Fans of the first two Star Wars trilogies already know that Obi-Wan is not the same character as the Disney+ series that will premiere on May 27. There are six movies, two TV shows, and a couple of trailers to suggest where the story will focus its attention.
Let's go back for a second to see what happened. The story of the Jedi fugitive begins in the first movie. A Tatooine slave is taken on by an apprentice of his own in the movie "Obi-Gon Jinn." They are in the Clone Wars and fight each other after Darth Vader becomes a mass-murderer. Vader becomes more machine than man. Obi-Wan hides his son, Vader, on Tatooine.
In Episode IV, Obi-Wan leads a mission to deliver Death Star plans to the Rebellion, fights Vader again and disappears at the moment of death, becoming a somewhat unreliable advisor from beyond the grave. He was tired after so many encounters with the Skywalker clan.
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There is more to Obi-Wan's story. The first time in Phantom Menace and the second time after the Clone Wars resurrection, Darth Maul died at Obi-Wan's hands. There isn't that much more. Lucasfilm has largely left the area where Obi-Wan's tale is missing alone.
Some of the questions Obi-Wan has could be answered, and some of them should remain unanswered. The name of the planet Obi-Wan calls home is included in the latter. It's probably best to avoid that one.
There are seven major questions that Star Wars watchers would love to see answered in the new show.
Credit: Lucasfilm
At the end of Revenge of the Sith, Obi-Wan was told he had made contact with the ghost of Qui-Gon. The scene was deleted from the shooting script because Neeson was unavailable. Obi-Wan will be trained to return to the netherworld of the Force by his former master, but he is hiding on Tatooine.
It is possible that Qui-Gon did that since Obi-Wan appears confident in his ability to resurrect in phantom form during his battle with Vader on the Death Star.
Does that mean we will get to see a reunion of the master and his apprentices?
Fans must prepare themselves to only hear the voice-over of Qui-Gon. In Clone Wars season 6, Neeson appeared as a voice and some twinkly lights to Yoda, and that was the plan for Revenge of the Sith. There is more on that meeting in a minute.
The only Force ghosts we have seen are the age they were when they died, which is why the argument is that. Neeson looks the same as he did 23 years ago during his death scene.
Lucasfilm is proud of the ever-improving de-aging CGI technology that produced a young Mark Hamill in The Mandalorian and Book of Boba Fett, so anything is possible if Neeson is on board.
The fact that Obi-Wan saw a version of himself on the Force-filled planet of Mortis during one of the weird arcs of Clone Wars doesn't need to be brought up. Obi-Wan dismissed that vision as a mind trick. There is a long story.
This life-after-death trick was learned by Obi-Wan. How could Obi-Wan, Yoda and Anakin be if Qui-Gon could not manifest? The first Jedi to discover the concept was Qui-Gon.
In the deleted scene of Revenge of the Sith, there was a vague answer to the question: "a state acquired through compassion." So just be more Buddhist? George Lucas has described his personal spirituality as aMethodist Buddhist hybrid on occasion, but we will need a little more detail to explain why every highly compassionate Jedi.
In Clone Wars, the twinkly lights of Qui-Gon led to a trip to Dagobah. The small green friend was told that he would learn to preserve his life force, and that he could manifest a consciousness which would allow him to live after death. We are still waiting for the answer.
In Empire Strikes Back, the Jedi says that Luminous beings are not this crude matter, and that could be a clue. Is it possible to fully recognize yourself as a form of energy, a fully selfish one, and turn you into a log-sitting ghost?
All Star Wars does is walk a fine line between explaining too much and too little.
Obi-Wan Kenobi. I thought R2D2 meant old Ben, since he was in the original Star Wars. The time difference between the first movie and the Disney+ series is something Obi-Wan tells us about. Why would a Jedi in hiding from the Empire think he could stay hidden by changing his name?
Unlike the origin of the "Solo" name revealed in the movie, this is a name we have been wondering about for a long time. Obi-Wan revealed his last name to a friendly local by accident in the spin-off novel, "Obi-Wan:Ben", which was published in the summer of 2014). It was the last book to be retconned out of existence in a Star Wars brand.
Obi-Wan is free to use any version of the story he wants. Young suspects that the show is going to focus on the tension between Owen and Obi-Wan, based on the amount of time Owen appears in the trailers. Some of that history is off-screen, and the pair were said to be brothers in an early Return of the Jedi draft script.
Owen may have given Obi-Wan the nickname "Ben" in order to remind him that he is no longer a Jedi. Ben is a crazy old wizard who lives beyond the dune sea.
