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Introduction

First, an important disclaimer before any Disney apologists crawl out of the woodwork and try to tell me I never understood Star Wars:

I am a Star Wars fan. Not a “I once shared Baby Yoda memes” kind of fan. Not a “I know Darth Vader from Fortnite” kind of fan.

I’m a die-hard Star Wars fan!
Ever since February 10, 1978, when Episode IV premiered in Germany!

Back then, Star Wars was still magic, a myth—something for nerds and geeks—and not just a cash cow for streaming subscriptions, LEGO sets, and soulless nostalgia.

As a kid, I had tons of merchandise—and today, even more so. Figures (I actually had the vinyl Jawa!), models, books, games, collectibles. I didn’t just casually consume this madness; I lived it. With heart and soul—and a wallet that, over the decades, would probably have complained to me multiple times if wallets could talk—today, instead, you just ignore the call from the bank.

For me, The Empire Strikes Back is one of the best sci-fi movies of all time. Not “pretty good,” not “okay for its time,” but a true milestone. Atmosphere, characters, dialogue, music, suspense, myth—everything is spot-on. That’s how you build a world. That’s how you expand a universe without simultaneously smashing its kneecaps with a sledgehammer.

I survived the dark years between 1983 and 1997. The time when people clung to novels, comics, role-playing books, and vague rumors like a Jawa clings to a freshly stolen spare part.

I survived Jar Jar. Yes, really. I made it through that digital disaster on two legs and still managed to convince myself: Okay, Star Wars is still alive. Somewhere. Buried under a ton of CGI rubber and cringeworthy slapstick, but it’s alive.
I actually don’t think Episodes II and III are all that bad. Not perfect, far from it. But at least there’s still a vision behind them. A weird, sometimes clumsy, sometimes unintentionally funny vision—but a vision nonetheless. And that’s apparently already a luxury these days.

Then came the true dark age: Disney.
After Episode VII, I still thought: Okay, very cowardly, a lot of copy-paste, but maybe they’ll build something on that. Maybe that was just the safe reboot. Maybe there’s still substance to come.
Then came Episode VIII and kicked the building set.
Then came Episode IX, set the building set on fire, threw it down a shaft, and shouted from above: “Somehow Palpatine returned.”

That was it—Star Wars was dead to me. Not just wounded. Not just battered. Dead. Clinically dead. With Mickey Mouse ears on the death certificate.

Then, four weeks ago, “Maul: Shadow Lord” came out, and I actually thought: Oh. Could they have gotten their act together after KK was fired? Is there still a glimmer of hope somewhere? Has someone at Lucasfilm maybe secretly turned their brain back on?

And then I saw this train wreck.
This thing. This cinematic wreckage. This insult, coated in fan service, to anyone who spends more than five minutes thinking about logic, characters, or Star Wars.

Star Wars is dead—buried in a small, far-too-short earthen hut on Nal Hutta. No Jedi funeral, no Force spirit, no Binary Sunset. Just a puppet—whose basic design goes back to the great Jim Henson—stands nearby, probably not even realizing that it’s watching as the franchise is finally shoveled into the ground.

If you don’t want any spoilers, you should stop reading now.
To everyone else: It’s going to be „messy, very messy.“

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The „Movie“

What’s the best way to go about this? Okay, I’ll just share my thoughts as the movie unfolds—RAW, unfiltered, and with the lingering faith of a Star Wars fan who’s walked right into an open lightsaber far too many times:

Cold Opening:
How do you make your enemies look as stupid and incompetent as possible? Exactly like this.
Shouldn’t AT-ATs have sensors that detect when a leg is malfunctioning before the thing tips over into the landscape like a drunken metal elephant?
Grogu provides the comic relief—what else? Of course. Something we’ll be seeing a lot more of, because apparently someone at Disney thinks “cute” is a substitute for dramatic tension.
Isn’t he supposed to be a powerful Jedi? Why didn’t he just throw the bombs out?
You can’t get much more plot armor than that, unless you pour Beskar directly over the script pages.
And why doesn’t he shoot the trooper right away, but waits until the walker arrives?
Zeb Orrelios to the rescue—may the fan service begin. Or better yet: May the fan service suffocate anything that might have once resembled a plot.

BTW: Any GenZ who thinks Rambo is lame but likes how Mando fights here belongs in the asylum. Not as a punishment, but for a basic education in film history.

The title card appears ten minutes in—and I already want my money back. Not a partial refund. The full amount. Plus compensation for emotional distress and a letter of apology on Disney stationery.

Why on earth did they leave out that “cool” pulp-style logo? That was the best part of the trailers and posters. If the story already looks like it was cobbled together from leftovers, they could at least have kept the logo as a lifeline.

On a positive note: The theme music doesn’t sound half bad. Really. But the visuals that go with it have the charm of a cheap 1960s war movie, only without its honesty, grit, and soul. So basically, nostalgia cosplay with a render farm.

