After a bit of a rocky start, Lucasfilm has officially announced that Obi-Wan Kenobi, its upcoming miniseries about the Jedi Master will begin production in April, and has unveiled the cast for the project.
Production begins soon on Obi-Wan Kenobi, a special event series coming to #DisneyPlus. pic.twitter.com/9z49eW9Vgx
— Star Wars (@starwars) March 29, 2021
In the lead-up to launching Disney+, Disney announced that its first Star Wars project would be The Mandalorian, and a year later, the studio announced that it would continue to produce Star Wars shows, including one about Cassian Andor and in August 2019, a six-episode miniseries about Obi-Wan Kenobi, to be directed by Deborah Chow, who was one of the directors for The Mandalorian.
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Since then, we’ve gotten some details about what to expect: it would be set eight years after Revenge of the Sith, and Hayden Christensen would return to reprise his role as Anakin Skywalker and/or Darth Vader.
But early last year, Lucasfilm put the series on hold to “retool” the show over some issues with its scripts. The series had been expected to enter production last year, but that delay pushed the project back for months, with insiders expecting production to resume in Summer 2021.
Now, the series is officially back on the docket: Lucasfilm says that it will begin shooting next month, and that in addition to Ewan McGregor reprising his role as the title character (and Christensen), the rest of the cast will include Moses Ingram (The Queen’s Gambit), Joel Edgerton (reprising his role as Owen Lars from Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith), Bonnie Piesse (reprising her role as Beru Lars from Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith), Kumail Nanjiani (Eternals, Silicon Valley), Indira Varma (Rome, Game of Thrones), Rupert Friend (Hitman), O’Shea Jackson Jr. (Straight Outta Compton), Sung Kang (Raya and the Last Dragon), Simone Kessell (Reckoning), and Benny Safdie (Good Time).
It’s not a huge surprise to see that Beru and Owen Lars will be popping up, given that they’re practically neighbors with Kenobi, and I can’t help but think that this means that we’ll see an eight-year-old version of Luke Skywalker as well.
Lucasfilm didn’t provide a release date for the project, but it seems likely that it’s slated for a 2022 release.
Did Orlando Bloom change his name to Rupert Friend???
I wonder in what capacity Hayden Christensen can participate, when presumably James Earl Jones will do Darth Vader’s voice and an unseen actor will wear the costume. Will there be scenes of Vader out of his helmet? Or will there be flashbacks or hallucinatory appearances by Anakin?
It’s nice to see that the young actors who played Owen and Beru came back.
I noticed the final cast list did not include Hayden Christensen. Was this a typo, or has he been dropped?
@6: Hayden is in the image they released yesterday.
@3 – Good point. It would seem rather pointless for him to portray Darth Vader. I guess that means there has to be some type of force visions involved.
@8/Austin: “It would seem rather pointless for him to portray Darth Vader.”
Not out of the question, though. Once, in something like the Iron Man movies, they would’ve had a stunt double wear the Iron Man suit and dub in Downey’s voice. These days, instead, they have Downey act out the physical scene in motion-capture gear and animate the armor digitally, so as to capture his body language and let the other actors play off him authentically even when you can’t see his face. So they could do the same with Christensen as Vader. The difference is that Darth Vader’s body language was defined by David Prowse and his voice is JEJ, so there’s less point to having Christensen play Darth Vader per se.
Minor amusing fact- Sung Kang’s character in the Fast and the Furious Franchise apparently went by the alias “Han Seoul-Oh.”
I hope they won’t have Darth Vader visiting Tatooine. That wouldn’t make sense imo.
I am so so so so pumped for this. From the beginning this (along with Andor) has been what I’ve looked forward to the most. I squealed when they finally announced they got Ewan McGregor and the show was really happening, I screamed in joy when Hayden Christensen got cast (and I really hope he DOES get some scenes outside of the costume, as well as with hopefully some better direction/diologue) and I also squeed when I saw Edgerton and Piesse. I am really excited they are bringing back prequel actors when they can (I am also really excited that Genevieve O’Reilly is getting her due as Mon Mothma). And of course getting Temeura Morrison in the Mandalorian was a huge treat.
