The Mandalorian Season 3 Release Date, Trailer, Story, and News

The greatest space dad and son duo in the galaxy far, far away is finally coming back with The Mandalorian season 3 on March 1, 2023.

While the release date is slightly off from the previously reported February 2023 debut, fans who waited so long shrugged it off after seeing the teaser trailer released on September 11, 2023, which left them craving more.

The show that launched the post-Skywalker revival of the cultural phenomenon and quintessential space opera franchise comes back with geek galore, Mandalore, and more.

With little Grogu back in the cockpit, Din Djarin will attempt to tie all loose ends of the previous seasons as he finds his way back to Mandalore for some official business.

With the trailer alone, fans are assured of more ground and air action, badass Mandalorian warriors, and a dose of.. wait.. was that really Babu Frik?

The horde of awaiting fans will have their answers come March 1st.

The Mandalorian Season 3 Release Date

The confirmed release date of The Mandalorian season 3 was revealed at the Mandalorian’s panel during the Comic Con Experience (CCXP) 2022 in Brazil, held on December 1, 2022.

Din Djarin and his adorable ward Grogu will return on March 1, 2023, through Disney+.

This is a very slight delay from the original February 2023 release window.

Din Djarin will pick up right after Mando’s unexpected appearance in the final episodes of The Book of Boba Fett, or as fans fondly call it, The Mandalorian season 2.5.

Little Grogu cannot let his crestfallen dad bounce around the galaxy without him, as the adorable alien promptly ended his Jedi training with Luke Skywalker and chose to follow Din Djarin in the latter’s adventures.

The Mandalorian Season 3 Trailer

Yes, this is the trailer that launched a thousand reactions.

Unveiled behind closed doors during the Star Wars Celebration in the last week of May 2022, the video had the fans railing for more Din, Grogu, and Mandalore.

Disney finally made the official trailer public during the D23 event on September 10, 2022.

Star Wars‘ official social media channels promptly released the video during the wee hours of September 11, 2022, with Twitter using The Armorer’s provocative remark, “You are a Mandalorian no more.”

Facing exile and derision from opposing Mandalorian faction figureheads, The Armorer and Bo-Katan Kryze, Din Djarin will face more adversities as he heads to his home planet of Mandalore.

The maligned and reluctant holder of the Darksaber, a symbol of the Mand’alor (or the leader of the Mandalorians), will try to fix his identity after he broke a Mandalorian taboo or two.

Aboard his new ride, the N-1 starfighter Peli Motto modified for him in Mos Eisley, Din and Grogu finally restart their journey.

Season 3 is looking more like the promised Mando-verse in its full Star Wars glory: eye-popping space battles, Mandalorian warriors of various shapes and colors, and more live-action crossovers from the animated side of the franchise.

Most notable among these is the live-action debut of the Mandalore, or at least what’s left of it after the gruesome Great Purge.

But one of the biggest talking points among the returnees is none other than the tiny Rise of the Skywalker alum Babu Frik.

The appearance of the Anzellan droidsmith in the teaser trailer has divided the Star Wars fandom, whose zealous adherents seem to absolutely loathe anything related to the much-maligned Episode IX.

Who knows, though? Some fans pointed out that it’s probably some other random Anzellan. Babu Frik should not be as rare as Yoda and Grogu, right?

Word has it that creators Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni confirmed the return of the droid-fixing critter and future spice runner during Anaheim’s Star Wars Celebration last May 2022.

The Mandalorian production crew also revealed that Babu isn’t the only Anzellan set to appear.

Several cast members from the previous seasons were returning, including Carl Weathers (glammed-up bounty hunter leader Greef Karga), Giancarlo Esposito (previous Darksaber holder Moff Gideon), and Katee Sackhoff (Nite Owl leader Bo-Katan Kryze).

Christopher Lloyd of the Back to the Future fame is also reportedly cast for a yet-unknown role.

The trailer also showed the return of the mechanic and occasional Grogu nanny Motto and her astromech R5-D4.

R5-D4 can also be seen riding Din Djarin’s N1 Starfighter despite the Mandalorian’s deep-seated misgivings about droids.

The Mandalorian Story and Season 3 Expectations

The Mandalorian features the adventures of a lone bounty hunter in the galaxy’s outer reaches five years after the events of the Return of the Jedi and the fall of the Galactic Empire.

Din Djarin, the titular Mandalorian bounty hunter, accepts an under-the-table commission from Nevarro Guild leader Greef Karga.

The mysterious person behind the commission, aptly named The Client, wants Din Djarin to find an unnamed fifty-year-old target, which the former’s colleague insists be brought back alive.

The Mandalorian receives a bar of beskar steel as a downpayment, which he takes to a hidden enclave that houses a remnant of Mandalorian warriors led by the enigmatic Armorer.

A shiny new pauldron was fashioned out of the beskar steel.

The Mandalorian tracks the target’s last reported location, where an Ugnaught vapor farmer named Kuiil directs him to a heavily guarded encampment.

Despite his scruples against droids, Din Djarin finds an ally in IG-11, a bounty-hunting droid with the same mission from the Guild.

The Mandalorian and IG-11 find the target, a child of unknown species. Although 50 years old, the Child is still an infant by the standards of its species.

IG-11 attempts to terminate the Child as per its orders but was destroyed by Din Djarin. The Mandalorian takes the child alive.

After a scuffle with thieving Jawas and a fight against a Mudhorn, The Mandalorian delivers the Child to the Client on Nevarro in exchange for 20 bars of beskar steel.

