Obi-Wan Kenobi (miniseries)

• 1. The Long Silence

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  Obi-Wan Kenobi, the 2022 Disney+ miniseries, nearly did not exist at all. At Disney's D23 event in August 2019, Ewan McGregor admitted that he had spent four years lying about his involvement in a Kenobi project. The announcement that he would star in the series was, he said, a relief. The project had already lived and died once as a planned feature film before it became a television series. It was cancelled, restarted, put on indefinite hold, and completely rewritten before production began. Set ten years after Revenge of the Sith, the series placed Kenobi in exile on the desert planet Tatooine. Living under the name Ben, he watches over Anakin Skywalker's son Luke from a distance. When a kidnapping draws him out of hiding, he confronts the Galactic Empire's hunters. He also comes face to face with his former apprentice Anakin Skywalker, now known as Darth Vader, whom Kenobi had believed dead. George Lucas, consulted on the project before its premiere, called it one of his favorite new Disney Star Wars productions. The road from a cancelled film to that endorsement took the better part of a decade.

• 2. From Film to Series

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  Disney CEO Bob Iger announced the development of Star Wars standalone spin-off films in February 2013. A Hollywood Reporter poll in August 2016 found that an Obi-Wan Kenobi story was the overwhelming choice among readers who wanted a spin-off film. Director Stephen Daldry entered talks to helm the project in August 2017. Writer Hossein Amini joined in late 2017. By May 2018, the planned film had an unofficial title, Obi-Wan: A Star Wars Story, and a production plan. It was to shoot at Paint Hall Studios in Belfast under the working title Joshua Tree, once Game of Thrones finished its final season in late 2018. Then Solo: A Star Wars Story failed commercially in 2018, and Disney cancelled all planned standalone Star Wars films. Lucasfilm shifted its focus to the streaming service Disney+, and the Kenobi feature was abandoned. McGregor said in August 2018 that he had been asked about a Kenobi project for "years and years" and was happy to be involved. He acknowledged, however, that no plans existed at that time.

  By mid-August 2019, McGregor was in negotiations to star in a Disney+ series centered on Obi-Wan Kenobi. Kathleen Kennedy and McGregor officially announced his return that same month, with scripts for a six-episode run already written by Amini. Kennedy announced in September 2019 that Deborah Chow would direct the series, following her work on episodes of The Mandalorian. Pre-production at Pinewood Studios in London was underway by January 2020, but the series was put on indefinite hold by the end of that month. Kennedy was reportedly dissatisfied with scripts that centered on Kenobi protecting a young Luke Skywalker, a storyline too similar to The Mandalorian's. Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni, who had reviewed those scripts, encouraged the team to "go bigger." The assembled crew was sent home. Joby Harold was hired as the new writer and showrunner in April 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic delayed filming further. On the 10th of December 2020, at Disney's Investor Day event, Kennedy officially confirmed the series was titled Obi-Wan Kenobi. In February 2021, McGregor revealed that filming would take place in Los Angeles rather than in London and Boston, Lincolnshire, as earlier reports had suggested.

• 3. Broken and Faithless

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  McGregor described the Kenobi at the series' start as "broken, and faithless, and beaten," a man who had "somewhat given up." Executive producer Michelle Rejwan called his state "a pretty traumatic moment" following the losses of Revenge of the Sith. Those losses included his apprentice Anakin Skywalker's fall to the dark side. They also included Kenobi's act of leaving Anakin for dead on the volcanic planet Mustafar. Director Deborah Chow was drawn to the idea that Kenobi still cared deeply for Anakin despite having done so.

  Showrunner Joby Harold framed the series as a bridge between two versions of the same man. One was the emotionally raw Kenobi of the prequel films. The destination was Alec Guinness's portrayal in A New Hope, which Harold called a "zen master." McGregor had long been interested in precisely that gap. He described wanting to explore "a man who's lost his faith." Kenobi would need to become a "broken man" before he could reassemble himself into Guinness's calm, measured character.

