Tag: The Mandalorian and Grogu

All the Toys From ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’ We Now Want, But Probably Won’t Get

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Few franchises in history have as rich a connection to their toys as Star Wars. It’s why, whenever a new Star Wars project is announced, the reveal of its toys can be such a big deal.

In recent days, fans not only got a new trailer for the latest Star Wars movie, The Mandalorian and Grogu, but also a reveal of its first wave of toys. The disconnect, however, was that the toys were largely based on things we saw in the first trailer, and now we’re wondering which characters, if at all, we’ll get toys of from the second trailer. Especially since Star Wars toys do not come out as frequently or as rapidly as they have in the past.

Below, we’re going to break it down. We’ve got The Mandalorian and Grogu toys we’re definitely getting, and then 11 that we either probably will or probably won’t, for various reasons.

© Hasbro

We’re definitely getting these toys…

The Mandalorian and Grogu – Of course. They’re the main characters in the film. Obviously, their toys would be the first onto shelves. Also, there have been several toys of each character over the past few years, so making them is not a difficult task.

Colonel Ward, played by Sigourney Weaver – Weaver’s character was in the first trailer, so it’s no surprise that she’s in the first wave. Plus, was Lucasfilm really going to deny fans the Alien/Star Wars crossover possibilities?

Rotta the Hutt – This one is a little shocking. Everyone’s favorite “Swole Hutt,” voiced by Jeremy Allen White, is a character we’ve never seen as a toy. Hutts are usually big and gross, but Rotta is jacked. It requires the toy manufacturers to do a whole new sculpt, which is not always something that happens. Case in point, there are often more Stormtrooper figures out there these days than main characters

Zeb Orrelios – The Star Wars Rebels star appeared briefly in some live-action projects, but now, finally, he gets his full due here. Toys are already on the way, as they should be.

Grogu with armor – The new trailer reveals how, at least in one case, Grogu will wear his large, beskar insignia outside of his robes. That feels like a very easy variant to make, so, of course, it’s already on the way.

Martin Scorsese’s character in The Mandalorian and Grogu – Lucasfilm

We’ll probably get these toys…

Red Astromech – No, that’s not R2-D2. The new trailer has a brief shot of a red astromech droid rolling up to an X-Wing, and though we don’t know whose droid this is, again, it feels like a very easy reskin of previous astromech droids. So we’d imagine that comes out too.

Martin Scorsese – Arguably the biggest reveal in the latest Mandalorian and Grogu trailer is that legendary director Martin Scorsese is voicing an Ardennian character in the film. It’s unclear how large his role is, but Ardennian toys were made for Solo, so it wouldn’t be too much work for manufacturers to tweak that.

Embo – The Clone Wars bounty hunter was a pretty big reveal in the latest trailer, and since he’s a character that has been around a while in animation, it would be a pretty huge miss to not put out some toys. You have to assume they’re coming, right? Right? (Insert Anakin and Padmé meme here.)

Bigfoot Mouse Droid – Surely there’s a real name for it, but if ever there was a Star Wars item made to become a toy, it’s the all-terrain mouse droid that Grogu explodes in the trailer. There’s no guarantee it’s released, but it feels like it should.

What is this gorgeous creature in The Mandalorian and Grogu? – Lucasfilm

We’re probably not getting these toys…

The Twins – We didn’t get toys of the Twins when they first appeared in The Book of Boba Fett; why would we get them now? Oh, sure, there’s also the small problem of them just becoming two huge blobs of plastic, so maybe they’re not the most appealing toys, but we think they’d be cool to have.

Baby Rodian with Speed Pram – There is a baby Rodian (affectionately called “Baby Greedo” by some) in the film, so you’d imagine a toy version would be a no-brainer. Especially since the character has an apparently superpowered baby pram that Grogu takes. However, we have a feeling this is a character that only shows up for a second, so while we’d love to put them on our shelf, we aren’t holding our breath.

Dejarik characters – Something The Mandalorian and Grogu is doing for the first time is bringing characters from Dejarik, the holo-chess game first played in A New Hope, to life. The latest trailer shows a Mantellian Savrip ripping off a door, and while it would be super cool to see these as toys, we imagine these characters are large, hard to get right, and not prominent enough to make. Even if it would be amazing to try and create a live-action Dejarik board.

The Dragonsnake – Undoubtedly, the coolest moment in the new trailer is the reveal of Din Djarin standing opposite a mysterious white dragonsnake. We’ll find out eventually if these are the same species that appeared in The Clone Wars, but, as gorgeous as this design is, and as much as we’d love to display one, it doesn’t seem very toy-friendly.

The Anzellan Coaster – For a brief moment in the trailer, we get a look at Grogu riding in a vehicle piloted by three Anzellans, the same species as Babu Frik. There are plenty of Anzellan toys, but we are talking about a package deal with three of them, Grogu, and a vehicle. It would be awesome but is probably a bit much.

