Will Thrawn Appear In 'The Mandalorian And Grogu' Movie?

Star Wars

Sep 15

As we begin to hear and see more news about the wolf-and-cub romp coming to theatres next year, there’s a thought growing in our minds and surely those of other fans: Will Thrawn appear in the first Mandoverse film?

CultureSlate is here today to lay out arguments in favor and against this idea, as well as a third option that somewhat sits between both. Let’s get started!

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Yes

Perhaps odd for a Star Wars production, we don’t yet know the villain for The Mandalorian and Grogu, beyond it likely being some remnant of the Empire. Certainly, they appear to be a very well equipped remnant, based on the presence of war machines like AT-ATs, but could this villain just be a beard for the real threat, Thrawn? Maybe the film’s villain is being driven to expand or cause trouble because with the return of Thrawn, their own power base is under threat, or perhaps Thrawn is directly instructing them to engage in certain military maneuvers to weaken the New Republic.

Also, why not get Thrawn on the big screen as early as possible to help make people familiar with him while also improving elements of his costume and makeup? Thrawn and many other elements of Ahsoka looked pretty good (ignoring fan complaints about things like Thrawn’s physical form), but there can always be improvements and tweaks made to help improve something.

Not to mention, Star Wars has lacked a villain like Thrawn before in live-action, a humanoid alien Imperial antagonist. We’ve had human villains, and some villainous aliens with a humanoid bodyplan, but Lars Mikkelsen will be playing a blue alien in mostly white, commanding stormtroopers with assistance from Dathomir Nightsisters. Making moviegoing audiences aware of who he is, and his abilities and arsenal sooner than later, is a reasonable strategy with such strange elements combined into a single menacing figure.

No

Thrawn isn’t Thanos. Besides both characters being differently hued alien beings with considerable military forces and tactical abilities, the two are divided in many other ways. Most plainly, in the MCU, Thanos was built up slowly, over the course of a decade, in ways big and small (and occasionally inconsistently). After The Mandalorian and Grogu, the Star Wars film calendar is filling up, and we don’t yet know when Dave Filoni’s big Avengers-style teamup film is releasing. None of the films with release dates have any connection to the Mandoverse, meaning that a slow, steady buildup on big screens is impossible, and it would be a bad idea to push Thrawn onto audiences so suddenly as a more “out there” element of the galaxy far, far away. That is why Ahsoka Season 2 will play such a key role.

We already know thanks to discussions at Celebration 2025 that we will get Admiral Ackbar versus Thrawn in the show, and likely a large space battle to go with it given the status of those two military heavyweights. Season 2 will also likely release next year, meaning it can spend time to set Thrawn up for the future, and let The Mandalorian and Grogu concern itself with other key elements for a successful product. For example, one of the biggest is solidifying the identity of Din Djarin and Grogu for the filmgoing audience after years on a streaming show, leaving the role of villain to likely be someone easily digestible and understood. That is not Thrawn, who has three seasons of TV in animation and live action telling his story not to mention multiple canon and Legends books to draw information from to inform his portrayal on-screen. The silence around who the villain is doesn’t have to mean it is some big secret, but could also be that the villain is something of a “nobody” in the grand scheme, a temporary baddie that gets a certain job done, helping clear the way for a future appearance by Thrawn as a major threat.

Post-Credits

A middle ground between the two options, but utterly unprecedented for Star Wars films, would be an appearance by Thrawn in a post-credits scene teasing his presence in a future film. Ahsoka Season 2 is currently filming and it is possible that much like the current MCU (which filmed a scene of Doctor Doom in connection to Fantastic Four: First Steps but with the directors for Doomsday running that scene), the ongoing production of Season 2 could support a different project coming down the pipeline with a quick scene. The MCU, and by extension the DCU, are the films to best compare The Mandalorian and Grogu against because we know it is the first installment in some number of films that will lead to an end or conclusion of the Mandoverse’s storyline.

Thanks to Ahsoka Season 1, it seems clear that Thrawn will be the final enemy Din Djarin, Grogu and others will face, but the path to that point is currently unclear. Despite that, it is coming, and hinting at that final boss when this first film will likely focus on a lesser Imperial warlord is important to keep the fanbase engaged. Thrawn’s scene could be very small, but clearly spell out some hand he had in the events of The Mandalorian and Grogu, or be a clear tease like Thrawn in the shadows surrounded by holograms of artwork as an Imperial walks in to inform him of recent developments. It would be very much in the vein of the aforementioned structure to superhero film end credit scenes, which tease the future while reinforcing the present.

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