Din Djarin and Grogu got involved in quite a few adventures and predicaments in seasons 1 and 2 of The Mandalorian, but season 3 pointed out a glaring problem with the timeline of the show. The Mandalorian began with a lone bounty hunter and a child as his target, and they have grown into one of the most iconic father-son duos in all of Star Wars. Their upcoming movie The Mandalorian & Grogu will explore that dynamic further, as Grogu begins his training as a Mandalorian apprentice.
The Mandalorian‘s timeline and history has taken Din and Grogu to countless planets and gotten them into countless fights. Season 1 saw them running from bounty hunters and Imperial remnants. Season 2 saw them searching for other Mandalorians and a Jedi to train Grogu. Season 3 saw them rejoining the Children of the Watch and retaking Mandalore, but the time between these events never made sense. The Mandalorian‘s timeline could be corrected, but it’s broken as it currently stands – though there may have been one attempt in season 3 to fix it.
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The Star Wars Timeline Insists The Mandalorian Season 1-2 Happen In One Year
According to Star Wars: Timelines, everything that happened in seasons 1 and 2 of The Mandalorian as well as The Book of Boba Fett took place in the same year: 9 ABY, or 9 years after the Battle of Yavin, as the in-universe Star Wars calendar is based on that date. The problem with the official timeline is that it is too short a time for everything that happened in those seasons to feasibly occur. The characters in The Mandalorian, as well as the galaxy as a whole, changed drastically in 9 ABY.
That year covers everything Din and Grogu went through up to Boba Fett defeating the Pyke Syndicate on Tatooine. This includes Din’s growth from seeing Grogu as just another bounty to welcoming him back from his training with Luke, a huge change in their relationship that would have taken quite a bit of time to foster. 9 ABY was jam packed with events for the pair and their allies, which causes a problem with the larger timeline. However, the show has already plotted out a better timeline with a simple line from season 3.
The Mandalorian Season 3 Confirms “Many Cycles” Have Passed Since Season 1
In season 3, episode 5, Din sought help from his tribe in rescuing Greef Karga and the planet of Nevarro from Gorian Shard’s pirates. While making his case to his fellow Mandalorians, Din mentioned that the Children of the Watch fought the Bounty Hunters’ Guild “many cycles ago,” which would mean the events of season 1 took place years prior, as a cycle refers to one standard year. This throwaway line established a much better alternative to the first two seasons’ timeline problem: they didn’t all take place in the same year.
All the problems with The Mandalorian‘s truncated timeline would be solved by simply expanding the amount of time it took to accomplish everything they did. Season 3 already tried to solve the problem with a single line that established a broad timeline, but instead the canon timeline features an incredibly eventful year in 9 ABY followed by years of seemingly unremarkable developments between season 2 and 3. While that line could have solved the timeline problem, it actually exposed just how broken the show’s timeline has become.
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Din Djarin’s Dialogue Fits Perfectly With Other Evidence From Nevarro
Greef and Cara Dune completely transformed Nevarro between seasons 1 and 3. What started as a seedy backwater refuge for pirates and bounty hunters grew into a sparkling bastion of civilization on the Outer Rim. In season 1, Nevarro was dark, dirty, rundown, and a generally unsavory place to be. After years of Greef’s clerical efforts and Dune’s work as marshal, the town became bright, welcoming, well-kept, and safe. The current canonical time gap would explain some of those changes, but they had already made impressive progress in rebuilding the city by the time season 2 took place.
Some of the changes implemented in that time included converting the cantina into a school, revitalizing the planet’s status as a hyperlane port on the Hydian Way, and even changes to the planet itself, such as restoring the plant life surrounding the city. Nevarro had basically no public infrastructure to speak of, so Greef had to essentially build a local government from the ground up as well. After being driven out, the poor state the Imperial remnants left Nevarro in would have taken years to rebuild. Transforming it into the gem of the Outer Rim it became would have taken even longer.
The Star Wars Timeline Is Wrong – & The Mandalorian Season 3 Is Right
Star Wars‘ canon has contradicted itself and changed in the past, but The Mandalorian‘s timeline is a glaring oversight. The show has a huge scope with so many galaxy-altering events that it simply couldn’t all take place in 9 ABY as the current canon claims. Season 3 presented a better, more spread-out alternative to the timeline, one that makes more sense for the story and its characters and clears up the canon timeline. While explaining how the events of these seasons fit into the timeline is the biggest challenge, there is another problem created by such a short time frame.
Between seasons 2 and 3, there were several years when the duo had nothing of note going on. A case could be made that they were searching for the Children of the Watch’s covert, but a bounty hunter as skilled as Din wouldn’t need years to find a single target, let alone a large group of conspicuous Mandalorians. The current timeline has the busiest year imaginable, followed by many cycles of the pair just chilling out. Placing seasons 1 and 2 in the same year makes it seem like Din was doing nothing for years after Grogu’s return.
The Mandalorian‘s timeline has quite a few problems in the current canon, but season 3 could provide the key to fixing them. 9 ABY was an overly eventful year for Din and Grogu, as it encompassed all of seasons 1 and 2 of the show. Expanding the canon timeline of The Mandalorian would solve these problems, and there is already an explanation in the show itself.
The Mandalorian
- Release Date
- November 12, 2019
- Cast
- Werner Herzog , Emily Swallow , Pedro Pascal , Nick Nolte , Omid Abtahi , Gina Carano , Carl Weathers , Giancarlo Esposito
- Seasons
- 3
- Story By
- Jon Favreau
- Writers
- Jon Favreau
