‘Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi’, Starring Ewan McGregor, Debuts on Disney+ May 25th
Hayden Christensen, Kumail Nanjiani and Joel Edgerton are in the cast.
‘Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi’ Poster Courtesy of Disney+
Obi-Wan Kenobi. Now that’s a name we’ve not heard in a long, long time. At least not properly on screen in a ‘Star Wars’ movie or show. But we’re about to be hearing it a lot more as the series named for him, Disney+ show ‘Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi’ has an official start date of May 25th.
If that date sparks memories for you, chances are you know that’s the day (in 1977) that ‘Star Wars’ launched in theaters, changing the face of cinema forever.
The series, which stars Ewan McGregor as the venerable Jedi master, will be set nearly a decade after the events of ‘Revenge of the Sith’, and finds Obi-Wan still grappling with the betrayal he suffered from former pupil Anakin Skywalker.
Anakin – or more likely, the part-man, part machine Sith lord he became, Darth Vader – also seems likely to show up here, with Hayden Christensen in the cast. Christensen, of course, played Anakin in all three of the ‘Star Wars’ prequel movies and ended up suited the dark lord. Whether he shows up in full Vader costume or in flashback as Anakin remains to be seen. Why not both?
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
This new Lucasfilm/Disney+ show has been in the works for a while now, hitting something of a speed bump in January 2020 when original writer Hossein Amini left the project over creative differences and script issues. ‘King Arthur: Legend of the Sword’s Joby Harold was brought into replace him and, after another delay because of the pandemic, the series started shooting in January last year.
“I think the scripts are great. They’re in really good shape. They want them to be better. I think we keep our same airdate. All good. Everybody is going, ‘Oh, my god!’” McGregor told Variety when asked about the script issues. “But it’s not really as dramatic as it might seem.”
Deborah Chow, who won praise for her work directing fellow ‘Star Wars’ show ‘The Mandalorian’, has made all six episodes of this one.
And besides McGregor and Christensen, the cast includes ‘Eternals’ Kumail Nanjiani, ‘Hitman: Agent 47’s Rupert Friend, ‘Fast & Furious’ franchise veteran Sung Kang, ‘Straight Outta Compton’ star O’Shea Jackson Jr, and Maya Erskine, probably best known for co-creating and co-starring in ‘Pen15’.
Returning to the ‘Star Wars’ galaxy alongside McGregor and Christensen is Joel Edgerton, who played “Uncle” Owen Lars, the ill-fated moisture farmer whom Obi-Wan entrusts to raise an infant Luke Skywalker. He appeared in both ‘Attack of the Clones’ and ‘Revenge of the Sith’. Given all the talk of a de-aged Luke Skywalker in ‘The Mandalorian’ and ‘The Book of Boba Fett’, we can’t help but wonder what a 10-year-old Luke might look like. Perhaps there are things the human brain should not comprehend.
‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’ will launch, then, in May. Disney has yet to reveal whether it’ll kick off with more than one episode and of course, what we all want to see now is a trailer.
‘Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi’ Poster Courtesy of Disney+