Pessimistic mystery species – We don’t yet know the specific species name of this character, but in the trailer, he’s the one who says to Grogu, “Are you scared? You should be.” He’s not quite a Dug. Not quite a Hysalrian. We’ve reached out to Lucasfilm to clarify. But, since it’s not something that’s immediately recognizable, we sincerely doubt toys are coming.

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Germain Lussier

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February 20, 2026
Your First Look at Hasbro’s ‘Mandalorian and Grogu’ Figures Is Here (Exclusive)

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Much of what the next Star Wars movie to hit theaters is really about remains a mystery to us, especially as we’ve not seen anything really concrete from The Mandalorian and Grogu since its teaser trailer five months ago. But one thing is always certain with the galaxy far, far away, mystery or otherwise: a new Star Wars movie means new Star Wars action figures, and io9 has an exclusive look at what to expect from Hasbro’s return to the Mandoverse.

In just a couple of months, Hasbro will kick off the fully armed and operational merchandising campaign for The Mandalorian and Grogu with a bumper set of figures in its six-inch Black Series line. Of course, a movie called The Mandalorian and Grogu needs a new Mandalorian and Grogu for you to play with, and that’s exactly what you get in this deluxe set (retailing for $35) that includes a plethora of gear for Din Djarin—and, of course, a new articulated Grogu sculpt designed to be nestled, climbing on his back.

Hasbro Star Wars The Black Series The Mandalorian and Grogu

As well as Grogu, the set comes with Din’s backpack, his trusty blaster pistol, a new rifle, a small knife to slot into his boot (and an extra hand to hold it), and, most intriguingly, a new weapon in the form of a short sword. It’s no Darksaber, but it’ll get the job done either way.

You’ll need some bad guys for Din to use all that gear on, so of course the Imperial Remnant is happy to provide for the bulk of the rest of the initial Mandalorian and Grogu figures. A Remnant Stormtrooper and a Remnant AT-AT Driver will provide updated takes on the iconic foot soldiers of the Empire, with dirtied-up paint decos (they’re the Remnant, after all, and the Empire can no longer afford armor polish in a post-Endor world). While the AT-AT Driver comes with a blaster pistol, the trooper comes with an E-11 rifle as well as a removable pauldron and ammo pouch that can be mixed and matched to break up your army-building forces.

Hasbro Star Wars The Black Series Imperial Remnant Stormtrooper and Imperial Remnant AT-AT Driver

They’ll also be joined by a brand-new trooper design for The Mandalorian and Grogu: the Remnant AT-RT driver. Yes, it seems like the Empire has found a few old Clone War-era walkers around to use in the movie, and they’ll be driven by these unique troopers who blend elements of Snow Trooper and Shore Trooper designs in a hodgepodge of armor pieces. And if that weren’t enough troopers, Target will also be home to its own exclusive version of the standard Remnant Stormtrooper, who is even worse for wear than the rest of their comrades, with chunks of their arm and leg plating swapped with brown replacement parts.

Hasbro Star Wars The Black Series Imperial Remnant AT-RT Driver and Imperial Remnant Stormtrooper (Target Exclusive)

It’s a bad time for the Imperial Remnant, so it’ll be even worse when they face off with the last figure of the wave: Sigourney Weaver’s New Republic Colonel Ward. Clad in an X-Wing pilot suit (as we got to see in images shown back at Celebration Japan last year), Ward comes with a removable helmet and… sadly nothing else, so she’s going to have to rely on the fact that she’s Sigourney Weaver in an X-Wing pilot suit to dazzle her action figure foes into submission.

Hasbro Star Wars The Black Series Colonel Ward

While they’re all expected to release sometime in spring ahead of The Mandalorian and Grogu hitting theaters on May 22, you’ll be able to get your hands on special versions of each of the main figures in this initial wave a couple months ahead of the film. Both exclusively in-store at Walmart and Target in the U.S. and at Hasbro fan channel retailers around the world, there’ll be “First Edition” variants of the deluxe Mandalorian and Grogu, the standard Remnant Stormtrooper, the Remnant AT-AT Driver, the Remnant AT-RT driver, and Colonel Ward in white packaging, which will release on March 22 in limited quantities. The packaging is the only difference for the variants, so you won’t be missing out on anything else… other than the chance to own action figures for a brand-new Star Wars movie a little earlier than some, that is!

The first wave of The Mandalorian and Grogu Black Series figures will go up for pre-order starting tomorrow, February 13, at 1 p.m. ET at both Hasbro’s own Pulse website and at other participating retailers (Target’s exclusive Remnant Stormtrooper will also go live for pre-orders at that time).

