Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy shared her unfiltered thoughts on Obi-Wan Kenobi‘s script issues.
Ewan McGregor is set to reprise his role as Obi-Wan Kenobi for the upcoming Disney Plus limited series of the same name. Fans were treated to the first look at the Star Wars series earlier this week and the reception has been universally positive! Set between the events of Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, the limited series will tackle Obi-Wan Kenobi as he watches over a young Luke Skywalker and navigates a dangerous threat involving the Empire.
Obi-Wan Kenobi has been a long-gestating project at Lucasfilm and has had its fair share of creative issues like any project. Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy opened about the Star Wars series’ script issues and the decisions made to remedy them.
“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.”
The Star Wars head ultimately shut down production on the series in January 2020, pushing filming back a whole year to January 2021. The extra year allowed the creative time more to flesh out the narrative and bring on writer Joby Harold, who took over scribe Hossein Amini.
Kennedy continued by discussing the importance of bringing Darth Vader into the series, which led to contentious debates at Lucasfilm.
“The debate around whether we should do that or not carried on for quite some time. Everybody within our creative team has strong opinions, and all of our fans have strong opinions. So when you realize that you’re under that level of scrutiny, certainly a story point like that is going to be scrutinized at a very high level. We talked about it constantly.”
Directed by Deborah Chow from Joby Harold’s scripts, the series stars Ewan McGregor, Hayden Christensen, Moses Ingram, Joel Edgerton, Bonnie Piesse, Kumail Nanjiani, Indira Varma, Rupert Friend, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Sung Kang, Simone Kessell, and Benny Safdie. The series will also see the return of legendary Star Wars composer John Williams, who scored a theme.
Obi-Wan Kenobi will hit Disney Plus on May 25, 2022. Stay tuned for all the latest news surrounding the upcoming series and be sure to subscribe to Heroic Hollywood’s YouTube channel for more original video content.
Source: Entertainment Weekly