Obi-Wan Kenobi was originally going to be a movie, but when Solo: A Star Wars Story bombed at the box office, plans at Lucasfilm changed. A Boba Fett movie became The Book of Boba Fett, while Kenobi: A Star Wars Story was transformed into the limited series coming to Disney+ on May 25.
Talking to Entertainment Weekly, Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy addressed how Disney's shift to streaming changed plans for Obi-Wan Kenobi.
"When Bob Iger very specifically said, 'We are going to start to shift our priority to making series for Disney+, and we're launching the streaming service,' that really was what shifted our strategy," Kennedy explains. "We started to look at the opportunity in the streaming space where we could do long-form storytelling, and we realized there was an opportunity to experiment in that space without the level of scrutiny that happens when you release a feature."
That feature went through quite a few creative teams, and it hasn't exactly been smooth sailing for this limited series. Production was pushed back due to script issues and there was a time when it looked like the plug might be pulled altogether. "We're looking, ultimately, to make a hopeful, uplifting story," Kennedy notes. "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."
Ultimately, a new writer Joby Harold, took over from Hossein Amin, and he crafted a story alongside director Deborah Chow that better explains how he went from the Jedi Master we last saw going into hiding at the end of Revenge of the Sith to the wise old Ben Kenobi who steered Luke Skywalker in the right direction in A New Hope.
"When we last saw Obi-Wan in the prequels, he's very emotional," Harold says. "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."
When it comes to how much of those previous iterations of Obi-Wan Kenobi have made it into this take, all Chow would say is, "we inherited some of it, but we did really make some significant changes and add a few different elements."
Needless to say, we're definitely intrigued to see how this story plays out, especially with such high expectations from fans. With the return of Darth Vader and Ewan McGregor finally playing the "Ben" Kenobi who hid out on Tatooine for all those years, it certainly feels like Lucasfilm has set out to make a story that leaves everyone happy...no easy feat with Star Wars fans!