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James Whitbrook

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February 12, 2026
The New ‘Mandalorian and Grogu’ Teaser Is All About the Journey

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It may be just four months or so away, but much of The Mandalorian and Grogu, the first Star Wars film since 2019’s The Rise of Skywalker, remains shrouded in mystery. But after we got a very broad teaser that leaned more on Star Wars familiarity than telling us what’s up with our titular heroes, people would’ve expected that our next look at the film would at least give us a little more of an inkling about what’s pulling Din and his ward back into the fight. But don’t expect that just yet.

During the Super Bowl, Lucasfilm released the latest teaser for The Mandalorian and Grogu. Set after the events of the streaming series’ third season, the movie follows up on Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) and the youngling Grogu after their retirement to Navarro in the wake of the re-liberation of Mandalore, and Din’s newest job working as a freelance agent of the burgeoning New Republic. This teaser, however? It’s still vibes, it’s just this time it’s in the snow.

The new teaser comes after practically months of silence since the initial trailer, a tactic that The Mandalorian is more than familiar with, maintaining an air of secrecy for as much as possible in the run-up to each season’s debut on Disney+. Even as the new film draws even closer, it looks like we’re still going to have to wait and see what makes this film worth heading out to theaters for instead of a fourth season on Disney+.

The Mandalorian and Grogu, which also stars Sigourney Weaver as New Republic officer Colonel Ward, and Jeremy Allen White as Clone Wars character Rotta the Hutt, hits theaters May 22.

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James Whitbrook

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February 8, 2026
The 2026 Super Bowl May Be Free of Superhero Movies

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It’s about that time of year again: the Super Bowl, and more specifically, the ads. This is usually when we get a new or first look at some upcoming films, and it seems that tradition will be without many of 2026’s big superheroes.

Per a Deadline report released Sunday evening, Marvel Studios is reportedly not doing any Big Game promo for either Avengers: Doomsday or Spider-Man: Brand New Day next weekend. The outlet doesn’t give any potential reason as to why, but in both films’ defense, they’re coming out in late December and mid-July, respectively. So if true, it’s probably because it’s not as important to market them in February as it is for more immediate Disney films like Hoppers and The Mandalorian & Grogu, which Deadline speculates will get spots since their March and May dates are closer on the calendar.

When it comes to this year’s DC movies Supergirl and Clayface, that’s a big question mark. Deadline speculates Warner Bros. will continue to sit out the actual Super Bowl alongside Netflix and Apple, and instead put out something in the week before the game so it’s visible. Since Supergirl’s dropping June 26, that’s more likely to get a promo that the September-bound Clayface.

As for the non-superhero stuff, Deadline said it’s likely we’ll see ads for Scream 7 (February 27), Disclosure Day (June 12), and Toy Story 5 (June 19). Illumination’s reportedly looking to drop a new promo for Super Mario Galaxy (April 1) along with a first look at Minions 3 (July 1). We’ll see how right Deadline turns out to be throughout the week, including Super Bowl LX on February 8.

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Justin Carter

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February 2, 2026
How Often Is Too Often for New ‘Star Wars’ Movies?

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This year, after a nearly seven-year hiatus, Star Wars returns to the big screen. It’s the third-largest window ever between live-action films in the franchise, with the two longer ones being the 16 years between Return of the Jedi and The Phantom Menace and the 10 years between Revenge of the Sith and The Force Awakens. However, this latest wait feels wildly different, and it made us wonder, is there a correct, tried-and-true amount of time that should pass between Star Wars movies?

To put the current seven-year wait in context, we must look to the past. The reason those two longer windows were so long is that, in both cases, Star Wars was basically over. After Jedi, and again after Sith, George Lucas all but closed the book on the story. This time, though, that wasn’t the case.

In 2019, The Rise of Skywalker may have been the end of “The Skywalker Saga,” but no one considered it the end of Star Wars. Everyone knew it was coming back. It was just a question of when. So even though seven years is shorter than 16 and 10, it somehow carries more weight. Between Jedi and Phantom, as well as Sith and Force Awakens, people surely continued to talk about Star Wars, but it was more aspirational and hypothetical than anything else.

Part of that is because it’s what fans had become used to. During the times of both the original and prequel trilogies, waiting and debating Star Wars movies was the name of the game. Three years passed between the first, second, and third films of each trilogy, giving the filmmakers time to make the movies and fans to wildly obsess over them. That got taken up another level in the years leading up to The Phantom Menace, especially with the advent of the internet. And yet, Lucasfilm still waited three years between each movie even then, which let audiences sit with one film as they anxiously awaited the other.

The anticipation surrounding Star Wars was arguably the best part of Star Wars. Then Disney came on board.

The beginning of The Force Awakens. – Lucasfilm

Starting with the release of 2015’s The Force Awakens, fans got five Star Wars films in five years. And, while most of them had a full year in between, in the case of Solo, it was a mere six months. Two new Star Wars movies six months apart. It’s still unfathomable. And that time crunch took a lot of the fun out of it. Rumors, trailers, magazine features, all of it was so condensed and homogenized that it lost its luster. It was so much Star Wars so fast that excitement, understandably and inevitably, began to wane. So, by the time The Rise of Skywalker came out, we were a little burned out. That the movie failed to meet expectations didn’t help either.

