@kangminlee Because it has ALWAYS BEEN ABOUT HIM FROM DAY 1. Not just this event. EVERYTHING. But the cult is too blind and obeying to notice and admit it
It’s wild watching the trade press and certain corners of film Twitter cover The Mandalorian and Grogu this weekend. Audiences are showing up, families are loving it, and the vibe leaving the theater is pure classic Star Wars fun. Yet, if you read the trades or the critical breakdowns, you’d think the sky was falling because it isn't hitting $200 million on a modest, highly responsible budget.
There’s a very specific reason Hollywood and critics are so invested in wanting this movie to fail, and it has nothing to do with the actual quality on screen.
For the past several years, the narrative has been that "the theater experience is dying" and that streaming platforms ruined the prestige of cinema. The Mandalorian and Grogu represents the ultimate test case: taking a massively successful streaming show and turning it back into a theatrical feature film.
If it succeeds, it completely upends the traditional Hollywood hierarchy. It proves that streaming can be an incredibly effective farm system for big-screen blockbusters, and that audiences will buy a ticket to see characters they’ve already watched at home if they love them enough.
But traditional trades and critics don't want that to be the future. They want a clear, rigid line between television and movies. So, because the film is tracking for a solid, profitable Memorial Day weekend instead of breaking all-time historical records, they’re framing it as a "diminished galaxy." They are treating a win like a loss because a win for Mando and Grogu means admitting the industry's old playbook is officially outdated.
At the end of the day, Din Djarin said it best: "I can bring you in warm, or I can bring you in cold." Right now, audiences are bringing this movie in warm, no matter how cold the trades try to play it.