Star Wars: Ewan McGregor Confirms Obi-Wan Series Was Originally About Luke Skywalker and Ben

At one point, Obi-Wan was being developed at Lucasfilm as a film trilogy, following the eponymous Jedi protecting a young Luke Skywalker from Tusken Raiders on Tatooine. After Solo bombed with fans and critics alike, the Kathleen Kennedy-led studio shelved future movies in hopes of a better solution.

Along came Disney+, which gave the outfit a chance to tell longer stories in the form of television shows. Obi-Wan was quickly announced as one of those shows, initially borrowing from the discarded film heavily. While the series that was released on Disney+ focused on Obi-Wan (Ewan McGregor) and his journey across the cosmos to aid a young Leia Organa (Vivien Lyra Blair), the show nearly focused on Obi-Wan and Luke entirely.

“It was going to be a story about me and Luke. It was always going to be that, and that was one of the genius moments where everyone went, ‘Wait a minute,’ and then changed it,” McGregor said during his spotlight panel at FAN EXPO Boston on Sunday.

“That’s the beautiful thing about how passionate Disney, Lucasfilm, all of us are, who are involved with it is from the beginning is we try really hard not to let anything of the bad just to protect your experience of seeing it for the first time,” he added. “I think it’s really cool that Disney and Lucasfilm care so much for the fan experience. They really want you to have a 100% experience the first time you see it, and if you’ve read that, and that leaked, and this came out, it’s just a bit of a shame isn’t it? It’s like looking at your Christmas presents before Christmas Day.” 

While the show was initially envisioned as a limited series, Kennedy has since said the studio has talked about doing a second season due to the fan response.

“Mainly because everybody came together and had such an incredible time. Ewan had an incredible time. Hayden had an incredible time,” Kennedy said earlier htis year. “So certainly from that point of view, everybody involved would love to see this not end. But we have to really spend our time asking the question: Why would we do it? If we were to decide to do anything more with the Obi-Wan character, we’d have to really answer the question why?”

Obi-Wan Kenobi is now streaming on Disney+.