Obi 100 Stopped Working Again Obi 100 Stopped Working Again 2017
It did not take Ewan McGregor long to realize there was a disturbance in the forcefulness. The thespian noticed something was askew every bit soon as he stepped onto the Obi-Wan Kenobi soundstage. "I came round the set, and information technology was but this ring of people standing around."
Non quite sure what all the mayhem was about, a confused McGregor took his position in the frame — a look of puzzlement on his confront not seen since the nefarious Count Dooku dropped a Sith Lord truth bomb on the Jedi Master dorsum on Geonosis. "I had the cameras behind me looking downwardly this street, and backside the cameras were 100 people standing there," recalls McGregor. "They're commonly in places doing work, not just standing. I couldn't quite work out what was happening."
It wasn't Obi-Wan they were there to see. "And and so Vader comes around the corner, into the street, and I was like, 'Ah, f---. Of course!'"
Honestly, can you arraign them? Seventeen years (in Earth time) since they last crossed lightsabers in the peppery depths of Mustafar, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader are set to face up off on screen once again, in the new Disney+ series debuting May 25. And with Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen reprising their roles every bit the dynamic — and doomed — duo, anticipation is equally high as the Night Lord's famed midi-chlorian count.
It is a reunion that once seemed impossible, and to fully grasp the enormity of the moment, i has to go back to the very first.
ANAKIN SKYWALKER, run into OBI-WAN KENOBI.
Christensen still remembers the start time he met McGregor. The Canadian histrion had only been plucked from relative obscurity past Star Wars creator George Lucas to play a teenage Anakin Skywalker in Attack of the Clones when he arrived on a soundstage in Sydney. The nervous newcomer, who had been appearing in high school plays less than a year prior, walked into the hair-and-makeup room to see the man who would be portraying his friend-turned-foe.
"I remember as soon as you saw me," he smiles to McGregor over a Zoom chat. "You said, 'Hayden!' We'd never met before, but y'all said my name similar we were lifelong friends and gave me a big hug and welcomed me into the family. The warmth of your greeting left such a lasting impression and meant a lot."
Perhaps the warm welcome was because McGregor could draw upon the apprehension he felt when joining the franchise a few years prior for The Phantom Menace. Established as a hot up-and-comer thanks to acclaimed roles in films including Shallow Grave and Trainspotting, McGregor admits that "Star Wars didn't really feel right to me" when he began the casting process. "Initially I was quite skeptical nearly doing it. I just thought, ''Well, I'chiliad this independent, urban-y, grungy actor over hither. I'm not this kind of guy.'"
That big-budget anxiety eventually turned to excitement, notwithstanding, and past Set on of the Clones, it was McGregor's plough to help ease Christensen'south transition into the huge droid-manufactory-similar machinery of the Star Wars universe, fifty-fifty as their two characters clashed onscreen over the amateur's restlessness, lack of humility, and eventual turn to the dark side.
"I remember all that prep period," McGregor says to his costar, "and your passion as an actor, and how deeply y'all were throwing yourself into information technology and breaking down scenes." That extended into the pair'due south epic lightsaber rehearsals. "It was just going and playing with your friend every twenty-four hour period," recalls Christensen. "Certainly, doing all the prep for the lightsaber fights was some of the well-nigh fun for me." Alas, non everything was fun.
Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi
| Credit: Matt Kennedy / Lucasfilm Ltd.
If yous are SUFFERING as much as I AM, PLEASE tell me.
It is not hyperbole to proclaim The Phantom Menace every bit Hollywood's nearly predictable film in history upon its release on May 19, 1999. Amazingly, franchise interest had only grown in the 16 years since Return of the Jedi, as older fans salivated for fresh content and a new generation of Jedi-wannabes was indoctrinated into the lodge thanks to the 1997 Special Edition releases of the original trilogy. And then the movie debuted.
Critics and fans alike pounced on everything from the comic relief of Jar Jar Binks to clunky dialogue like "No need to report that to him until we have something to report." Reaction to the follow-up prequels was non much kinder. And with the cyberspace fully booted up — something Wicket Westward. Warrick and his Ewok bros never had to deal with while out Yub Nubbing on the forest moon of Endor — everybody had an opinion, and not all of them were positive.
For the immature stars, there was nowhere to hide. "I constitute it quite difficult," McGregor, now fifty, admits of the reaction to the prequels. "For it to come out and become knocked so difficult was personally quite difficult to bargain with. And also, information technology was quite early on in my career. I didn't really know how to deal with that. I'd been involved with things that just didn't make much of a ripple, but that's different from making something that makes a negative ripple."
