From the Mos Eisley cantina to Jabba’s Palace, the most interesting part of Star Wars has always been its seedy underworld. And while gangsters like Cad Bane and mercenaries like Migs Mayfeld were allowed to prosper under Empire rule, the rise of The New Republic was presumably meant to put an end to organized crime. Except, as anyone who’s watched the sequel trilogy knows, that’s definitely not what happened. Galactic crime only got worse after the fall of the Empire, leading to an over-stretched New Republic that failed to see the First Order coming until it was too late.
So what went wrong? After a few failed attempts, it looks like Lucasfilm may finally offer an answer in its next Star Wars movie.
The Mandalorian and Grogu’s first official trailer arrived on Sept. 22, offering fans a look at the upcoming films (and Disney a welcome distraction from its recent Jimmy Kimmel controversy). The movie appears to be a family-fun adventure starring Pedro Pascal as Din Djarin and Grogu “as himself” (according to Lucasfilm press release), along with Sigourney Weaver as a fighter pilot who joins the crew.
But while The Mandalorian and Grogu largely looks like your typical Disney Plus adventure stretched to fit the big screen, there are some promising signs it could also explore the power vacuum left behind after the fall of the Empire.
One of the key themes throughout The Mandalorian is the power struggles that took place after the destruction of the Empire. The series covered this early on both through the various low-level criminals Mando hunted down and the shady Imperial remnant still operating on the edge of the galaxy. However, by season 3, The Mandalorian had largely lost its way as the stakes of its story got too big and abandoned their original nuance.
Mando‘s spinoff series The Book of Boba Fett seemed like it had the potential to tell a similar story through the fight for control of Tatooine after the fall of the Empire and the death of Jabba the Hutt. However, the series was ultimately too unfocused and unserious to say much of anything on that topic, with showrunner Robert Rodriguez pulling more from the Spy Kids side of his filmography than the Grind House side (Book of Boba Fett was never going to be Planet Terror, but it could have had a bit more depth than We Can Be Heroes).
Based on this trailer, it seems unlikely that The Mandalorian and Grogu will achieve the grounded, Western-infused tone of The Mandalorian’s first season, but it can still help fill in some of the blanks we’re still wondering about.
We see a glimpse of the strength of the criminal underworld in The Mandalorian and Grogu trailer, including a Colosseum-like battle with a group of alien creatures and the most muscular-looking Hutt we’ve seen this side of the galaxy (voiced by Jeremy Allen White). With what we’ve seen from the trailer, as well as previous The Mandalorian seasons, it’s not too hard to piece together that both Imperial remnants and the seediest crime gangs in the galaxy look to be significant features within this movie.
Between the handling of ex-Empire personnel and the stripping back of unsavory elements and reforms put in place under Emperor Palpatine’s reign, the New Republic has its hands full. So much so that the criminal underworld seems to thrive more than ever before. Bounty hunters are plentiful, and multiple crime syndicates turn against one another.
I just hope The Mandalorian and Grogu will actually address the reasons behind the criminal underworld’s continued growth, and what The New Republic’s leniency in managing it means for Star Wars in general. We’ve already seen how attempts to reform ex-Imperials like Elia Kane (Katy O’Brian) backfired, leading to espionage and the spread of the Empire’s ideology, along with interparty conflicts.
But now, the first Star Wars movie in seven years needs to bring the franchise back to its roots, by shining a light on the criminal underworld that only grew stronger and more emboldened after the fall of the Galactic Empire.
