The main points of Obi-Wan Kenobi, the Star Wars restricted sequence starring Ewan McGregor on Disney+ this weekend, is presently below extra wraps than a Tusken Raider. Positive, you can also make Gaffi-stick stab at guessing what questions its story will reply, and we have now, however good luck getting the showrunners to substantiate a single element on the file.
Nonetheless, here is one factor Obi-Wan Kenobi director Deborah Chow can inform us: what the present is not. For one factor, it is not Kenobi.
Chow used the 2013 novel Kenobi by creator John Jackson Miller, which covers the start of the exiled Jedi’s life, as a part of her preparation for guiding the sequence. However whereas the e-book model of Obi-Wan’s story was helpful in establishing the “tone” of the present, none of its plot factors made it into the on-screen model.
“I used to be popping out of The Mandalorian, which is clearly set in a really totally different time within the galaxy,” Chow says. “I did a reasonably deep dive, and checked out a variety of stuff within the Expanded Universe [the name for all the Star Wars books and comics that were taken out of the series’ official canon in 2014 and rebranded as “Legends”]. I learn Kenobi and thought [Miller] did a beautiful job … I used to be making an attempt to get a way of what this looks like for this character at that time in his life.”
That mentioned, “there was nothing that turned particular to the precise sequence,” Chow admits. “There was extra affect on tone than story.”
‘Ben’ there, accomplished that
Kenobi finds Obi-Wan making an attempt to piece collectively his new life throughout his first 12 months on Tatooine. Miller described it as the same story to the well-known western film Shane: “the mysterious stranger who rides into city with a previous no one is aware of,” he advised Mashable in 2013. “There aren’t any house battles, no lightsaber battles with Sith Lords … [Obi-Wan] would suppose it a dereliction of his responsibility to go operating off across the galaxy. He does not comprehend it but, however he is form of serving a jail sentence. He has to atone.”
Distinction that with Obi-Wan Kenobi. One factor we do know in regards to the present is that it does characteristic Obi-Wan operating off across the galaxy, and a lightsaber battle with one Sith lord particularly: Darth Vader. We’re left to presume that Kenobi was an affect on the tone of the Tatooine scenes, at the very least — and that Obi-Wan’s discovery that Darth Vader survived their duel in Revenge of the Sith is what sends him off-planet, maybe in the hunt for a extra direct form of atonement.
The e-book provided one motive for why Obi-Wan adopted the considerably ineffective alias “Ben Kenobi”. He did it by chance, revealing his final title to an area lady he rescued. Greedy for a primary title, he selected “Ben” as a result of, Miller mentioned, it was the title of a geographic characteristic on Tatooine. So Obi-Wan will provide a special naming story completely; maybe the nickname was bestowed by Luke’s Uncle Ben, with whom Obi-Wan seems to have a contentious relationship within the trailers.
‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’ has a variety of explaining to do
What you want to watch
In the meantime, informal followers can relaxation straightforward. Obi-Wan Kenobi is not going to include complicated references to extra obscure elements of the Jedi knight’s on-screen story, reminiscent of his appearances within the animated sequence Clone Wars and Rebels.
“Clearly will probably be helpful to have seen the prequels,” Chow says, referring to Episodes I via III, which occur ten years earlier than Obi-Wan Kenobi begins. However there was an effort to not get too “into the weeds” of the broader story, she says — so for those who can recall the fundamentals of these motion pictures, particularly the elements which cowl the downfall of Anakin Skywalker and his transition into Darth Vader, you are good.
“One of many issues [writer] Joby [Harold] and I might test is, does this nonetheless work for those who take the Star Wars out of it? Does it nonetheless work on a human degree? We might all the time speak about Joby’s mother — is she going to get it? , she does not keep in mind all the things … effectively, we hope she remembers who Anakin is.”
The final Lucasfilm providing on Disney+, E book of Boba Fett, was broadly criticized for a narrative that zig-zagged away from its predominant focus, seeming at occasions like an additional season of The Mandalorian. However Chow assures us that Obi-Wan Kenobi will really feel like a way more coherent story.
“We completely approached this as one massive story,” Chow says — which is smart, on condition that the present was initially a spin-off film. The transition to Disney+ restricted sequence came about earlier than she joined the venture; nonetheless, Chow’s involvement seems to have made it extra of a character-driven story, fairly than fan service for hardcore Star Wars nerds.
“If it added to the material of the world or if it felt prefer it was natural, actually we might” embody solutions to questions that followers have been questioning about, Chow says. “However we tried by no means to do it if there wasn’t a goal to the story.”
We’re about to search out out if the Drive was together with her in that effort.
Obi-Wan Kenobi debuts on Disney+ on Could 27.
