Since Disney acquired Star Wars, the franchise has grown larger than it ever was with a variety of live-action shows and movies. Some Star Wars fans couldn’t be happier with the increased output from the franchise, while others worry about the possible decline in quality that could come from Disney stretching the franchise too thin. Recently, Qui-Gon Jinn actor Liam Neeson added his voice to the side of the dissenters, expressing his issue with Star Wars spinoffs.
As reported by Variety, Neeson didn’t elaborate too much on his point, but he did say that he thought the increased number of Star Wars spinoffs was “diluting” the magic of the franchise. While some spinoffs like The Mandalorian or Andor have managed to tell creative or meaningful stories, Neeson does have a point when it comes to some of the Star Wars projects released since he starred in The Phantom Menace.
As of now, Disney’s Star Wars projects have mostly focused on the era of the Skywalker Saga. Too many of the spinoff projects feel like they were trying to explain aspects of the Star Wars universe that were inconsequential when fans already knew the outcome. For example, fans knew from the beginning of Rogue One that the Rebels would secure the Death Star plans and what those plans would tell them. This habit of over-explaining details from the original films was taken to an almost-comical level with the spinoff film Solo: A Star Wars Story.
Instead of just creating an interesting narrative about a young Han Solo, Solo felt like it needed to show or explain every bit of background information that fans either already knew or didn’t care about. The film makes a big point of showing fans how Han obtained his blaster from the original films and even how he got his last name, two details that don’t add anything interesting to Han’s character. Like Neeson said, having fans sit through several hours just to learn the backstory behind minor details from the original films makes the Star Wars franchise shallow in terms of ideas and bloated in terms of content.
Star Wars spinoff projects don’t just add some unnecessary details, but they can also create contradictions between them and the original films. For example, the ending of Rogue One shows Vader witnessing the Rebels hand off the Death Star plans to Leia’s crew. Now, when fans watch A New Hope, Leia trying to convince Vader that she is just on a diplomatic mission doesn’t make a lot of sense when he pursued them from the scene of the heist. Leia looks less like a Rebel spy sticking to her cover story and more like a guilty child with her hand in the cookie jar making up an unbelievable excuse.
The original Star Wars trilogy also made it pretty clear that Obi-Wan and Yoda considered Luke and Leia their only hopes to save the galaxy. This feels strange when viewers know about several other powerful Jedi around during the Galactic Civil War like Ezra Bridger, Ahsoka Tano and Cal Kestis. This takes away from some of the significance of the original characters and their journey, diluting the magic, as Neeson said. There are other contradictions, like Leia mentioning how Obi-Wan helped her father during the Clone Wars but ignoring the events of Kenobi where he rescued her from kidnappers. This not only dilutes the original films but makes the new Star Wars projects feel like they weren’t well-thought-out.