According to Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy, Obi-Wan Kenobi was rewritten to be a more uplifting story. It’s well documented that Obi-Wan Kenobi was originally a movie that was later transitioned to a Disney+ show. However it was decided to delay the show in order to rework the script. Joby Harold was brought in on script duties at the same time Deborah Chow was hired to helm the series. Talking about the decision to delay the show, Kennedy recently told EW the reasons for the decision.
“We’re looking, ultimately, to make a hopeful, uplifting story,” says the studio head. “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.”
RELATED: Kenobi Begins Broken And Faithless Says Ewan McGregor
Writer Joby Harold talked about how passionate he was to be given this chance.
“This was a character that’s always been a minor obsession of mine,” says Harold. “And when I heard it was a character they were exploring, I very aggressively told them all the things I thought they should do.”
“Obi-Wan is lost,” says star Ewan McGregor. “He’s a broken man after what happened with the Jedi order at the end of Episode III, but also what happened with Anakin; that he lost him to the dark side. He feels an enormous amount of responsibility for that, and guilt.”
“When we last saw Obi-Wan in the prequels, he’s very emotional,” says Harold. “There’s a passion to him. And when we get to see him again in A New Hope, he is the Zen master. That was the story that I wanted to understand. What had happened to Obi-Wan between the guy that Ewan had brought to life and the guy that Sir Alec Guinness brought to life?”
As for how much of the original plot made it into Obi-Wan Kenobi 2.0? Chow notes that “we inherited some of it, but we did really make some significant changes and add a few different elements.”
Vader
One of the elements seemingly added in the newer version was a certain Dark Lord of the Sith. The return of Darth Vader.
“The debate around whether we should do that or not carried on for quite some time,” Kennedy reveals.” 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.”
Vader and Kenobi are set to clash twice in Obi-Wan Kenobi as per LRM‘s exclusive report a few weeks ago Here. There are some more detailed rumors which have hit we will be covering later today. Therefore, check that out when it hits, but be warned of SPOILERS.
What do you think about the fact Obi-Wan Kenobi was rewritten as a more uplifting story? Are you happy we will see some kind of evolution for Kenobi throughout this series? Thoughts below as always.
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