The Mandalorian & Grogu Finally Ends A Star Wars Villain Story After 49 Years
James Hunt is a writer and editor based in Newcastle, UK. A Sports Journalism graduate from the University of Sunderland, he quickly realized that supporting his local football (or "soccer") team, Sunderland AFC, was painful enough without having to write about it, so decided to write a load of nonsense about movies and TV instead.
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Star Wars might have one of cinema's greatest heroes in Luke Skywalker, but it's also a saga that's defined just as much by its villains. Going back to the opening of George Lucas' 1977 original, it's Darth Vader who stands out, his imposing stature and black helmet and armor making for an instant icon that endures to this very day. And while the shadow of Vader has loomed over the franchise ever since, other bad guys have thrived in a galaxy far, far away.
Whether it's Emperor Palpatine as the one pulling the strings in the background, other Sith Lords such as Darth Maul, or bounty hunters like Boba Fett, there's a vast range of threats that the heroes have had to face, and they're every bit as memorable. If a hero is only as good as their villain, then there's a good reason as to why Star Wars has succeeded for so long.
The franchise's most recent outing, The Mandalorian and Grogu, doesn't meet some of the heights set previously by the saga, and its villains are part of the reason why. The bounty hunter, Embo, needed more to him, with that side of the story having some promise but feeling underserved. Meanwhile, the Hutt Twins are effectively just Jabba reduxes that don't bring enough fresh to the proceedings, but what is notable is how they bring a decades-long story to a close.
The Hutts Are Defeated For Good In The Mandalorian & Grogu
The focus of villains when it comes to Star Wars (or A New Hope) is understandably on Darth Vader, and after that, Grand Moff Tarkin. But this is also where Jabba the Hutt's story begins, as we learn that Han Solo is indebted to him, and the crime lord is none too pleased with the smuggler. It's a major motivator for Han taking the job with Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke, though Jabba himself ended up being cut from the movie (it was filmed with a human stand-in, and the budget and technology didn't allow for it to work), before being added back in for Lucas' Special Editions.
Jabba's importance only grows from there, with Han taken by Boba Fett at the end of The Empire Strikes Back, which we learn in Return of the Jedi was to deliver him to Jabba. The Hutt is then the villain of the first act of Return, before Princess Leia kills him, but that was by no means the end of the family's story.
A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away · Eight Questions How Well Do You Know Star Wars? “The Force will be with you. Always.”
🗡️Jedi OrderLight-side guardians
⚡The SithRule of two
⚙️The RebellionA new hope
🪓Bounty HuntersThis is the way
👑The EmpireOrder 66
01
The original Star Wars film — later retitled Episode IV: A New Hope — opened in just 32 American theatres and proceeded to become the highest-grossing film of its era, redefining what summer blockbusters could be. In which year did it premiere?
✓ Correct! 1977 — specifically May 25. 20th Century Fox had so little faith in the project they only opened it in 32 theatres at first; queues quickly stretched around the block, and the film expanded to over 1,000 screens within months. It earned $307 million in its initial domestic run, won six Academy Awards (with another four nominations) and inverted Hollywood’s economics for the next 50 years.
✗ Wrong. The answer is 1977. 1975 is when the script was being shopped around. 1979 is when Star Trek: The Motion Picture released as a Star Wars-shaped countermove. 1980 is The Empire Strikes Back. The original Star Wars is May 25, 1977.
02
A New Hope’s writer-director was a then-32-year-old American Graffiti veteran who’d struggled to get the project greenlit and famously took back-end profit and merchandising rights in lieu of a higher salary — the deal that would build a billion-dollar company. He returned to direct the prequels but stepped away from the original-trilogy sequels. Name him.
✓ Correct! George Lucas. The merchandising rights he kept (because Fox didn’t value them) became the financial bedrock of Lucasfilm and the basis of the modern toys-and-licensing megabusiness. After A New Hope, Lucas produced but didn’t direct Empire Strikes Back (Irvin Kershner) or Return of the Jedi (Richard Marquand), then directed all three prequels (1999–2005). He sold Lucasfilm to Disney in 2012 and stepped away from creative control of the sequels.
✗ Wrong. The answer is George Lucas. Steven Spielberg was Lucas’s close friend (and the godfather of his post-A-New-Hope career) but never directed a Star Wars film. Coppola was Lucas’s mentor at USC and at American Zoetrope. Irvin Kershner directed Empire Strikes Back. The original is Lucas’s.
