The Mandalorian & Grogu Is Far From Perfect, But It Has One Of My Favorite Scenes In Star Wars History
Since 2019, Kevin Erdmann has been one of Screen Rant's Senior Staff Writers, covering all kinds of Superhero and Star Wars media with Easter egg breakdowns, theory pieces, breaking news, and more. A huge Star Wars & MCU fan, Kevin also loves Batman (because he's Batman), but could talk for hours about why Nightwing is DC's greatest hero.
With 8 years of total experience covering entertainment and pop culture, Kevin has gotten the chance to interview top creatives and talent, and has also attended major media events like Disney's D23 convention.
Majoring in Cinema Studies with a minor in Comics and Cartoon Studies from the UofO, Kevin lives in Oregon with his wonderful wife, adorable dog, and sinister cat who is no doubt currently plotting his demise.
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Warning! This post contains SPOILERS for The Mandalorian & Grogu
Although The Mandalorian & Grogu may not be the most perfect of Star Wars movies, it's still incredibly fun and one of the summer's most entertaining blockbusters this year. Additionally, it also features one of my all-time favorite scenes in the entire franchise with a sequence that feels impossible not to love.
Directed by Jon Favreau, The Mandalorian & Grogu brings Pedro Pascal's Din Djarin and his adopted son to the big screen for the first time. While it's been argued that the movie could have had bigger stakes worthy of a theatrical debut, the movie still does an incredible job proving why the Clan of Two has become one of the most popular duos in the entire Star Wars franchise. To that point, one scene in particular caught me very much off guard (in the best way possible).
Although The Mandalorian & Grogu has plenty of familiar action and spectacle with AT-ATs, Hutts, X-Wings, and Imperial warlords, the best scene in the entire movie, for me, is its quietest sequence. Starring Grogu in the best scene he's ever had, I firmly believe that the time the child spends caring for his father in The Mandalorian & Grogu is one of the greatest in the entire Star Wars saga thus far.
Grogu's Swamp Sequence Is Unlike Anything Else In Star Wars
After Din Djarin is poisoned by the Hutt Twins' dragonsnake, he's rescued by Grogu and the Anzellans. Although Grogu could have left with the droid smiths in their tiny ship, he chooses to stay with his adopted father, caring for him in the swamps of Nal Hutta after he falls into a coma and nearly dies from the poison, even after Grogu heals his wounds with the Force.
What follows is a surprisingly extended sequence with very little dialogue as Grogu works to keep the unconscious Djarin safe from the Hutts' patrolling Droid Gotra security forces, covering him with leaves before eventually building a little mud hut around the Mandalorian (not unlike Yoda's classic home in the swamps of Dagobah). We also see Grogu gathering food, using a walking stick, giving Djarin water, and meditating in the Force as he waits for any sign that his father might be recovering.
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
🗡️
/ 8
Jedi Master — or moisture farmer on Tatooine?
Without a doubt, the swamp sequence feels like something that could have come straight out of a classic Jim Henson production. The dedicated puppetry on display is absolutely incredible, and Grogu has never felt more alive than he does in this sequence. Likewise, the willingness to have such a lengthy scene with so few lines until Grogu receives a cure from a nearby hermit is quite remarkable.
As a result, there's some genuine weight present for this sequence, and it's roughly where 90% of The Mandalorian & Grogu's emotional heart can be found. The script for Djarin and Grogu's typical dynamic is flipped here more than it ever has been before, with Grogu becoming Djarin's protector. Likewise, it's all perfectly punctuated when Djarin finally recovers, showing his gratitude with one of the best new Star Wars quotes: "The old protect the young, and then the young protect the old. This is The Way."
Grogu Truly Becomes Baby Yoda In This Mandalorian & Grogu Scene
Seven years after Grogu first became known online as "Baby Yoda," this sequence delivers the best fulfillment of that nickname by far, and not just because it was recently revealed that building mud huts is apparently an instinctual behavior among members of Grogu and Yoda's shared species.
The simple fact that we're seeing Grogu meditating in a swamp is more than enough for parallels to be drawn between his Jedi predecessor. It's adorable, heartwarming, and works incredibly well. I defy anyone not to love when Grogu settles in to sleep right next to Djarin inside the little hut he made for them both.
Likewise, the sequence also does a great job proving that even though Grogu left his Jedi path and training with Luke Skywalker to become Djarin's adopted son and Mandalorian apprentice, his connection to the Force remains a crucial part of who he is.
Many would have liked to have seen more from The Mandalorian & Grogu as the first Star Wars movie to release in theaters since 2019. However, I'm willing to argue that Grogu's time in the swamps of Nal Hutta protecting his father and going full Baby Yoda was well worth the price of admission.
The Mandalorian & Grogu is now streaming on Disney+ from Lucasfilm.
- Release Date
- May 20, 2026
- Runtime
- 132 minutes
- Director
- Jon Favreau
-
The Mandalorian
-
Rotta (voice)
- Writers
- Noah Kloor
- Producers
- Ian Bryce, Kathleen Kennedy, Dave Filoni, Karen Gilchrist, John Bartnicki
- Prequel(s)
- The Mandalorian
- Sequel(s)
- Dave Filoni's Untitled Mandalorian Movie
- Franchise(s)
- Star Wars
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.