Modern Star Wars has spent years chasing darker storytelling, larger interconnected narratives, and increasingly complicated ties between movies and television shows. Some of these swings have worked brilliantly, while others have collapsed under the galactic pressure of trying to make every new project seem like the single most important thing in the galaxy. One of the best moments of The Mandalorian and Grogu, however, succeeds for a much simpler reason: it remembers how thrilling Star Wars can be when it simply and fully embraces fun.
The movie’s assault on Nal Hutta as it approaches its end delivers the kind of cinematic rush that made generations of audiences fall in love with the franchise in the first place. It is loud, visually gorgeous, heroic, and packed with soaring X-wing action that feels ripped straight out of the original trilogy’s DNA. More importantly, the sequence understands something modern franchise filmmaking often forgets: sometimes audiences do not need galaxy-ending stakes or devastating character deaths. Sometimes they just want to watch X-wings scream across alien skies while the music swells and everything looks impossibly cool.
The Nal Hutta X-wing Assault Feels Like Classic Star Wars
There is an immediacy to the Nal Hutta sequence that instantly separates it from many of the franchise’s more recent action scenes. The battle does not feel over-designed or weighed down by exposition. It simply drops viewers directly into the chaos as X-wings descend onto the Hutts’ homeworld in a blistering aerial assault after learning the crime syndicate is still allied with the remnants of the Empire. Visually, it is one of the strongest action sequences Star Wars has produced in years, and communicates an understanding that X-wings are part of the visual identity of Star Wars. The second those engines roar onto the screen, the entire movie suddenly feels larger and more exciting. The Mandalorian and Grogu is not reinventing the wheel here, and honestly, it does not need to. The scene works because it understands exactly why that formula still works.
Collider Exclusive · Star Wars Quiz Which Force User Are You? Light Side · Dark Side · Or Somewhere Between
The Force is not a binary. It is a spectrum — from the serene halls of the Jedi Temple to the shadowed corridors of Sith space. Ten questions will reveal where you truly fall. The Force has always known. Now you will too.
🔵Jedi Master
🟡Padawan
🔴Sith Lord
⚫Inquisitor
⚪Grey Jedi
01
What is the Force to you? Your relationship with the Force defines everything else.
02
When you feel strong emotions — anger, grief, love — what do you do? The Jedi suppress. The Sith feed. Others choose differently.
03
The Jedi Council gives you an order you disagree with. You: How you handle authority reveals your alignment.
04
You are offered forbidden knowledge that could give you enormous power. The cost is crossing a moral line. You: The dark side’s pull is never more than a choice away.
05
Your approach to training and learning is: A student’s habits become a master’s character.
06
In a duel, your lightsaber fighting style reflects: Combat is the purest expression of a Force user’s philosophy.
07
A defeated enemy lies at your feet, powerless. You: Mercy — or its absence — is the truest test of alignment.
08
The Jedi Code forbids attachment. Your honest view on love and bonds: The source of the greatest falls in the galaxy.
09
Why do you use the Force at all? What’s the point? Purpose is the difference between a knight and a weapon.
10
At the final moment — light side or dark side pulling at you — what wins? In the end, every Force user faces this moment. What does yours look like?
Your Alignment Has Been Determined Your Place in the Force
The scores below reveal how the Force sees you. Your highest number is your true alignment. Read on to understand what that means — and what it will cost you.
🔵 Jedi Master
🟡 Padawan
🔴 Sith Lord
⚫ Inquisitor
⚪ Grey Jedi
Disciplined, compassionate, and deeply attuned to the living Force, you have walked the path long enough to understand its demands — and accept them. You lead not through authority alone, but through example. You have felt the pull of the dark side and chosen otherwise, every time. That is not certainty. That is courage.
You are earnest, powerful, and brimming with potential — and you know it, which is both your greatest asset and your most dangerous flaw. You act before you think, trust your gut over your training, and sometimes confuse impatience for bravery. The Masters see something in you, though. The question isn’t whether you have what it takes — it’s whether you’ll be patient enough to find out.
You are not simply dangerous — you are certain, and that is worse. You have decided what the galaxy needs, and you have decided you are the one to deliver it. Your power is genuine and formidable, earned through sacrifice that would have broken lesser beings. But examine your victories carefully. Every Sith believed their cause was righteous. The dark side’s cruelest trick is that it agrees with you.
You were forged in fire and reshaped by those who found you at your lowest. You serve, because service gave you structure when you had none. Your allegiance is not to an ideology — it is to survival and to the master who gave you purpose. But there is something buried beneath the conditioning. The Jedi you hunt? You recognize them. Because you remember what it felt like before the choice was taken from you.
You have looked at the Jedi Code and the Sith Code and found both of them incomplete. You walk the line not out of indecision but out of conviction — you genuinely believe both extremes miss something essential. The Jedi don’t fully trust you. The Sith think you’re wasting your potential. They’re both partially right. But so are you.
Sigourney Weaver Piloting An X-wing Is Almost So Cool It’s Unfair
Sigourney Weaver as Colonel Ward in ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’.Image via Lucasfilm
It also helps that the sequence deploys fan service with an unusual amount of restraint and confidence. Rather than stopping the movie dead every few minutes to point at familiar faces, the battle simply lets them exist naturally within the action itself. Seeing Sigourney Weaver leading the assault as Colonel Ward adds an entirely different level of excitement to the sequence. Weaver has spent decades cementing herself as one of science fiction’s defining stars through movies like Alien, so the image of her suddenly piloting an X-wing through a massive Star Wars battle feels almost unreal in the best possible way. The sequence fully understands how cool that visual is, especially for audiences who grew up watching Weaver dominate the genre.
The cameos sprinkled throughout the sequence work for the same reason. Dave Filoni reprises his role as Trapper Wolf, first appearing at a Rebel base bar while somehow making a cowboy hat look perfectly natural within Star Wars canon before later joining the battle itself. He is joined by Captain Carson Teva actor Paul Sun-Hyung Lee alongside The Mandalorian directors Lee Isaac Chung and Rick Famuyiwa, both returning for brief X-wing pilot appearances. None of these moments derail the pacing because the movie never pauses to congratulate itself for including them. The battle moves too quickly for self-indulgence. Instead, the cameos create the sense that this entire corner of the franchise has assembled together for one massive cavalry charge, which makes the sequence feel surprisingly triumphant.
‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’ Understands That Star Wars Should Be Exciting
The best part of the Nal Hutta assault is that it understands excitement is not a dirty word. Modern blockbusters often confuse seriousness for importance, especially within legacy franchises where every new installment is pressured into becoming a universe-altering event. The Mandalorian and Grogusidesteps that trap entirely during this sequence by focusing on something far more valuable: momentum. That is what makes the scene stand out so sharply against most modern Star Wars action, and a contributing factor as to why the movie is already one of the more successful for the franchise of the current era. While recent movies and shows have often leaned toward heavier lore connections or larger-scale destruction, the Nal Hutta assault succeeds by channeling the adventurous energy of the original trilogy more directly than almost anything Disney-era Star Wars has produced.
The battle is exciting because it is allowed to simply be exciting. There is no desperate attempt to deconstruct Star Wars or explain why heroism is secretly flawed. The movie embraces the sincerity that has always made the franchise resonate when it is operating at full power, and uses a tried-and-true equation to prove it: good guys flying into danger + X-wings looking incredible while doing it = audiences cheering.