  To prepare, McGregor rewatched all the films in the Skywalker Saga and was part of conversations about how the character should be written. He also read science fiction novels, including works by Iain M. Banks. Hayden Christensen, returning to the role of Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader for the first time since 2005, prepared by watching the animated series The Clone Wars and Rebels in addition to the main films. He noted that those series had "further explored the relationship between Anakin and Kenobi." McGregor described Christensen's return as "the most beautiful thing of all."

• 4. Between Two Trilogies

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  Joby Harold described his mandate plainly: the series needed to function as "Episode 3.5," a natural link between the prequel and original trilogies. Harold chose to make Kenobi's past relationship with Anakin the gravitational center of the story. He said Kenobi was "a man who's very much defined by that history, whether he wants to be or not." The character's journey, Harold added, would require "reconciling that past and coming to understand it and coming to understand his place in it."

  Harold decided to include Leia Organa as a central figure. His conviction was that Kenobi would have felt responsible for both of Anakin's children, not just Luke. Writing Leia's dialogue, he drew on two films for the dynamic between the girl and her reluctant guardian: Paper Moon from 1973 and Midnight Run from 1988. He wanted her to come across as "spirited and not just a grown-up writing for a kid." Including Leia gave Harold a way to deepen a moment in the 1977 film A New Hope. The message she sends Kenobi in that film gains new weight once the audience knows their shared history.

  The decision to include Darth Vader was not automatic. Chow said the choice "was not made lightly," describing Anakin and Vader as "a huge and very profound part of Kenobi's life." She had championed Vader's inclusion when executives at Lucasfilm were uncertain. Early script drafts had featured different antagonists, including Darth Maul. Chow set Maul aside because the animated series Star Wars Rebels had already told the story of Kenobi and Maul in this period in an episode called "Twin Suns." Adding both Maul and Vader, she felt, would be "a little bit much." The introduction of Vader's Inquisitor corps into the series was itself suggested by Dave Filoni.

  For visual and tonal references, Chow looked beyond the Star Wars universe. She compared her approach of isolating one character from a large franchise to films like Logan from 2017 and Joker from 2019. She named The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford from 2007 and The Proposition from 2005 as additional influences, describing them as "gritty, poetic westerns." The works of Akira Kurosawa were also among her references. John Jackson Miller's 2013 novel Star Wars: Kenobi shaped the series' "tone" without influencing its plot.

  Moses Ingram influenced her character's appearance in a specific and deliberate way. She insisted that Reva Sevander wear her natural kinky hair rather than a wig. Her goal was to make it possible for African-American children to dress up as the character for Halloween. Ingram described Reva as motivated by trauma, adding: "if she could let it go, or if she could at least cope better, she wouldn't need to do the things that she's doing." Showrunner Harold believed the character would "contribute to the legacy of Star Wars villains in a really interesting way."

• 5. Building the World

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  Filming began on the 4th of May 2021 in Los Angeles, and wrapped by the 19th of September. Chow selected Chung-hoon Chung as cinematographer. She chose him for his ability to combine intimate, emotionally intense work with large-scale commercial productions. The series used StageCraft video wall technology at the Manhattan Beach Studios, the same system previously deployed for The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett. McGregor said the technology made the series more enjoyable to shoot than the prequel films, which had relied heavily on blue and green screen. His costume tests for the series took place on the set of The Mandalorian.

  Doug Chiang, Lucasfilm's vice president and executive creative director, served as production designer alongside Todd Cherniawsky. Chiang described the series' central design challenge as bridging the visual languages of the prequel and original trilogies. One result was Anchorhead, a Tatooine town first mentioned in the original Star Wars in 1977. It had never been depicted on screen before this series.

  Propmaster Brad Elliott rewatched all three prequel films in preparation. He chose to carry specific items from Kenobi's prequel-era belongings into the series: his macrobinoculars, holoprojectors, and datapad. Elliott explained his reasoning: "It made sense that Kenobi would take a few items with him to watch over Luke." Building Kenobi's lightsaber required merging the hilt designs used by the prequel and original trilogy prop teams. The goal was something new that still felt authentic to both eras. For the Inquisitors' lightsabers, Dave Filoni advised the team to treat the animated versions as "exaggerated" and scale the proportions for human hands.

