Lucasfilm isn’t worried about oversaturation in Star Wars just yet

We’re at an unprecedented time in Star Wars history right now where we have the privileged of getting a lot of Star Wars content all the time. That’s mostly thanks to Disney+, which has the bandwidth to accommodate back to back Star Wars series. And, of course, it also has to do with demand — from both the studio and the fans. But is the studio putting out more Star Wars content than fans are demanding?

That was the question for Lucasfilm executive James Waugh, who served as an executive producer on the new series Star Wars: Visions. We go over Star Wars: Visions in our review here, but basically, it’s a non-canon anime anthology series, and certainly a first in Star Wars that hasn’t been done before.

Now, take Visions, and add that on top of December’s The Book of Boba Fett and next year’s Andor, Obi-Wan Kenobi, The Mandalorian season 3, and everything else coming — and you might begin to feel a little overwhelmed by the amount of Star Wars content coming out. But according to Waugh in an interview with The Direct, that’s not quite the way Lucasfilm is feeling right now. He explained:

"Are we worried about oversaturation? I think we’re always very thoughtful and cautious about how do we keep Star Wars’ specialness in this landscape. We’re mindful, but this wasn’t one of those instances where we had our spidey-senses on a lot because we felt this was such a new offering."

Waugh also addressed if Visions, in particular, was a contributing factor to oversaturation in Star Wars. He noted that he didn’t feel like Visions was a factor in oversaturation and argued, “I think the reason was we were offering something that’s kind of a diversification of what the offering is.” He also noted the new format would hopefully feel like “a breath of fresh air for people to explore Star Wars in an exciting new way.”

Too much Star Wars or just enough?

With so much coming out from Star Wars, it’s certainly understandable that there is a concern for oversaturation within the fandom. There’s always the argument of quality over quantity because, in many cases, there’s only so much you can do before you begin sacrificing the quality of the thing you’re working on. But also, will fans begin to feel Star Wars burnout once the projects really begin to pile on? Even if it’s something completely fresh like Visions, it’s still a part of Star Wars. So does that matter?

We can look at Marvel Studios as an example. The studio started out with releasing one movie a year, then two and even three. And at this current time, every month there is new content — whether it be a new series or a new movie (or both). That includes some content that would be considered “a breath of fresh air,” including What If…?.

Personally, it has been a little overwhelming to see so many MCU projects back to back this year, because you don’t really get time to savor the current project that’s out. You’re constantly looking ahead to the next one because it’s always right around the corner.

For Marvel, they’re taking the lightning lane in putting out all their content fairly quickly. And for Star Wars, it may be nearly the same. Three live-action Star Wars series in one year has never been done before. But, at the very least, this is a time that we can be thankful for. Because when else have we ever had such an abundance of Star Wars content to keep us busy?

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