After the flop of Avatar 3 and the fact that Neill Blomkamp’s Alien never materialized, does Sigourney Weaver need the money? I can hardly think of any other explanation. Or maybe she only read the first page of the script and then thought, “Oh, it’ll probably be Star Wars.” Spoiler: it wasn’t.

Oh, the Razor Crest is back—with a new paint job. Of course. New toys are sure to follow, just look at LEGO. The scene reeks so strongly of a merch meeting that you can almost smell the plastic of fresh sets coming off the screen.

Zeb is now officially the co-pilot. Why? Because Rebels fans need their treat moment, too. Is it necessary for the story? Who cares. Recognition value trumps logic. Again.

The Hutt Twins – fan service for The Book of Boba Fett, so everyone will watch the series again. As if anyone would voluntarily do that twice without first having their sanity tested in writing.

Rotta the Hutt – even more fan service, this time for The Clone Wars. Naturally, it includes a childhood photo, just to make sure even the very last viewer in the back row gets the point. Subtlety? Probably tossed out along with the second draft of the script.

The fact that he looks different now that he’s around 30 doesn’t matter. Continuity is apparently just a non-binding suggestion in this movie.

Welcome to Blade Runner World. Or more precisely: Welcome to a set that looks like someone fed “Blade Runner, but Star Wars, and hurry up” into an AI and then forgot to check the results.

Does Martin Scorsese need money, too? Or why does this suddenly feel like someone threw ten movie references into a blender and then claimed it was world-building?

Shouldn’t Rotta actually have a Huttese accent? Or at least some linguistic quirk that says, “I am a Hutt,” rather than, “I am supporting character number 47 from a streaming pilot”?

Yeah, yeah: stepping out of his father’s shadow. They’ve got to make him a hero somehow. It’s just a shame that “hero” here apparently means: he exists, gets some lines, and the script looks very meaningfully into the camera while he does.

A brief bar brawl—Mando is, of course, a total badass. Until the script needs him to be dumb again later, at which point suddenly nothing works anymore. Schrödinger’s Mandalorian: simultaneously an elite warrior and a walking cutscene delay.

What’s the point of a full-face helmet without a filter? Seriously. What’s with all this helmet obsession if, in the end, every plot device and every scripted gas still gets through?

A fight between future friends—didn’t we already see that in Solo? And even there, it wasn’t exactly Shakespeare with Blasters.

Why does the floor in the arena have the same pattern as the Dejarik board in the Falcon?

Why are these the same alien races as in Dejarik?

Why does the alien do the same over-the-head throw that R2-D2 uses to win?

And this type of arena tournament is even called Dejarik. Fan service overload. Not just a nod anymore, but nostalgia with a jackhammer.

BTW: Where are Grog’s Force moves to save the day? He could’ve surely choked a few aliens from inside the cage. Or at least done something useful, instead of just looking worried enough to sell merchandise.

Swords, axes—where’s the blood and gore? Oh yeah, PG-13. Of course we want to show brutal gladiator fights, but please keep it clean enough so we can air a Happy Meal commercial right after.

Who designed the arena’s electronics—Homer Simpson? One short circuit, and everything goes down. It’s like the Springfield Power Plant, but with more aliens.

Why does the stroller have controls for the baby? Who builds something like that? Who buys into it? Who sits in the design meeting and says, “Yeah, the baby definitely needs access to control functions”?

Ta-da—plot twist. Or what this movie thinks is one.

Poor stormtroopers—again. Cannon fodder with helmets and no dignity.

It would have been better if Grogu, back in comic relief mode, had accidentally hit one of the troopers’ hoovers. Then the scene would at least have worked as a sensibly silly moment, instead of trying to be half-baked and dramatic.

Just typical cowardly Republic politics. Democracy as an excuse for inaction. Also nice: In Star Wars, history apparently doesn’t just repeat itself—it stumbles right into the same open trapdoor, as if on cue.

For a Mandalorian, though, he’s surprisingly easy to overpower time and again. Maybe he should spend less time polishing his legend and more time working on his situational awareness.

Grogu to the rescue with these little… things. Whatever they’re supposed to be. Probably already in the works as a stuffed animal.

Why do big CGI aliens look good, but little ones always look like dolls? It’s 2026. Why does some of it look like top-notch ILM work, while other parts look like they’re from a 1998 amusement park promotional video?

Helmet off—probably the only scene Pedro actually shot himself. Quick face shot, fulfill the contract, back to the dubbing booth.

Is it just me, or does the Dragon Snake scene look like it was shot McQuarrie-style using AI slop? As if someone ran concept art through an algorithm and then said, “It’ll do; fans call that an homage.”

Grogu to the rescue I.

Last Stand, so others can escape. Cliché. Not even a fresh cliché. A rehashed cliché from the screenwriting school cafeteria.