Of course, that was just the beginning. After The Rise of Skywalker, Star Wars didn’t stop. It pivoted to a whole new medium. Beginning with the late 2019 release of The Mandalorian, Star Wars became a streaming franchise. Now, in addition to not having to wait too long, we didn’t even have to leave our house. No lining up. No advanced tickets. No communal experience at all. Just new Star Wars, every few months, in a bubble. And it was a lot of Star Wars.

Between 2019 and today, Lucasfilm released seven live-action shows, with 10 seasons between them, as well as six animated shows with about 18 seasons between them. (And that’s not even counting new episodes of The Clone Wars.) New Star Wars had become as regular as breathing, and, with that, some of the magic has gone away.

The Mandalorian and Grogu – Lucasfilm

Which brings us to this year. In May, The Mandalorian and Grogu will become the first Star Wars movie released since 2019. Then, next year, it’ll be followed up by Star Wars: Starfighter. We can all agree that seven years is too long for what is essentially just another random chapter to the story. But we can probably also agree that after seven years, suddenly getting two seemingly unrelated, standalone films in back-to-back years is falling back into that dangerous old pattern. Maybe these two films, especially if they’re good, will make it work this time. Maybe seven years of waiting gives them success like The Force Awakens and Rogue One. But maybe it doesn’t.

And, with new leadership now in control of Lucasfilm, the franchise is reportedly pivoting back to being a primarily theatrical experience. We would be very surprised if a movie a year doesn’t once again become the norm. It would almost have to, especially with nearly a dozen movies in various stages of development.

So what’s the magic number? Is there a magic number? Well, three years seemed perfect, but we don’t think that’s happening again. One year, on the other hand, is probably too often. Can Disney and Lucasfilm really afford to wait two years between Star Wars movies? Probably not. But, we think, it would be a good thing in the long run.

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Germain Lussier

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January 19, 2026
The Return of the ‘Razor Crest’ in ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’ Sucks

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When Lucasfilm surprise dropped our very first trailer for The Mandalorian and Grogu this week, the first thing we saw was a very familiar ship: the bulky chrome body (now bedecked in stripes of yellow paint) and the barrel-shaped twin engines jutting out of either side. It was meant to invoke one thought to anyone who’s watched the show: the Razor Crest is back.

The thing is, the Razor Crest was blown into itty-bitty bits during the climax of The Mandalorian season two. We don’t know yet whether or not, months or a year or so later, Din Djarin managed to go back to Tython and collect all the remaining scrap from his old ride to be put back together—probably not, considering that The Book of Boba Fett dedicated an episode to Din getting a new ride in the form of a Naboo N-1 Starfighter. But whether or not he found the time to go back or just simply managed to buy another ship of the same type, an ST-70 Gunship is not really what the return of a ship that looks identical to the one he used to fly around in really says.

© Lucasfilm

It mostly just says, “That thing you know is back.” Which The Mandalorian has gotten, for good or ill, very good at saying; it’s now just applying that to something that’s been gone for a season and a bit of TV, rather than things we know from other old Star Wars material. And it’s just the latest in a long line of things that The Mandalorian, as a show, has given up on in terms of displaying any kind of real growth for its lead characters.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I didn’t particularly like the show’s new choice of ship for Din either. Going from an unwieldy metal brick of a transport ship to a slick, stripped-down starfighter—even putting aside the nostalgia play of it being a ship fans knew and recognized, instead of a new design like the Razor Crest had been when it was introduced—didn’t make sense for a character that was ostensibly still trying to be the bounty hunter he had been.

The N-1 was a hero’s ship, one that reflected that, for better or worse, Din’s status in the Star Wars galaxy had changed: he was no longer the lone wanderer just making his way on the fringes of the galaxy; he was thrust into the upper echelons of Star Wars‘ heroes and villains, rubbing shoulders with Luke Skywalker and being the onetime inheritor, whether he wanted to be or not, of the Mandalorian people’s legacy. He was recognized as recognizable and needed a vessel to match that.

The Razor Crest, in a lot of ways, represented the imperfect man we’d come to know over the course of The Mandalorian‘s debut season—it’s not a cool ship, it’s not decked out with a bazillion weapon hardpoints, it wasn’t luxurious inside or out, it was practical, rugged, the Star Wars equivalent of a hauling truck, and that made it perfect for a bounty hunter scrounging around from job to job. Replacing it with a starfighter that was distinctly impractical for the job of bounty hunting but was also the antithesis of everything that made the Razor Crest feel unique, felt like the show forcibly telling us that Din was moving on and accepting his new place in the galaxy, even if that new place was beholden to Star Wars‘ broader yearning for the familiar.

