‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’ Writer Joby Harold Explains When the Series Takes Place
It’s been a long time coming, but fans of Ewan McGregor’s take on Obi-Wan Kenobi have a little over a month left before he’s back in our lives. The new Disney+ series centered around the character is taking us back to a time when the Empire ruled and Obi-Wan was tasked with looking after a young Luke Skywalker, while dealing with his own upset over what happened with his brother, Anakin.
In preparation, writer Joby Harold spoke with Entertainment Weekly about the upcoming show and explained when exactly the show takes place in the world of Star Wars and the situation we’ll find Obi-Wan in. “It takes place 10 years after Revenge of the Sith, in a time of darkness in the galaxy,” Harold said. “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 what happened in the galaxy from Revenge of the Sith to A New Hope thanks to things like Star Wars Rebels, but getting to see it explored through a character we love like Obi-Wan and played by McGregor is an exciting new adventure for fans. But Harold went on to talk about the overall world of Star Wars and Obi-Wan Kenobi’s connection to the hopelessness that existed prior to A New Hope.
“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,” Harold said “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, and wanting to hold onto it and hoping to regain that faith within that sort of hopeless world.”
What does this mean for Obi-Wan?
The last we saw of McGregor’s Obi-Wan, he was betrayed and left to a life of hiding away on Tatooine and looking after Luke Skywalker. But it’s clear that his “simple” life isn’t so simple, and we’ll see how we get from McGregor’s take on Obi-Wan to the Sir Alec Guinness Jedi that we met first.
“Within that environment and that galaxy, his faith is tested,” Harold said. “And he goes on a journey that allows him to travel from that character that we saw in the last of the prequels, where [McGregor] really felt like he was embodying Obi-Wan Kenobi to a pretty extraordinary degree, and ends with him 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.”
Obi-Wan Kenobi comes at us with two episodes on May 27, and finally, we’re being reunited with Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen, and I can’t wait!
(featured image: Lucasfilm)
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