I hope we do get a few hints at Luke’s childhood – it would be interesting to see what Force-manifestation looks like in somebody untrained during childhood.
@13/Lisamarie: I thought Christensen was terrible as Anakin, but I gather that he, like a lot of the prequel cast, has done better work elsewhere and was hampered by George Lucas’s lack of skill at directing actors. So my kneejerk reaction to his casting is displeasure, but on reflection, maybe it’ll be good for him to have the chance to show what he can do with better direction. Maybe it’ll be like Brandon Routh — I didn’t like him as Superman in Superman Returns, but when I saw him as Ray Palmer in the Arrowverse, I realized he could’ve made a great Superman after all if everyone in that movie hadn’t been directed to be so solemn and subdued all the time.
For me, though, the definitive Anakin is Matt Lanter and the definitive Fett/clone actor is Dee Bradley Baker. After all, the animated versions have had far more screen time than the live-action versions at this point, though all these new live-action shows should shift the balance back a bit.
I didn’t care for him as much in Attack of the Clones (although I think he has a few really good scenes there, particularly Shmi’s funeral) but I loved him Revenge of the Sith.
Most of my favorite scenes with him are the ones where he’s allowed to just have a brooding/intense presence – his delusional unhinged speech on Mustafar, his reaction to Padme’s pregnancy, a lot of his reactions to Palpatine’s various monologues. I am looking forward to seeing what he can do under another director.
(Although even some of the wooden/awkwardness in a way makes sense too, although I don’t know if that’s what Lucas was going for!)
One of my favorite parts in the latest Clone Wars series was the Order 66 scene where Ahsoka senses what is going on, and Hayden’s dialogue merges with Matt Lanter’s – I thought it was a cool way to bring them both together!
@3,
Hallucinations seem likely to me. I suspect ‘Anakin’ will appear as a physical manifestation of Obi-Wan’s guilt at failing his apprentice and helping plunge the galaxy into darkness.
I also hope Liam Neeson appears as Qui-Gon, or at least as his voice. We know from ROTS that Qui-Gon instructed Yoda and his one-time apprentice on preserving their Force essences. But that was all off-screen between the PT and OT, so it’d be great to finally dramatize it (though the literature both pre-Disney and post-Disney’s shown glimpses of that trianing).
There is one minor nitpicky detail I hope they clear up during this period. It’s not really important but what the hey.
I hope they establish that Obi-Wan is largely known on Tatooine as Ben and only Ben, not Kenobi at all. And for that matter, young Luke is known as Luke Lars for most of his upbringing — that is, until the day, perhaps, he overhears Owen arguing with Ben when he stops by to check on the kid and the names Kenobi and Skywalker get dropped, and so the questions begin…
@17,
I remember John Jackson Miller’s pre-Disney novel Kenobi actually addressed the Kenobi surname issue head-on — because I’d been wondering about that for years too.
It’s been a while since I read it, but IIRC, Obi-Wan selected Ben as his alias and deliberately didn’t choose a surname.
Naturally, things didn’t go according to plan. A Tatooine teenager (who’d developed a crush on him due to a rescue earlier in the novel) eavesdropped on his hut and over-heard him conversing with Qui-Gon’s spirit (not that she realized what was going on).
She learned his surname, publicly identified him as ‘Ben Kenobi’ at a community gathering shortly thereafter, and of course there was nothing Obi-Wan could do to stop her. All he could do was hope that nobody would put 2 and 2 together and wonder why he had the same surname as the MIA Jedi Fugitive (and IIRC correctly, this worry played a role in him going full-on hermit to dissuade the locals from getting to know him).
So it’ll be interesting to see if the mini-series addresses it with their own take (though I hope they use Miller’s novel as an influence in the same way Solo used the A. C. Crispin Han Solo Trilogy).
As for Luke’s surname, yeah, that’s trickier. I think Leland Chee came up with an explanation years back (honoring Shmi’s legacy).
