Kenobi Writer Confirms Reva Changes From Initial Movie Idea

Kenobi Writer Confirms Reva Changes From Initial Movie Idea

Obi-Wan Kenobi has come and gone and after the fact, the Kenobi writer confirms Reva changes from his initial movie idea. Stuart Beattie drafted a script for an Obi-Wan Kenobi movie, though back then it was planned as a trilogy of stories Beattie told The Direct. As we know, Solo happened and Lucasfilm got cold feet. Thus the Obi-Wan Kenobi Disney+ show was born.

Beattie is credited for story on episodes 1, 2 and 6 of Obi-Wan Kenobi, which kinda tells you where things were broadened out. In the latest chat with The Direct, Beattie has talked a little about Reva, how she came about, and how her fate was ultimately very different in his version of the script.

Firstly Beattie talks about how in his version Reva didn’t know the real identity of Darth Vader, until it was Obi-Wan who told her.

“Yeah, except the only little difference in mine was she didn’t know Darth Vader was Anakin. Cause I was like, ‘How’d she know that?’ All she saw was Anakin as Anakin because he hadn’t changed in the suit yet, right? So Anakin killed her friends, put the scar on her, almost killed her, left her for dead, basically. So, in her mind, the Jedi Council were the biggest villains in the galaxy. She believed the lies that they were plotting a coup to overtake and get power and all that, but they were stopped by the Clones. So she believed that’s why she’s hunting Jedi, because she believed the Jedi are the worst, basically.”

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In the end it seems it was this revelation which had Reva sacrifice herself to protect Kenobi’s status, and leave Vader thinking he was dead.

“Because I figured, ‘How would she know that this thing in a mechanical suit that everyone calls Darth Vader is the guy who killed her, or tried to kill her?’ So, it was Obi-Wan kind of letting her in on that secret and that revelation that makes her kind of go, ‘Oh my god, I’ve been wrong this whole time.’ And so she goes and basically saved Kenobi by sacrificing herself, telling Vader, ‘I killed Kenobi.’ And then Vader killed her, [with her] knowing that Vader would kill her. So, that kind of completed her arc. So just a little bit different that she was, yeah, absolutely, the Inquisitor hunting Kenobi all the way through and driven by her own personal demons.”

“Yeah, killed by Vader at the end of it. Yeah, I wanted this story, I wanted her story to end. I wanted Reva to play her part in the Kenobi-Vader story, which was, essentially, at the end, she was the one that allowed Vader, basically told Vader to stop hunting Kenobi. You know, she ended the obsession Vader had with Kenobi. She claimed it was over, it’s done. So that was, that was her role to play. And she’d done so many terrible things, I felt she had to die [laughs]. You can only redeem so much.”

No Other Inquisitors

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Beattie also said that in his version there were no other Inquisitors outside of Reva.

“So no other plans to include any other Inquisitors… I knew I wanted Darth Vader, obviously, as the big overall villain in this story, and I see him as an antagonist who was going to be more one-on-one with Obi-Wan throughout the show. So Reva really was the result of that, I knew I needed that character.”

Reva’s path would have followed a smilax trajectory though.

“And, of course, there are so many great characters from The Purge, the Great Purge of the Temple and everything, it just was like, ‘Okay, let’s see what she was doing at the Purge. What if she saw everything that went down? What if… Anakin/Vader killed her, left her for dead and sent her on this path? So all that kind of stuff just kind of made sense and allowed me to create a very confused, conflicted, blinded character filled with hate and rage and all the stuff that makes people want to be Sith and Sith Acolytes. And take her to a place of understanding. Understanding truth, understanding who Obi-Wan is, who Vader really is, and what her path is in the galaxy.”

Someone For Obi-Wan To Save

Obi-Wan Kenobi

Beattie says that Reva came from a need for Obi-Wan to have someone to fight and to save.

“… We were always faced with the fact that Obi-Wan could never kill Darth Vader. So he needed to defeat someone. And so Reva was my attempt to give him someone to defeat or someone to save, because he’s not going to save Darth. The Darth Vader storyline is going to end in a downer, so I wanted to save someone, and that’s why I created Reva.”

Though Beattie says she was not based on the Sister from Fallen Order like some fans guessed.

“So I hadn’t played Fallen Order. I wrote this initially in 2017, so that was before I played Fallen Order. I then played Fallen Order and was like, ‘Oh, wow, this is Reva!’ No, look, it’s just coincidence. I wanted to create a new character because I didn’t want to be bound by any canon with any of the others that have already been discussed. And I wanted freedom to take her where I wanted to take her. So that’s why I created her, for this story. And that’s the other thing too, we’re already using so many characters in established canon with Obi, Darth, Owen, Beru… So I was looking to create someone new.  I even had Cody in mind. You know, so I was looking to create someone new.”

What do you think of Beattie’s comments as the Kenobi writer confirms Reva changes from his initial movie idea? Do you think the movie ideas sound better than the show version we got from Joby Harold? Or, do you prefer the version we saw?

I’m in two minds. I think the show was more ambitious. However the movie may have been better executed overall? We’ll never know I guess? Let us know below or over on Discord.

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