It has been more than 15 years since the release of Ewan McGregor’s final appearance in a “Star Wars” film, with ‘Revenge of the Sith.’ But the actor is set to come back to the galaxy far, far away sometime soon (maybe next year?) in the upcoming ‘Obi-Wan’ spinoff series on Disney+. And according to the actor, he’s pretty pumped about the opportunity to play the Jedi master one more time.
Speaking to Empire, McGregor talked about his excitement for the upcoming Disney+ streaming series and his return to the “Star Wars” franchise. And in his answer, he throws a bit of shade at his last two “Star Wars” appearances in ‘Attack of the Clones’ and the aforementioned ‘Revenge.’
“I’m more excited about doing this one than I was doing the second and third one that we did before,” McGregor said. “I’m just excited about working with [director] Deborah Chow, and the storylines are going to be really good I think. I’m just excited to play him again. It’s been long enough since I played him before.”
Clearly, McGregor is aware enough to understand the legacy of George Lucas’ prequel films. While they have a bit of a fan following with newer generations, the actor readily admits that original “Star Wars” fans were a bit upset when the Prequel Trilogy was released more than a decade ago.
“You know, our films weren’t much liked when they came out, by my generation who loved the first ones,” he admitted. “I think people of our generation wanted to feel the way they’d felt when they saw those first three movies when they were kids, and George [Lucas] wanted to take our ones in a different direction, he had a different idea.”
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McGregor continued, “It was tricky at the time, I remember. But now, all these years later, I’m really aware of what our films meant to the generation they were made for, the children of that time. They really like them. I’ve met people who, they mean a lot to them, those films, more so than the original three, and I’m like, ‘Are you kidding?’”
While I firmly sit in the “Prequels aren’t good” camp, it’s clear that the folks that enjoy those three films tend to be from the people that grew up with those films and have less affinity towards the Original Trilogy from the ‘70s and ‘80s. Basically, it’s all those young folks that will defend Jar Jar Binks until the bitter end while us old people remember when “Star Wars” was actually good. Or so goes the discourse.
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The ‘Obi-Wan’ series is still delayed due to the pandemic (and a bit of behind-the-scenes shuffling), but reports are pointing to the series going into production next year with a possible late-2021 release. We’ll just have to wait and see.
