One of the fascinating elements – and greatest risks – of new shows like Obi-Wan Kenobi sitting in the centre of classic films like A New Hope and Revenge of the Sith is the potential for those films to have the meaning of their stories changed. In the GFFA we’re well versed in seeing things from a certain point of view, but when stories have been set in stone for almost half a century like A New Hope, adjusting even the slightest element could be seen as a risk.
Case in point; the classic Vader vs Kenobi lightsaber fight on the Death Star. The two exchange more than mere lightsaber blows, conversing as they fight. It appears that what they say can be interpreted differently, with their Mustafar dust-up not being the last time they met, and stars Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen broached that, along with series director Deborah Chow.
With a seemingly inevitable matchup awaiting us in Obi-Wan Kenobi, it would seem the last time Vader felt that presence is no longer Mustafar. We brought this to the attention of the actors who actually play the characters, Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen, and the two played predictably coy.
“Maybe?” responded Christensen, a big smile taking over the face of a man who clearly knew something he was not supposed to say.
“Maybe,” McGregor agreed before expanding on how the new series changes things in all directions. “It’s fun. It’s very clever how all these threads are created. It’s like working backwards and forwards at the same time for the writers and for Deborah.”
That would be series director Deborah Chow. Just how mindful was Chow about not only filing in gaps in the Star Wars timeline, but thinking about the way those gap-fillers would change the already established story?
“It was definitely something we were very mindful of,” she said. “And for me also taking on [George Lucas’] legacy, it’s an honor to take these characters and be able to tell a new story with them. So I wanted to be very respectful to what exists and not change anything that George intended originally or anything like that.”
Of course, when breaking new story, one can’t help but impact what has already come… or is to come. “Obviously there is room for interpretation here,” Chow said. “And telling [the story] that they did have these 20 years, and obviously something happened in these 20 years, and that there are some things from our series where there’s going to be a little bit more room for interpretation on.”
- Hardcover Book
- Davisson, Zack (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 192 Pages - 11/08/2022 (Publication Date) - Dark Horse Books (Publisher)