Jelly@17:
There’s really no need for this. Skywalker is a Tatooine name in construction, obviously. There is no reason whatsoever to presume it’s not a common one, or there aren’t other Skywalkers. Vader doesn’t know he HAS kids. He was told by Sidious that he killed Padme on Mustafar, which, if true, would have precluded his child being born.
If Vader had at all been keeping tabs on the step family he met once (on the darkest day of his life, until the day his life as Anakin Skywalker ended), they could have renamed Luke Mark Hammill, and Vader would still have figured it out, with the Force as his ally. The danger wasn’t giving him the name Skywalker on some backwater where information never escaped, it was putting him on that backwater in the first place. In the current version of Empire, the Emperor has to make it clear that Luke Skywalker is the son of Anakin Skywalker, and Vader expresses surprise, asking how such a thing is possible. Vader was aware that the pilot who had blown up the Death Star was named Luke Skywalker (his name had become famous between Ep 4 and 5), but was unsure until that moment that this Luke was the son of Anakin.
And I can follow the logic. If we assume that Obi-wan knew Anakin better than anyone else (safe assumption), then he was aware that because of the death of his mother, Tatooine was the one place in the entire galaxy Vader was least likely to go. I personally think too much is made of him keeping the name. Obi-wan’s biggest gamble was in giving Luke to the Lars family in the first place.
Well, if it was that big a gamble, then it’s all the more reason to change Luke’s surname. Hill is a common surname too, but I’m pretty sure Henry Hill was known by something else when he was in witness protection.
Why take the risk when under the heel of a genocidal government with a psychic space wizard as its leader who could easily declare all Skywalkers are to be rounded up?
And I can follow the logic. If we assume that Obi-wan knew Anakin better than anyone else (safe assumption), then he was aware that because of the death of his mother, Tatooine was the one place in the entire galaxy Vader was least likely to go. I personally think too much is made of him keeping the name. Obi-wan’s biggest gamble was in giving Luke to the Lars family in the first place.
Yeah, that was James Luceno’s take in Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader.
At the end of the novel, Obi-Wan finally learns Anakin had survived Mustafar. He understandably panics and wonders if he needs to grab grab Luke from Owen and Beru and run like hell for an even more remote world.
It’s Qui-Gon’s spirit who talks him off the ledge by pointing out that Tatooine is the perfect hiding place because it’s the source of nearly all of Anakin’s pain. It would be the last place he’d ever come back to willingly. More, Qui-Gon felt Vader would not risk coming back to Tatooine, because that very pain could potentially re-awaken Anakin, or at least the core of the Jedi that was still buried beneath the shackles of Dark Side.
It is known in the Anchorage community that Sieg Lars second wife was surnamed Skywalker and probably that she’d had a son. The Lars clearly do not try to pass off Luke as their own but are honest about his origin as their orphaned nephew. Their small community is probably beneath Imperial notice.
@21
Anakin wouldn’t be the only one with an interest in Skywalkers though.
@22
That’s a big gamble to place on probably. If I’m hiding somebody, I’m changing every name they have.
Look, that’s what interests me in this situation, the drama, the friction in the Lars homestead, of Luke discovering his father’s real name, then begin calling himself that without knowing the danger.
Anakin wouldn’t be the only one with an interest in Skywalkers though.
True.
IIRC, and again it’s been a while since I read it, Luceno stated in Dark Lord that while finding Yoda and Obi-Wan were priorities, they weren’t top priorities for Palpatine initially.
Focus needed to be on the Empire during those crucial early months and years after the end of Republic and the Clone Wars (and he had to yank Vader’s leash to make him accept he couldn’t devote all his attention to hunting Kenobi for revenge after Mustafar).
Besides, as Palpatine saw it, the Jedi Order had been bested and brought low and they’d lost everything. Yoda and Kenobi being forced to live their lives in exile on backwater worlds and to spend their remaining years ruminating on their great failure appealed to the sadist in Palpatine; it was a consolation prize.
But still, you’d think Palpatine of all people would’ve kept an eye on Anakin’s old stomping grounds just in case.
