Star Wars fans rip 'downgrade' of fan-favourite character
Star Wars fans are currently ripping into a character they feel was "downgraded" in live-action.
With so many different projects across both live-action and animation, Star Wars constantly reuses the same characters across different forms.
It can be quite easy to animate a character based on a live-action performance, but it might be trickier to do the opposite when adapting a character originating from animation into live-action.
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After all, a character designed for an animated series can have exaggerated, stylised features that costume and casting departments might not be able to authentically capture in live-action.
This may just be the case with the Grand Inquisitor from the Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi miniseries. The character originally appeared in Star Wars Rebels played by Jason Isaacs, but his live-action appearance was instead portrayed by Rupert Friend.
In Star Wars lore, the Grand Inquisitor is a Pau'un, a native of the planet Utapau which first appeared in Revenge of the Sith.
However, Star Wars fans have pointed out that Friend's appearance in the miniseries doesn't resemble the live-action Pau'uns from that film, nor does he look as sinister as his animated Rebels appearance.
"The Obi-Wan show just shows how little they were willing to put into costuming and makeup," wrote one comment on Reddit. "Didn't even make his head tall."
"The reasoning for the lack of head prosthetic made zero sense too," wrote another. "They said it would have been too difficult with his stunts but I don't think they had do a single stunt, just get stabbed."
When comparing the Grand Inquisitor's live-action appearance with that of Tion Medon from Revenge of the Sith, it's clear that the design doesn't quite match up.
The texture on Tion's skin looks much better, and the design around his eyes is also far more detailed. Perhaps they just had a better budget with this being a movie.
As another comment put it: "We had a live action Pau'an in 2005 that looked much better."
Perhaps Disney will give the Grand Inquisitor another go in live-action in the future, this time taking cues from Bruce Spence's version of the Pau'uns in Revenge of the Sith.