The first 17 minutes of The Mandalorian and Grogu were shown yesterday during Disney’s presentation at CinemaCon, the annual convention for movie theater owners held in Las Vegas, with Variety.com and other outlets calling what they saw “impressive”.
Director Jon Favreau took the CinemaCon stage to debut the opening 17 minutes of the film, which saw Mando infiltrate a secret meeting of Empire sympathizers and blow up massive AT-AT walkers on a snowy planet. The bounty hunter shot, stabbed and flamethrower-ed his way through the base full of Snowtroopers, with Grogu helping along the way. The Empire leader sends out a recon droid, which meets an explosive end when Grogu uses the Force on it.
The heroes steal a mini AT-ST walker and sprint down the snow-covered cliffs, dodging AT-AT footsteps and lasers. Mando uses a bomb to trip one of the lumbering mechs, sending it crashing down the mountain, then jetpacks up to the hatch of another. The Empire baddie zooms away on an escape pod, but Mando overrides the AT-AT blasters and shoots him out of the sky.
After completing their mission, Mando, Grogu and their pilot Zeb Orrelios from “Star Wars Rebels” fly back to the New Republic base and report to Weaver’s Ward. She chastises them for killing their Empire target without getting any intel, but hands them their next mission: rescue Rotta the Hutt from rival gangsters. They board a shiny, brand-new ship and fly off into space.
“The Mandalorian and Grogu” marks the first big-screen “Star Wars” story to release since 2019’s “The Rise of Skywalker.” The impressive footage had plenty of explosive “Mandalorian” action, adorable Baby Yoda gags and new “Star Wars” enemies and tech. The Snowtroopers were dressed in different armor than the Hoth soldiers from “The Empire Strikes Back, and Mando’s AT-ST was a smaller, nimbler version than what we saw on Endor in “Return of the Jedi.” Rather than start with the iconic opening crawl of past “Star Wars” movies, “The Mandalorian and Grogu” begins with static yellow text explaining where the fledgling New Republic stands in the wake of the Empire’s fall.
The Mandalorian and Grogu is in cinemas from May 22nd, just another 34 days to wait.