© Lucasfilm

Now, in The Mandalorian and Grogu, Din has kept that new status quo while also returning to familiarity with this “new” ship. There’s no moving on or mark of what his life was like when The Mandalorian first began anymore. Now he is more explicitly that unequivocal hero, allied with the New Republic, and brushing shoulders with familiar faces over and over. Because the Razor Crest itself has now become something Star Wars can mine for nostalgia, as much as one can mine nostalgia for something that’s just six years old (and has been gone for most of those six years). Now we can be sold all those Razor Crest toys again, except they’ve got yellow paint markings on them. She’s got a new hat!

But really it’s not the ship itself that is necessarily a problem here (again, I liked what The Mandalorian said about Din through his ship of choice in its first two seasons a lot), but what this return represents overall: The Mandalorian finds it really hard to let go of any potential opportunity for growth. The Razor Crest‘s return pales in comparison, narratively speaking, to the number of character throughlines that the series has set up and then promptly dropped. Seasons one and two set up a compelling arc of Din coming to question the orthodoxy of his own Mandalorian covert—and, through characters like Bo-Katan, the idea that there were other ways for him to exist and be Mandalorian outside of those not necessarily healthy teachings—climaxing in both his decision to remove his helmet and to give up Grogu to be trained as a Jedi.

© Lucasfilm

All that immediately turned around in season three, which opened with an arc of almost-penitence for Din, running back unequivocally into the arms and teachings of the covert with little engagement as to why he should do that. And that he did so with Grogu at his side again—a separation resolved between seasons in that aforementioned Book of Boba Fett appearance, largely at the heinous expense of mishandling the character of Luke Skywalker—was just further indication that the show could not imagine a way to follow through with the shifts in its status quo that it laid out. Din Djarin can only be the faceless adherent of the Way; only he can guide Grogu’s path, and now, he can only pilot that one kind of ship you know he piloted before.

It’s a strange sense of inertia that feels jarring as Din becomes the face of Star Wars‘ return to cinema at a time when the series needs newness to guide its way rather than resting on the laurels of familiarity. A couple splashes of paint just simply aren’t enough compared to the message The Mandalorian and Grogu‘s debut trailer sent: that sensation of newness has yet to be found here.

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James Whitbrook

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September 26, 2025
A Brief History of Swole Hutts

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When the first trailer for The Mandalorian and Grogu dropped yesterday, one of its many creature-packed visuals seemingly confirmed one of the most absurd pieces of casting surrounding the movie: that The Bear star Jeremy Allen White would be entering the Star Wars galaxy as a grown-up Rotta the Hutt, last seen as a tiny baby Huttlet in the 2008 Clone Wars animated movie.

Adult Rotta and Star Wars‘ yearning penchant to revisit characters no matter how minor weren’t the distressing things about the moment in the trailer, however. It’s that, whether it’s Rotta or notta, that Hutt was swole.

But of course, this is not actually the first time Star Wars has ever engaged with the concept of a muscular Hutt—Rotta is just the latest in a long line of times the series has explored the idea of what happens if you give a space slug a six-pack.

Swole Hutts in the Expanded Universe

Leia and Beldorion’s duel depicted in The Essential Chronology. © Bill Hughes/Del Rey.

Swole Hutts were much less common in Star Wars‘ old Expanded Universe—they mostly formed a part of contemporary Hutt society’s ancient history, where the species was depicted as a mighty warrior race, carving out their military empire in what would eventually become the broader sector of Hutt Space. Eventually, infighting among the Hutts led to a devastating civil war known as the Hutt Cataclysms, which laid waste to the Hutts’ homeworld, Varl, and nearly took the Hutts with it.

The surviving Hutts founded a new homeworld, Nal Hutta, and transitioned from a martial-focused society to a clan-based system known in Huttese as “Kajidics.” With the formalization of the Kajidics, Hutt society promoted competition through economic enterprise rather than military might, radically overhauling the cultural value Hutts placed on raw physical strength.

But that doesn’t mean we don’t have examples of swole Hutts in the EU. The 1997 novel Planet of Twilight introduced us to Beldorion, a former Jedi who abandoned the Order and fell to the dark side of the Force. When he was encountered by Leia Organa in the early days of the New Jedi Order, Beldorion was revealed to have been using the Force itself to sustain a lithe, muscular physical form, granting him immense strength and prowess in lightsaber combat, to account for his decayed control over the Force in other forms. Buff or not, Leia was able to defeat the Dark Jedi after a brief duel, bisecting him.

Swole Hutts in Modern Canon

© Guiu Vilanova, Dean White, Giada Marchisio, and Joe Caramagna/Marvel Comics

Swole Hutts, then, have become more commonplace in the modern, post-reboot Star Wars continuity, with Rotta becoming merely the latest in a line presenting a contrast to our typical vision of what Hutts look like.

