Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi Writer Explains Why It Works Better as a Disney+ Series Than a Movie

The Star Wars galaxy will continue to play a larger role on the Disney+ streaming service, with the debut of multiple live-action series that will explore new corners of the franchise that fans have yet to see on screen. And while animated shows like Star Wars Rebels, The Clone Wars, and Resistance have helped flesh out the timeline, fans can finally look forward to large-scale live-action shows that develop the Star Wars galaxy in ways we've yet to see. One such project will feature the return of Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi.

The highly anticipated series will explore the character's time on Tatooine after the harrowing events of Order 66, forcing the Jedi to fight his own Padawan and push him further down the path toward becoming Darth Vader.

When the project was first announced, it was supposed to be a movie by director Stephen Daldry, though Lucasfilm never officially announced such a spinoff film was taking place. But now, Kenobi series writer Hossein Amini has spoken to Discussing Film about why this particular project would work better as a longer series.

"I think because of what we were speaking about before, the situation is so complex both for him personally and in a way, the state of the galaxy, you sort of need time to explore it and to be honest there are loads of other stories within that period as well, it's quite a few years," Amini explained. "There is so much going on between [Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope] that hasn't been explored. The idea of being able to go into a character journey plus the politics and plus all the vastness of the empire and what's going on is exciting just because it feels like a proper period of history and sometimes that is hard to do in two hours. Sometimes with two-hour movies there is always an imperative for the action and the plot to move particularly fast and quickly and to go from action sequence to action sequence and there are many more aspects to storytelling that I find interesting."

Amini went on to explain why he has gravitated toward the Obi-Wan Kenobi series.

"Well he was one of my favorite characters, probably because he spans throughout both the trilogy and the prequels and it's just something about how different he is from one to the next that is really fascinating and makes him such an iconic character," he said. "It's also that I loved Star Wars because I've always been interested in different religions, like the whole notion of the samurai I've always loved, there are so many aspects of Star Wars that particularly appealed to me when I was a kid and it's been actually really exciting being able to look at all the animated series and read many of the books it's a whole world and galaxy that I've loved diving into."

There's no word yet when the Obi-Wan Kenobi series will premiere on Disney+ at this point in time.