There is exactly one show that keeps me on Disney Plus, and it’s The Mandalorian. I’m
not even the biggest Star Wars fan in the world. There’s plenty of other Star
Wars content on Disney Plus and yet I’m ignoring it so that I can keep watching
Baby Yoda over and over and over again. And that had me wondering: What makes this show
so appealing to a wide audience? Why is this show in particular the one that introduced
so many people to the world of Star Wars? On the surface, it looks like a show for die-hard fans:
A niche spin-off series following a couple side characters from a massive movie universe.
But instead it’s had the broadest appeal of any bit of Star Wars media I’ve ever seen.
Disney is seeing this too, which I’m guessing is why they’ve announced like a thousand other
Star Wars TV shows. So, what is it that makes The Mandalorian appeal to Non-Star Wars fans?
1) First off, Baby Yoda, or Grogu, as we later know him as, is so freaking cute. Obviously,
cuteness can’t carry a show entirely on its own, but it is definitely a factor.
Especially in getting people to give the show a chance at the start. There’s just something
about his tiny green head and his big ears that just makes you want to squeeze him
and protect him. He’s so precious, and his character just has this innocence about him
that’s rare in the Star Wars universe. He’s just a baby, trying to have fun and eat food
and find shiny objects. There have been other cute characters and animals and droids in Star Wars.
I personally like the porgs and BB-8 the most, but Grogu is on a whole other level,
and he’s one of the two central characters, not just a cute cutaway in a much larger movie.
I also think that the fact that Grogu is a practical effect rather than CGI has some
impact on his ability to be so endearing. Don’t get me wrong, I love a movie with some good CGI,
but Grogu being just an actual real life puppet in most of the scenes gives him a
physicality and a charm that I think would be difficult to achieve with CGI. Sometimes even
with high-quality CGI characters, they can feel a bit off for a reason you can’t really explain,
they somehow feel like they’re not quite a real thing you could reach out and touch,
but Grogu feels very real in the show, and I think that helps the audience latch onto him even more.
2) Grogu’s cuteness can only take the show so far though. One of the biggest factors that I think
keeps non-Star Wars fans coming back to The Mandalorian is the simplicity of the plot. The
Star Wars movies are fun but have you ever tried like describing the plot to someone?
It requires so much backstory with an Empire and a Republic and a Rebellion and some stolen plans
and a death-laser-planet and trade disputes and tax treaties all sorts of stuff. If you’re
just watching it for the first time, it can be overwhelming and confusing and make a lot of
people go, “Ehh, no thanks.” But The Mandalorian is beautifully simple. A person finds a child,
and he has to protect the Child and help him find his people. Done. That’s it. That’s the whole
plot. There are other things going on, different plots for every episode, but at the end of the
day, the core of the story is extremely simple, and you always know what Mando’s motivation is:
protect the Child. I think that works hugely in its favor, because it makes the show so much more
accessible than most of the media in the Star Wars universe that only makes sense if you understand
a ton of backstory. Anyone can easily fire up the first episode of the Mandolorian and get invested
in it without having to know anything about Anakin or Luke or trade disputes or anything. And from
there maybe their new interest in a Star Wars show will lead them to other bits of Star Wars media,
but it at least make the initial entry into the universe a lot easier. And in general,
I think shows that have a simple plot at their core are some of the strongest shows
out there. Complex, difficult-to-explain shows with a million threads to follow
certainly have their place and their fans, but to me, something hits different about a show
that can trim away all the excess to focus on what is really important and interesting. And
what’s important and interesting to me is little Grogu. Look at him, he’s so cute!
3) But really it’s about more than that. It’s also about Mando and his growth from
an emotionless mercenary to basically a caring, loving father figure. The trope of a grumpy tough
person learning to open their heart is really unmatched in my opinion. It gives him some
very solid character development through the first two seasons, and his interactions with
Grogu add the perfect amount of cuteness and humor to the otherwise kind-of-serious tone of
the show. Mando has this strict mercenary training and orderly way of doing things,
and then Grogu has this child-like drive for exploration and finding shiny objects. It’s such
a wonderful pairing that is instantly endearing. Even without seeing Mando’s facial expressions,
you can feel the exasperation in his sighs and his body language when Grogu just won’t sit still
or keeps stealing the shiny orb. It’s adorable. I really think you could do this with so many
stories from so many different universes and I’d love it. Just drop a cute adorable innocent
character like Grogu in a more serious world with a tough character like Mando to take care
of them, and you’ve got yourself a winning formula. No matter how your story goes,
it’s gonna be cute, and I’m gonna love seeing the tough character open up and
realize that connection with others is so much more important than they realized.
