Star Wars' New Return Of The Jedi Sequel Confirms Disney's Episode VII Mistake

The upcoming Star Wars sequel to Return of the Jedi, The Mandalorian and Grogu, has secretly revealed one of the biggest mistakes Disney made with episode VII. Most of the upcoming Star Wars movies, including The Mandalorian and Grogu, are set to move away from the sequel trilogy's timeline. Instead, The Mandalorian and Grogu will take place during the New Republic era, in the aftermath of Return of the Jedi.

Though it takes place before Star Wars: The Force Awakens, The Mandalorian and Grogu is actually set to change episode VII forever. The sequel trilogy was famously divisive, though lucrative, and Star Wars has mostly avoided them in the years since Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Now, however, The Mandalorian and Grogu could fix one of the sequel trilogy's biggest mistakes.

The Mandalorian & Grogu Is About Preventing Another War

The newest trailer for The Mandalorian and Grogu revealed a massive part of the movie's plot. In the trailer, Colonel Ward (Sigourney Weaver) tells Din Djarin that his mission is "about preventing another war." Since The Mandalorian and Grogu will take place in about 12 ABY, and since Din is hunting down the Imperial Remnants, it's clear that Ward and the New Republic are trying to prevent the Empire from restarting the Galactic Civil War.

The trailer also revealed a bit about how Ward is going about preventing that war, and what she needs Din for. Din mentioned that he would take out gangsters, war criminals, and other high value targets from Ward's deck of cards. It seems to be the same strategy the United States used during the invasion of Iraq, where soldiers were given a deck of cards with information about the top members of Saddam Hussein's government to more easily identify them.

Based on that strategy, Ward is using Din (and potentially other bounty hunters like Embo) to hunt down important members of the Hutt Cartel and the Imperial Remnant. The theory is likely that by destroying the leadership of the cartels and the Empire, the New Republic will be able to prevent the Empire from mounting another offensive. Clearly, The Mandalorian and Grogu is doing a deep-dive into galactic politics.

The Force Awakens Ignored 30 Years Of Star Wars Galaxy Politics

Now that The Mandalorian and Grogu is diving so deep into galactic politics after Return of the Jedi, it has highlighted just how little The Force Awakens did the same. Episode VII completely disregarded the galactic politics of Star Wars. All it revealed was that the First Order rose from the ashes of the Empire, and that the Republic had returned after the Empire's fall. From there, The Force Awakens is just the Empire vs. the Rebels again, with new nicknames.

The Force Awakens basically pretended like nothing at all happened until Ben Solo's confrontation with Luke Skywalker at the Jedi Academy. The sequel trilogy had no interest in explaining what the New Republic was like, how the First Order actually came into being, or what happened to the Empire after the Galactic Civil War.

Even the supplementary materials for the sequel trilogy only do half the job of explaining the galaxy's politics. Bloodline examines the political makeup of the Galactic Senate and the First Order's emergence, but only in 28 ABY. Comics like The Rise of Kylo Ren take place after Luke's Academy fell. To the Star Wars sequel trilogy, it's like galactic history and politics took a 25-year break after Return of the Jedi.

Star Wars has provided a lot more context for the sequel trilogy in the years since The Force Awakens was released, but it was almost entirely through the "Mandoverse." The Mandalorian explained how the Empire survived and laid the groundwork for the First Order's eventual return. Ahsoka took a look at the New Republic's inner workings and explained why it would eventually fall. The Mandoverse did a better job of setting the stage for the sequel trilogy than The Force Awakens ever did.

The Mandalorian & Grogu Will Make Episode VII Better

The Force Awakens failed to explain any of the context of the galaxy's politics in 34 ABY, but Star Wars is finally rectifying its mistake. The Mandalorian and Grogu is giving The Force Awakens the deep dive into galactic politics that it so desperately needs. We're finally going to get more context on that critical portion of the Star Wars timeline, the immediate aftermath of the end of the Galactic Civil War.

In fact, the new context The Mandalorian and Grogu is going to add to the New Republic era will also retroactively make The Force Awakens a better movie. We've already seen this happen with other Star Wars stories: both The Mandalorian and The Bad Batch helped explain Project Necromancer, which made Palpatine's return in The Rise of Skywalker at least make more sense.

We're finally going to have context on how the Empire became the Imperial Remnant and eventually the First Order, and on how the galaxy recovered from the wounds of the Galactic Civil War. It will also be able to explore that world in movie-scale, rather than the Mandoverse shows that have begun filling in the gaps in the timeline. The Mandalorian and Grogu is making the Star Wars sequel trilogy cohesive for the first time.