At the time, the second trilogy (in order of release) of ‘Star Wars’ it was received coldly, if not with acrimony, by critics who saw more cold artificiality than new hope in the digital scenarios defended by George Lucas. Working on them was no pleasure either, as he reiterated Ewan McGregor, younger version of Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi. And yet From Friday, the 27th, we will see the Scottish actor again in the role seventeen years later: Disney+ premieres (with a double episode) ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’a limited series in which Obi-Wan deals with the trauma of Order 66 (Palpatine’s Jedi purge plan) and is reportedly reunited with past dark side Anakin Skywalker long before their duel in ‘The War of the galaxies’.
When those films were released, we only heard the voice of the critics, who decided that they were not good
Ewan McGregor
The reason for this ‘revival’ is simple: although those of us grown up with the original films find it hard to believe, there is an entire generation (today’s twenties) for whom the prequels were their gateway to the ‘Star Wars’ universe. Now it is possible to play with your nostalgia. “When those films were released, we only heard the voice of the critics, who decided that they were not good”McGregor tells a few outlets, including ours, on virtual junket. “But in the end those kids for whom we made them have been making themselves heard.” After watching the romance scenes between Anakin and Padmé (Natalie Portman) get parodied ad nauseam for years, Christensen has been relieved to learn that some sincerely love 2000s movies. “If I come back now, it’s because of that fan base,” she tells us. “It’s been kind of heartwarming. I can’t express what it means to have a fan walk up to you and express his full appreciation for Anakin.”
tumultuous origins
At first, the reunion between old friends was not supposed to happen, but the director and ‘showrunner’ deborah chow (signer of a couple of episodes of ‘The Mandalorian’) insisted that it was not possible to tell the story of Obi-Wan without reference to Anakin or Vader. Chow worked on the project from the beginning, when Hossein Amini (‘Drive’) was at the forefront of the scripts. The latter’s ideas ended up in the trash, as explained by ‘The Hollywood Reporter’, due to the excessive similarities with ‘The Mandalorian’: it was another story of an old wolf protecting a small creature, in this case Luke Skywalker. Also, according to some sources, Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau, the duo behind the Grogu series, encouraged Chow to make a “bigger” series.
What I was looking for in tone, a bit in contrast to ‘The Mandalorian’, was something more poetic and atmospheric.
deborah chow
When I ask Chow about the differences between the initial project and the one that finally reaches us, with Joby Harold as head writer, his answer is somewhat corporate: “We went through a long development process. I worked with Hossein and then with Joby. If it was so long it is because it was a very demanding story, especially due to the fact that it took place between the two trilogies There has been a search process arm in arm with the different writers until we got to where we wanted to go.”
It is when answering a question about cinematographic influences that Chow seems to reveal a little about the changes suffered by ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’ since his first gestation: “What I was looking for in the tone, a little in contrast to ‘The Mandalorian’, was something more poetic and atmospheric. If ‘The Mandalorian’ drank from the sources of the classic western, I thought of more recent examples and very based on the characters such as ‘The proposal’ either ‘The murder of Jesse James by the cowardly Robert Ford’And it’s by quoting those movies that Chow completely wins us over.
tortured characters
‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’ throws us back to that galaxy far, far away, some ten years after ‘Revenge of the Sith’, in which Obi-Wan watched his best friend and apprentice turn to the dark side. The Jedi have been purged, or nearly so; some, like our hero, live hidden from everything and everyone. Kenobi can’t find a way to regain his faith. Vader, now a settled villain, goes on the hunt for his old mentor, which is to say his former self. “I think there’s a lot of exploration of these characters on the show,” says Christensen. “Vader is trying to bury Anakin as deep as possible, but at the same time he is unable to forget his relationship with the Jedi, to put the loss of Padmé behind him… There is a lot of internal conflict”.
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In his elimination of the Jedi, Vader has as his main army the Inquisitors, a group of assassins that debuted on screen in the animated series ‘Star Wars Rebels’. Rupert Friend plays their leader, the Grand Inquisitor; Moses Ingram (Beth Harmon’s best friend in ‘Lady’s Gambit’) plays the first black villain in the series, Reva the Inquisitor. “If in this galaxy there are wookies and there are robots, there has to be something other than white people too”Moses points out. “I know this is going to mean a lot to a lot of people.”
evolved technology
Oddly enough, McGregor still seems to enjoy talking about how bored he was shooting the prequels. He explains to this newspaper: “They were difficult to do because, at the time, Lucas was experimenting with digital cameras and sets created digitally from blue or green screens. I remember how difficult it was to shoot ‘Episode II’. I spent a lot of time alone on a planet I didn’t see, with tall aliens I didn’t see either. All the while talking to tennis balls tied to sticks.”. He has better words for the revolutionary StageCraft technology, that dome of LCD screens that envelops actors in believable environments. “When you’re in these settings, if you’re in the desert, everywhere you look you see desert.” And not tennis balls tied to sticks.