Whoever staged this knew what the night needed to be.
The Zone @ Rosebank did the work before anything else happened. White walls and pillars bathed in deep green light. High structural beams overhead. The kind of space that felt borrowed from somewhere else entirely. It set the right tone before a single thing had been announced, served, or screened.
On the evening of 21 May, 500 guests arrived for Lucasfilm’s official South African Special Event Screening of Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu at Ster-Kinekor Cinemas. After the red carpet, guests were ushered up to the main event area. Activations from sponsors Hamleys, Visa, and Burger King filled the space alongside cinematic photo opportunities that put you squarely in the world of Din Djarin and Grogu. A welcome drink at the entrance. An open bar. Food making its rounds: mini pies, pita breads, grilled chicken. And on a tray, looking almost too simple to be interesting, blue macaroons.
They were excellent. One of the better ones I’ve had.
The Blue Macaroons
The colour wasn’t decorative. Those particular blue-teal cookies have a name in the Star Wars universe: Nevarro Nummies. They first appeared in Season 2 of The Mandalorian, when a very young Grogu used the Force to steal a packet from a child sitting next to him in a classroom on Nevarro. The blue is a nod to blue milk, the drink that goes all the way back to A New Hope. Serving them at a South African premiere event is a small thing. It’s also exactly the kind of detail that shows someone thought about it.
The marketing around this film has been impressive in general. On Fortnite, there’s a Grogu skin that places him in a satchel on your back. He’s eating something that looks very much like a blue macaroon.
The same character beat, running from a 2020 television moment through to a global gaming crossover, through to a tray of cookies at an event in Johannesburg. That’s coherent. That’s how you build a brand that lasts.
The Fans Made the Evening
The film opened in May, a few weeks on from May the Fourth, and people arrived accordingly. Lightsabers everywhere. Faces fully painted. Outfits that looked, in some cases, genuinely sourced from somewhere I can’t account for. Two guests broke into a full duel in the middle of the floor. Completely committed.
I’d never do that. But watching someone give themselves over completely to something they love, in public, without apology, is its own kind of thing. Cosplay does something to people. South African fandoms don’t get enough credit for how deep they go. This was a reminder. The room included some of the country’s better-known creators and personalities, among them Juicy Juicy J, Katlego Pilane, Koko Madlala, and Didi Mothobi, alongside a strong cosplay contingent that made a reasonable case for South Africa having some of the most dedicated fans in the franchise.
The Film
Star Wars: The Mandalorian & Grogu is the first theatrical Star Wars release in seven years. Directed by Jon Favreau and written by Favreau, Dave Filoni, and Noah Kloor, it picks up with Din Djarin, the Mandalorian bounty hunter played by Pedro Pascal, and his Force-gifted apprentice Grogu, whom most of the world still instinctively calls Baby Yoda. Sigourney Weaver joins the cast as Colonel Ward, a veteran of the Rebellion. Jeremy Allen White is also in the film, in a supporting role that fans of The Bear will be pleased to see, even if they’ll want more of him.
Pascal is the kind of actor who makes things look easier than they are. He’s at the centre of almost everything right now, and it’s not by accident. Even from behind a helmet for most of the runtime, you feel his presence. The film is set in the aftermath of the Empire’s fall, with the New Republic struggling to hold the galaxy together. Djarin and Grogu are enlisted for a new mission. It’s focused. Character-led. Less interested in mythological accounting than in reminding you why these two were worth caring about in the first place. That’s the right instinct.
The Music
Ludwig Göransson composed the score, and it’s worth listening to separately before or after the film. The spaghetti-western woodwinds that defined the original series theme are still there and still work. Around them, the soundtrack moves across a wider range than you might expect: orchestral swell, tribal percussion, moments of real intimacy, and some tracks that push into electronic territory. Critics have largely called it the film’s strongest element.
The more techno-adjacent tracks felt like a slightly different texture to me. Not wrong, exactly. Just a shift I hadn’t quite prepared for. Minor note in an otherwise strong piece of work. If you listen to soundtracks outside of films, this one rewards the attention.
One thing I only discovered while listening on Spotify: the progress bar turns into a lightsaber. Green, glowing, with a hilt you can click to change the colour. It’s a hidden Easter egg that’s been in Spotify’s desktop app for some time, activating when you play Star Wars music. I had no idea it existed until now. Worth knowing about.
See it on the new IMAX at Rosebank
The Zone @ Rosebank launched South Africa’s largest IMAX with Laser screen earlier this month. The screen runs 17 by 9.7 metres. 4K laser projection. A multi-channel sound system purpose-built for the format. About 285 seats, with sightlines designed so that every one of them works.
It’s a significant upgrade for Joburg cinema-goers, and a Star Wars film is as good a reason as any to go and find out what it can do. The Zone has also been expanding quietly into something broader than a cinema complex: a Kids’ Cinema, Cine Prestige theatres, SK-Xperience. There’s an interesting shift happening in how cinemas are positioning themselves locally, and it’s worth a longer conversation. I’ll get to it in a future post.
The Mandalorian & Grogu is in cinemas across South Africa now. PG-13. 2 hours 12 minutes.
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I attended the Johannesburg premiere as media. Content and imagery courtesy of The Walt Disney Company Africa / Lucasfilm. All opinions are my own.
