What ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’ Can Teach Screenwriters

The Mandalorian and Grogu is a different sort of film than some might be used to making or writing. It’s cut from a different cloth of screenwriting and filmmaking, so naturally some critics haven’t quite wrapped their head around it. The same could be said of most Star Wars movies. That’s often true of most fantasy and mythological films in general. The Mandalorian and Grogu is very much a fairy tale, a myth cut from the mold of samurai westerns at the pace of the old cliffhanger serials that audiences would flock in droves to see on Saturday afternoons for pocket change.

That sort of storytelling is much more rare and unique in this day and age, a breath of fresh air and much needed in times of such deep cynicism, but it also requires a bespoke set of skills and talents. Screenwriters would be well served to learn these lessons and apply them in their own work, bringing back some of these flourishes to contemporary audiences.

The film’s plot is deceptively straightforward. The Mandalorian (Pedro Pascal, Brendan Wayne, and Lateef Crowder) and his apprentice and adopted son, Grogu, work for the New Republic, hunting down Imperial warlords in hopes of learning what they might be planning next. They’re tasked by Colonel Ward (Sigourney Weaver) with working with the Hutts to rescue their nephew Rotta (Jeremy Allen White) so they’ll fork over information that could lead to their next, high profile Imperial target, the mysterious Commander Coyne.

After a series of thrilling chases, escapes, and double-crosses, the Mandalorian and Grogu end up cutting the double-dealing Hutts out of the equation and capture Coyne themselves, rescuing Rotta the Hutt from death in the process. Naturally, the Hutts don’t take kindly to this and have the Mandalorian kidnapped, forcing Grogu on a mission of his own to rescue the man who’s put his life on the line over and over again to protect him.

The film has a tremendous heart and although the stakes might seem low for a franchise where the very galaxy seems to continually hang in the balance, when the second half of the film has a mute child on a rescue mission to save their father, these stakes are somehow made to feel higher than they’ve ever been.

For screenwriters, there are a number of things the screenwriting team—Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni, and Noah Kloor—did very well as they brought the film to life. Learn from their best moves:

George Lucas always spoke of Star Wars as though it was a fairy tale. He speaks often about how it’s a parable for pre-teens to answer their big questions about life, and that’s who it’s aimed at. On the set of Return of the Jedi he famously talked Mark Hamill and director Richard Marquand through the fantasy tropes of the Ewoks, explaining that it was always the little bunny on the side of the road that had the magic that would help you defeat the evil at the end of the day—which is exactly what happens in most Star Wars films.

In Return of the Jedi, Han Solo is ready to blast the Ewoks to hell when they capture him, but Luke Skywalker stays his hand. Thanks to this move, the Ewoks join the Rebellion as allies and welcome Han, Luke, Leia, and the rest as members of their tribe—not to mention worshipping C-3PO as their golden god. The kindness Luke showed in not letting Han destroy them, which he could have easily done, is what allowed them to ultimately defeat the Empire. Without the Ewoks, they wouldn’t have been able to destroy the shield generator, the Rebel fleet would have died in the Emperor’s trap, the Death Star would have gone un-destroyed, and Luke would’ve died aboard it.

Curiously, The Mandalorian and Grogu is able to give us this story from a different perspective. As Grogu is on his quest to keep his adoptive father alive after he’s been poisoned by the bite of the dragonsnake beneath the throne of the Hutt twins, Grogu forages for food and finds the stilted hut of a creature named Gatori, played by Stephen McKinley Henderson. Gatori has no reason to be kind to Grogu, he comments that Grogu should be at the bottom of the Nal Hutta food chain. But he turns the other way when Grogu steals food for sustenance and when he hears of the Mandalorian’s poisoned plight, gives Grogu a potential antidote with no thought of reward. It’s clear that Gatori is no friend of the Hutts, but Grogu is actually that little bunny on the side of the road with the magic, and Gatori is the one who helps. In this case, Grogu is the one who goes on to defeat the evil on behalf of Gatori and all the other denizens of Nal Hutta.

In classic fairy tales, it’s always the unexpected creatures that you show kindness to that turn out to be useful, but they only reveal that use once you’ve shown that kindness to them with no hope of reward. This is how Jar Jar Binks functioned in The Phantom Menace as well. It’s a powerful fairy tale lesson, and seeing it play out from the other side was an astute reversal from the screenwriters.

As you’re crafting your stories, look for novel ways you can turn familiar story tropes like this on their ear, playing them from new angles. It felt perfectly natural in the story to see this from Grogu’s perspective, and it actually took me until my third viewing of the film to realize that’s what they’d done and how clever it was.

The screenwriters here understood that they were writing a parable. A sci-fi dressed fairy tale, with characters that were symbols and representatives of archetypes more than fully realized characters on their own. A lot of critics complained about dialogue or character arcs, but the characters did have arcs.

Of the pair, Grogu was the one who went on the more complete growth arc in this film, even though he didn’t speak a single word of dialogue. Those arcs weren’t as grandiose and in depth as perhaps they wanted, but that’s because we’re not dealing with fully realized people, we’re dealing with symbols.

In Robert McKee’s books on screenwriting, he gets more in depth on the topic, but characters are inherently less subtextual when their very existence is the subtext. They cannot be more fully fleshed out when they are a symbol for the broader story and the myth.

