'Obi-Wan Kenobi' Original Story Was Much More Pessimistic

Obi-Wan Kenobi, the upcoming Star Wars spinoff show following... Obi-Wan Kenobi, was originally a much more pessimistic watch before the script underwent some serious revisions.

The show is set a decade following the events of Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith with our hero hiding on Tatooine to guard the young Luke Skywalker. However a squad of Inquisitors, who are in fact former Jedi who were tempted by the promises of the Empire, are tracking those who remain on the light side of the force after Order 66.

"Obi-Wan is lost," explained Ewan McGregor, who portrayed the Jedi Master in the prequel movies, in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. "He's a broken man after what happened with the Jedi order at the end of Episode III, but also what happened with Anakin; that he lost him to the dark side. He feels an enormous amount of responsibility for that, and guilt."

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While this description of Obi-Wan's state of mind sounds indisputably fatalistic, it turns out that the original script delved into even darker depths of the scarred Jedi's psyche. Kathleen Kennedy, one of the executive producers of the show, said that there was a worry that Hossein Amini's take on the character was much too morose. "We're looking, ultimately, to make a hopeful, uplifting story," stated Kennedy in this same interview with Entertainment Weekly. "And it's tricky when you're starting with a character in the state that Obi-Wan would be in coming off of Revenge of the Sith. That's a pretty bleak period of time. You can't just wave the magic wand with any writer and arrive at a story that necessarily reflects what you want to feel."

Resultantly, Kennedy chose to shut down production and start from scratch with screenwriter Joby Harold who said that he had always had an "obsession" with Obi-Wan. "When we last saw Obi-Wan in the prequels, he's very emotional," he added. "There's a passion to him. And when we get to see him again in A New Hope, he is the Zen master. That was the story that I wanted to understand — what had happened to Obi-Wan between the guy that Ewan had brought to life and the guy that Sir Alec Guinness brought to life."

That isn't to say that it'll be all twin sunshines and rainbows. "We inherited some of [the original script], but we did really make some significant changes and add a few different elements," revealed director Deborah Chow.