It’s available on 12th March, with two covers (one for the newsstand, one for subscribers) and inside it’s packed with conversations with Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni, Pedro Pascal, Sigourney Weaver and Jeremy Allen White, kickstarting as only Empire Magazine can the run down to the arrival of The Mandalorian and Grogu in just 78 days time on 22nd May. Excited much? You should be, we’re about to head back to the silver screen for the next era of Star Wars.
It is, says Lucasfilm co-CEO Dave Filoni, a different prospect to the last time the saga made a culture-shaking big-screen comeback. “Episode VII was a completely different entity,” explains Filoni, who also co-wrote The Mandalorian And Grogu, and directed second-unit on the film. “I had dreams of Episode VII since I came out of Return Of The Jedi. You were like, ‘After VI comes VII! Where’s VII?’ We’re in a completely different era of Star Wars now.” The Mandalorian And Grogu doesn’t carry the burden of introducing a new trilogy, or establishing a group of unknown heroes. Instead it is, Filoni says, “a big celebration” of its title pair.
So, where were bounty hunter Din Djarin and Grogu – his adoptive son and Mandalorian apprentice – when we left them? The Season 3 finale had a sense of genuine finality to it, as our heroes settled into their homestead on Nevarro, having thwarted Moff Gideon and played their part in reclaiming Mandalore. “It only felt like the ending of a particular chapter,” Pedro Pascal tells Empire. The same finale also saw Mando agree to take on missions solely for the New Republic at Adelphi Base. “They open up the opportunity for him to continue his best work as a bounty hunter, but just working for the good guys,” says Pascal. “Combining skill and morality. Whereas when we meet him first, it’s simply skill, and beskar, and [the Mandalorian] Creed. Through his relationship to Grogu, there is an expansion of his heart and a disarming of his armour, so to speak, that leads him to fight for what he knows is right.”
