The Mandalorian and Grogu has landed at 61% on Rotten Tomatoes, enough to scrape into fresh territory but not enough to hide the divide around Disney’s latest attempt to put Star Wars back on the big screen. Critics called the film charming, brisk and visually polished, while others said it felt thin, formulaic and oddly televisual.
The score matters because this is not just another Star Wars release. Disney bought Lucasfilm for roughly $4bn in 2012 and then spent the next decade alternating between big-screen bets and streaming expansion. The Force Awakens made more than $2bn worldwide in 2015, Rogue One cleared more than $1bn in 2016, The Last Jedi topped more than $1.3bn in 2017 and The Rise of Skywalker earned Disney more than $1bn in 2019. After that, Disney+ became the delivery system for Star Wars series including Andor, The Book of Boba Fett, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Ahsoka and The Mandalorian.
That history is why the reaction to The Mandalorian and Grogu is sharper than an ordinary Rotten Tomatoes update. The film is set between the fall of the Galactic Empire and the rise of the First Order, a period that Star Wars has already mined across films and series. Critics who liked it praised the return of Baby Yoda and the movie’s polished look; critics who did not said it felt less like a grand restoration of Star Wars on the big screen than three Disney+ episodes stitched together.
The tension is baked into the project itself. Disney has tried a soft reboot with The Force Awakens, a mythology-challenging course correction with The Last Jedi and then a reversal with The Rise of Skywalker. At the same time, the streaming era turned Star Wars into a constant presence rather than an occasional event. That made the franchise broader, but it also made it harder for a new feature to feel singular.
The Mandalorian and Grogu is now in the uncomfortable space between those two eras: big enough to be a theatrical return, familiar enough to feel like television. The 61% score says critics found some charm in the package, but not the kind of forceful case that would make this look like the start of a clean reset for Star Wars on movie screens.
