The Mandalorian’: Disney’s Flagship Star Wars Show Turns Five

Five years ago, ‘The Mandalorian’ arrived and changed the Star Wars franchise forever.

In 2019, Disney launched two very important things at the same time. Both of them would define the Star Wars franchise for the next five years. This was at the height of the streaming boom, when companies and studios were pouring investment into this new form of entertainment. The House of Mouse made its big entrance with its own streaming platform, Disney+, and the first live-action show from a galaxy far, far away, ‘The Mandalorian’.

Until then, Star Wars had never had a live-action series on the small screen. High production costs had led Lucasfilm to focus mainly on animated projects, with the exception of the Ewok TV movies back in the ’80s, and not forgetting the infamous Holiday Special from 1978. Shows like ‘The Clone Wars’ and ‘Rebels’ had proved that Star Wars could make it as a TV show, and the bigger budgets and production facilities offered by Disney meant the time was right for it to make the leap to live-action.

In many ways, the show was the perfect way to ease the franchise into television. It had a simple enough premise, bounty hunters had always been popular, ever since Greedo pushed his luck in the Mos Eisley cantina, and ‘The Mandalorian’ played on the stoic Boba Fett archetype, adding in elements from the Western genre to make it unique.

The show followed the character of Din Djarin (AKA Mando), a Mandalorian bounty hunter always on the lookout for the next job. He’s hired by an Imperial remnant to bring in a valuable bounty in the form of an alien child. He takes the job, but can’t go through with it, and ends up saving it instead, being forced to go on the run from both the Empire and his fellow bounty hunters.

The introduction of that child was one of Disney’s smartest decisions, particularly from a financial point of view. Audiences quickly fell in love with the cute, green, pointy-eared alien, Force-sensitive. He was dubbed “baby Yoda”, coming from the same species as the revered Jedi Master, until he was revealed to be called Grogu in season two. Since his introduction, the character has become one of the most popular in the show, with a massive amount of merchandise being devoted to him. He frequently upstages the show’s eponymous character, and steals every scene he’s in, thanks to the fat he’s performed in a large part by a working animatronic puppet, rather than a CGI creation, giving the actors something real to work with.

One of the show’s biggest effects has been in how it launched the Star Wars brand into television. Since its release five years ago, the franchise has focused exclusively on series, with no new movies being produced in that time. It paved the way for shows such as ‘Kenobi’, ‘Andor’, and ‘The Acolyte’, as Disney began using its two main assets, Star Wars and Marvel, to fill its streaming platform. Interestingly enough, it looks like ‘The Mandalorian’ will also return the franchise to the big screen with its very own movie.

‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’ is currently in production, with ‘Iron Man’ director and ‘Mando’ co-creator Jon Favreau directing, and should be hitting theatres in May 2026 if all goes well.

After ‘The Rise of Skywalker’ brought the sequel trilogy to a disappointing end, ‘The Mandalorian’ managed to inject some new energy into a galaxy far, far away, with fans loving its simple storyline which focused on action and the kind of fun adventures Star Wars was always known for. After several years of mixed results from the Disney+ output, perhaps Mando will be able to do the same thing again, once his movie arrives in cinemas.

It’s the series’ simplicity that helped make it so popular and, so far, the only show to get more than one season (though both ‘Andor’ and ‘Ahsoka’ have second seasons in the works). There’s not much that can go wrong with a show about a bounty hunter who wears cool beskar armor, shoots Stormtroopers, and travels the galaxy in search of his next paycheck. The show has consistently retained viewers, being one of the platform’s biggest hits.

It’s impacted the franchise and fandom in several positive ways too. Quotes like “This is the way” have entered popular culture, and there’s a constant stream of new merchandise based on the show and its characters always being produced. It’s even given a name to the new era, set just after the fall of the Empire as the New Republic tries to find its feet, being dubbed ‘the Mandoverse’.

While the show’s simplicity has been its main selling point, it’s also its biggest downside. After three seasons, it’s starting to feel tired and predictable. It’s main character is fine for what he is, but any attempt to give him development or progression have failed. He spent two seasons getting to the point where he would remove his helmet in front of others, only for this to be immediately reversed in the third season. It means the show can’t really go places without cutting out what made it cool in the first place.

Regardless of this, it’s unlikely the movie will be the last we see of Mando, and certainly not of Grogu. With a potential lifespan of nine hundred years. There are plenty of stories to tell about this little green man.

Despite its flaws, ‘The Mandalorian’ still manages to do what the best of Star Wars has always done: provide fun, escapist entertainment, and that is definitely The Way!