Disney hasn’t been shy about using iconic Star Wars characters as often as it can. Over the years, we’ve seen many original trilogy characters return, with the top example, Darth Vader, returning for Rogue One and Obi-Wan Kenobi. But along the way, many fans have taken the position that less is more.
After all, way back in 1977, Vader was an enigmatic and terrifying figure. Now we know practically everything about his life and it’s safe to say some of the magic around him has evaporated. So, which Star Wars characters could do with being put on the back burner for a few years?
Fans on r/StarWars are busily debating this, and there are some obvious front-runners:
We agree that The Book of Boba Fett was a net negative for the galaxy’s most feared bounty hunter, as it’s difficult to see him as a huge threat after his incompetent running of the Tatooine underworld:
Palpatine is also played out, particularly after his entirely unnecessary return in The Rise of Skywalker. We always love seeing Ian McDiarmid cackling away, though he’s much scarier as an omnipresent offscreen evil:
And should Darth Maul have stayed dead?
But we can’t argue that Vader has been overused way too much in the Disney era:
With The Mandalorian‘s third season beginning next week, we should probably expect some more familiar faces to reappear once more. Fortunately, in that time period most of these overused characters are either too dead or too young to play a substantial role in the story, though it seems like it’s difficult for Disney and Lucasfilm to resist the short-term hype of bringing back beloved characters whose stories have already concluded.
Either way, let’s just give Darth Vader a rest for a while.
The Mandalorian returns on March 1.