Just last week, right before the “Obi-Wan: Kenobi” trailer first hit, Lucasfilm’s Kathleen Kennedy explained the reasons why the original version of the series—penned by “Drive” screenwriter Hossein Amini—was scrapped. You’ll remember in early 2020, the original “Obi-Wan: Kenobi” series was put on hold, and ultimately, Lucasfilm scrapped all the scripts they had and started over with Joby Harold (“King Arthur: The legend of The Sword”)
“We’re looking, ultimately, to make a hopeful, uplifting story,” she told EW recently about the change of direction in the story. “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.”
This got fans slightly worried (it is a bleak time, not meant to be hopeful) and wondering what Amini’s version would look like? Well, the Hollywood Reporter has some details on what his version would have been like and who it might have featured. For one, Obi-Wan’s arch-nemesis Darth Maul was apparently going to center as the main villain, and Ray Park was all set to reprise his role. But in the overhaul of the scripts, the Maul character was cut out of the series entirely, and instead, Lucasfilm decided to include Darth Vader and have Hayden Christensen reprise the role.
THR repeats a rumor heard back in 2020: Lucasfilm and some of the chief creative execs were worried much of it was too similar to “The Mandalorian.”
Sources note that Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau were concerned about Obi-Wan covering similar ground as Mandalorian – the Lone Wolf and Cub-like story of Kenobi coming out of hiding to protect a child-aged Luke Skywalker. Maul was one of the villains who would participate in the hunt for the pair; Vader was nowhere to be found in this far away galaxy at this stage, according to those with knowledge of the project. Also, Filoni and Favreau pushed [‘Obi-Wan’] director Deborah Chow and the show to “go bigger,” according to several sources. In any case, those concerns made their way to Lucasfilm head Kathleen Kennedy who pressed the pause button.
Eventually, what happened, according to the article, Filoni keyed in on the idea of using Vader and the Inquisitors— Jedi hunters that he first introduced in his animated series “Star Wars: Rebels.”
One Lucasfilm source apparently contradicted the account entirely, saying Maul was never intended to return for the series, for what that’s worth.
What the article, nor any sources mention at all, which seems weird and ostensibly one of the main reasons Maul was not used, was that Maul already faced off against Obi-Wan on a pivotal episode of “Star Wars: Rebels.” In fact, *spoiler*, in the crucial episode, Maul tracks down Luke Skywalker on Tatooine through the unsuspecting and gullible Jedi-in-training Ezra Bridger. Then Obi-Wan is compelled to come out of hiding and face his ultimate adversary Maul, killing him in the end.
Given those events were set seemingly after the events of “Obi-Wan Kenobi”—which is set 10 years after “Star Wars: Revenge Of The Sith” and the ‘Rebels’ episode is seemingly more like 15 years or more (Obi-Wan is much older, and grayer), it would literally not make sense in the canon and continuity of “Star Wars” for Maul to have found Luke on Tatooine years earlier, that story actively wouldn’t really work unless you somehow cheated the continuity (and ‘Rebels’ is considered canon; many of those characters and stories are being ported into the live-action series and have crossed over with ‘The Mandalorian). Through “Star Wars: Clone Wars” and ‘Rebels,’ Maul is shown to be nearly driven to madness in his quest for vengeance upon Obi-Wan. If he found him finally in year 15 (ish), what sense would it make that he actually saw him early around the 10-year mark? Unless the story was told off-world, which could be the case. Well, that’s enough nerd for one day.
One source ALSO says Ray Park as Darth Maul was already involved in stunt training and was getting ready for the role. Still, for the aforementioned reasons, Lucasfilm decided to pull the plug on that version of the story, evidently going “bigger” and perhaps more importantly, off-world.
Either way, we’ll know soon what the final version looks like. “Obi-Wan: Kenobi,” a six-episode limited series directed by ‘Mandalorian’ filmmaker Deborah Chow, debuts on Disney+ on May 25, 2022.