  Liam Neeson agreed to an uncredited cameo as Qui-Gon Jinn in the series finale. He had previously been reluctant to appear in television productions, preferring films. He agreed out of respect for George Lucas and because he did not want the character recast. James Earl Jones's voice was used for Darth Vader, generated by an AI program called Respeecher based on earlier recordings of Jones from previous films.

• 6. A New Theme

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  Natalie Holt became the first woman to score a live-action Star Wars project when she was hired to compose the series' music. She told Star Wars Insider that she came on board in "late December" and had to "record in early March," calling the timeline "a very compressed process."

  John Williams recorded a new main theme for the series with an orchestra in Los Angeles in mid-February 2022. He had composed a theme for Kenobi in the original Star Wars in 1977, but over the decades that piece became associated with the Force in general. Williams approached Kathleen Kennedy about writing a new one. Kenobi was the only major character from that 1977 film who had not yet received a dedicated standalone theme. Holt described the resulting piece as "reflective, wistful," with "an element of hope" that "embodies the spirit of the show entirely." For Williams, it was the second time he had composed a theme for a Star Wars project without serving as its main composer, following his contribution to Solo. It was also the first weekly television series for which he had written a theme since Amazing Stories in 1985.

  Holt drew on real-world musical traditions to represent different planets. Latin music defined one world. Sounds she described as more "Eastern," drawn from Thailand and Hong Kong, defined another. To evoke the Inquisitors, she used a hunting horn and unusual percussion instruments played by Brian Kilgore. She described the result as something that "stirs your guts. It's so haunting... It's that jarring, rhythmic texture." Chow flew to London to spend two intensive days reviewing unfinished footage with Holt before the composer developed her themes for new characters. Recording engineer Chris Fogel, who had worked with Ludwig Göransson on The Mandalorian, joined Holt at Göransson's studio to engineer the score. Holt completed the work by late April 2022. In the final episode, Williams's "The Imperial March," "Force Theme," and "Princess Leia's Theme" all appear quoted in the score.

• 7. Audiences and Accolades

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  Disney announced after its opening weekend that Obi-Wan Kenobi had become the most-watched series premiere in the history of Disney+. Analytics firm Samba TV measured 2.14 million U.S. households watching the first episode between May 27 and May 30. That number surpassed the openings of both The Mandalorian's second season, at 2.08 million households, and The Book of Boba Fett, at 1.5 million. By the end of 2022, the series had accumulated 6.5 billion minutes of viewing in the United States. It was the platform's second most-streamed show that year, accounting for 12.6% of all original series viewership on Disney+.

  Rotten Tomatoes recorded an 82% approval rating based on 356 reviews. Metacritic assigned a score of 73 out of 100 from 19 critics. Reviewers consistently praised McGregor's performance and the character-driven narrative. The series' Blu-ray and Ultra HD release on the 30th of April 2024 ranked No. 2 on both the standard Blu-ray and 4K sales charts for the week ending May 4.

  On the 31st of May 2022, Moses Ingram revealed on Instagram that she had received hundreds of direct messages containing death threats and racist abuse. McGregor posted a video to the official Star Wars social media accounts calling the messages "horrendous." He added: "if you're sending her bullying messages, you're no Star Wars fan in my mind." Disney and other cast members publicly defended Ingram. Ingram went on to win a Saturn Award for her performance as Reva.

  At the 47th Saturn Awards, the series won Best Limited Event Series for Streaming. Hayden Christensen won Best Guest Starring Role on Television for his performance as Darth Vader. Obi-Wan Kenobi was also nominated for Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series at the 75th Primetime Emmy Awards. In April 2023, Kennedy described a second season as not in "active development," while noting that both McGregor and Christensen remained interested and that the company might return to the character "down the road."