03
In 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back, Darth Vader delivers cinema’s most-misquoted line at the climax of his Cloud City duel with Luke Skywalker. Vader severs Luke’s hand and reveals their relationship. The exact line is — for the record — “No, I am your father.” What relationship does it confirm?
✓ Correct! Vader is Anakin Skywalker, Luke’s father. The reveal was so jealously guarded that Mark Hamill was only told the real line on set the day they shot it (the script said “Obi-Wan killed your father”), and even James Earl Jones recorded the dub without knowing the full plot context. The line — commonly misquoted as “Luke, I am your father” — rewrote what trilogies could pull off and is broadly considered cinema’s most famous twist.
✗ Wrong. The answer is that Vader is Luke’s father, Anakin Skywalker. The whole foundation of the Skywalker saga collapses to this single twist: Anakin (the Jedi prodigy of the prequels) becomes Vader after his fall. Luke and Leia are revealed in Return of the Jedi to be his twin children, separated at birth.
04
Yoda — the green, ear-twitching Jedi Master — was puppeted and voiced from his Empire Strikes Back debut through the prequels and the sequels by a single Muppet-show-veteran performer who also voices Miss Piggy and Fozzie Bear. Name him.
✓ Correct! Frank Oz — longtime Jim Henson collaborator and voice/puppet work on Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Animal, Sam Eagle and Grover. Oz puppeted Yoda directly through The Phantom Menace before CGI took over for Attack of the Clones onward, but he’s continued to voice the character through the sequels and animated series. Yoda’s syntax was developed jointly by Lucas and Oz to feel old, foreign and hard-won.
✗ Wrong. The answer is Frank Oz. Jim Henson was Oz’s mentor and collaborator (he created the Muppets) but didn’t voice Yoda. Steve Whitmire took over Kermit after Henson’s 1990 death. Brian Henson is Jim’s son and runs the Henson company today. Yoda is Frank Oz’s.
05
In a deal that reshaped Hollywood, Disney acquired Lucasfilm Ltd. for $4.05 billion in cash and stock — bringing Star Wars, Indiana Jones, ILM and Skywalker Sound under the Disney umbrella. The deal also kicked off the sequel trilogy production. In what year did Disney close the acquisition?
✓ Correct! 2012 — specifically October 30. The deal was announced with simultaneous reveal that a Star Wars Episode VII was being developed for a 2015 release. Lucas had been quietly preparing his exit from Lucasfilm for years; Kathleen Kennedy had been brought in as co-chair months earlier specifically to take over. The Force Awakens came out three years later, in December 2015, kicking off the modern era.
✗ Wrong. The answer is 2012. 2009 is when Disney acquired Marvel ($4 billion). 2010 is the year before Lucas began signalling exit plans. 2014 is when production proper began on The Force Awakens. Lucasfilm joined Disney on October 30, 2012.
06
The Mandalorian launched as Disney+’s flagship original on November 12, 2019 — the day the streaming service itself launched. Created by Jon Favreau and run by Dave Filoni, the show centres on a helmeted bounty hunter who reluctantly becomes a foster father to “The Child” (Grogu). What is the Mandalorian’s real name?
✓ Correct! Din Djarin — played by Pedro Pascal under the helmet (with body double Brendan Wayne handling much of the physical work). The Mandalorian is widely credited with reviving Star Wars on TV, popularising the StageCraft LED-volume virtual production technology now used across Hollywood, and turning baby Yoda — Grogu — into the meme-economy phenomenon of late 2019. Three seasons have aired with a feature film, The Mandalorian & Grogu, set for May 2026.
✗ Wrong. The answer is Din Djarin. Boba Fett is the famous bounty hunter from the original trilogy, with his own Disney+ spinoff (The Book of Boba Fett, 2021). Cobb Vanth is the Tatooine marshal played by Timothy Olyphant. Bo-Katan Kryze is the Mandalorian princess played by Katee Sackhoff. The Mandalorian himself is Din Djarin.
07
Order 66 — the secret directive that turns the Republic’s clone troopers against their Jedi commanders and effectively ends the Jedi Order — is dramatised in the climactic third act of which prequel film?