In this movie, Din Djarin and Grogu are representative of father/son relationships, filling in that gap for all father/son relationships, asking everyone to identify with them. Of course, their arc is not more specific because it is a Saturday matinee serial asking everyone to identify with it. That’s why Luke Skywalker takes on symbolic actions in his appearances, from A New Hope to The Last Jedi and Cassian Andor gets to be more fleshed out and fully realized person throughout the television show of Andor—because he’s closer to realism, while Luke is a stand-in for King Arthur across the various stages of the hero’s journey.

They’re just different styles of storytelling using Star Wars as a canvas. Using Star Trek as an example (blasphemy, I know) that’s why in the original series, Kirk, Spoke, and McCoy were never complete characters, but each of them symbolic pieces of a whole, with Kirk representing gut, Spock representing logic, and McCoy representing heart.

Know which style of storytelling you’re intending to do and you’re going to match the right dialogue and character arc to your story. As for his father/son character arc, Din Djarin is very protective as a mentor to his son and doesn’t want to let him too far out of his sight. He wants to leave him out of danger and harm’s way. He doesn’t take him on the most dangerous parts of the missions, but Grogu proves himself capable, protecting his father with his character journey.

Din Djarin’s major change by the end of the film sees him relenting and mentoring his adopted son in the finer points of space flight and travel, showing us that he’s going to be bringing his son further into the fold of his profession so that he can be even more capable in their line of work.

It was subtle and perfect for the mythological fairy-tale storytelling in the milieu of cliffhanger serials the story set out to tell.

There was a subtle sequence in The Mandalorian and Grogu that probably flies by unnoticed, or at least one subtle detail in the sequence. It’s something that has to be done in the writing because it sets things up through a number of scenes and locations and becomes important throughout them, but because it feels so natural, it’s hardly noticeable.

After The Mandalorian, Grogu, and Rotta the Hutt return to Nevarro after the successful capture of Commander Janu, Rotta the Hutt and the Mandalorian share a tender moment talking about Grogu’s upbringing and fatherhood and the nature of Rotta’s father. Rotta also apologizes for rooting around the kitchen to steal some of Grogu’s little blue snacks. The Mandalorian thinks nothing of it, but informs Rotta that he’s gotten a ride for him with a gun runner who’s agreed to get his name deleted from some registries in an effort to hide him from his aunt and uncle who want him dead. Rotta and Grogu share a heartfelt goodbye where Rotta hands Grogu the sleeve of snacks that Grogu digs into straightaway. This gives the audience all the adorable shots of Grogu eating his trademark snacks again, and a paternal moment for the Mandalorian, taking the snacks away from Grogu. “Leave the rest for after dinner.”

It’s a good moment and gets a laugh from the audience because of how relatable it is, and the Mandalorian tucks the snacks into one of the pouches of his armor and we think nothing of it. The snacks have changed hands from Rotta, to Grogu, to Din Djarin in the space of a couple of minutes of screen time in a very natural way.

Later that evening, Grogu is fast asleep beside the Anzellan engineers who are there to help affect repairs on the Mando’s new ship, but the Mandalorian still works. He senses something amiss though, and a bounty hunter attacks their humble abode, kidnapping the Mandalorian. The bounty hunter’s pet, a dog-like anooba named Marrok (at least if it’s the same anooba Embo had during The Clone Wars) manages to snatch one of the engineers as well, as though it were mouse-like prey. Grogu and the rest of the Anzellans watch in horror as the Mandalorian and their fellow Anzellan are taken in the bounty hunter’s ship to a distant planet.

Aboard the ship, the Mandalorian comes to and sees the anooba toying with the poor alien engineer. Searching the pouches on his armor, he realizes he has the snacks and is able to use one to distract the dog-like beast and rescue the little Anzellan. The Anzellan is able to escape, hide in the Mandalorian’s little cell with him, and then escape the ship when they land on Nal Hutta, so that when Grogu and the rest of his friends arrive, he’s able to tell them exactly what happened to the Mandalorian and where to go next.

It might seem like artifice or contrivance, but it’s an elegant bit of storytelling that feels natural and in-character and it starts three to five scenes before the set-up is needed. And all it needed was a Hutt with the munchies. Some might call it hanging a lampshade on it. Some might call it overly complicating, but I find the solution very smart and baked into the writing. It doesn’t feel convenient or coincidental that he has something to distract the anooba with, it feels earned.

The Mandalorian and Grogu has a number of these small moments or items thread through the entire story, whether it’s a specific phrase, theme, or idea. They all repeat to maximum effect and present themselves in the best way by the end of the film. It’s deceptively simple. And that’s where the elegance of this film lies. It hides the complications of the work in the craft, and that’s something screenwriters should be chasing with every line they write.

We should all be so lucky to make it look so easy.

The Mandalorian and Grogu is a film that beautifully tells visual stories, including silent sequences full of storytelling that rely on nothing but images. It’s some of the most complicated and daring storytelling in the Star Wars universe. Better still, young Grogu is at the heart of the storytelling, doing his best to rescue his adopted father, what better grist for storytelling in a movie aimed at kids could there be?

It’s just fine work all around.

The Mandalorian and Grogu is currently playing in Theaters worldwide.

You can learn more about Bryan Young at his website.