Now outfitted in glistening beskar armor The Armorer helped him make, The Mandalorian prepares to embark on a new mission but ultimately decides to return to the Client’s base and rescue the Child.

An ensuing clash with stormtroopers and other bounty hunters welcomes Din Djarin, but he’s able to escape the planet with the Child.

Thus, the start of The Mandalorian’s space adventures with the little green alien with Jedi powers.

The Mandalorian is much more than just a love letter penned by the Galaxy’s biggest geeks.

The show was able to add brilliantly-written character depth, galvanized by the massive and intricate world-building that made Star Wars a geeky household name.

In the days after the Great Purge, the members of the once-glorious race of warriors have fragmented and scattered across the galaxy.

Mandalorian isn’t a race more than a set of old beliefs kept by its remnants, which chains down Din and loosely tie him to his current identity.

While the obvious major draw was the adorable alien, whose name was later known as Grogu, and his father-son dynamic with Din Djarin, the exploration of Mandalore and the remaining members of its warriors is what made fans stay.

This fascinating aspect of the show will be focused more in the upcoming season, as revealed by the teaser trailer.

Din Djarin will go to Mandalore to fix his identity by bathing in “the Living Waters” under his home planet as penance.

The trailer also showed a glimpse of the ruins of the capital city, Sundari, and clips of more Mandalorians clad in their respective armors.

Moff Gideon is also seen as a major adversary for the helmeted hero in the new season, as this Galactic Empire leader is still pursuing Din Djarin, but not only for the Child.

The Moff should also attempt to retrieve the Darksaber, which he lost after losing a duel against The Mandalorian in the second season’s finale.

And now, with Din Djarin being the new owner of the Darksaber, an ancient weapon sacred and symbolic to Mandalorians, the protagonist is also expected to butt heads with Bo-Katan.

The idealistic Bo-Katan considers herself the rightful owner of the Darksaber, as she also has ambitions of leading the people of Mandalore.

The female Mandalorian also once owned the weapon before Moff Gideon got ahold of it sometime before the events of The Mandalorian series.

In The Book of the Boba Fett, The Armorer blamed the Great Purge on Bo-Katan’s possession of the Darksaber.

She said that while the Darksaber is a sign of power by Mandalorians, it can become a curse if the wielder does not win it in combat.

Bo-Katan received the Darksaber as a gift from Sabine Wren during the days of the Empire.

The Mandalorian News

Star Wars creator George Lucas had long wanted to see his work given life on the small screen.

The attempt was started in 2005 after plans for a live-action TV series set between the prequel and the original trilogies were announced at the Star Wars Celebration.

Revealed as Star Wars: Underworld, the series, described as “gritty and dark” and would feature Han Solo, Chewbacca, Lando Calrissian, etc., entered development in 2009.

After so much effort in the following years, the plans fell through because the content was too complex and expensive to produce.

Lucas sold Lucasfilm to Disney in October 2012, and the dream of a Star Wars TV series was restarted.

Disney CEO Bob Iger announced in November 2017 the development of such a series and that it will be launched on the new streaming service Disney+.

Favreau, who led the production alongside Filoni, wanted the series’ directors to be a diverse group of filmmakers, a “Dirty Dozen, Magnificent Seven type of crew”.

The only requirement for any interested director was that they love Star Wars.

Disney revealed the ensemble of directors of the then-upcoming series, which included Filoni, Taika Waititi, Bryce Dallas Howard, Rick Famuyiwa, and Deborah Chow.

Favreau could not direct any season 1 episode due to his commitments to the 2019 photo-realistic CGI remake of The Lion King, though he wrote six of the episodes.

In order to retain the high quality of the movies on the small screen, the VFX people behind the production created a new system for The Mandalorian named StageCraft, which was later used by other series and films and was cited as a revolutionary visual effects technology.

The series, later revealed as The Mandalorian, was released on November 12, 2019, the day Disney+ was launched.

Having been exposed to too many lukewarm Star Wars movies in recent years, and with the disappointing end to the iconic Skywalker saga, fans did not expect The Mandalorian‘s impact.

The Mandalorian was fervently welcomed to the galaxy far, far away, much of it being the gigantic fanfare surrounding the tiny new character revealed at the end of the series’ first episode.

2019 saw the advent of pop culture’s newest little God: Grogu, more famously known as Baby Yoda.

Disney+‘s marquee show hit a home run right in the first episode with the introduction of one of Disney’s “most valuable assets in modern media.”

The “biggest new character of 2019” and the show’s breakout character (in just seconds) drew eyes to the streaming service and the new Star Wars show.

And who wouldn’t love Baby Yoda? The cute little green infant of the same species as the popular Jedi grandmaster Yoda near-instantly attached itself to the hearts of millions of fans.

Even the influential German director Werner Herzog, who played The Client, fell in love with Grogu, calling it “heartbreakingly beautiful”.

Herzog even rebuked the crew of the series after he learned that they planned to replace Grogu’s on-set puppet with CGI, calling them “cowards“. Yes, the things people say when they’re in love.

It’s a good thing that The Mandalorian was a great show in itself, and most fans stayed not only for Grogu but for the fresh story the series’ offered.

The second season released on October 30, 2020, only solidified the place of The Mandalorian as one of Star Wars‘ best sagas.

The Mandalorian revived an ailing franchise and single-handedly pulled back the confidence of the fanatics of the legendary franchise, spawning a batch of branches in the form of The Book of Boba Fett and the forthcoming Ahsoka and Skeleton Crew.

And with these two new series debuting a few months after The Mandalorian season 3, along with a host of animated TV series, it is safe to assume that 2023 is indeed Star Wars‘ year.