Could there be a big announcement coming from the Star Wars camp soon regarding former Mandalorian star Gina Carano’s return as Cara Dune?
Fans of The Mandalorian will recall that professional fighter and actress Carano starred as Dune in the show’s first two seasons and, despite what some will protest, was lined up to lead her own series, Rangers of the New Republic, before she was fired – again, she was fired, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise – over some social media posts that were described as ‘unacceptable’ by some.
Her 2021 dismissal led to The Mandalorian season three being extensively rewritten and subsequently turning out to be pretty poor, but even bigger than that, because everything is political these days (social media is a cancer in our society, trust me), many fans turned away from the series when she was fired and there’s an argument to be made that this played a big part (not the only part) in the now painfully obvious deline in Star Wars’ success.
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Jump forward to 2024, and Carano was suing Disney over her dismissal – she wasn’t the only one who said ‘unacceptable’ things online, but she was the only one fired, go figure – claiming she was discriminated against and to try to get her role as Cara Dune back and, while the claim was settled out of court, Disney did release a statement saying they looked forward to “identifying opportunities to work together” in the future.
Well, it’s two years later, The Mandalorian and Grogu hits cinemas in a few short weeks, and we’re now officially in that future, and it seems that Carano has ‘had talks’ with the two men behind The Mandalorian and basically running Star Wars now, Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau.
On The Ariel Helwani Show recently, Carano confirmed she and Lucasfilm President Filoni and director Favreau have picked up where they left off: “I’ve already had a conversation with Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau. Really lovely.
“After we settled the lawsuit, we got on a Zoom call. It was really nice. Dave Filoni taking over, CEO of Star Wars. And it’s like we didn’t even miss a beat and Jon Favreau was really funny.
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“Got on the Zoom and he’s like ‘So, where did we leave off?’ And we hadn’t spoken for a while. And he was like, ‘Where did we leave off?’”
I’m no expert, but ‘where did we leave off?’ sounds to me like a precursor to, ‘let’s pick things up again’, no?
Star Wars has had a rough time in recent years with the failure of the sequel trilogy and then the bombing of Solo: A Star Wars Story – which, sadly, is a solid movie – and this continued with Carano being fired and then the Disney+ shows meeting less and less fan enthusiasm as time went on, with The Acolyte highlighting how much damage had been done to the brand.
Many argue that Cara Dune died off-screen and that her death occurred when Moff Gideon was taken back by the Empire from a ship Dune was on, but this isn’t the case, something that has been confirmed by The Mandalorian executive producer and director Rick Famuyiwa: “Cara was a big part and continues as a character to be part of the world. It [Carano’s firing] was something that was discussed as we knew it was going to have an impact on the show. But at the same time, what has been at the heart of the show are the two characters — Din Djarin and Grogu — so ultimately it felt like a servicing of that, and around the Mandalorians.”
Indeed, Filoni himself, when she was fired, was asked if Cara Dune might ever return and his answer seemed deliberately open-ended: “[Cara Dune]’s a great character, someone who was vital to Din Djarin’s beginnings. We’ll see if he has evolved beyond that.”
In recent days, since the leaving of Kathleen Kennedy, there seems to be signs that Disney has been listening to the fans and have decided that making money is a better decision than losing it – from the inclusion of the Original Trilogy characters in the Galaxy’s Edge corner of the Disney Parks, to the recent rumblings of a Luke Skywalker series (here), it seems that perhaps Disney has woken up. As a fan since I was born (1977, baby!), I really want to see Star Wars back, and yes, I want to see Cara Dune, a strong female in every sense of the term, leading the charge.
Thoughts? I know you have them and I wanna hear ’em all!
Marc
Marc is a self-confessed nerd. Ever since seeing Star Wars for the first time around 1979 he’s been an unapologetic fan of the Wars and still believes, with Clone Wars and now Underworld, we are yet to see the best Star Wars. He’s a dad of two who now doesn’t have the time (or money) to collect the amount of toys, comics, movies and books he once did, much to the relief of his long-suffering wife. In the real world he’s a graphic designer. He started Following the Nerd because he was tired of searching a million sites every day for all the best news that he loves and decided to create one place where you can go to get the whole lot. Secretly he longs to be sitting in the cockpit of his YT-1300 Corellian Transport ship with his co-pilot Chewie, roaming the universe, waiting for his next big adventure, but feels just at home watching cartoons with his kids….
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