When LEGO Star Wars: The Mandalorian arrives on Disney+ next month, fans will see plenty of familiar faces from the hit series. One notable character, however, will be nowhere to be found.
Cara Dune does not appear in the official trailer or announced cast list for the upcoming animated special, despite the project revisiting stories and characters from across all three seasons of The Mandalorian (2019–2023).
That means Gina Carano’s former character has now been excluded from yet another major Star Wars project.
The omission comes several years after Carano’s departure from the franchise. She first appeared as Cara Dune when The Mandalorian debuted in 2019, quickly becoming one of the show’s most popular supporting characters.
A former shock trooper, Dune frequently crossed paths with Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) and became an important ally to the Mandalorian and Grogu.
Carano returned in Season 2 before Lucasfilm announced that the actress would not return for future projects in February 2021. The decision followed controversial social media posts shared by Carano and generated significant debate among Star Wars fans.
Related: Is Gina Carano Coming Back as Cara Dune in ‘Rangers of the New Republic?’
Dune herself was not immediately written out of the story. When The Mandalorian returned for its third season in 2023, the series explained that she had been recruited by the New Republic Special Forces. This allowed the character’s whereabouts to remain open-ended without requiring another actress to take over the role.
There was also a period when Cara Dune’s return seemed possible.
Carano filed a wrongful dismissal lawsuit against Disney and Lucasfilm, with financial backing from Elon Musk and X. The lawsuit was eventually settled, although neither side publicly disclosed the details of the agreement. The development fueled speculation that Carano could once again appear as Dune. Instead, the character has remained absent.
Dune did not appear in The Mandalorian & Grogu (2026), which brought the franchise to the big screen, and Lucasfilm has not recast her for a new live-action appearance. She has also largely disappeared from other forms of Star Wars storytelling, including animation and publishing.
Now, the LEGO version of The Mandalorian is yet another example.
The special features several performers returning to their familiar roles. Other major performers, including Pedro Pascal as Din Djarin and Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker, are also absent from the cast. But unlike those characters, Cara Dune has not simply been recast with another voice actor — she appears to have been left out entirely.
That is despite the project’s stated intention to revisit all three seasons of The Mandalorian.
A full trailer was unveiled at D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Experience, giving fans their first extended look at the special and its returning characters.
LEGO Star Wars: The Mandalorian arrives on Disney+ on September 2, the same day that The Mandalorian & Grogu is expected to begin streaming.
All three seasons of The Mandalorian are currently available on Disney+.
For a character who once appeared to be on the verge of becoming one of the franchise’s biggest new stars, Cara Dune has now been absent from virtually every major continuation of The Mandalorian.
The LEGO special is simply the latest — and perhaps strangest — example.
What do you think of Cara Dune being left out of LEGO Star Wars: The Mandalorian? Should Lucasfilm recast the character, or should Dune remain in the past? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
As a member of DVC and shareholder of the Disney company, I would like to share my point of view regarding your article regarding Disney’s decision to FIRED Gina Carano, qualified as a ”departure”. As you know, Pedro Pascal, the lead actor in The Mandalorian, also made a similar Holocaust comparison, and it seems Disney has not taken any action in his case !?! Recently, Mark Hamill’s comments regarding POTUS woulded be a media scandal if it was against Biden or Obama : another media case of double standard… Bob Iger’s return helped to correct several excesses at Disney; I hope Disney has understood that being woke doesn’t pay. Politics and business management do not usually mix well, especially when the double standard is obvious. P.S.: Teacher in Services Marketing in here.
Thank goodness more people are waking up and coming over to the “woke” side! That being said, it was not the so-called “woke” people who got Gina Carano fired—it was people with money and power, the very same people the “woke” movement is fighting against. I’m on the left, and I did not agree with her firing. In fact, plenty of us on the left didn’t agree with it either. So please don’t put that responsibility on progressive values or the left as a whole.
Those in power have long used divide-and-conquer tactics to keep people fighting among themselves rather than questioning the systems and institutions that actually hold the power. We should be careful not to fall into that trap.
The problem is that you’re assuming people with money and power are on the right—a typical perception from what’s called the educated left. You know full well that all of Hollywood leans left, and that Disney jumped headfirst into this “woke” madness to stay trendy and avoid looking bad, which ultimately backfired against the company, against its stock value, and against its own family-oriented, even conservative, values. The Bud Light case was even worse, all because of a young graduate who was given far too much credibility and free rein. As Michael Jordan so aptly put it, Republicans buy sneakers too!
Carano fell foul of the fascist state that is Disney World.
” you can have any opinion you like, so long as it matches ours “.
I was paying an annual fee, since it launched in the UK ” for Disney plus. I cancelled it in July this year when it was due for renewal, as the previous poster says, Disney have a very ‘ flexible ‘ view of acceptable. Carano NO, Pascal, the anti semite who’s brother is his sister, YES.
What a mistake. Her character was such a great part of the story and Gina played the part perfectly. Extremely poor judgement at the time that alienated a lot of fans.