We Will Never Escape Tatooine – Every Star Wars Story That Takes Place There
It’s a big, big galaxy. But we somehow manage to come back to the same desolate, crime-covered desert planet over and over and over again.
The fact that Tatooine sort of sucks is almost a running joke in Star Wars. One of the first things we learn about Luke Skywalker is that he wants to leave, Anakin Skywalker almost entirely refused to visit (because he hates sand), and every time we return there as viewers, we’re reminded that it’s a big, dry, ball of nothing where the animals just want to kill you.
Moisture has to be specifically farmed, and the only people who seem to really thrive on Tatooine are crime lords. The couple of groups indigenous to Tatooine seem to make it work, but why would anybody else settle there? And then why do we keep finding ourselves following characters from and on Tatooine?
We Will Never Escape
It feels almost like we, the audience, have been cursed to constantly return to Tatooine. Anakin and Luke both escaped, but you and I? We’re back there at least a few times a year. It’s like our hometown–we can never truly cut ties for some reason.
The First Star Wars film started there, as did the prequel trilogy. And that made sense, I’ll give them that. But we’ve returned so many times since. And it seems we’ll be returning at least once more when Star Wars Outlaws sends us to Tatooine yet again. Please, I’m so tired.
Design a new planet. I’m begging you. If you go to the Wookiepedia page for Tatooine, scroll down to Appearances, and then only pay attention to the canonical ones (as opposed to the numerous Lego Star Wars etc. appearances), and start scrolling, you’ll be at it for a long while.
Even When We’re Not on Tatooine, They Give Us a Tatooine
Remember in 2015 when we went to see The Force Awakens and it promised to be a whole new thing? Yet as we got into it we quickly realized that we were getting a lot of the same exact story hits. Including how it started on yet another desert planet…
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed The Force Awakens for the two hours of easy entertainment that it was and had a lot of misplaced hope for the rest of the trilogy after. But even when they don’t stick us–and the hero–on Tatooine, they still give us a Tatooine to sit on. Jakku just managed to somehow be a version with a Star Destroyer graveyard. Which is, I admit, pretty neat.
Like Luke, Rey just wants to leave her crummy home world to see the rest of the galaxy. But then at the end of the series, she goes right back to Tatooine! The movie didn’t make it terribly clear if she planned on staying there for a while, or if it was just a stop on her goodbye tour, but I can only hope she found anywhere else to be.
Why Though?
Sometimes our returns to Tatooine make narrative sense. Of course, Obi-Wan Kenobi had to start and end there. But there are hundreds of trips to this planet furthest from the galaxy’s bright center, and it never feels like more than a wink and a nod to fans. And not even in that obscure-easter-egg way that you need to be really deep in the lore to catch; this it’s a reference for everybody. Usually, I love a reference that everyone fan enjoys, but when you do the same thing this many times, it gets old.
The galaxy is big, really big. And there are interesting planets out there that we haven’t spent nearly enough time on. And while Star Wars Outlaws looks like it could be a lot of fun, maybe it can be our last trip back to Tatooine for a little bit, we deserve a break.
Are you tired of returning to Tatooine over and over again? Did you realize just how many appearances the planet makes in canon? What’s a planet you’d rather see more of on screen? Let us know in the comments!
May the Force be with you, adventurers!
