If you're right and there is something to
The Mandalorian tying into Episode 9, then I say kudos to Disney for developing that kind of forethought, and it gives me great hope for the future of the franchise. I would love to see the universe continue on with all sorts of crazy side-trips and character backstories that all play into the main Skywalker timeline in some form or another (one of the reasons I loved
Rogue One so much was the way it set off the chase that was Episode 4's opening scene.)
Should little baby Yoda dude thing or whatever play a role in
The Rise of Skywalker, then that makes watching and enjoying
The Mandalorian all that much more fun and exciting. The show is great! Does that mean Episode 9 will be great, too? I hope so, but there is no guarantee. Still, if it adds something that helps fill the gaps—something that cannot possibly fit into the 2 hours or whatever of a feature film—and that something actually works, then it really does lift the weight from Abrams shoulders in fixing the broken thing. However—and this is important—Episode 9 has been in development for 2 years at least, and that makes the forethought required for
The Mandalorian quite long indeed. Or, at least long enough that they had time to make some final cuts to TROS that make sense.
Either way, hype is building (I mean, Scates is commenting, again!
) which is both good and bad. If TROS turns out to be a great capstone on the Skywalker saga, then good for them. But if the movie cannot live up to the hype it could have long-ranging ramifications on the entire Star Wars property.
