Baby Yoda’s popularity has widely exceeded Disney’s expectations. The latest edition to the Star Wars roster of cute characters, Baby Yoda has seen a whirlwind of fame since first being introduced in the Disney+ series, The Mandalorian.
Officially known as “The Child”, fans have instead taken to calling the tiny character Baby Yoda. The character represents the first new member of Yoda's species since Yaddle in the prequels. Arguably one of the most popular characters in the entire Star Wars canon, Master Yoda was responsible for providing young aspiring Jedi Luke Skywalker with the key elements and training necessary in order to advance to the prestigious rank of Jedi knight. As things currently stand, viewers of The Mandalorian still do not know exactly how Baby Yoda fits into the Star Wars universe, with the events of the new Star Wars series taking place five years after the events of Return of the Jedi. Still, it is perhaps exactly this mystery surrounding the character that makes him such a draw for fans. Having now returned in one form or another, Baby Yoda represents a side of Star Wars that has long since been forgotten, and which many fans would love to see resurrected.
As wildly popular as Baby Yoda is, however, it seems that while his mere existence was a big surprise to fans, the success he’s found since being revealed is a big surprise to Disney. During the recent premiere of the final chapter of the Skywalker saga, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, THR spoke with Disney CEO Bob Iger. Aside from his obvious excitement over the release of J.J. Abrams’ new film, Iger also revealed that the reception to Baby Yoda has probably been beyond his expectations “by a wide margin”. At the same time, however, the Disney head insisted that he knew from the first time he set eyes on the character that audiences would be happy. Said Iger:
"Well, look, the scale of the reaction is probably beyond my expectations by a wide margin. That said, the moment I laid eyes on the character, I had a strong feeling the character was going to connect with audiences. It's just so cute, so interesting, so compelling, in many respects so familiar and yet so new."
And of course, one of the biggest issues surrounding Baby Yoda since his initial appearance in The Mandalorian has been the intentional lack of merchandise during the Christmas season. Capitalizing on Iger’s admission that he was somewhat taken aback by the character’s fame, THR asked whether or not the overwhelming popularity of Baby Yoda was proof that Disney should have made merchandise available sooner. But Iger remained true to Disney’s stance on that issue, stating that merchandise would have meant ruining the surprise:
"We talked about it, and we wanted the reveal of that character — notice I'm not referring to it as 'Baby Yoda' — to be really special. And it was worth it.”
From a cynical perspective, one could say that Baby Yoda having exceeded Iger’s expectations reveals a somewhat out-of-touch relationship to the massive franchise that Disney now owns. Yoda has long been a fan favorite, something any Star Wars fan would seemingly be well aware of. Fortunately, however, so far Disney has done a decent job of expanding the Star Wars universe and creating content that fans anticipate. Whether or not Baby Yoda turns out to be everything that fans hope he will remains to be seen, but for the time being at least, Star Wars is creating genuine excitement over a new character – something that hasn’t been done to this extent for decades.
Source: THR