When Does The Mandalorian Season Three Take Place?

After a more than two-year hiatus, The Mandalorian has returned for its long-awaited third season on Disney+. With more Star Wars content than ever before, it can be difficult to keep up with where our favorite characters exist in the sprawling galactic timeline, especially as characters from animation crossover into live-action and vice versa. Additionally, Star Wars has always been a bit unclear with its timelines, but here we will do our best to dissect when exactly season three of The Mandalorian takes place.

Where Does the Third Season of The Mandalorian Fit into the Star Wars Timeline?

The first season of The Mandalorian takes place five years after Return of the Jedi, placing it about twenty-five years before the sequel trilogy begins with The Force Awakens.This is an exciting point in Star Wars history that details the recent fall of the Empire. It’s also a point in the canon that has been little explored through visual storytelling prior to The Mandalorian. 

As a result, it allows for legacy characters like Luke Skywalker and Boba Fett from the original trilogy as well as newer characters from animated series like Ahsoka Tano and Bo-Katan to appear in the same period of time. Seeing so many different characters in one place can make the series a bit more confusing to follow, however.

Things get murkier with the latest season of The Mandalorian. While season two ended with Grogu going to train in the ways of the Force with Luke Skywalker, the characters also appeared in The Book of Boba Fett, which had a sprawling timeline that flashed back and forth between the immediate aftermath of Return of the Jedi and events that took place directly after the second season of The Mandalorian.

As for the current season of The Mandalorian, we know it picks up some time after Grogu and Din Djarin are reunited. Trying to clarify specifics is a bit more difficult. In an interview with the Skytalkers podcast, executive producer and showrunner Jon Favreau stated that Grogu spent several years with Din in the first two seasons before leaving to train with Luke for two years. However, Favreau later said in an interview with Variety that Grogu was with Luke for between zero and two years. To further muddy the waters, TVLine reported fellow executive producer Dave Filoni said that a full year has not yet passed in the entirety of The Mandalorian so far.

While the writers may not have revealed specific details about this season’s exact orientation in the larger Star Wars timeline, the good news is that there’s plenty of time for more adventures of Din and Grogu before the events of the sequel trilogy begin.