Tatooine needs to be left alone

From its first appearance in the Star Wars franchise, Tatooine was depicted as a planet of little significance. However, with its multiple film appearances, the desert planet has lost its initial charm.

Andrew Jáuregui, Interactive Media Editor
March 23, 2022

With the upcoming release of Obi-Wan Kenobi on Disney+, we are once again seeing the planet of Tatooine in Star Wars media. While the planet provides nostalgia for many fans, its overuse of is beginning to destroy the original point of it.

Tatooine was always meant to be a planet where nothing happens. It lies in the outer rim of the galaxy where there is little government interference in the local crime of the area. In the original movie, Luke wants to leave the planet as soon as he can, and in the third film, he only returns when Han Solo has been kidnapped by Jabba the Hutt, the kingpin of the planet’s crime.

While the original trilogy doesn’t feature a huge diversity in planets, at least not compared to the prequels and sequels, the focus on Tatooine over others feels natural. The only significant aspect of the planet is the crime, and it is the only reason it shows up again.

In the prequel trilogy, Tatooine also becomes the focus, as it is where Qui-Gon finds a young Anakin Skywalker. Although it was the easiest way to explain why Luke has family on Tatooine, it has just as easily been a situation where after Anakin is freed to become a Jedi, his mother is sold to a buyer on Tatooine.

In the second prequel movie, Tatooine could still make an appearance, as if the situation I proposed was adapted, Anakin eventually making his way to Tatooine only to find his dead mother would be crucial to building his character. This resentment for the planet, associating it only with the death of his mother, would make him unlikely to return, and in addition, would solve the problem of the fact that Darth Vader was unaware that his own son was living with his only living relatives without him knowing.

The sequels would not depict the planet until the very end of the last film when Rey travels to the graves of Luke and Leia. However, the desert planet Jakku in the first film was almost entirely a Tatooine clone. Fortunately in the sequel trilogy, the backwater planet is treated as such, and none of the following movies return to it.

While the use of the planet in the main nine movies lies on the border of being overused, the new Star Wars shows on Disney+ have given fans an oversaturation of Tatooine. Appearing in a handful of episodes in both seasons of The Mandalorian, and the entire main focus of The Book of Boba Fett, the amount of screen time given to this purposefully unimportant planet is astounding.

Now, once again, it seems Tatooine will be the focus of Kenobi’s series. Hopefully, its use will be brief, or at the very least, if the focus must stay on the planet, the story better be good to warrant it.