Marvel’s Star Wars comics have served as a primary source of buff Hutts—just nine issues into the revitalized Star Wars ongoing back in 2015, we were introduced to Grakkus the Hutt, a crime lord obsessed with artifacts from the Jedi Order who attempted to add Luke Skywalker himself to his collection. Grakkus used a series of cybernetic legs to aid his mobility, but he was also incredibly physically strong and fit, proving to be much more sizeable than most depictions of Hutts. However, when Grakkus made a brief return during the events of the Poe Dameron comic series (set in the couple years running up to The Force Awakens), he was depicted more in line with the typical body type associated with Hutts after a lengthy period of imprisonment.

Elsewhere in the comics we were also introduced to Bokku the Hutt in the 2020 relaunch of the Darth Vader comic series. A ranking member on the Grand Hutt Council that guided Hutt civilization, Bokku was an extremely muscular Hutt who unfortunately crossed paths with Darth Vader in his attempts to locate the carbonite-frozen body of Han Solo. In the aftermath of an attempted auction of Solo’s body by the Crimson Dawn syndicate leader Lady Qi’ra, Bokku was slain by Vader.

That brings us to Rotta (or seemingly so, as the Hutt in the trailer has yet to be confirmed explicitly as such—although an appearance of the Desilijic clan emblem in the trailer heavily suggests a connection to Jabba’s family). The Mandalorian and Grogu actually marks the first time we’ve seen Rotta as an adult Hutt, having only appeared as a Huttlet during the events of the 2008 Clone Wars movie, where he was the subject of a kidnapping plot aided by the Separatist confederacy in an attempt to disrupt negotiations between Jabba and the Galactic Republic.

The intervening 30 years (and death of his father) have apparently been kind to Rotta: the trailer for the movie only gives us a brief, back-facing look at the Hutt as he roars before a screaming crowd in a combat arena, but he’s clearly trimmer and more muscularly defined compared to the typically presented Hutt body type.

Swole Hutts and Star Wars‘ History With Fatphobia

Grakkus the Hutt as he appeared in Star Wars #9 and Poe Dameron #4 © Stuart Immonen, Wade Von Grawbadger, and Justin Ponsor/Phil Noto, Marvel Comics

The increased depiction of swole Hutts in Star Wars, especially to make them a contrasting design to the standard depictions of the species, does sit as part of a broader unfortunate Star Wars legacy: the franchise’s historical depiction of fat bodies, and typically how those portrayals play into shorthand for negative tropes.

Both the Expanded Universe and contemporary canon have played into this depiction of fatness as a reflection of negative traits when it comes to the Hutts. The idea of corpulence as a reflection of a Hutt’s power in criminal enterprise—the idea that as a Hutt acquires power, they are able to offload physical labor to associates, slaves, and mercenaries for hire—has long been a part of Hutt culture in both versions of canon, especially in light of their EU history as a martially driven species before turning to an economics-driven society.

Star Wars‘ depiction of Hutts in broad strokes spinning solely out of the original trilogy’s depiction of Jabba—leading to the general idea that most Hutts are criminals, and that in turn most Hutts are obese, and that these two facts are often associated—is just one aspect of many when it comes to the franchise typically depicting characters of size as amplifications, or as aspects, of their negative traits (another example would be The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett‘s depiction of Bib Fortuna, who was portrayed as having gained a significant amount of weight during his brief reign overseeing Jabba’s criminal empire after his death).

It’s also more nuanced than simply depicting characters of size as inherently villainous—there are overweight characters who are heroes, like X-Wing pilot Jek Porkins (unfortunate name aside) in A New Hope—but the idea of wanting to depict outwardly muscular Hutts as a specific contrast to the body norms usually associated with the species does at least speak to an element of wanting to move beyond cheap, lazy stereotyping. If anything, there probably should be plenty more muscular Hutts, given the strength required to move their large, gastropod frames in the first place.

Perhaps Rotta, Grakkus, and Bokku will simply be some of the first steps towards that kind of more nuanced depiction of Hutts. Well… maybe more of a first slither?

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

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James Whitbrook

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September 23, 2025
Disney Sure Seems to Want You to Keep Being Mad at It

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Disney’s not exactly crushing it in the court of public opinion lately. ABC’s decision to suspend Jimmy Kimmel Live! over the host’s comments about the Charlie Kirk assassination—and then reinstate it, starting tonight, after an outcry in Hollywood and among free-speech advocates everywhere—was already a big problem, leading to a viral push to dump Disney+ subscriptions. Perhaps hoping to win back some goodwill, the company then released a trailer for the next Star Wars movie, The Mandalorian and Grogu, an expansion of one of Disney+’s biggest hits.

