When does The Mandalorian and Grogu take place? The Star Wars timeline explained

With its first movie in theaters since 2019’s The Rise of Skywalker, Star Wars is back in the limelight, offering a space-faring adventure with two of the franchise’s most beloved new stars: Din Djarin, the Mandalorian (Pedro Pascal), and his little green friend Grogu. Following three solid seasons of bounty hunting, monster-of-the-week bouts, speeder bike chases, and starship dogfights, the pair are finally making their theatrical debut.

But as Mando and Grogu jetpack onto the silver screen, you may be curious when exactly this new Star Wars film takes place. The timeline can get fairly muddled thanks to its complicated structure, not to mention the slew of animated shows, like Maul — Shadow Lord, video games, comics, and novels to contend with. And even with an opening title card to set the stage, The Mandalorian and Grogu leaves little indication of when the story takes place.

To that end, using our extensive knowledge of Disney’s Star Wars canon, here’s a full breakdown of when The Mandalorian and Grogu takes place and some extra content to help explain some of its side characters.

When does The Mandalorian and Grogu take place in the Star Wars timeline?

Image: Lucasfilm

Although Star Wars is known for telling its stories in non-chronological order, its new movie is fairly easy to nail down in the timeline thanks to the existing three seasons of The Mandalorian, which are set in the 30-year gap between the original trilogy and the sequel trilogy. The series originally kicked off the New Republic era, with the first two seasons, as well as The Book of Boba Fett, taking place in roughly 9 ABY (or nine years after the Battle of Yavin), while the third season of The Mandalorian is set two years later, around 11 ABY.

Since The Mandalorian and Grogu opens after the end of season 3, with the pair on a bounty hunting expedition on the iconic snow planet Hoth, this puts the film closer to 11 ABY or 12 ABY. But there’s no direct date given in the film or even by its director, Jon Favreau. The reason for this is actually quite simple: clarity. Favreau stressed in an interview with Collider that he and his team “wanted this to be an understandable enough standalone experience,” which explains why The Mandalorian and Grogu doesn’t feel shackled to the timeline like other Star Wars projects.

Even so, there are still several Star Wars shows that might help get viewers acquainted with a few of the side characters in the new film.

What else should you watch to understand The Mandalorian and Grogu?

Image: Lucasfilm

Aside from The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett, Star Wars fans may want to rewatch Ahsoka to get a feel for the state of the galaxy when the film takes place. In episode 7 of the series, for example, there’s a direct mention of “the conflict on Mandalore,” which happened in season 3 of The Mandalorian. While there’s no known direct link between the show and the movie, it’s the best starting point for those looking to follow the franchise chronologically.

With Zeb Orrelios serving as one of the movie’s big draws, it doesn’t hurt to watch a few Star Wars: Rebels episodes to get to know the Lasat hero and his many exploits aboard the Ghost. (We'd recommend starting at the beginning if you've never seen Rebels before, but if you just need a refresher then season 2 episodes 14 and 17, or season 3 episode 14 are standouts.) Legendary voice actor Steve Blum, whose credits extend to everything from Cowboy Bebop to Lilo & Stitch, returns to voice the character in The Mandalorian and Grogu movie, which is a pleasant surprise.

Image: Disney/Lucasfilm.

Another familiar face is Rotta the Hutt, the son of the infamous Jabba the Hutt, who serves as the new film’s central McGuffin — but it’s actually not his first time on the silver screen, nor even the first time he’s the McGuffin. Rotta was the star of the 2008 animated movie Star Wars: The Clone Wars, in which he was kidnapped by Separatists and affectionately called “Stinky” by Ahsoka Tano. He later briefly popped up in an episode of the Clone Wars show standing next to his father, until finally making his live-action debut.

Rotta isn’t the only Clone Wars alumni to show up in The Mandalorian and Grogu, as Embo is another recurring character that first appeared in the second season of the series. The terrifying bounty hunter wears a wide-brimmed hat, mirroring the traditional jingasa worn by samurai in feudal Japan, and sports a pet anooba, a sort of saber cat, that’s fiercer than any real-world lion. Embo makes several appearances in The Clone Wars and even has a cameo in The Bad Batch.

The Mandalorian and Grogu pulls from across the Star Wars universe, but these are the most important projects to know before meeting its biggest players.