Jon Favreau has quite involuntarily put the “Star Wars” fan community in an uproar and triggered the wildest discussions. The opening of “The Mandalorian” did the rest. Time to clear up the confusion…
“Star Wars” hardcore fans know only too well the discussion about when exactly which event takes place. After all, it is the absolute exception that, as recently in “Andor”, the insertion of a year tells us exactly the chronological context. But a lot can actually be combined excellently. Now, however, there is a confusion such as has possibly never existed before in the saga.
To break it all down, we have to start in order – with an interview that “The Mandalorian” maker Jon Favreau gave to the Skytalkers podcast together with his partner Dave Filoni, director Rick Famuyiwa and actress Katee Sackhoff. In it, he actually talked about Grogu’s story in two worlds – the Jedi world and the Mandalorian world.
FAVREAUS FIRST ISSUE: “MANY YEARS” & “TWO YEARS “
Midway through this statement, Favreau explains that Grogu “spent many years with the Mandalorian, then went to Luke [Skywalker] for training and we were away from him for two years.”
Two time references in this sentence at once cause confusion. Because if Grogu spent “many years” with the Mandalorian, it means that the events in the first two seasons of The Mandalorian spanned several years. Until now, the majority of fans assumed that everything took place in one year.
The sentence can still be captured quite easily. The term is an exaggeration, one has to interpret the “many” very narrowly, in which case “many years” could also mean two or three years. After all, one can certainly argue that in the course of the first two seasons and the time jump between them, a total of two to three years have already passed, i.e. a little more time than previously thought.
However, his explanation that we were then away from him for two years set the internet on fire. It was partially understood that there were a full two years between “Chapter 16”, the end of the second season of “The Mandalorian”, as well as Grogu’s return in “Chapter 6” of “The Book of Boba Fett”. That would be completely absurd because, among other things, it means that Boba Fett (or an Ahsoka Tano) spent a lot of time twiddling his thumbs and Luke Skywalker wasn’t a particularly good teacher.
The wildest discussions broke out on the internet – also because the statement can be read a little differently, as the author of these lines also understood it. Favreau probably wanted to refer to the real break between the second and third season of “The Mandalorian”. For this is about two years.
But luckily there is the possibility of clarification…. Or …?
FAVREAUS SECOND STATEMENT: 2 YEARS? 1 YEAR? 0 YEARS?
Variety took the opportunity to follow up with Jon Favreau. Unfortunately, reporter Marc Malkin mixed up the two problem points “many years” and “two years” in his question. He claimed that Favreau had said that Grogu had been with Luke Skywalker for “many years” – and that was not true. A confused Favreau nevertheless tries to shed light on the matter. Take a look for yourselves first:
Jon Favreau clarifies how much time Luke and Grogu have spent together between Seasons 2 and 3 of TheMandalorian https://t.co/4KvXkzSHQa pic.twitter.com/JBi5HdwKEO
– Variety (@Variety) March 1, 2023
Favreau is only targeting the second problem in this answer: How long was Grogu with Luke Skywalker? So how much time passed between the end of season two’s “The Mandalorian” and Grogu’s return in season one’s “The Book of Boba Fett”?
Favreau’s first answer: about as much time as has passed between episodes in our time! The finale of the second season “The Mandalorian” aired in mid-December 2020, the Grogu return in “Boba Fett” in early February 2022 – ergo: a little more than a year, 13.5 months to be exact. However, Favreau does not leave it at the answer, but corrects himself several times
Favreau’s second/third/fourth and then final answer: something between 0 and 2 years! Favreau first explains how much time has passed between the end of the second season “The Mandalorian” and Grogu’s return in the first season “The Book of Boba Fett”, but then jumps back and forth a bit, because he probably also tries to create a time gap to the current third season. Besides that he corrects himself several times, at the end it becomes the very diplomatic “something between 0 and 2 years” and it’s not really clear which period of time he means: the gap between the two “Mandalorian” seasons or just Grogu’s time with Luke?
THE SOLUTION: HOW MUCH TIME HAS PASSED?
So Favreau hasn’t really resolved the confusion and currently no one but himself or Lucasfilm can do that. Even the top “Star Wars” canon guardian Pablo Hidalgo has already stated that it is his policy not to talk about a series while it is running. He wants to leave that to the series itself – which at least gives us hope that perhaps a better chronological classification will follow here in upcoming dialogues.
But still, we have an idea of the time that has probably really passed. We assume that Grogu only spent several months, at most a year (but probably less) with Luke. However, by the third season there will probably be another major leap in time. This is shown by the opening episode, in which we see how far Nevarro has developed over time. That’s way too much progress for there not to have been a whole corner of time slipped into the country.
We therefore assume that about 2 to 3 years have passed from the very first episode of “The Mandalorian” until now. Between seasons 1 and 2 as well as between 2 and “The Book of Boba Fett” as well as from there again to 3 there were time jumps, which should be in the range of several months to a maximum of one year.
If you are interested in the many exciting details about the third season of “The Mandalorian”, we recommend the informative video by our YouTube editor and “Star Wars” fan Sebastian:
