Pedro Pascal’s Din Djarin Isn’t The Mandalorian Anymore, Official
Executive producer Rick Famuyiwa says the title "The Mandalorian" does not apply exclusively to Pedro Pascal's character.
Big changes may be coming to Disney+’s The Mandalorian very soon, and not just in the form of more A-list cameos such as Jack Black and Lizzo. Executive producer Rick Famuyiwa recently sat down with IGN to discuss the future of the Pedro Pascal-led Star Wars spinoff series, explaining that the title of “the Mandalorian” applies to more characters than just Pascal’s Din Djarin. Famuyiwa explained that the title seems to apply more to the general ethos than it does to our specific protagonist, stating “Who is the Mandalorian at this point? …I think it could be anyone. And I think that’s what they’re trying to define in many ways, is what does that mean to be Mandalorian?”
Fans of The Mandalorian may find themselves nonplussed at the somewhat spared usage of Pedro Pascal’s character in recent episodes of the series, leading some to question if the show is even about Din Djarin anymore at all. Rick Famuyiwa seems to feel that these questions are completely warranted and even suggests that the series has evoked these questions deliberately. With the most recent episode of the series showing Katee Sackhoff‘s Bo-Katan Kryze taking the Darksaber and beginning to align her chess board to unite the Mandalorian people at large, fans are concerned about the future of the show.
In the early days of the show, the focus was on Pedro Pascal’s character and his relationship with Grogu, the small alien creature affectionately nicknamed Baby Yoda by fans on the internet. Early season episodes of The Mandalorian would almost always center on the pair as they made their way across the galaxy, encountering a host of monsters and roadblocks along the way, while amassing a number of quirky side characters into the ranks of the show’s credits. Now it seems the growing rogues’ gallery of side characters and complicated, morally gray antagonists have come into their own, potentially taking the spotlight from Pascal in the future.
While Rick Famuyiwa made no assertion to writing Pedro Pascal off of The Mandalorian entirely, this certainly feels like an admission that we may be seeing less of Din Djarin in future episodes than we have in the past. Of course, the Star Wars expanded series’ across Disney+ have already introduced this concept in a sense through the limited series The Book of Boba Fett.
In The Book of Boba Fett, which centers around the titular bounty hunter, Din Djarin shows up in the fifth episode and all but takes over the show with his own Mandalorian adventures, taking the final three episodes of the season to fill in the gaps between seasons of The Mandalorian.
While this choice was polarizing for fans, it may have been intentionally established to slowly introduce the idea that title characters could be taking a back seat in their own shows in the franchise’s future. Though passing on the Darksaber to Bo-Katan puts Pedro Pascal’s future with the show in question, it presents an opportunity for The Mandalorian to showcase more high-paced action, as Din Djarin didn’t seem capable of properly utilizing it.
Bo-Katan Kryze has exhibited through her tenure on the series that she is a warrior capable of great feats of strength, even with lesser weapons, meaning her wielding of the Darksaber could give fans an opportunity to see it put to the screen far more frequently than ever before.
