Luke Skywalker complained. He had spent his entire life looking up at the stars, desperate to escape his homeworld.
And yet, amusingly enough, Star Wars as a franchise has never been able to escape the allure of Tatooine. The galaxy's dustbowl turned out to be the main base of operations of Jabba the Hutt in Star Wars Rebels season 3 all the same.
The Mandalorian has now headed to Tatooine twice in two seasons. Curiously, though, Jon Favreau's live-action Star Wars series has already done a better job than all these movies in fleshing the planet out. The Mandalorian season 1, episode 5 gave viewers a sense of Tatooine transformed by the fall of the Empire and the death of Jabba the Hutt. Mos Eisley has fallen into disrepair, with the once-profitable cantina now deserted and the spaceport run by a woman named Peli Motto who struggles to make ends meet. Everywhere there are hints of the past, with Peli Motto working with repurposed pit droids, or Cobb Vanth using what seems to be an old pod racer rather than a speeder.
The Mandalorian has added particular depth to the relationship between Tatooine's human inhabitants and the Tusken Raiders. Season 2 gave a sense of just how bitter and conflicted the relationship between the two really is, in part because of the dynamic nature of the desert environment; Mos Pelgo had literally been resettled, with a Marshal in Mandalorian armor repelling slavers and Tuskens alike, and nobody else on the planet even knew about it. The Tuskens themselves have been treated as actual living beings rather than faceless aliens, and The Mandalorian season 2 premiere subtly shone a light on the bigotry and prejudice against them.
This cleverly fleshes out the prequel trilogy, allowing audiences to view the Tusken raid in Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones - and Anakin Skywalker's slaughter of the Tusken village - in a new light. Even Tatooine's ecosystem has been developed, with The Mandalorian helping viewers understand the desert environment and its inhabitants. It's possible to spot everything from scurriers to womp rats, while the famous krayt dragon was finally seen in the season 2 premiere.
It's true that The Mandalorian's episodic, long-form approach to storytelling is better suited to developing a strong sense of place. For all that's the case, though, it's hard not to conclude the series simply treats its locations with a greater degree of care and attention to detail, desiring to prove itself a valuable addition to Star Wars lore in every way. In this, as in almost everything else, The Mandalorian can be considered a success.