Simultaneously dealing with sudden fame and criticism, the now-40-year-one-time Christensen also couldn't aid but feel a measure of emotional whiplash over the prequels. "When the films came out and the critics were very critical, of grade that was a difficult thing — considering yous care so much about this thing that yous've invested so much of yourself into. So, for certain, that'south challenging."
After the 2005 release of Revenge of the Sith, there was little (new) hope that we would always see McGregor and Christensen burn down upwardly their lightsabers again. Motivated by the "sense of peace and escape" he felt during visits to Skywalker Ranch, Christensen took a pause non merely from Star Wars, but from Hollywood in general — buying a farm in the Canadian countryside. "I really took a liking to that whole surroundings and lifestyle and got a bunch of animals and was looking after sheep and pigs and chickens for a picayune while," he says. "I go through periods of being very focused on my work as an actor, and so but wanting to exercise other things that aren't necessarily for public consumption."
When the franchise had a chance to bring Christensen back for Darth Vader'south render in withal another prequel film (2016's Rogue 1), they instead had quondam professional boxer Spencer Wilding and stunt actor Daniel Naprous don the black armor. Lucas motion-picture show president Kathleen Kennedy says Christensen was non considered for the Rogue function at the time considering "that was just such a specific action sequence."
"I wasn't a part of whatsoever of those conversations about Rogue One," says Christensen. "But I loved what they did with it. The character predates me, and it's always been a commonage attempt in a lot of ways. I thought it was bright."
Meanwhile, McGregor connected his film career full throttle subsequently hiding Luke on Tatooine (still seems like an odd choice), simply whenever the player was asked near a possible render to the galaxy far, far abroad — meaning pretty much every interview — he often sounded less than inclined to put the robes back on. "I don't accept a burning need to do it over again or, indeed, any sort of fascination for the movies that everyone else seems to have," he told Magic Radio in 2016. "I don't really have that. Maybe because I've been in them. I've seen behind the pall, y'all know what I mean? It doesn't have the same type of wonderment to me."
Ewan McGregor in 'Obi-Wan Kenobi'
| Credit: Lucasfilm Ltd.
OBI-WAN KENOBI. Obi-Wan. Now that's a name I have non heard in A LONG TIME. A long time.
They say fourth dimension heals all wounds. Whether that extends to the wounds yous inflict on your former Padawan past chopping off three of his limbs and leaving him to burn to decease on a mound of volcanic ash remains open to debate. Every bit the years moved on from the prequels, though, McGregor noticed a sense of balance coming to the Force. And the balance was coming from younglings… at least the ones Darth Vader didn't slaughter in the Jedi temple.
"At present I encounter the people who we made those films for, who were the kids of the time," says McGregor. "And our Star Wars films are their Star Wars films. In the way that Carrie Fisher and Alec Guinness and Marker Hamill and Harrison Ford's films were ours, we're theirs. And that'southward beautiful that they were important to the kids who we made them for. It'due south only so prissy to finally get that wave of positivity about them."
That positivity sparked something in McGregor. For all the difficulty the prequels presented in "walking around with the big alien people that aren't really there and spending a lot of time on a blue ready just speaking into the air," there were also aspects about making the movies the actor describes as "mind-blowing."
He fondly recalls working with Lucas (who originally hired McGregor's uncle, Denis Lawson, to play pilot Wedge Antilles in the original trilogy), the time spent with swain actors Natalie Portman and Liam Neeson, and especially all the lightsaber training with Christensen and stunt coordinator Nick Gillard. ("If you spotter those fights, they're f---ing amazing! We're really cooking.")
In interviews, McGregor started expressing an openness toward returning. Sometimes besides much openness, he worried. "It started looking similar I was touting for work at Disney'south door, because I would say, 'If Lucasfilm wanted to practice it, I'd be then happy to practice it.' And it kept actualization everywhere: 'McGregor happy to do Obi-Wan!'"
Eventually, a meeting was arranged to meet how serious the actor really was about mayhap appearing in an Obi-Wan Kenobi picture show as part of a series of stand-alone movies outside of the nine-installment Skywalker saga. "They just said, 'Look, nosotros've read that you lot said you'd be happy to do it. We just want to know if you lot hateful information technology or if y'all're beingness polite, because we're thinking that it could be an option. But we want to know if yous're in or not.' I said, 'Information technology's admittedly truthful!'"
With McGregor set to ignite his trusty saber, Lucas pic actively began development on an Obi-Wan Kenobi film to be directed past Stephen Daldry. The Jedi's return to the silver screen was no longer a thing of if, but rather when.
