The Disney era of Star Wars has been a bumpy road for fans. The highs have been hit shows like The Mandalorian and Andor, with the lows including The Book of Boba Fett and the outright dreadful The Rise of Skywalker. In between, there’s a lot of material of variable quality, though it’s a matter of debate whether this is an improvement on what Lucasfilm was turning out prior to George Lucas selling to the House of Mouse.
Now, fans on r/StarWars have identified what they believe to be one of the biggest problems with the Disney era: “small universe syndrome”:
We agree, and this somewhat narrow outlook isn’t limited to just characters. Over and over again we see the same locations, with fans saying that after The Book of Boba Fett and Obi-Wan Kenobi, they’re sick of seeing the rolling dunes of Tatooine. It’s understandable why Disney and Lucasfilm keep returning to the same handful of popular characters as casual fans want to see Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker, but it’s also right that there’s a whole damn universe out there to explore.
Replies say this problem is as much a Lucas thing as it is Disney:
Has this been an issue since the prequels?
Are we in danger of Ahsoka overexposure?
We really shouldn’t be seeing this much of Tatooine:
Let’s see something new!
Fortunately, Disney and Lucasfilm seem to recognize that crow-barring more stories into the increasingly cramped Skywalker saga isn’t paying off.
Taika Waititi’s Star Wars movie is said to be set in an entirely new corner of the universe, The High Republic project gives creators a blank slate to work with hundreds of years before The Phantom Menace, and upcoming Disney Plus show The Acolyte will be set at the tail end of this era.
The galaxy is an infinitely broad storytelling canvas, so let’s move beyond the Skywalkers and Tatooine and see more of it!
