Star Wars: Recapping Obi-Wan Kenobi Trailer Released

Star Wars has released a new Obi-Wan Kenobi recap trailer, which looks back at the character’s pivotal journey through the Star Wars Universe. The trailer bridges footage from the upcoming Obi-Wan Disney+ series with footage of both Alec Guinness from Star Wars: A New Hope, as well as a younger Obi-Wan (Ewan McGregor) fighting the Clone Wars and ultimately falling out with his best friend and brother-in-arms, Anakin Skywalker. All of this classic footage is intercut with new footage from the upcoming Obi-Wan event series, with specific quotes (presented in fancy subtitling) hinting at themes of Kenobi’s story that will also drive this series. 

The Obi-Wan series will be the biggest bridge between Ewan McGregor’s younger Obi-Wan and Alec Guinness’s “Ben Kenobi” from A New Hope. While doing press for Obi-Wan, McGregor spoke about the challenge of connecting with Guinness’s performance: 

“[Obi-Wan] is always Alec Guinness to me. When I play him, I always have to have a sense of Alec Guinness,” McGregor explained to The Project. “And now I’m closer to him in age – I didn’t realize he was 63 when he made [Star Wars] … I’m getting closer to that age now (laughs). As I get closer to him, I have to be more like him, I suppose. It’s always been my mission to make my Obi-Wan Kenobi grow up into Alec Guinness, so I’ve always got Alec in my head. I don’t try and do an impersonation of him,” McGregor concluded, “but I do try and make it sound familiar, like the way he speaks and the rhythm of his delivery.” 

To be fair, Alec Guinness got to play Obi-Wan Kenobi at the moment the aging Jedi Master finally gets to reap the hope he long sewed into Luke Skywalker – it’s a moment of renewed hope for Kenobi, and validation of his faith. This Obi-Wan Kenobi series will be quite a different moment in time. McGregor will have to explore Obi-Wan in a time that tests his faith more than ever: Luke is still just a boy, the darkness of the Empire has only grown in the ten years since the Republic fell, and Kenobi has yet to face the true horror of Anakin becoming Vader. So while this will be a bridge story between the Original Trilogy and Prequel Trilogy Kenobi, it will also be very much its own thing. 

Obi-Wan Kenobi director Deborah Chow has already likened this event series to an intense and dark character study like Logan or Joker:

“I think I was the most excited about getting the opportunity to do a character driven story, in a similar way – it’s a different tone – but something like Joker or Logan, where you take one character out of a big franchise and then you really have the time and you go a lot deeper with the character,” Deborah Chow told reports during Obi-Wan’s press day. “So, that to me seemed really exciting to get to do in Star Wars.”

Obi-Wan Kenobi is streaming on Disney+.