One of the most popular shows to come to our screens over the past couple of years has been The Mandalorian. It was one of the first flagship shows for the new Disney+ streaming service, and it has successfully managed to bring new fans onto the service, while also managing to retain most of the hardcore Star Wars fans.
That is no mean feat, given that the vast majority of those fans had been turned away from Star Wars due to the disappointment of the sequel trilogy of movies. The last of those movies, The Rise of Skywalker, was a huge letdown for fans which led to those calls for the boycott of further Star Wars material from Disney, which had acquired the rights for the franchise from creator George Lucas.
However, The Mandalorian has allowed the studio to regain some credibility, and the role that Baby Yoda, or Grogu, to give him his correct name, has played in this cannot be overstated.
The character has rapidly become one of the most-loved characters in the entirety of the Star Wars fandom, and therefore the ending to the second season of the show was particularly poignant for fans, as they saw Grogu and his protector, the Mandalorian, aka Djin Djarin, played by Pedro Pascal, have an emotional parting scene.
Given that the Mandalorians swear an oath to not take off their helmets and show their faces to another living person, it is extremely touching to see Djarin take his helmet off for Grogu to see his face for the first time so that he can remember him.
Of course, another thrilling moment in the season finale came when the identity of the mysterious Jedi, who arrived on the battlecruiser to single-handedly destroy the battle droids who would have killed Djarin and his companions, was revealed to be none other than Luke Skywalker.
Grogu had earlier sent out signals from the first Jedi temple for any other Jedi in the galaxy to find him, and his summons was met by Skywalker, who arrived to presumably take him to his nascent Jedi temple for training.
Of course, this means that further seasons of the show may not feature Grogu at all, or sparingly at best, but we can hope for more, given that Djarin bids farewell to him by promising that he will see him again.
From a pure commercial and business viewpoint, it makes zero sense for Disney to not have Grogu show up again. The Child has become one of the most marketable and popular characters ever, not just for Star Wars but any franchise, and we are already seeing huge merchandise sales for Disney with this character.
In fact, there is even a cryptocurrency that has been launched based on him, while there is also the possibility that we could even see online slot games being created in the near future. Given that a crypto already exists, the creation of slots with bonus buy, based on Grogu, would be very well received, and these games are often a sign of just how popular a particular character or trend is, with some of the world’s most famous movies, characters, TV shows, bands and songs having slot games created after them.
Thus, we can probably expect Baby Yoda to show up multiple times during the next three seasons of the show, even as Djarin’s story will now lie with the Darksaber and its potential for him to become the ruler of Mandalore.
Of course, we do not know how frequently he will feature, but Disney will not be foolish enough to let their most popular character fade away easily from public memory, which should be good news for his fans as well as fans of the show.