Grogu to the rescue II.

Over 30 kg of Beskar steel hidden under leaves—and the droids’ sensors can’t find him. Of course not. In Star Wars, sensors only work these days when the plot isn’t taking a break.

Now comes the emotional part—get your tissues ready.

The joke about the hut being too short was the funniest (!) scene in the whole movie the first time around. The second time, it was just a repeat. The third time, it was exasperating. By the fourth time, I wanted to file a complaint for comedic assault.

Now he’s turning into a full-fledged Yoda. Because independence is totally overrated, too. Why develop a character when you can just flip the next nostalgia switch?

Deus ex Hermit. Of course. When the script runs out of ideas, someone emerges from the pond and solves the problem.

Miraculous healing and instantly back in top shape—sure. Medical logic on the level of “blow on it and keep fighting.”

Of course the wreck is nearby and still flying. Why not? In this movie, broken things work more reliably than the plot.

Why did the approach to the palace feel like a bad copy of the nearly identical scene from the 1981 Flash Gordon? Only without the camp, without the guts, and without the decency to at least be deliberately silly.

Of course, there are only droids as guards—PG-13. We want action, but please, without any moral or physical consequences. Violence as sterile screensaver choreography.

And once again, it’s “one-man-army” mode. But action heroes from the ’80s are toxic. Sure. When someone does it today with Beskar and a Disney logo, it’s suddenly empowerment with a helmet.

Is it just me, or do the super droid guards’ movements look like a cheap stop-motion Harryhausen knockoff? And not in a charming retro way, but in a “Why does this look so unfinished?” kind of way.

The Mandalorian vs. Embo—I’ve seen better fights in Mortal Kombat: Annihilation. And that’s not a compliment; it’s a cry for help.

For someone who’s supposed to be such a top fighter, Rotta is really struggling with the twins.

Grogu to the rescue III – oh, now he can use the Force. Handy. Just when the script needs a shortcut.

Oh—we still need to throw in an aerial battle. With a fan service nod to the Trench Run. Because apparently every Star Wars product has to compulsively pay homage to Episode IV at some point, as if that were a seal of quality.

Plot twist: The twins were evil after all and against the Republic. That would have saved us a lot of trouble from the start. But then the movie would have had to be shorter—and what would they have crammed all those references into?

And Grogu is learning to fly now. Of course. Why not? Next time, just give him an X-wing, a spin-off, and his own tax return.

— The End —

Finally. Not “Finally!” in the sense of relief brought by great cinema. More like “Finally” after a root canal without anesthesia, during which the dentist keeps asking, “Do you remember the better times?”

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The result

What kind of drugs were the people in charge on to put something like THIS together? Not out of curiosity—just so I know what to stay away from for the rest of my life.

Fanservice is all well and good when it fits into the plot. When it feels organic. When it doesn’t come barging through the door every five minutes screaming, “Do you recognize this? DO YOU RECOGNIZE THIS?” But this is fan service for the sake of fan service. Superfluous, intrusive, completely devoid of meaning—and yes, worse than The Fall of Skywalker. And that’s quite an achievement.

The effects are, of course, mostly great—see above for exceptions. But let’s be honest: these days, that’s no longer an achievement for a AAA movie or series; it’s the absolute bare minimum. If the billion-dollar mouse can’t even tell a story, then at least the render farm spectacle should work.

This constant flip-flopping between “Mando is completely overpowered” and “Mando suddenly acts stupidly naive like an intern on their first day” is physically painful to watch. That’s not character development; that’s a power outage in the writers’ room.

It’s exactly the same with Grogu. One moment he’s a powerful Force prodigy, the next he’s comic relief with “plong, plong.” You can really tell that someone in the background is waving a merchandise catalog around and shouting, “More cuteness! More toys! More GIF moments!”

The basic idea behind the story wasn’t bad at all. Really, it wasn’t. They could have done something with it. But the execution? Sorry, but I put more effort, more thought, and definitely more respect for the source material into the action scenes in my fan stories.

One can only hope that it turned out this way because KK still had her claws in it—and that it will be better next time, when Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni have true creative freedom. Although: isn’t there still some KK protégé wandering the halls somewhere, clipboard in hand, determined to sabotage every good idea just in time?

Still, I don’t think the movie will flop so badly that Star Wars dies, like what happened back then after Star Trek: Nemesis. There are too many paid reviews, too many fanboys and fangirls—sorry, you have to say that these days—and too many people who now cheer at the mere sound of a lightsaber humming somewhere.

They’d cheer and give it ten stars even if Grogu and Pedro Pascal read the Coruscant phone book. The whole thing. Uncut.

BTW: Why does this “movie” have a seven-star rating on IMDb? Did someone hold the scale upside down—or were they paid in credits again?

Where can I get my money back now—and, more importantly, those 2 hours and 5 minutes of my life? Money can be replaced. But that time?