Mandalorian and Grogu fails to cast women that made the Disney Plus' series great

The Mandalorian and Grogu gained a ton as a movie, but lost a key part of the TV show in the process

Six years after Disney took a chance on scaling Star Wars down into a TV series, the adventures of Din Djarin and his ward Grogu have finally made their way to the big screen with The Mandalorian and Grogu. The jump from TV to cinema has come with plenty of growing pains, such as lukewarm reviews from critics, but none have seemed quite so obvious to me as the one question that filled my mind after my showing of the film: Where did all the women from The Mandalorian go?

Contrary to popular belief, I, a loud, queer woman with equally loud (and queer) opinions on the internet, do not sit and watch things to count how many times marginalized individuals appear in my media. However, the stark absence of women with speaking roles in The Mandalorian and Grogu stands out because the original TV series had a deep bench of side characters and plenty of planetary routes in which to find them. A one-off adventure clearly had no room for any of them.

Star Wars' inclusion of women — or rather, the severe lack thereof — has been hotly debated. Disney’s era, while far from perfect, has addressed this throughout several of its projects. There have been plenty of women who haven’t just appeared but have even had meaningful relationships with one another, such as Ahsoka Tano and Sabine Wren from Ahsoka, Mother Aniseya and Mother Koril’s relationship with Mae and Osha in The Acolyte, as well as Vel and Cinta in Andor.

Not so much in The Mandalorian and Grogu. Outside of Sigourney Weaver’s Colonel Ward and the female half of the Hutt Twins, there’s a shocking lack of women with anything to say or do in the latest Star Wars film. (No offense to the slobbering monsters whose genders we can’t identify based on arena fight scenes alone.) Weaver gives it her all whenever she’s on-screen, but I’d be lying if I understood her role in the universe as well as even the most one-off episodic Mandalorian character. The extended cameo felt more like director Jon Favreau connecting dots between the legacies of Star Wars, Alien, and Avatar than anointing a new badass lady for the galaxy. Emilia Clarke as Qi’ra in Solo wasn't that much more developed, but hey, at least Qi’ra had other women to talk to.

As for the other female character in The Mandalorian and Grogu, she is... an evil slug who does not have a name (at least until we get our hands on a Star Wars Visual Dictionary that fills in the blanks). Now, I’m a supporter of women’s rights and wrongs, but come on!

With The Mandalorian, Lucasfilm creative Dave Filoni and Favreau saw the void in Star Wars’ history of women characters and introduced many fresh faces across the first three seasons. There was Cara Dune, who (controversy involving the actress aside) had an intriguing backstory as part of the Rebellion and a survivor of Alderaan. Her story — and show — may have tragically been cut short, but she was just as much a part of The Mandalorian’s story of a galaxy post-Empire as Din and Grogu were. The Armorer, a Mandalorian warrior who leads the Nevarro sect of Mandalorians, also played a significant role in introducing viewers to the Creed of Mandalore. She was also a perfect foil to the jaded Bo-Katan Kryze, a character first introduced in the 2008 animated series, The Clone Wars, who returned in live-action.

It’s important to note that the women of The Mandalorian weren’t all cut from the same badass cloth either. For as much as we had warriors like Cara, Bo-Katan, and The Armorer, there were also Imperial intelligence officers like Elia Kane, mechanics like Peli Motto, and leaders like The Duchess. Hell, even Frog Lady — despite not having an actual name — is memorable due to her wacky design and the sheer level of injustice Grogu puts on her by eating her young (don’t ask).

Regardless, the differences made the women of The Mandalorian stand out on their own, even with some serving as background characters across multiple seasons and episodes. Because of this, none of them carried the weight of being the only woman in a speaking role. The same cannot be said for Ward, and even the female sibling of the Hutt Twins is defined only as being the second half of her twin brother and, uh, being mean.

There’s just as much to lose as there is to gain when you bring a TV series like The Mandalorian to the silver screen. With a theatrical release, new audiences can see The Mandalorian operate on an entirely larger scale, which diehard fans can also enjoy. But gone is the space and time that defined The Mandalorian, where more kooky, minor characters could pop in and out, many of whom just so happened to be women too. The Mandalorian and Grogu had memorable additions like Rotta the Hutt, Zeb, and Embo; it’s just a shame that Filoni and Favreau forgot that it’s not just little boys who deserve to see themselves on screen, but little girls too.

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