The Imperial Order at its most powerful.
The Jedi in hiding. The setup for the upcoming "Obi-Wan Kenobi" series is inherently depressing,
but the original scripts were even darker. Keep watching to find out why!
The long-awaited series is just a couple of weeks away,
with the show finally making its debut on Disney+ later this month. Ewan McGregor
will appear as the famed Jedi for the first time since "Revenge of the Sith."
"Hello there."
"The Mandalorian" director Deborah Chow is on board to usher the journey from behind
the camera. But as it turns out, we nearly got a very different version of the project — one
that was much darker in nature, and one that Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy
hit the pause button on in favor of lightening things up a bit.
This news was revealed in a story about the upcoming "Star Wars" show
done by Entertainment Weekly. The series had been heading towards an August 2020 filming
start when Kennedy stepped in to make her voice heard. As the outlet reveals, Kennedy became
concerned with the direction of the scripts — which were written by Hossein Amini — who
had also been on board when the plan was to have McGregor return in a movie. Kennedy said:
"We're looking, ultimately, to make a hopeful, uplifting story. And it's tricky
when you're starting with a character in the state that Obi-Wan would be in
coming off of Revenge of the Sith. That's a pretty bleak period of time. You can't just wave the
magic wand with any writer and arrive at a story that necessarily reflects what you want to feel."
Joby Harold was brought in to take the show in a new, more hopeful direction, crafting
the new story alongside Chow. The new show is set 10 years after the events of "Episode III,"
though plot details remain quite vague right now, as is typical with any new "Star Wars" project.
Also typical is the fact that Kennedy is operating as a hands-on producer,
having led Lucasfilm since George Lucas sold the "Star Wars" franchise to Disney back in 2012.
Although frequently treated as a scapegoat whenever anyone thinks "Star Wars" strays
from their specific window of what this universe should look like,
there's no denying her track record. Decades of working with the greatest filmmakers on
the planet have given her killer instincts, and this sounds like the right change in direction.
"We found a really good story to tell in that timeframe."
As the first trailer for the show indicates, there is still going to be darkness to explore in
"Obi-Wan Kenobi." That has not been stripped away entirely, which makes sense. The end of "Revenge
of the Sith" saw the Jedi nearly wiped out during Order 66, with Anakin Skywalker turning to the
dark side and becoming Darth Vader. This show picks up when the Empire is at its most powerful,
controlling the entire galaxy with an iron fist. With the handful of surviving Jedi in hiding
and the Rebel Alliance barely a spark buried under a mountain of space fascism, the show is,
by default, engineered to open in a pit of despair. And while it would be easy to
wallow in that darkness, perhaps the tougher choice, and the better choice, is to tell
a story of characters emerging from that pit rather than spending six hours sitting in it.
Kennedy and the filmmakers opting for a tale of hope in a bleak world?
Sounds like something we all need right now.
More hopeful direction or not, the current state of the galaxy,
not to mention chopping his best buddy to pieces and leaving him to burn on a volcano planet,
has taken a toll on Obi-Wan. McGregor explains:
"He's a broken man after what happened with the Jedi order at the end of Episode III,
but also what happened with Anakin; that he lost him to the dark side.
He feels an enormous amount of responsibility for that, and guilt."
"I thought that I could instruct him just as well as Yoda. I was wrong."
Fans will get to see a rematch here as well,
with Hayden Christensen returning to reprise his role as Darth Vader.
The actor is finally going to get some meaningful time in the suit, and he will face off against his
former master once more. The fact that these two former best friends will face off again, before
their classic duel to the death on the first Death Star as seen in the original 1977 film,
may rattle "Star Wars" canon a bit — but it's also impossible to not get excited at the prospect.
"Obi-Wan Kenobi" premieres on Disney+ on May 27, 2022.
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