Obi-Wan Kenobi takes place 10 years after the events of Revenge of the Sith, and with the Empire now at the height of its power, this Galaxy Far, Far Away isn't a happy place to be. That was a point the show's writer, Joby Harold, drove home during a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly.
Describing Obi-Wan Kenobi's setting as "a time of darkness in the galaxy," he adds: "The Empire is in the ascendancy. And all the horrors that come with the Empire are being made manifest throughout the galaxy. And the Jedi Order as we know them are being all but wiped out. So everything that was in the prequels has crumbled."
We know from other stories that more than just Obi-Wan and Yoda survived Order 66, and Harold would go on explain where this series finds those Jedi Knight and how that brings the sinister Sith Inquisitors into play. "Those surviving Jedi, those that do survive, are on the run, and they're in hiding. And Vader and his Inquisitors are chasing them to the end of the galaxy."
"Within that hopeless fatalistic world, we find possibly the most famous of all our surviving Jedi in hiding struggling with that faith that defines the Jedi," he continues, "and wanting to hold onto it and hoping to regain that faith within that sort of hopeless world."
Without getting into spoilers, Harold explained that it was important for this journey to end with Ewan McGregor's Obi-Wan as "the more finished article that Sir Alec Guinness gave to the world in A New Hope. And so in this very specific time in the history of Star Wars, when the Jedi are on run, we get to sort of stand next to and watch Obi-Wan as he runs the gauntlet and has to survive a pretty extraordinary experience."
Stories like Star Wars Rebels and Jedi: Fallen Order have already explored what happened between the events of Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope. However, it sounds like Obi-Wan Kenobi will take a real deep dive into what's become of the Galaxy under Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader's watch.
Obi-Wan Kenobi premieres with its first two episodes on Disney+ on May 27.