I watch every piece of Star Wars content that is released, in theaters or on Disney+. You’d think that would make me a hardcore Star Wars fanatic. I suppose it does, from a certain point of view. Yet if I’m going to choose an adjective to describe the nature of my fanaticism to George Lucas’s 47 year old science-fantasy space opera, it would be “die-hard.” That’s because I think that I am going to continue to watch every piece of Star Wars content released forever, until I die, regardless of quality. This is because I was so hooked in my youth, so formed by both the original and prequel trilogies (plus the sundry media surrounding them), that I have become somehow intrinsically tied to the series. Its successes bring me joy, and its missteps bring me frustration.

I watched those movies religiously in my youth. It was the whole point of loving the series – enjoying the great stories play out on the silver screen. The last time that I saw the original 1977 picture, at a Star Wars Day showing in 2022, I was giddy with how great of a movie it still is. As a movie fan, it’s fun to go back and watch movies that you love, flaws and all. As a Star Wars fan, you’d think I’d rewatch my favorite Star Wars films on occasion. Yet I don’t.

Why? Allow me to illustrate the reason:

Just this past Saturday, May 4 (“Star Wars Day”), I read that the re-release of Episode I: The Phantom Menace raked in $2.3 million in its opening weekend, one of the highest grossing rereleases ever. I didn’t feel like driving to the theater and paying a ticket for it, but the news got me in the mood to re-live the film’s thrills at home, on my Disney+ subscription service. To eleven year old me, The Phantom Menace was the height of epic.

Yet when I turned on the stream, I was reminded of the final Bad Batch episode, an hour-long finale in which the Batch assaults a top secret Imperial research base to save one of their own. There’s also a newly released anthology called Tales of the Empire. I decided to watch those, both to keep up and because The Batch Batch had quietly become one of the best Star Wars shows.

I’m sure you see my realization. For better or for worse, it looks like Disney is willing to oblige the world’s love of Star Wars with an unending deluge of content. Since the Mouse acquired Star Wars in 2012, they have released 5 movies and 11 TV shows (with one more debuting next month). It’s a lot to keep track of. While they do a good job of spreading the new release dates out, it really takes up all of the air there is in my life for Star Wars. Contrary to what other people may think, I watch, listen to, read, and play more than Star Wars content. There gets to a point where I don’t want to spend any more of my time in a galaxy far, far away. When I do feel the itch, I can be sure that there is a new show to watch on D+. 

Put simply, the amount of “content” released discourages me from rewatching any that came before. With the media and entertainment saturated world that we live in, why would I spend time watching a TV show that I already saw, instead of something new?

Engaging in this fandom often feels like a masochistic habit; there is as much stuff that has been bad as there has been good. So every time a new show debuts, or a new episode is released, it’s the chance for lightning to strike. It’s the chance to be reminded as a viewer why I keep watching in the first place.

Or, at the very least, I’ll be able to keep up with the growing mythos around the show. I want to fully catch every reference and understand each significance. Star Wars is self-generating now, and that’s one of the other problems with it. At the most fundamental, instead of being a setting in which to tell a story, Star Wars has become about itself: building out the lore, explaining every little character and how it all ties into the story we know, and then filling in the cracks of those stories with refinement and refinement until we have an arch about Bariss, the former padawan friend of Ashoka’s who was dispelled from the Order after planting a bomb in the Temple to protest violence during the Clone War. (If you’ve seen the original Star Wars movie, you’ll have no idea what any of that means). 

My point is, so much of Star Wars exists to create more of itself in order to general more content for paying subscribers. But they’ve gotten away from the stories that made people care about Star Wars in the first place. As long as they take the time to actually craft worthwhile stories on which to hang the lore, that’s fine with me. Yet I’d love for them to refocus on the core story of the franchise. I’m going to pitch something that I would love to see, and that I believe Disney is going to have to do sooner or later. Make a show set during the time of the Original Trilogy, and starring Luke, Leia, Han, Chewie, C-3P0 and R2-D2. It can be the time between Episodes IV and V, where they are engaged in the rebellion, going from planet to planet, having adventures and being pursued by the Empire before settling on the ice planet Hoth. Or make it be between Episodes V and VI, where Luke is completing his training (Hi, Yoda) with R2 in tow; Leia, Lando, Chewie and 3P0 are searching for Han Solo frozen in carbonite. Their search takes them from Bespin, on the trail of Boba Fett through the galactic underworld leading to Jabba the Hutt. These stories could allow them to tap into the essence of the property and tell the stories that they’ve been trying to imitate in other guises. 

I know that in reality, the OT is seen as so sacred by a segment of fans, and as a result its media overlords, so they do not want to do anything to mess with the precious state of the almost 50 year old movie. But come on, guys. They are characters. Mark Hamill is not literally Luke Skywalker. Recast/revoice, and use the actual main characters of the multi-billion dollar franchise you bought. You at least owe it to fans after not even giving the original crew time together in the sequels. If done well, people would eat it up.

Star Wars is the ultimate sunken investment of my life. I’ve already packed 33 years into it; I can’t pull out now. They’ve hooked me! No matter how silly nor self-serious it gets, I’ll still check it out. Even if I don’t necessarily enjoy every minute. Why? Because if you went back in time and told a 10 year old me that in the future there would be 12 Star Wars TV shows, I would have thought I had entered paradise. I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t honor that.