4) While Mando has his heart melted by little baby Grogu, though, they basically explore a
new planet every episode. I love that format and I think it works in their favor. It’s much easier to
conceptualize these places that they go when you have the whole episode to get acquainted with it
and the people there. Star Wars movies can feel a bit chaotic with all the hopping around
from planet to planet, and they can start to blend together and feel like there’s just one
big “Star Wars planet.” But when you have an episode dedicated to each mission on a planet,
it’s far easier to just think about and delve into the details of the one specific place. Plus,
since the episodes are released weekly rather than all at once like we’re used to now with
most streaming shows, the planet-per-episode format makes it really easy to tune in every
week without being confused about where you are in the story, because the last episode
wrapped everything up on one planet, and this next episode will bring you to a new place.
It’s simple, and that makes it easy to watch and keep up with. Every episode, for the most part,
has its own contained plot on its own planet that fits well within the larger plot. Mando needs to
find someone to help Grogu, but that person won’t help him until he helps them with some kind of
problem. Mando fixes the problem, and they move on. It’s formulaic, but in a way that works well
in the context. You get to meet a bunch of new characters in new places and constantly be moving
the plot forward, all while Mando learns more and more about parenting and taking care of Grogu.
5) And the Mandalorian uses this planet-per-episode format to flesh
out the planets in a way that makes the universe even more interesting for die-hard Star Wars fans,
which brings me to my next point: The Mandolorian sprinkles in content for
big Star Wars fans without it being distracting. If you look closely enough, The Mandalorian has
all kinds of connections to other pieces of Star Wars media. When Mando takes a trip to Tatooine
and works with the Tusken Raiders to take down a big worm creature thing, that gives the audience
a look into who the Tusken Raiders are, and it sheds a new light on them that would be
interesting for anyone who knew what Anakin did to them in the prequels. There are all kinds of other
callbacks and background details and characters that would have a lot of meaning to people who
know about them, but if you don’t, that’s fine too. They’re not used as the only thing to hold
the show together, and they’re not put anywhere where they would feel out of place. So if you
don’t know anything about the Star Wars universe, you can just watch the show and never know about
any of the connected background details, and that’s perfectly okay too. That’s how references
to a larger universe should be done. It makes space for both new viewers and die-hard fans.
6) And lastly, I just want to talk about the stakes of The Mandalorian. So if you boil it
all down, the worst case scenario of this show is that Grogu is taken by the bad guys and used
for some evil science experiment or killed. And that would be a horrible, terrible outcome, but
it’s a very specific, one-person kind of threat. So many shows and movies like to up the stakes
as much as possible—I guess in an effort to make people care more about the heroes achieving their
goals. But I actually think that more personal, technically-lower-scale stakes can have an even
greater impact. Because it’s hard to conceptualize what it means for an entire planet to be blown up
by a laser, or what it means if the big evil bad guy becomes the leader of the universe.
But it’s easy and natural to worry about Grogu. Look at that little face. You don’t want anything
bad to happen to this guy. So that’s an immediate strong gut feeling that you really really want
the good guys to win. Not just because of some potential obscure world-ending disaster, but
because you care about Grogu’s wellbeing. I think this works in the same vein as The Mandolorian
having a relatively simple plot. You might think that a more complex plot makes for a better show,
or that higher stakes would make an audience care more. But really, at the end of the day,
a simpler plot and lower but more personal stakes, those are the things that really hook people. A
good, small-scale story told well can have a much bigger emotional impact on a person than a large,
epic, complicated story. And The Mandolorian, in everything it does, embodies that concept,
which is why I think it’s such a great show, and why it appeals so well to non-Star Wars fans.
But what did you think of The Mandolorian? Why do you think this show did so well? Let me know your
thoughts in the comments, and if you liked this video, feel free to give it a thumbs-up. If you
want to help me produce more videos like this one, you can support me over on Patreon, which
would be much appreciated. Thanks so much for watching, everyone, and I’ll see you next time.