✓ Correct! Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005). Palpatine’s “Execute Order 66” comm to the clone armies leads to the methodical, planet-by-planet liquidation of the Jedi Order — one of the saga’s most operatic sequences, scored to John Williams’ “Anakin’s Betrayal” cue. The same film features Anakin’s fall to the Dark Side, the Mustafar duel with Obi-Wan, and his rebirth as Darth Vader in the suit. Widely re-evaluated as the best of the prequels.
✗ Wrong. The answer is Revenge of the Sith. Phantom Menace ends with Qui-Gon’s death and the unveiling of Darth Maul. Attack of the Clones ends with the Clone Wars beginning. Rogue One is set just before A New Hope, after Order 66 has long since happened. The Order 66 sequence is the climax of Episode III.
08
Andor (2022–25) is widely regarded as the most adult, politically literate Star Wars project ever made — a slow-burn prequel to Rogue One charting Cassian Andor’s radicalisation against the Empire. The series was created and showrun by a writer/director best known for the original Bourne trilogy and Michael Clayton. Name him.
✓ Correct! Tony Gilroy. He’d previously been brought in for extensive Rogue One reshoots in 2016, and Lucasfilm gave him near-total creative independence on Andor. Season 1 (12 episodes, 2022) is widely regarded as Star Wars’ finest dramatic writing ever; Season 2 (also 12 episodes, in four three-episode jumps across 2025) closes the gap to Rogue One’s opening scene. Gilroy’s prior credits: Bourne Identity / Supremacy / Ultimatum / Legacy, plus directing Michael Clayton (2007).
✗ Wrong. The answer is Tony Gilroy. Rian Johnson directed The Last Jedi (2017). Jon Favreau created The Mandalorian and is Lucasfilm’s Disney+-era animation/live-action lieutenant. Dave Filoni runs the Filoniverse (Clone Wars, Rebels, Ahsoka, the upcoming Heir to the Empire film). Andor is Tony Gilroy’s.
The Force Has Spoken · Final Tally Your Galactic Standing
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Jedi Master — or moisture farmer on Tatooine?
The Expanded Universe, now Legends, turned the Hutts into a much bigger criminal enterprise, with a far deeper history. The Hutt Cartel, or Clan, dates back thousands of years. Though it's much more detailed in Legends, even in canon the family's power is ancient, and their criminal activities are known from the High Republic to The Clone Wars right through to the timeline of The Mandalorian and Grogu. Being involved in the spice trade, smuggling, piracy, slavery, and more, they're one of the major powers in the Outer Rim, and there's a vast area known as Hutt Space that they ruled at one point.
Now, any such dominance is seemingly at an end. The Twins are both killed, and what's more, the New Republic destroys their base on Nal Hutta. Although it's a large family, this appears to be the last we'll be seeing of them as a major threat to the galaxy, at least in terms of the timeline from this point on.
This fits with the canon book Shadow of the Sith, which is set a few years before Star Wars:The Force Awakens. In that, there's a brief aside about how much power the Hutt Cartel has lost and their downfall, which just further highlights that they're no longer considered a major force in the galaxy going forwards.
Of course, that doesn't mean the Hutts will never appear again. It would feel silly for them to appear again in the Mandoverse stories, but there's plenty of scope for them to appear in Star Wars projects set earlier in the timeline. In particular, Maul - Shadow Lord season 2 could feature them as he continues to regrow the Shadow Collective, so it'd make sense to have them feature in some capacity. That's the kind of role they're best for now, rather than being main antagonists.
Beyond that, then one Hutt can appear in future-set projects: Rotta the Hutt. The son of Jabba, though he's nothing like his father, is working with the New Republic come the end of The Mandalorian and Grogu, and so it is possible we'll see more of him. Ahsoka season 2 is continuing the Thrawn story, which will necessitate further New Republic involvement. We know the Zeb Orielles is going to appear, so it'd be easy for Rotta to go along as well, and finally reunite with Ahsoka after Star Wars: The Clone Wars (though perhaps without the nickname "Stinky.")
- Release Date
- May 20, 2026
- Runtime
- 132 minutes
- Director
- Jon Favreau
- Writers
- Noah Kloor
- Producers
- Ian Bryce, Kathleen Kennedy, Dave Filoni, Karen Gilchrist, John Bartnicki
-
The Mandalorian
-
Rotta (voice)
Din Djarin and Grogu take their clan of two routine to the big screen, with the New Republic hiring the legendary bounty hunter and his young apprentice to handle threats left behind after the Empire's fall.
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.