Ewan McGregor on reuniting with Hayden Christensen for 'Obi-Wan Kenobi'
What if this plan FAILS, Master? Nosotros could exist STUCK HERE a very long time.
And and then Solo happened. Released in May 2018, the somewhat awkwardly titled Solo: A Star Wars Story garnered a worldwide box office haul of $393 million — a far cry from the $1.33 billion brought in by 2017'south The Terminal Jedi, and over sixty percent less than the first stand-lonely Star Wars moving picture, Rogue Ane, which tallied more $one billion.
Whether the shockingly calorie-free turnout was due to the tepid reviews, a sudden saturation of Star Wars theatrical offerings, or fans not wanting to see someone other than Harrison Ford playing the scruffy nerf herder, the futures of all franchise films outside of the trilogy-concluding The Rise of Skywalker were immediately sent into limbo. Just while those movies may have been put on Hoth-level ice, Kennedy says interest for the Kenobi project in some form remained. Merely if not a movie, then what?
That'south when Disney's and then CEO Bob Iger decided to have on Netflix. "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," says Kennedy. "We started to wait 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 meant creating The Mandalorian. It meant bringing Boba Fett back from the expressionless. Information technology meant spinning off from animated offerings like The Clone Wars and staging another prequel, this fourth dimension for Rogue One intelligence officer Cassian Andor. And it meant Ewan McGregor stepping on phase to raucous applause at August 2019's D23 convention to officially denote his triumphant return. Excitement was further fueled when it was revealed a calendar month later that Deborah Chow, who had worked on The Mandalorian, would straight the Obi-Wan serial, becoming the offset woman to helm an unabridged live-action Star Wars project from start to finish.
Nevertheless, equally the coiffure came together to work toward a summer 2020 product kickoff engagement, Kennedy became concerned with the direction of the scripts. "We're looking, ultimately, to make a hopeful, uplifting story," says the studio head. "And it's tricky when yous'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 only wave the magic wand with whatever writer and arrive at a story that necessarily reflects what y'all want to experience."
Assertive an overhaul was in club, Kennedy temporarily shut down production in January 2020, pushed back the filming outset date from August 2020 to January 2021, and hired a new writer, Joby Harold, to take over from Hossein Amini (who'd been hired when Kenobi was headed to the big screen). "This was a character that's always been a minor obsession of mine," says Harold. "And when I heard it was a character they were exploring, I very aggressively told them all the things I thought they should do."
The new story crafted past Harold and Grub takes place ten years after Obi-Wan went into hiding on Tatooine — at pretty much the verbal midway point between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope. "Obi-Wan is lost," says McGregor. "He's a broken human being afterward what happened with the Jedi gild at the terminate of Episode III, but also what happened with Anakin; that he lost him to the dark side. He feels an enormous amount of responsibility for that, and guilt."
The six-episode serial focuses on that journey from pain to at least a modicum of peace. "When we last saw Obi-Wan in the prequels, he's very emotional," says Harold. "At that place's a passion to him. And when we become to run across him once more in A New Promise, he is the Zen chief. That was the story that I wanted to empathize — what had happened to Obi-Wan betwixt the guy that Ewan had brought to life and the guy that Sir Alec Guinness brought to life."
As for how much of the original plot made it into Obi-Wan Kenobi 2.0, Chow notes that "nosotros inherited some of information technology, just we did really brand some meaning changes and add a few dissimilar elements." Meanwhile, an internal debate was raging over whether to dare bring yet another larger-than-life graphic symbol out of retirement.
Hayden Christensen every bit Darth Vader in 'Obi-Wan Kenobi'
| Credit: Lucasfilm Ltd.
You're going to Need me on THIS ONE, Primary.
To Vader or not to Vader? That was the question. As the artistic team began remapping Obi-Wan's story, ambitious negotiations — this time without a lightsaber — commenced as to whether that story should also include the fallen Jedi.
"The debate around whether nosotros should do that or not carried on for quite some time," Kennedy reveals." Everybody within our creative team has potent opinions, and all of our fans accept strong opinions. So when yous realize that you're nether that level of scrutiny, certainly a story signal like that is going to be scrutinized at a very high level. We talked near it constantly."
In this instance, the dark side won. And with McGregor back, there was only i selection to fill out the big black suit this time around. Chow went to Vader's arbitration chamber (okay, Christensen's subcontract, but close enough) to brand her pitch in person. "Deborah came up and we spent the day chatting," Christensen says. "She told me a little scrap near the project and her vision for it, and I but idea that it sounded wonderful. I was very excited to come dorsum."
