Grogu's First Words On The Mandalorian Come Down To One Question

This post contains spoilers for season 3 of "The Mandalorian."

We've spent time with baby Yoda — formerly known as Grogu, now known as Din Grogu after Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) formally adopted him — for 3.5 seasons of television. The cute little guy, at 50 or so years of age, is apparently still too young to talk, which is why he's still a foundling in the Mandalorian world, even though he is more than capable of kicking some booty via his Force-wielding ways and in his new mecha-suit made out of the corpse of IG-11.

While previous episodes have had Grogu appear to "talk" in his own way (is "Patu" really a word, and if so, what does it mean?), Dave Filoni, who is an executive producer on the series, recently confirmed that he and show creator Jon Favreau don't think Grogu has truly said his first word yet, and that if/when he does, it will be a well-thought-out choice.

In an April 2023 interview with Insider on the red carpet for PaleyFest, Filoni first deferred to Favreau as to what Grogu's first word will be and if we'll ever hear him utter it. "I'm very protective of the character as far as being Jon's brainchild, literally," he said, before conceding that he does, however, advise on the series and was "a big part of [Grogu's] creation."

Dave Filoni also revealed that he and Jon Favreau have talked about Grogu talking:

"We talk about how much would that change him or how much do we change him? We really like him how he is. It's hard. It's a great question. It's definitely something we think about and you know, I think it depends how much farther we go forward. I don't know."

If Grogu does speak, he is ostensibly supposed to don the Mandalorian helmet, just like his adopted daddy does. While that move would also be a big one in terms of Grogu's character development, it would also deprive us viewers of getting our regular glimpses of cute 'lil Grogu eating frog eggs and looking at everyone with those big, round, black eyes. Perhaps the workaround to this is something that Filoni has in fact hinted at in a previous interview.

"We don't know that he's not [already] talking in his own way," he told Entertainment Tonight in an interview on another red carpet, this one in March 2023 for the season 3 premiere of the show. Filoni went on to point out that we've seen the little guy communicate in some way with Ahsoka, probably using some Force vibes to do so.

What route Favreau and Filoni take remains to be seen. Grogu's got to grow up sometime after all, the question remains, however, is whether we'll see that moment in his life in a "Star Wars" project in the foreseeable future.

All three seasons of "The Mandalorian" are now streaming on Disney+.