Star Wars: Visions EP says Lucasfilm ‘mindful,’ but not overly concerned, about oversaturation

With Star Wars: Visions, the animated anthology series set a long time ago in that galaxy far, far away, ready to debut on Disney+, one might wonder if Lucasfilm is oversaturating the media scene with too much Star Wars? After all, not only did we just get the first season of The Bad Batch, but we’re soon slated to get an Obi-Wan Kenobi series, a show based on Cassian Andor, The Book of Boba Fett, and another season of The Mandalorian. And aren’t these shows coming our way after Disney Chairman and former CEO Bob Iger said the movies were taking things down a notch after The Rise of Skywalker? 

Well, according to one Lucasfilm executive, although the House of Star Wars has been certainly “mindful” of wearing out its welcome with fans and flooding the scene with too much stuff, it’s ultimately not a concern. 

Speaking with The Direct, Visions executive producer James Waugh said that not only has the Disney+ streaming service changed the way audiences consume media, but a show like Visions, which features short animated Star Wars films from seven of Japan's most illustrious anime studios, is different enough from what’s also being offered that it won’t dilute the “specialness” of the franchise on the whole. 

"From a broader kind of creative strategy perspective, Disney+ has changed the way we're viewing a lot of what's possible with Star Wars," Waugh said. "So you can get shows like The Mandalorian and Boba Fett because the platform allows for it."

According to Waugh, who also serves as Vice President, Franchise Content and Strategy at Lucasfilm, the studio wasn’t “ever concerned about the oversaturation potentiality with Visions in particular,” because with Visions, they “were offering something that's kind of a diversification of what the offering is.” In other words, Visions is a different enough take on the material, so it shouldn't spoil fans' appetites for other Star Wars offerings.

“We weren't concerned that this was going to impact Star Wars in aggregate, we thought this would be a breath of fresh air for people to explore Star Wars in an exciting new way," added Waugh.

Still, Waugh does admit that the studio continues to be mindful to not wear out its welcome. 

"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," Waugh said. "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."

Considering The Mandalorian, the final season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and The Bad Batch have all been massively popular with fans, maybe Lucasfilm is right not to be overly worried about telling too many Star Wars stories. After all, it’s a pretty big galaxy.

Star Wars: Visions premieres on Disney+ Thursday, Sept. 22.