Thank god, Star Wars’ best character, Babu Frik, will return in Mandalorian season three
Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau gave fans a frikin' wonderful surprise at Star Wars Celebration Weekend
Aux News Babu Frik
Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni are seemingly the only two creators that please most Star Wars fans these days—save a Book Of Boba Fett or two. But The Mandalorian and Baby Yoda (or “Grogu,” as many LucasFilm employees called it this weekend at Star Wars Celebration) are the feathers in Disney’s cap, following the divisive and mostly gross response to their sequel trilogy. But while we thought the sequels would remain in the rearview, new trailers indicate otherwise.
As per the new trailer Filoni and Favreau dropped at Star Wars Celebration Weekend’s Mando+ panel, the best part of Rise Of Skywalker, Babu Frik (and several other Anzellans), will appear in Mandalorian season three. Now with 100% more Frik, the trailer was an extended version of the one we saw on Thursday. It’s only for a moment, but the sight of his little face was like a cool breeze on a scorching summer day. It’s great to have you back in the fold, Frik. We knew you deserved to be merchandised harder.
There were other goodies in the teaser, including a whole tree of Salacious Crumbs, the Armorer getting to do something, and a closer look at what we believe to be Mandalore (which is very reminiscent of the Death Star from ROS). There’s also a big boy Mandalorian with a Gatling gun and Baby Yoda almost falling out of his car seat. It’s everything you could want from a Mandalorian.
For those who don’t remember because Rise Of Skywalker has pretty much been memory-holed from the Star Wars discussion—well unless someone needs to explain how Palpatine returned—Babu Frik was the adorable little puppet who says “hey hey” and wipes C-3PO’s memory. It’s perhaps the best part of a movie next to that scene where it’s revealed that Chewbacca was on a different transport.
The Mandalorian season three will hit Disney+ in February 2023. We assume the trailer will be dropping soon and look forward to A.V. Club readers around the world getting an eyeful of that sight for sore eyes, Babu Frik.
98 Comments
Babu Frik and Grogu are both adorable, but they barely qualify as characters. They’re essentially plot devices.
I’d argue that Baby Yoda has tons of personality (they actually made him kind of a jagoff at first,) but yeah, this dipshit from Rise of Skywalker almost doesn’t even exsit.
Personality, sure. Character? Not much. He has minimal agency, generally doesn’t seem to know what’s going on around him, etc. And that’s not a problem on its own; not every character in a story has to have the qualities of a protagonist. The problem, of course, is that Din Djarin also isn’t much of a character, doesn’t have much personality, and is frequently underserved by inept storytelling and dialogue.
Thank you! I agree! And people usually come out of the woodwork to bash me when I dare suggest that “The Mandalorian” is poorly written.
To be fair, you kind of laid it on thick in your (generally justified) criticisms of the show, back in the recaps. You made yourself an easy target for defensive attacks. 🙂
I needed to be the sole voice of sanity in a Mando-crazed world! I had no choice!
And yet people think Mandalorian is the best new Star Wars thing. Which shows how bad the REST of it is.
To be fair, you could say that about most Clint Eastwood westerns and Dirty Harry movies.
Don’t be ridiculous, remember that time when Grogu ate eggs and a bunch of the internet got mad? With that kind of rich characterization I’m sure he’s due for at least a 2 season spinoff.
God that was dumb. Fuck people lose their minds over incredibly unimportant things.
Yes. It was dumb they had Grogu committing genocide and treated it as something adorable.
Welcome to AV Club!
He’ supposed to be a baby, how much personality does he need at this point?
How can you talk that way about C-3PO’s oldest friend?
Right, I forgot about that. Aw, shit, my eyes just rolled out of my head.
Seriously, I contend that The Rise of Skywalker is the movie that contains the most character-death fake-outs of any movie ever made, at least among movies that sincerely use the trope (there’s probably some movie out there that has a dozen such fakeouts but uses it as a running gag rather than creative bankruptcy).
I’m currently watching Episode 9 with my son. I haven’t seen it before, and it’s not particularly good, but much like Episode 2 it’s a serviceable movie with some enjoyable performances and lightsabers. If it’s a 5/10 then the ceiling for Star Wars movies is 7/10.
Baby Yoda has more than 5 min of screen time, at least. I have barely any memory of the other one.To be fair, I was probably nodding off by that point in the movie.
Neither are plot devices. They’re merchandising opportunities. And, in one case, extraordinarily successful ones.
They can be two things!
Well thats what star wars does, they take a character you see for like a minute and say “hey, lets make this a thing.”
Grogu is a classic Macguffin. There’s no show without him, but he really adds nothing to the show.Aside from some sort of horrific cuteness and merchandise opportunities.
So like, every ‘character’ in RoS.
I see your two plot devices and raise you a Kid Leia(tm) from Obi-Wan.
