker was essentially rewritten after the departure of Colin Trevorrow, and Obi-Wan Kenobi was significantly reworked in the writing stage to change the focus of the series. Unfortunately, the television side of the galaxy far, far away may be risking the same issues that their counterparts at Marvel Studios are currently facing on Disney+; there are a whole lot of shows, but the quality has become thinner.

It would be disappointing to see The Mandalorian steep into a period of critical decline after it essentially saved the entire saga from crippling. However, Favreau and Dave Filoni seem to be barreling ahead toward a connected universe that doesn’t appear to be entirely mapped out yet. Considering the franchise’s history with inconclusive story arcs, these issues need to be addressed before it’s too late. Shouldn’t the gatekeepers of the Star Wars franchise have learned their lesson by now?

Unclear Creative Choices Might Hinder The Mandalorian

Din Djarin with Grogu in The Mandalorian Season 3 trailer
Image via Disney+

The first season of The Mandalorian avoided the issues of The Rise of Skywalker by simply telling small-scale, entertaining standalone stories that made it easily accessible for both die-hard fans and relative newcomers to the franchise. Regardless of whether you had never seen a Star Wars movie before or if you’d watched the original trilogy countless times, there was something to enjoy about Din Djarin’s (Pedro Pascal) gunslinging adventures with the adorable Grogu. Compared to the confusing, convoluted nature of The Rise of Skywalker, The Mandalorian felt like a breath of fresh air. Unfortunately, this is not a quality that the show continued in its second season.

While there are many entertaining episodes in the second season of The Mandalorian, the show no longer belonged to just Din and the core group of characters. There were entire storylines included to incorporate Boba Fett (Temura Morrison) and Ahsoka Tano (Ashley Eckstein) in order to launch spinoff shows; this left hanging gaps within the story, as Ahsoka’s hunt for Grand Admiral Thrawn won’t be concluded until Ahsoka and you had to watch the underwhelming series The Book of Boba Fett in order to figure out how the famous bounty hunter escaped the Sarlacc Pit after the end of Return of the Jedi. If you hadn’t caught up with all the animated shows, you may have been left in the dark without an emotional connection to the series.

If The Mandalorian was simply setting up spinoffs and then moving forward in a different direction, that would be one thing. However, it’s now been positioned so that viewers are missing major story beats if they don’t watch The Book of Boba Fett, and it’s likely that will continue with Ahsoka. There was also clearly an intent to launch the spinoff Rangers of the New Republic before Gina Corrano’s abrupt firing that certainly necessitated critical reworking, and it appears that the upcoming Skeleton Crew will also be set in the same time period. If The Mandalorian is intended to be the center of the Star Wars universe going forward, the story needs to retain its quality and reach a satisfying conclusion.

The Mandalorian Should Be Mapped Out For a Clear Conclusion

Din Djarin with other mandalorians in the Season 3 trailer
Image via Disney+

It’s unsurprising that the most critically successful piece of Star Wars content to be released under Disney has been the one show that is almost completely standalone. Andor doesn’t even require a viewing of Rogue One, a film flawed by added reshoots that showed the issues that arise from reworking an ending at the last minute. Andor’s success is one that The Mandalorian should take note of, as showrunner Tony Gilroy has planned out a clear narrative arc to close out the series. There’s a similar anticipation of what’s to come, but viewers can rest easy knowing that all this foreshadowing is actually leading to something, and not just setting up different storylines.

The same can be true of The Clone Wars. While the series was initially canceled in 2013 by Cartoon Network and released only a handful of episodes on Netflix in 2014, it still managed to reach an excellent finale on Disney+ because Filoni and George Lucas had mapped it out. All the spinoffs that followed are a result of their foresight; Rebels was able to work towards the same arc, allowing Tales of the Jedi and The Bad Batch to fill in the gaps. The connected animated universe is fluid because there’s a natural progression to the story, and The Mandalorian hasn’t set up its parameters yet.

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Pedro Pascal as The Mandalorian with The Child in The Mandalorian
Image via Lucasfilm

Mapping things out can also ensure that The Mandalorian can adjust to any unexpected changes. If there’s ever a period of reshoots or backlash over a creative choice (such as the confusing choice to focus so many critical moments on CGI deep fakes), there’s room to work things out. We’ve seen this issue plague the Marvel Cinematic Universe in Phase 4; after the COVID-19 related shutdowns, the disorganized story was all over the place and reached a severe critical decline.

There’s no reason to cause panic quite yet, but The Mandalorian needs to assure fans that their time and investment were worth it with an ending that works. The Mandalorian brought a new sense of life into the Star Wars franchise upon its debut; it would be a shame if it’s also responsible for tearing the saga down again.

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