During this year’s Super Bowl broadcast, you probably saw Lucasfilm’s cheeky 30‑second advertisement for The Mandalorian and Grogu, which featured the title characters aboard a carriage drawn by tauntauns—the kangaroo‑lizard mounts made famous 46 years ago in The Empire Strikes Back. It was a fun parody of Budweiser’s iconic Clydesdale commercials, complete with a Sam Elliott voiceover, and I loved it. But beneath the joy sparked by Star Wars’ impending return to theaters this May, I knew one thing:
The internet was going to hate it.
Indeed, as has become tradition, social media outrage quickly declared that Lucasfilm had “ruined” Star Wars again and had no idea how to market its movies based on the clever advert specifically crafted for a football audience. To these fans’ chagrin, the ad wasn’t a three‑minute trailer spoon-feeding plot details, cameos, or big action set pieces; it was simply a playful reminder that “Hey, we’re making a movie based on that TV show you like, and we’re having fun with it.” Some corners of the internet still treated this as an unforgivable offense. Embarrassing! Cringe! Star Wars is DEAD! Or at least, that’s what X would have us believe.
And I can’t necessarily fault some younger fans (well, younger than me) for falling into this negativity trap. They grew up with and loved the prequels – their Star Wars – and most of them weren’t online to experience the vitriol hurled at them from 1999 through the early 2010s. Then came Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm in 2012, an explosion of new Star Wars content and entire ecosystems of online influencers monetizing their insights. Negativity drives engagement, though, and there’s profit in outrage. So, in the eyes of many younger millennials and Gen Z fans, everyone loved Star Wars until Disney came along. The only reality was the one they perceived; the one constantly thrown in their face by the algorithm. And because YouTubers emerged as trusted tastemakers, their takes – even those made in bad faith simply to farm engagement – are often accepted as the views of the “true fan.” In reality, they’re the same attention‑seekers who used to troll theforce.net forums insulting prequel fans in the early 2000s. Now, they’re just getting paid for it.
In 2026, with so many things wrong with the world and so many things to actually, legitimately gripe about, I’m asking that vocal, vitriolic minority of Star Wars fans online to do one thing: lighten up.
I’m not here to claim that I love every Star Wars project Disney has released. I’ve had mixed feelings about the sequel trilogy, The Book of Boba Fett, The Mandalorian Season 3, and Obi‑Wan Kenobi. That’s the beauty of having an abundance of new stories: There’s something for everyone. And no, I’m not being compensated for that opinion.
But to some fans online, there’s nothing for anyone, and the ideal scenario seems to be for Star Wars to die altogether. Why would anyone prefer the universe they love to fade into obscurity? Why hope that new generations don’t get their own Star Wars stories to fall in love with? What is the “win” if The Mandalorian and Grogu underperforms at the box office? That we get no more Star Wars? I discovered Star Wars during the “Dark Times” of the mid-late 1980s and I never want to see the franchise go back to those days where there was no new storytelling in sight.
I didn’t understand this level of hatred when the Prequel Trilogy was being released and I don’t get it now. I’m a Star Wars fan and I will always root for Star Wars. If you’re a fan, be a fan. If you’re no longer a fan, please move on.
And regarding the belief I alluded to earlier that Disney “doesn’t know how to market The Mandalorian and Grogu,” New York Toy Fair this week proved otherwise. The product reveals – plushes, action figures, LEGO sets, and just about every type of Grogu toy imaginable – suggest one thing: “Baby Yoda” is about to be unavoidable again. Disney knows exactly what it’s doing, whether or not the hate‑farmers on social media agree.
The Mandalorian and Grogu arrives in theaters May 22. Watch the Big Game spot below.
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