Non as excited as all those starstruck crew members. "It was and so of import to have Hayden exist a role of this project because he is such a massive role of that character," says Harold. "It was a priority to all of us that we did information technology with every bit much intendance equally possible, so as to honor ane of the greatest villains and antagonists in the history of entertainment." (As to whether 91-year-old James Earl Jones will once once again be voicing the character, no one will say.)
"When he first came on set up for united states of america, it definitely had a very special feeling. The first time I saw him in costume, he was towering over me. He was literally almost twice my size!" Chow says of Christensen. "It'south really intense to have such an iconic character, and and so to exist directing him and doing new scenes with him…. I exercise call up poor Ewan on that day being similar, 'What am I, chopped liver?'"
"The whole experience was very surreal," Christensen adds of putting the suit back on. Only while everyone on set was marveling in his direction, the human backside the mask was moved by what he saw through his tinted helmet lenses: "The first time that I saw Ewan as Obi-Wan again, that was a very special moment for me, and one that I'll remember for a very, very long time." The battle had officially been joined.
Moses Ingram as Reva in 'Obi-Wan Kenobi'
| Credit: Matt Kennedy / Lucasfilm Ltd.
I've been waiting for yous, OBI-WAN. We meet over again AT Last.
While the Obi-Wan and Darth Vader reunion is the big headline, the story that will unfold on Disney+ screens is much more than simply a decade-later face-off betwixt one-time master and apprentice. And it will practise more just fill the gaps in their personal history. It will also fill the gaps in the ultimate disharmonism between expert and evil.
"The Empire is in the clout," explains Harold. "All the horrors that come with the Empire are being fabricated manifest throughout the galaxy, and then everything that was in the prequels has crumbled. The Jedi order are beingness all but wiped out, and those Jedi that have survived are on the run and they're in hiding."
And they're not just hiding from Vader. The Night Lord has tasked the Grand Inquisitor and his grouping of Inquisitors to hunt downwards and eliminate any and all stray Jedi who managed to escape the bang-up purge of Order 66. First introduced on screen in the animated serial Star Wars Rebels, Inquisitors are fearsome, Force-sensitive beings on a atypical mission for the Empire: "They're trying to eradicate the Jedi order birthday," explains McGregor.
Not but volition we see the relentless Inquisitors for the first time in a live-action Star Wars project, but Obi-Wan will also innovate a new Inquisitor named Reva (played by The Queen's Gambit's Moses Ingram), who Harold promises will "contribute to the legacy of Star Wars villains in a really interesting way."
Harold and Chow utilize the words ruthless and ambitious to describetheir new Jedi-hunter, merely the woman playing her prefers some other description. "Reva is a boss," Ingram says emphatically, speaking to EW simply a few days after finishing a series of physically enervating reshoots. "I mean, really like a total-on athlete. She is on a mission and volition conquer that at all costs when given the opportunity. She is pretty badass." (And with a badass outfit: "Putting on a cape was a dream I didn't know I had. I felt like I was 10 again! It was super dope.")
The director is but as pumped for viewers to exist introduced to the new antagonist. "It'southward really exciting for me to bring a female villain, and to take a dark-side woman in a very significant office." Hopefully Reva's significance will extend beyond the screen. Adds Ingram: "We had a lot of conversations almost hair and what the correct hair might exist. Deborah was really dandy almost moving from the initial vision to what we arrived at for Reva's hair. I wanted kids to take their own hair at Halloween. And that's huge If you await at all the Black kids with kinky hair. When they want to be Elsa, they got to put on a blond wig. [Now] there are and then many kids that'll exist able to wear their hair at Halloween. That'due south going to be actually exciting."
When asked almost other announced newcomers like O'Shea Jackson Jr., Kumail Nanjiani, Indira Varma, Rupert Friend, and Maya Erskine, the creative team essentially resorts to Jedi mind tricks (These aren't the actors you're looking for). Nor do they succumb to Majestic interrogationtactics when questioned as to whether Obi-Wan Kenobi will continue the recent Disney+ practice of crossing over characters from i testify to another. Afterward all, Anakin'southward former Jedi student Ahsoka Tano from The Clone Wars and The Mandalorian is out at that place somewhere in this fourth dimension frame, equally is a younger Boba Fett.
While the powers that exist will non completely rule out any of that, they are likewise quick to make a stardom between their globe and the one seen on the other live-activity series and so far. "All of that falls within the Mandalorian timeline," Kennedy says of potential crossover characters, while Chow adds that "the strongest connective tissue for us is to the prequels, considering that's where our characters are coming from and that's where their stories started. So, really, the prequels are the most connected to our serial."