Sir Alec Guinness on the set of 'Star Wars' in 1976. Credit: Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images
In the less than a decade that lies between Obi-Wan Kenobi and A New Hope, the actor who was a very youthful brown-haired 50 at the time, turns into Alec Guinness, who was 62 at the time. The show may need a line or two about what made Obi-Wan age early. The stress of off-world adventures? Twin suns of Tatooine? The desert was so dry that the family farmed it. Maybe smooth-skinned young Anakin hated sand.
And speaking of Anakin.
Lucasfilm has said that Obi-Wan and Vader have a previously unseen confrontation. This could be a Force projection battle similar to the one in The Last Jedi, but it would not be as satisfying as an actual battle.
There is nothing in the dialogue of A New Hope that prevents Obi-Wan and Vader from meeting in person.
The show would be able to explore one big burning question about the previous encounter between Obi-Wan and Mustafar in Revenge of the Sith, when they duked it out on the volcanic planet. Why did Obi-Wan abandon the man he loved, like a brother, to die? In a civilized age, shouldn't he have stood trial for slaughtering a temple full of Jedi kids?
Even if Obi-Wan had thought to bring his former friend's corpse back with him, he wouldn't have been able to create his monster. It would be interesting for Obi-Wan to realize that he bears more responsibility for the nightmare than he thought. Not to mention how much of a risk he has taken.
Obi-Wan didn't make the decision to put Luke on Tatooine. Both Obi-Wan and Yoda didn't know that Vader had survived the battle. They knew they were dealing with a hugely Force-sensitive, long game-playing being who was using his unlimited power to slaughter Jedi everywhere. The kids had to be protected from him. While Leia was under the watch of the most powerful house in the world, it wasluke who lived with the actual family of Anakin on his actual home planet? This is a genius witness protection program.
George Lucas writing himself into a corner between 1976 and 2005 can be seen as the main driver of Obi-Wan's plot. We know that Obi-Wan encounters one of the Inquisitors, an order of Imperial Jedi hunters introduced in Rebels. Maybe he is trying to draw the attention of the Inquisitors away from Tatooine and the Force-sensitive kid that waits there.
It was fair enough. Even after the series is over and Obi-Wan knows that Vader is alive, does he allow Luke to hide under Vader's nose until the events of A New Hope? Why was Vader so incurious about Tatooine in the original movie when the rebel ship was carrying Death Star plans, especially now that we know it is his home?
One reason is that anyone who relives trauma when remembering their hometown will understand it. The trauma of seeing his mother killed on Tatooine is more traumatic than most. It would make sense to have a psychological block against setting foot on that nasty sandy planet again.
If you want him to be the Chosen One, who grows up to save the entire galaxy, what kind of sense would it make to take him away from his family at a young age? It is only the murder of Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru by the Empire that convincesluke to join Obi-Wan on his mission.
Obi-Wan can add a Force-based security factor. Obi-Wan's appearance in Rebels is set seven years after Obi-Wan's death, so we know that Darth Maul had a hard time finding his old foe on Tatooine.
The shows love to tie into each other, as we saw when The Mandalorian and Book of Boba Fett became, to all intents. Ahsoka is on the Lucasfilm slate and just started filming. Ahsoka Tano, star of Clone Wars, has already shown up twice in the narrative. She has a history with Obi-Wan, who failed to stand up for her when she was wrongly accused of a crime, so the dramatic possibilities are too delicious to ignore.
If Ahsoka shows up in Obi-Wan Kenobi, it would be a turning point in her life. Ahsoka quit the Jedi Order a decade before the Emperor destroyed them. Four years after this show, she reappears as a key figure in the rebellion against the Empire. Maybe Obi-Wan will be given the chance to make up for his failed mentorship of Anakin by inspiring him.
The Inquisitors and Ahsoka from the Rebels are already being borrowed by Obi-Wan. The other stars of the show could make live-action appearances four years later. It is unlikely that he is stuck on his homeworld at this point. Kanan Jarrus is a fugitive Jedi just like Obi-Wan, and Hera Syndulla is a rebel cell leader.
There is also a Disney+ series about the character of Cassian Andor, who is also getting his own show. He is active in the rebellion. The rebellion codename was used by both Ahsoka and Cassian in recent Star Wars media. There is a legitimate long-term narrative reason to put them together.
There is more. Jimmy Smits played the father of Lia in Revenge of the Sith and Rogue One, and in the canon novel Ahsoka, the former Jedi padawan is an agent of Senator Organa. It is rumored that Smits will be back in Obi-Wan Kenobi, which will allow Obi-Wan to visit Alderaan a decade before it was destroyed by the Death Star. The amount of happy fan crying would double with the inclusion of young Leia as well as youngluke in the series.
If R2 is in the service of the Organas, perhaps Obi-Wan can add another question that has bedeviled fans for years: Why, if Obi-Wan knew Artoo so well?
Most of the answers to all of these questions will be on our screens very soon.
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