But the trailer’s arrival didn’t do much to quiet Disney’s critics; the fact that it hinted at a visually underwhelming movie that leans heavily into Star Wars Easter eggs and Baby Yoda doing cute things didn’t help. (Contrast that to the excitement over Star Wars: Starfighter‘s first glimpse of Ryan Gosling in character, which was released hours before the Kimmel suspension.)

And now, Disney+ subscribers, there’s more bad news, as well as what seems to be an incredible stroke of bad timing. As Vulture reports, the streamer will soon be raising its prices; the new rates will go into effect in 30 days.

Here’s what the new tiers will cost you each month:

The Disney+ and Hulu Bundle with ads was $11; will increase to $13. (The “no ads” option will remain at $20.)

Disney+ Premium with no ads was $16; will increase to $19. (Hulu Premium with no ads will stay at $19.)

Disney+ with ads was $10; will increase to $12.

Hulu + Live TV (with ads) was $83; will increase to $90. This plan bundles Disney+ and ESPN Select, both with ads.

Of course, streaming price hikes are nothing new; Disney+ also raised its rates last year, and Apple TV+, to give one other example, recently announced its own price increase.

But widespread boycotts against streaming services are far less common; you have to wonder if anyone who cancelled in protest over Jimmy Kimmel Live! being suspended will want to pay more to rejoin now that the show’s been reinstated.

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

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Cheryl Eddy

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September 23, 2025
Breaking Down the Creatures and Secrets of the First ‘Mandalorian and Grogu’ Trailer

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This morning Lucasfilm and Disney released the first official trailer for The Mandalorian and Grogu, the long-awaited first Star Wars movie to hit theaters since 2019’s The Rise of Skywalker. Although the clip kept details about the film’s story very close to its chest, it was packed with Easter eggs and references to Star Wars‘ past… and still gave us a few little hints about what to expect for the titular Mandalorian and his young ward.

© Lucasfilm

The trailer opens with a very familiar ship flying across a coastline: an ST-70 assault ship, better known to viewers as the same class of gunship as the original ride of Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal), the Razor Crest. Of course, the Crest was destroyed in the climax of The Mandalorian season two, leading to Din piloting a Naboo N-1 Starfighter during the events of season three. It looks like in time for Mandalorian and Grogu, Din’s either gotten a new ST-70 or somehow managed to rebuild the Crest from what was left of its remains on the planet Tython. The three yellow stripes on the top of its hull at least pay a nice homage to his brief Naboo ride.

It’s worth pointing out as well that the gunship is flying towards what looks like Adelphi Base, the New Republic outpost first seen in season three. Built on the planet Adelphi (duh) in the Outer Rim, the station is home to Captain Carson Teva (Paul Sun-Hyung Lee) and a group of New Republic Rangers, who Din allied with in the climax of season three to let the Mandalorian become an unofficial independent contractor for the New Republic.

© Lucasfilm

We get to immediately see some of that contract work in the next shot, as Grogu and Din spy on a building surrounded by Imperial Stormtroopers. Mandalorian and Grogu is set in approximately 9-ish ABY (After the Battle of Yavin), so we’re still only about four years after the formal end of the Galactic Civil War at the Battle of Jakku in 5 ABY. With Moff Gideon out of the way after his death on Mandalore, we know there are still plenty of other Imperial Warlords in current operation that will likely form a major antagonistic part of this movie (one of them, the returned Grand Admiral Thrawn, will instead be the focus of Ahsoka season two and the eventual Dave Filoni New Republic vs. Imperial Remnant film, first announced at Star Wars Celebration Europe in 2023).

© Lucasfilm

Grogu starts investigating sewers with the help of a little Anzellan friend. We know there is a small cadre of Anzellan engineers (the species introduced in The Rise of Skywalker with Babu Frik) who work on Navarro, the world Din and Grogu retired back to after the events on Mandalore in season three, so this likely takes place there.

© Lucasfilm

Back on Adelphi, Din and Grogu have a tense meeting with a New Republic liaison, played by the iconic Sigourney Weaver. While we don’t know the character’s name yet, we do know she is part of the senior command at Adelphi Base—imagery first shown at Star Wars Celebration Japan earlier this year showed Weaver wearing a New Republic flight suit, so we may see her in action at some point in the movie, instead of just disapprovingly keeping her snacks from Grogu.

© Lucasfilm

Would it be Star Wars without a seedy cantina? Would it be Star Wars without a fight in that cantina? Who can say, but The Mandalorian and Grogu is clearly unwilling to contemplate otherwise.

© Lucasfilm

Our first intriguing creature glimpse of the trailer sees a sinister-looking alien emerge out of waters in an underground cave (is this connected to what Grogu and the Anzellan were investigating earlier?). This is, of course, a classic Star Wars alien: an Amani, a species first seen with the bounty hunter Amanaman in Return of the Jedi. Whether this is Amanaman himself or another Amani remains to be seen. If it is, are there still potentially bounties out on Din or Grogu?