Which explains the return of more familiar faces in the form of Joel Edgerton and Bonnie Piesse every bit Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru. "I was so excited to bring them dorsum," says the director. "Part of what fabricated the serial feel very special is that we were bringing dorsum non just Ewan and Hayden, but people like Joel and Bonnie from 20 years agone and gettingt o reunite as the same characters."
Joel Edgerton and Moses Ingram in 'Obi-Wan Kenobi'
| Credit: Lucasfilm Ltd.
Just if Obi-Wan, Owen, and Beru are all part of the new series, what well-nigh that pesky womp-rat-shooting, Tosche Station-obsessed tyke they are all helping to heighten? Volition Luke Skywalker himself exist making an appearance? While no one will say for certain, Harold coyly points to Kenobi'south stated mission of protecting the boy, noting, "That's part of what [Obi-Wan's] been charged to do. And he is waking up every morning and doing his job. That's what he's there for." (Also, the recently released trailer either shows Luke pretty plainly, or that is a mischievous misdirect of Palpatinian proportions.)
Between The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, and now Obi-Wan Kenobi, it seems everyone in the Star Wars live-activity Disney+ universe has been hanging out on Tatooine lately. And while Chow says "at that place's patently a significant clamper on Tatooine because of the nature of where the starting place is for the story," she also promises that "nosotros definitely go to new worlds. Part of what makes Star Wars is getting to visit unlike places
One of those places is a new planet Kenobi volition visit named Daiyu, "which sort of has a Hong Kong experience to information technology," says Harold. "It's got a graffiti-ridden nightlife, and is kind of edgy. Information technology's just got a different lane and a different feeling."
Ah, but how long will we get to encounter Obi-Wan Kenobi explore those different lanes and feelings? The show has been billed as one six-episode season — but with enough of room to play with earlier the events of A New Hope, could there exist more than? "It was definitely conceived as a limited serial, and it is one big story with a first, center, and end," says Chow. "The arroyo has always been that information technology is i full story."
But go out information technology to the studio caput to keep any and all options on the table. "It'due south certainly something we talk about," Kennedy says of a possible extension, "mainly because everybody came together and had such an incredible time. Ewan had an incredible time. Hayden had an incredible time. And so certainly from that point of view, everybody involved would love to see this non end. Simply nosotros accept to really spend our time asking the question: Why would we practise it? If we were to make up one's mind to practice annihilation more than with the Obi-Wan character, we'd accept to really respond the question why?
Moses Ingram in 'Obi-Wan Kenobi'
| Credit: Lucasfilm Ltd.
Next time try not to LOSE it. This WEAPON is your LIFE
Moses Ingram clearly thinks the world of Ewan McGregor. The actress gleefully remembers all the finer points of fight training with the star, whom she describes equally "a graceful petty butterfly." She recalls the encouragement he showed her every bit she fumbled through anticipated rookie mistakes. And she can't cease gushing about how he made "the sweetest video" for her Ewan-obsessed best friend. Only none of that volition end the Inquisitor from showing her true dark-side fidelity and ratting out her Jedi costar. The incident in question took place on the oval 75-foot-wide, 23-foot-high virtual LED set known as the Volume. "I forget what scene we were shooting," says Ingram, "simply Ewan was doing something, and he dropped his lightsaber in the crack between the Book and where the stage ends. And he was and then embarrassed. He was like, 'Please don't ever tell anyone I dropped my lightsaber!'"
Considering the notoriously hardtime McGregor used to give Christensen for losing his lightsaber (a dynamic that carried over on screen between Obi Wan and Anakin), this scandalous revelation elicits a huge grin from Christensen. "This is news to me!" he laughs.
"You mustn't listen to information technology," McGregor shoots back. "Information technology's all hearsay and rumor. She's just trying to one-up Obi-Wan."
"All of those lectures, though, Ewan!"
"Yeah, I don't recall that. I thinks he'due south making that upwardly," insists McGregor before pausing. "Okay, I might have inadvertently let information technology slip. Perhaps."
Christensen'due south elation now knows no bounds. "It's shocking news. I don't believe it because I know how much regard Ewan has for his lightsaber, and then information technology'due south hard to fully believe."
Past this point, McGregor knows that regardless of what has and will happen on screen, this is i duel of the fates he cannot win. "I do remember I said, 'Please don't tell Hayden, because I used to give him such southward--- every time he dropped his lightsaber.' All I tin say is, it'southward been a while for Obi-Wan. He'due south not the man that we in one case retrieve. And if, indeed, it might have slipped out of his hand and rolled across the stage and into a ditch, it's only because he's not quite where he used to be. Merely it's coming back."
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Source: https://ew.com/tv/obi-wan-kenobi-ewan-mcgregor-hayden-christensen-cover-story/
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