Sure, but at least the Obi-Wan show (so far) is a competent narrative, if not exactly mind-blowing. Mando and TROS were basically garbage fires.
well unless someone needs to explain how Palpatine returnedNobody needs to explain how the Palpatine returned. Ever.
Ian McDiarmid was so wasted on that film though, if trying to salvage Abrams’ bullshit plotting offers a pretext for a better Palpatine show it may be worthwhile.
RoS pretty much bottomed out from the first line in the opening crawl.
You got that right. Changing the crawl alone would improve the film substantially.
That was the only line in the entire sequel trilogy where they remembered that these films should have the feel of old Saturday morning serials.
Hopefully, being wasted was his excuse for returning to the franchise.
Somehow, there’s an explanation.
But they did explain. The movie quite clearly said Palpatine returned “somehow”
More importantly the Beaumont character says the somehow in the film
You mean the puppet who clearly only existed as a response to the public’s affection for Baby Yoda? “People are going nuts for this cute puppet! Put him in the next movie!”Sir, we can’t do that “Well then make another cute puppet for the next movie. Do I have to think of everything myself? Also, make sure his name is easy to remember, and tell Marketing to push his presence HARD, especially if response to the film’s actual quality is chilly. “
Rise of Skywalker came out in December 2019. The Mandalorian debuted in November 2019.
They had to rush those reshoots in fast!!
I specifically remember this detail because I was building puppets for a Star Wars satire show that was intended to debut just after Rise of Skywalker (covid killed these plans) but I lately thought after the project got cancelled “I should build a baby Yoda!” which was a new idea I hadn’t considered when I was building puppets months leading up to RoS. The undeniable truth is that the baby yoda hype basically happened immediately after RoS / during it’s release and anyone who claims it was beforehand is a big fat liar.
I initially interpreted this as the best Mandalorian character and thought, “Oh wow, they’re bringing back Nick Nolte’s character?!” It wouldn’t make any sense, but neither does Star Wars at this point so I say go for it.
“the Death Star from ROS” jesus I know the new standard at AVC is to mess up as many things in each article as humanly possible, but what Death Star from ROS?
the Death Star that the entire main cast visits for like 20 minutes and is a major part of the plot
Hope he got some ice for that burn.
I was also going what death star. It’s not a good sign for a movie when you forget an entire plot point that went on for at least 20 minutes. I just wish I could get a memory wipe for the rest of ROS. Oh hell in for a penny, in for a pound. Make that a memory wipe for the entire ST.
We can keep tlj since it’s a love letter to Dave George and Carrie
It’s called just not re-watching it. It’s such an unmemorable film. I haven’t seen it since theatres and I basically forget the entirety of it. I’m much happier this way.
except the stupid Chewy death fake-out. That got burned into my brain unfortunately.
What’s so funny, is I thought “dammit that’s a spoiler” because for a second I forgot that I saw the movie.
Did you even watch the movie? Not that i blame you for forgetting things, if you did.
Hey HEY!!
Babu Frik almost got me to love Star Wars again after the dumpster fire that was Episode 8.
I keep thinking that you lot are going to grow into your big boy pullups at some point and finally get over Last Jedi, but then literally every article everywhere that’s even vaguely about Star Wars at all proves me wrong
Nice parody, bro. That does totally sound like them.
🙂
Don’t worry in 20 years people will love those movie like they love the prequel and Hayden C
I don’t think anyone ‘loves’ the prequels but simply appreciate George’s vision, if only botched in execution but I will defend the look and the design of the prequels as there were a lot of cool vehicles, droids and costume designs.Hayden is more of a lovable meme than for any appreciation for his character in the prequels.
Nobody loves the prequels. Every sequel hater leads with the prequels being good but to say that they will resort to ‘good bc clone wars cartoon’ in some variation due to the prequels still being bad
nahhh I love the prequels and Hayden, you don’t speak for ‘everyone’.
I mean, even back in the day I enjoyed the prequels well enough. Not as much as the OT, yea, but there was a lot I liked about all three films.
Last Jedi broke me so bad that the only emotion I can muster for any Star Wars project is apathy. I only saw Solo because I was at the theaters to watch 2 other films. Only saw Rise of Skywalker just to see how they managed to conclude the story. But since then? Nothing. Haven’t seen Mandolorian, Book of Boba Fett, Bad Batch, any of that. Even Visions, a project which I should absolutely have been massively hyped for, I have no real drive to watch at all.
TLJ is peak Luke by Lucas at least
Oh ur one of those tapped out at TLJ types, that’s too bad.
Just hate Rose or?
Rose as a character I’m mostly indifferent to, but it doesn’t help that almost every scene she was in was terrible. Though she wasn’t alone as that also applies to Holdo, Poe, and Finn, which really pisses me off because I really liked Finn in TFA. I will say that Rose slamming her speeder into Finn’s, and everything immediately afterwards, might be the dumbest thing I have ever seen in the franchise, and I am including everything from Episode 1 in that comparison.