© Lucasfilm

The Razor Crest takes flight, pursued by three fighters. It’s very hard to see what those ships are, but they match the general shape (and speed!) of TIE Interceptors.

© Lucasfilm

After a quick shot of Grogu swimming (which certainly looks like it’s from similar scenes as the Amani footage, further potentially tying those two together), we get a similarly short shot of action starring a very interesting figure: Zeb from Star Wars Rebels (voiced by returning star Steven Blum) engaging in close-quarters combat with stormtroopers with his Lasat honor guard bo-rifle.

We already knew Zeb’s post-Rebels status from Mandalorian season three, where we briefly saw him stationed at Adelphi Base as a New Republic pilot, but footage screened to audiences at D23 last year showed him having a more involved role in this movie.

© Lucasfilm

After another shot of Grogu hanging out with the Anzellans is followed by an intriguing shot for alphabet fighter nerds: Din jetpacking up to a U-Wing in New Republic livery. They were introduced in Rogue One and seen more recently in Andor season two, and this marks the first clear time we’ve actually seen U-Wings aligned with the New Republic (a few appeared in The Rise of Skywalker‘s climactic battle, but it was unclear as to whether they actually used the New Republic paint job).

© Lucasfilm

We then cut to an arena where gathered crowds, including Din and Grogu (the former uttering one of the two lines of dialogue in the whole trailer, a simple “Impressive”), roar in celebration as we pan over to a very muscular Hutt yelling from the arena’s floor. We may know who this is, and it’s an absolutely wild one: we already knew that The Bear star Jeremy Allen White was joining Mandalorian and Grogu and that he would be playing Rotta the Hutt.

The son of Jabba, Rotta was first introduced in the 2008 animated Clone Wars movie that kicked off the beloved animated series, where the youngling Rotta (mostly called “Stinky” in that film by newly introduced padawan Ahsoka Tano) was the victim of a kidnapping extortion plot by the Separatist-backed Ziro the Hutt in an attempt to scuttle negotiations between Jabba and the Galactic Republic. Could this be Rotta all grown up? Is this what he was doing instead of taking over his father’s crime syndicate on Tatooine, leading to the events of The Book of Boba Fett?

© Lucasfilm

Whether that’s Rotta or whatever happens in the arena, things seemingly go quickly against Din—this next shot of him battling two hulking droids is set somewhere affiliated with the Hutts: that symbol on the wall behind the droids is the emblem of the Desilijic clan, which Jabba (and Rotta, by birth) was part of, making it even more likely that this is part of Rotta’s operation.

© Lucasfilm

We also cut back to the arena to see that, at some point, Din starts wrestling with a giant reptilian creature. This is, again, another Star Wars Easter egg: the creature is actually a Mantellian Savrip. Hailing from the planet Ord Mantell, a Savrip was famously used as one of the holographic creature pieces in dejarik, the chess-like strategy game seen being played by Chewbacca and R2-D2 in A New Hope. This marks the first time we’ve actually seen one of the creatures in the flesh in Star Wars‘ current canon!

© Lucasfilm

The trailer crescendoes with Din flying out of an exploding Imperial AT-AT, letting it crumple and fall over a precipitous cliff edge. Fans at Star Wars Celebration Japan got an extended version of this scene, which sees Din infiltrate the walker and dramatically take out its entire crew of snowtroopers before detonating the vehicle from the inside.

© Lucasfilm

The trailer ends back with Grogu and the Anzellans, this time fighting off another creature: a large, one-eyed sewer rat. Grogu shoots the rat in its monoeye with a green paint dart, seemingly using the wrist gauntlet he was given while training with the Mandalorian covert in season three. Looks like Din’s been keeping up with his lessons! That gives us our second line of dialogue in the whole trailer, as one of the Anzellans tells Grogu, “Good shot, baby.” At least it didn’t sound like a curse this time?

Although our first official look at The Mandalorian and Grogu is packed with nods to Star Wars things we already know, in terms of really telling us things about the film, it’s very threadbare. This is a vibes-based glimpse at the movie that is still eight months away, so there’s little in the way of explicit information about the plot or the characters or, well, anything really other than the expectation that Mando will shoot some Imperials and Grogu will be cute and do cute things.

That might be enough for some, but as Lucasfilm prepares to take Star Wars back away from the world of TV that it’s largely sat in on Disney+ for the past half-decade—off the back of the huge success of The Mandalorian in the first place—it might take a bit more than knowing references and a familiar vibe to intrigue people (especially while parent company Disney is facing a lot of public scrutiny over its controversial decision to censor Jimmy Kimmel in the face of threats from the Trump administration and right-wing groups).

We’ve got plenty of time to learn more about The Mandalorian and Grogu (and for Disney to resolve the crisis it currently faces), however, ahead of its arrival in theaters May 22, 2026.

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

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James Whitbrook

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September 22, 2025