On the 10th of February, it was announced Gina Carano, who played Cara Dune on Disney’s The Mandalorian, had been fired from the show after sharing an antisemitic post on social media. The particular post had compared being a “Republican today” to being Jewish during the Holocaust, but industry insiders have confirmed that Disney had been considering sacking Carano for a long time, due to her history sharing alt-right views (such as anti-trans and anti-vax comments).
Gina Carano was initially being lined up to star in a Mandalorian spin-off show titled Rangers of the New Republic, which was announced in December 2020 as part of Disney’s shareholder meeting. Seeing how Cara Dune is canonically a Marshal of the ‘New Republic,’ her involvement in the show was seemingly obvious. However, last November, after witnessing how outspoken and controversial Carano was online, the entertainment conglomerate decided to side-line her involvement in the spin-off, and two months later they fired her completely.
While fans aren’t exactly upset to see the actress leave the show (#FireGinaCarano was trending on social media immediately before her departure), they are worried about the next steps Disney will take. Dune had been established by the show to be one of The Mandalorian’s closest allies, and seems necessary to link his show with the upcoming Rangers of the New Republic – what will Disney do now that Gina Carano is gone?
Well, a few options have been floated by various insiders, the least likely of which is simply recasting the role. Unlike Warner Bros., Disney has been shown to be rather reticent to recast parts – they would rather retire a role completely than fill it with a new actor (they won’t be recasting T’Challa in Black Panther, for example). Indeed, a Disney spokesperson has confirmed to the trade publication IndieWire that Cara Dune will not be recast. Although The Hollywood Reporter originally claimed that insiders were expecting Cara Dune to be recast because of “story and merchandising reasons”, the spokesperson now says that won’t be the case. Unless Disney abruptly changes their mind, fans can expect not to see Cara Dune in any Star Wars show for the foreseeable future.
Alternatively, a popular idea that has been floated is that Disney will somehow kill off Dune in a plot-inciting event. The climactic finale of The Mandalorian’s second season actually resolved a lot of the show’s long-running plot-lines (essentially all that involve Baby Yoda). Although a few future narrative arcs have been suggested, most notably the Second Siege of Mandalore, the show is in a general dearth of direction; it needs something to kick off its third season with a bang.
Picture this: the third season of The Mandalorian begins with Cara Dune being unceremoniously killed (perhaps in a non-descript explosion), and now Mando has to hunt down who murdered his friend, opening the show up to new narrative possibilities. Not only would Disney be sending a strong message to commentators and onlookers on how they respond to alt-right comments (they will literally kill off the actors), but it would also allow the show to utilize the exit of Gina Carano in a productive and pragmatic manner. If not, perhaps the show will simply ignore Dune’s very existence, and will never refer to the character ever again (the way Marvel has done for half of its Phase-1 characters).
Of course, the other pressing issue is how Disney will adapt its larger plans. As previously mentioned, they were initially considering recasting Dune for “story reasons” (most likely related to Rangers of the New Republic) so now the show needs a new way to deliver these aspects. The most obvious approach would be simply to transplant Dune’s storylines onto a different character, perhaps Greef Karga (Carl Weathers).
A major character in season 1 of the show (and one that heavily featured in the promotional material for season 2), Karga is the leader of the Bounty Hunters’ Guild, so already has strong connections to the New Republic. Moreover, Favreau has openly mentioned in the past that he has already increased the size of this role due to how much he liked the character – what’s stopping him from doing it again? Unlike Carano, Weathers is universally adored, so Disney would at least know they have someone reliable taking over Dune’s storylines.
Either way, Carano’s firing was a necessary evil for Disney. Although her departure has meant a lot of their preconceived plans have had to be thrown out (many insiders have claimed Rangers of the New Republic will be delayed for this very reason), the controversies the actor instigated were too much of a poison-pill for their incipient Mandalorian timeline. Fingers crossed that the company will manage to effectively recover from this realignment.