Fans have clamored for an Obi-Wan-based Star Wars movie set between Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars Episode IV: New Hope for quite some time, mainly to see Ewan McGregor return as the title character. The project – which is said to be in development at Lucasfilm with a rumored 2020 release window – just got another major supporter in the form of actor Liam Neeson, who portrayed Qui-Gon Jinn in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.
Yahoo! Movies recently got a chance to chat with Neeson following the release of his latest action movie, The Commuter. When asked about a future Star Wars appearance and an appearance in the Obi-Wan movie, Neeson said he hasn’t heard anything from Disney, but he’d jump at the opportunity to play the character again:
“This is the first time I’m hearing of this. No one’s been in touch with me. I know in the Star Wars world anything is possible. In the first one, The Phantom Menace, I died but we know, you know, Jedi come back and stuff but no one’s been in touch. We’ll see.”
While Qui-Gon would be long dead in the time period that an Obi-Wan movie would take place, there’s nothing to say that he couldn’t appear at all. In Revenge of the Sith, Yoda explains to Obi-Wan that his old master had discovered the secret to preserving one’s mortal state after death – which explains why Obi-Wan and Yoda become Force Ghosts in the Original Trilogy. It’s further explained that in The Clone Wars, he hadn’t yet discovered how to physically appear to someone, which is why he didn’t appear in as one in the aforementioned movie. Most recently, a short story in the book From a Certain Point of View actually features Qui-Gon talking to Obi-Wan during the events of A New Hope, appearing before his Padawan in a corporeal form, which clarifies that he figured things out about 20 years after the time he spoke to Yoda. So Qui-Gon physically appearing in an Obi-Wan movie would not be off the cards.
In general, both Neeson’s Qui-Gon and McGregor’s Obi-Wan are among the things that nearly every Star Wars fan like about The Phantom Menace, and since neither actor has aged that much, they could conceivably even film a pre-Episode I flashback sequence together if they want to show Qui-Gon kicking butt one more time. Given that fan support for such a project is much more prevalent online than support for Solo: A Star Wars Story, Lucasfilm is likely thinking very hard about making the movie.
An untitled Star Wars spin-off about Obi-Wan Kenobi is in development at Lucasfilm, rumored for a 2020 release window. Ewan McGregor has expressed interest in reprising his role.
Source: Yahoo! Movies
