The return of Ewan McGregor’s Obi-Wan Kenobi has been a long time coming, but what many of us prequel fans didn’t expect was also having the return of Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader. And now, the creatives behind Obi-Wan Kenobi are opening up about the choice to bring Vader back.
In a cover story for Entertainment Weekly, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy explained that Vader’s return wasn’t exactly a quick decision. “The debate around whether we should do that or not carried on for quite some time. Everybody within our creative team has strong opinions, and all of our fans have strong opinions. So when you realize that you’re under that level of scrutiny, certainly a story point like that is going to be scrutinized at a very high level. We talked about it constantly.”
But Kennedy wasn’t the only one to weigh in on the decision, and series director Deborah Chow opened up to the publication about the inclusion of Vader. “Honestly, for me the starting place was that I really wanted to do something that was character-based and character-driven, because that is the benefit of the limited series, is that you have more time to sort of tell a real character story,” Chow said.
“And so for me, the starting place of character is you just start and you look at who has been important to him in his life. And it’s quite hard to avoid Anakin/Vader in that scenario, especially coming out of Revenge of the Sith.” While Chow is right, the series did seem to have another villain in its midst with Darth Maul, but reportedly cut his scenes to aid the Vader storyline.
All of that makes sense seeing how Chow talks about Vader and Kenobi’s evolution as characters: “So really it came out of an evolution of the character for me. It wasn’t just to sort of bring him back. It was really like, who means something and where are we at this point in the timeline with Vader?”
Working with Hayden Christensen
I am but a humble millennial woman who had handmade shirts with Hayden Christensen’s face on them when I was 13 years old. Thanks, Star Wars!
“He’s lovely. And he’s absolutely wonderful. And Canadian!” Chow said about the actor. “So the first time I met him actually was in Toronto, and it was really nice because we sort of met up in Canada, and obviously both with people like Ewan and Hayden, they’ve been these characters for so long and they obviously did them in the prequels, and they’ve lived with this character in their lives for so long that they just know the character so well, which makes it so helpful in terms of the creative.”
But having Vader back isn’t something to take lightly. This show is, for the most part, a meeting of fans. Vader and Obi-Wan’s relationship is different from that of the relationship between Obi-Wan and Anakin in the prequels. Where Obi-Wan Kenobi is taking us is in between that journey.
“Obviously Hayden was going to be part of this series, and when he first came on to set for us, it definitely had a very special feeling,” Chow went on to explain. “And it was a really interesting moment for me because you really started to see the different generations and how they connect to Star Wars and the franchise, where you have a generation that grew up with the prequels first and with Hayden. It’s a totally different thing for them than a generation that grew up with the originals. And then there’s younger generations with the new ones.”
Obi-Wan Kenobi has some big shoes to fill, but with Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen back in action, it’s going to be pretty epic.
(featured image: Lucasfilm)