Yeah, I don’t get the love TLJ gets here. While better than the abomination that was ROS, it was a poorly written movie. Tell a good straightforward story, enough with the mystery boxes and subverted expectations. It was a bad movie and an even worse sequel. Like or not, when a director takes on an ongoing saga, they have a responsibility to what came before. Blowing it up to subvert expectation isn’t clever, it is lazy at best. Rian Johnson did not want to (could not) do the work necessary to tell an interesting story within the confines of an existing IP. If he wants Luke to be bitter old hermit, fine. However, he must do the work to get him there from the ending of ROTJ. And that BS flashback isn’t it.
TLJ tables turned pretty quickly tbf
You mean 9 right, like 8 is literally the closest to old school SW from corny jokes to lines by Dave Filoni, plot by George and script help via Carrie.
No, 8. Rise was terrible, but I enjoyed the first 15-20 minutes more than anything in TLJ.
Nah.
Oh look, a bunch of single dudes talking about which children’s movies they’ve hated the most over the past 20 years. There’s something you don’t see every day.
I never watched Book of Boba Fett, but did they ever give a real reason for a Mandalorian season 3 besides “this got a lot of viewers so we can’t not make a season 3″? Season 2 seemed like a real perfect conclusion for every plot. I guess there’s the dumb Darksaber thing but you could wrap that up in like 30 minutes of… I don’t know, whatever of the 10 other Star Wars projects that are coming down the pipe.
Mandalorian 3: The Search for more Money!
“Grogu what happened? I thought you were going to stay with the Jedi”“Well I did, but it felt like I was Force-ing myself to go”*canned audience laughter*
They walked back the Season 2 finale of “Mando” instantly in those “Book of Boba Fett” episodes. Why did they even bother having those two characters reach a wistful, but natural conclusion to their story and character arcs only to immediately blow it up? They rendered the entire series pointless.
Lol of course they did. Oh Disney, you cards…
Did you miss Mando s2 finale because there was no conclusion – he still has Bo wanting it and wanting to fight for it at the end.
No, I’m talking about the Din/Grogu/Luke ending.No one cares about what’s happening with Bo or the dark saber.
Darksaber took multiple episodes in Mando s2 and Rebels. It’s easy to imagine the resolution would be a feature length arc of multiple Mando eps
Patiently awaiting MC Chris to rhyme a bunch of salty things with Babu Frik. Please, sir. Respectfully, please.
What pisses me off is no one stepped in to try and stop JJ Abrams and Kathleen Kennedy. Hey, bringing back Palpatine is a real stupid idea. We have to rethink this and go in another direction. Nope, instead they were allowed to ruin the Star Wars sequels.
Disney pay you for this fluff bro?
The AVC fluffs for free.
Why does Disney need to pay anyone to fluff when some fans say it’s all good even the prequels
After the nose-dive that was the end of season 2 and the hot mess that was Boba Fett…well, I’m not excited to hear this.
The worst episode of Mandalorian Season 2 was the finale? That’s a hot take.
*sigh*Is this a meme thing, like Morbius? I don’t remember feeling positively or negatively about Babu Frik, but I’ve heard some people talk like he saved TROS.
Unsurprisingly the comment section here is full of angry, cynical hipsters who hate Star Wars. The internet sucks.
Good news for all us Frik-Heads.
On the west coast we call ourselves Frikadels because we love that little meatball!
Another article about Ep 8 being terrible and just glossing over that 1,2,3,6,7 and 9 are also terrible. The prequels are soo glad the heat is off them now and the Ewoks are loving their time out of purgatory.
Return of the Jedi is not terrible. Chill.
I did enjoy it as a kid. Just threw it in there as it still falls behind 4 and 5.It used to get a kicking though.
Really, all of them are terrible, in their way. They’re like Bond movies. Even the best ones have plenty of flaws. Episode V went to sleep for about an hour. My favorites are IV, because it’s fun to watch a universe being born, and Solo because it’s so free of the Star Wars baggage. It just has fun.
Yah all 8 of those movies are so bad they kept making them as a joke to see how much money they could lose. That’s why films get made.
Like practically everything in episode 9, I’m almost certain Babu was like a star wars parody thing. Mocking the fanbase for wanting safety over risk. But I did laugh really hard when Babu pops up in the cockpit of a ship during the big finale battle.
Thank god. I nearly missed the subtle sarcasm.
I hope someone sits on him.
Lucasfilm literally says how Palpatine returned after the worst line since Sand in AOTC and somehow it’s still pondered by casual fans and fringe right wing fans
I’m hoping for an absolutely horrifying death for this idiot.
FUCK. YES. MORE. BABU.