The Mandalorian And Grogu Footage Reaction: Wild West Star Wars Is Back (And Babu Friks Are Coming With) [D23]

Din Djarin and his tiny green son are finally making the leap to the big screen with Disney and Lucasfilm's upcoming "Star Wars" film, "The Mandalorian and Grogu." /Film's Jacob Hall was on the ground for this year's D23 Expo and was in the room when the first footage from the movie debuted, and here's what he saw.

The footage opened with shots from "The Mandalorian" season 1, of Mando and Grogu meeting for the first time. Then there are clips of the two of them hanging out from the show, with familiar lines and moments of each of them, highlighting that father and son spirit we've come to love.

The new bits that Jon Favreau has filmed included one especially cool shot in which Mando walks into a room with his blaster in hand and takes down a guard without a look. A no-look kill shot! A bunch of criminal types are sitting around a table and stare in shock. Jacob likens that moment to the Spaghetti Western quality the show so often goes for.

We also saw a shot of Grogu crawling through an air duct, as well as one from the POV of a little roving droid, with Mando going ham on more guys in a hallway. The highlight, though, may have been Grogu and some Anzellans, aka the species Babu Frik from "The Rise of Skywalker" belongs to. Grogu is squeezed into a tiny spaceship with two of them. There was an impressive POV shot from a droid of Mando kicking a bunch of enemies, almost like something out of Gareth Evans' "The Raid." (That's somewhat fitting since several actors from "The Raid" were in "The Force Awakens.")

In another big reveal, Zeb from "Star Wars Rebels" gets in on the action, and he's seen in a ship with Mando and Grogu. Zeb previously showed up in an episode of "The Mandalorian" season 3. The difference here is that, according to Jacob, it looks like a practical effect this time, rather than pure CGI.

The big set piece sees Mando and Grogu riding a two-legged walker down a snowy mountain, encountering two giant AT-AT walkers in a ravine. The biggest VFX shot is the AT-AT reveal. The camera follows Grogu and Mando as their walker sprints down the mountain toward them. The action looked big and better staged than the show, with some real intensity to it. It sounds like our favorite duo is ready for the big screen.

Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy promised the new story we'll see in "The Mandalorian and Grogu" will be "a perfect fit for the big screen" when the film was first announced in January of 2024, but I'm personally harboring some significant doubts about that. "Star Wars" movies previously felt like major events, even the non-Skywalker Saga entries like "Rogue One" and "Solo." The idea that general audiences who don't watch "The Mandalorian" are now being asked to invest in characters they've never seen before, but who have spent multiple seasons of television careening around the galaxy together, feels backwards.

Lucasfilm has seen how unsuccessful that approach has been when even a pop culture behemoth like Marvel Studios tried it — the onslaught of Marvel shows and movies in the Disney+ era, often featuring characters bouncing back and forth between the two mediums, has done nothing but muddy the waters of Marvel's legacy. Even when the show in question ended up being pretty good, like "Ms. Marvel," we saw how that translated when the title character made the jump to the big screen in a movie and filmgoers had no idea who she was: "The Marvels" is better than its reputation suggests, but it utterly tanked at the box office. Lucasfilm is making the risky bet that general audiences will be along for the ride with this film, despite the reputation of "The Mandalorian" series waning as the seasons progress. That's quite a gamble, and I'm curious to see if it pays off for the studio. The result will surely have huge implications for future big screen "Star Wars" decision-making in the years to come.

"The Mandalorian and Grogu" is set to blast into theaters on May 22, 2026.