However, if you are a star, close orbits are more complicated than wide ones. Wide orbits are easier to maintain, because the two stars have a weaker gravitational influence on each other. In a smaller orbit, the two stars will exert a reasonably strong tidal force on each other, and will change each other’s orbits over time. When the orbits of the stars begin to change around, the planets’ orbits also change, and you are in prime conditions for what’s called a three-body interaction.

The three body interaction happens when you have three objects orbiting each other in relatively close range. This could be three stars or two stars and a planet, and in either case, the lowest mass object can wind up getting flung suddenly out of the solar system entirely. The other outcome is for the planet to wind up crashing into one of the two stars - not a habitable outcome there, either. The three-body interaction is of particular concern for two stars and a planet, as this means that if your planet is close enough to the star to get caught up in one of these interactions, it won’t stay as a planet in the solar system for a particularly long time. This might partially explain the relatively low number of circumbinary planets we’ve seen so far with Kepler - these planets are prone to either being ejected or consumed by their parent stars.

So it’s not impossible for a Tatooine-like planet to orbit a binary system, but given how rare they are in our solar system, everything has to be exactly so, or Tatooine will wind up on a one-way trip out of its solar system on a journey through its home galaxy.