Star Wars: Liam Neeson Thinks Too Many Spinoffs Are Hurting the Franchise

Star Wars actor Liam Neeson isn’t exactly thrilled with the state of the franchise, these days – which is not exactly a well-kept secret. Neeson recently appeared on Watch What Happens Live! alongside Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania star Paul Rudd, and he was once-again forced to talk Star Wars. However, this time Neeson decided to take the conversation a step further and let the world know why, exactly, he has a problem with Star Wars now: 

“There’s so many spinoffs of ‘Star Wars.’ It’s diluting it to me, and it’s taken away the mystery and the magic in a weird way,” Neeson said, after affirming that he currently has no interest returning to Star Wars right now. 

The opinion that Liam Neeson experesses there isn’t exactly unique these days. There are many fans who think that Star Wars‘ franchise expansion in the last few years has come at the cost of quality. Star Wars started out releasing films as big “events” every couple of years, with a massive gaps in time between George Lucas’ Original Trilogy in the ’70s/80s; his 2000s Prequel Trilogy, and the Disney Sequel Trilogy in the 2010s.

Since Disney took over, Star Wars has attempted to pad those sporadic film releases with multiple spinoff films, animated series, and TV series that often act as backfillers for gap sin the franchise timeline, or chracter development only implied (but not seen) in the films. For every big success that seems to push the Star Wars franchise forward in novel ways (The Force Awakens, The Mandalorian, Andor), there are two projects that either divide the franchise (The Last Jedi, Rogue One) or outright disappoint (Solo, The Rise of Skywalker). And that’s not even counting all the multiplatform projects people have to keep up with, which are still adding to Star Wars canon through books and comics (The High Republic) or video games (Star Wars Jedi: Survivor). 

All these releases have ultimately made Star Wars one of the most fractured blockbuster franchises out there. The debate is still ongoing about whether fleshing-out so many corners of mythos and character backstory is, as Neeson said, robbing Star Wars of its mystery. 

How Liam Neeson Could Return to Star Wars

Although Liam Neeson seems admant about being done with Stars Wars, he did previously admit to ComicBook.com that there is one way he’d do it (besides his Force ghost cameo at the end of Obi-Wan): 

“If it was a film. Yeah, I’m a bit of a snob when it comes to TV, I must admit, I just like the big screen, you know?” Neeson told ComicBook.com. “Qui-Gon, I can’t believe it’s 24 years since we made [Star Wars:] The Phantom Menace, I just cannot believe where the time has gone. It was a terrific experience, shooting that film in London.”  

You can stream the Star Wars Saga on Disney+.