Not every Star Wars character needs an origin story

There’s nothing wrong with a good old-fashioned origin story. But not every Star Wars character needs one.

Take the Star Wars novel Darth Plagueis as an example — we’re talking about Palpatine here, in particular his role in that story involving murdering his entire family. We already knew he was evil. Did we need to see him doing more evil things before he became a senator? What did that really add to his story?

The same could be said, of course, for Solo: A Star Wars Story — a fun and exciting adventure the audience didn’t technically need. All we needed to know about Han Solo, we gathered through watching the Original Trilogy. Wasn’t that enough?

Maybe. Maybe not. Perhaps some characters in Star Wars — mainly legacy characters — do deserve entire films or shows dedicated to their origins.

This common desire for every character to get their own origin tale likely comes down to the fact that different people like different characters. Bo-Katan Kryze does not need an origin story, but because she’s my favorite character, I would devour one in an instant. I will take any ounce of Bo-Katan storytelling I can get because I want to see more of her in everything.

So it’s totally understandable that, on the surface, it seems that everyone wants an origin story for every new face in the franchise. But there also seems to be a deep obsession with origin stories in media in general, and we sometimes forget that not every character’s story is enriched by traveling back in time to show how they got to where they are.

A mix of “new” stories and “origin” stories in a franchise is likely more beneficial in pleasing the masses, but is it really worth it to keep reusing old characters when there are so many new stories and characters to be explored?

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