Time in Star Wars is rarely a cut and dried thing. Even from its legendary opener of “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away,” specifics can be rather vague. That’s not the case, though, when you’re telling stories between other stories. The Clone Wars had to meet up with Revenge of the Sith. We know how Andor is going to end. And for The Mandalorian, we know eventually, events from the sequel trilogy will take place. Luke Skywalker will die, the dead will speak, etc.
So it’s fascinating and more than a little bit perplexing what Mandalorian creator Jon Favreau just said in a new interview. Speaking to a group of journalists, Favreau explained just how much time has passed both on the first two seasons of the show, as well as the events that took place on The Book of Boba Fett. And we imagine, even if you guessed right now, you wouldn’t get both right.
“We know that [Grogu] started off earlier in the Jedi Temple,” Favreau said. “We’ve seen flashbacks that speak to that. Then we know he’s been rescued and spent many years with the Mandalorian, went back with Luke, now we’ve been two years apart from him there, training….”
So the first two seasons of The Mandalorian have taken place over “many years” and Grogu was away with Luke for “two years” before choosing to go back with Mando. Let’s break that down. That first thing, we can sort of buy. Travelling between planets and completing like a dozen different missions doesn’t take 45 minutes as we see on TV. Fine, “many years.” But that second one: Grogu training with Luke for two years? That’s a harder pill to swallow.
It’s been two years since season two — there’s a chance Favreau just meant that, but the way he focuses on Grogu’s training makes it much less clear. We know that at the end of season two, Luke took Grogu. When we see them again, Grogu is training with Luke but it’s not going very well. Mando visits and gives some armour to Ahsoka to pass along. Luke gives Grogu the choice between the armour or a lightsaber and he chooses the former. So was Grogu just a really, really bad student for a really long time in the middle there? Were Luke’s lessons about jumping really, like, 18 months into their time together? He’s just mentioning Yoda then? The Temple is only half complete? It sure seemed like it had only been days or weeks. Not months or years. Maybe the training didn’t start right away?
One clue to all of this can be found in the events of The Book of Boba Fett. Fennic Shand asks Mando for help ASAP. He says he needs to do one thing and goes to see Luke. Mando comes back, and Grogu arrives in time to help in the big fight. That was days at most. Which would lead us to believe that the first time we see Luke and Grogu training, though it felt like it was early on in the process, was not.
Hey, maybe it’ll be made clearer when season three of The Mandalorian debuts this week. But either way, things are most certainly getting closer and closer to known events.
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Editor’s Note: Release dates within this article are based in the U.S., but will be updated with local Australian dates as soon as we know more.