As I understand it Tattoine isn’t just Anakin Skywalker’s old home/ least favourite place in the Galaxy, it’s also a Hutt playground – and the Hutt Cartel(s) are one of the meanest power players in the Galaxy; Even Palpatine, even as Emperor, would probably need an extremely Good reason to stick his nose into Hutt Territory (because while the Galactic Empire can overwhelm the Hutts if so inclined, the process of doing so would be neither cheap nor quick and would leave the Emperor with not much in the way of profit afterwards).
Also, GREAT QUI-GON’S GHOST, this is actually happening!
@25
Which is yet another reason for a name change. I mean, living on the same planet that’s a hotbed for criminal activity, a base of operations for vile gangsters and bounty hunters who would gladly turn someone over to the Empire for the credits, is too close for comfort. It would be for me anyway.
Also, the more I think about this name issue the more I like the theme of eventual rehabilitation and resurrection of the Skywalker name, going from something that’s spoken in hushed tones to being chosen as a symbol for a new identity and a new era.
@25/ED: “As I understand it Tattoine isn’t just Anakin Skywalker’s old home/ least favourite place in the Galaxy, it’s also a Hutt playground – and the Hutt Cartel(s) are one of the meanest power players in the Galaxy”
Which is a retcon I’m not crazy about, since it’s hard to reconcile with Luke’s lines in the original about Tatooine being the world farthest from the bright center of the galaxy, i.e. the most insignificant dust speck of a world you could imagine. I mean, sure, okay, a crime cartel would tend to operate pretty far from the centers of power and law and order, so that fits; but making it one of the most important crime cartels in the galaxy works against the idea of its utter remoteness from civilization. I’d prefer it if the Hutts had been established as a strictly local concern, just Tatooine itself and a few neighboring dustballs out in the sticks. Not the equivalent of a Mafia don running an international syndicate, more the equivalent of Boss Hogg running Hazzard County.
@31,
Jason Aaron’s run on the main Star Wars comic actually did Obi-Wan-centric interludes focused on his exile. Aaron explored what it would be like for a Jedi of Kenobi’s caliber and principles to be stuck in the middle of lawbreaking central and unable to do anything about it.
Been a while since I read them, but if IIRC, Obi-Wan initially tried to stay out of Hutt-centric problems. He was trying to avoid blowing his cover and attracting attention to him or the Lars Homstead (though it understandably galled him to have to let the injustice stand).
But it finally got to the point where had to be begin sabotaging Jabba’s operations when it began to affect local moisture farmers (the Lars family included). And of course, it pissed off Jabba and brought down attention on the Dune Sea (though Obi-Wan covered his tracks well enough in that instance).
@31/Mr. Magic: “Aaron explored what it would be like for a Jedi of Kenobi’s caliber and principles to be stuck in the middle of lawbreaking central and unable to do anything about it.”
But that’s my point — Tatooine originally wasn’t supposed to be “central” to anything. It was conceived as an inconsequential speck, but because it was so prominent in the first film, it got elevated in later stories into a world of galactic importance.
True, Obi-Wan said of Mos Eisley “You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy,” which can be taken to mean that it’s the worst of the worst.. but if you really examine the nuances of the word “wretched,” it means not only despicable, but base and pitiable, contemptibly weak and poor in quality. So he arguably meant that it was the least impressive or influential hive of scum and villainy in the galaxy, just the place where the dregs of scum and villainy ended up when they couldn’t get into better hives.
I don’t know, of all things, I think the Hutts having an outpost on Tatooine makes sense to me. And at least in older versions of the canon, it wasn’t their main base of operations – places like Nar Shadda and Nal Hutta were.
So I can definitely see it simultaneously basically being a dirtball without much to recommend it but a seedy spaceport and a semi prominent criminal underworld. Even in the pre-prequel era, there were things like Tales of the Mos Eisley Cantina anthology that explored the different reasons people were in that cantina.
Not to mention that I don’t know that Luke’s own description of Tatooine is meant to be taken super literally – he’s a bored, whiny teenager who’s upset he can’t go off to the equivalent of space college. To me it’s not that different than how we might have whined about the suburbs (although probably a bit more backwater).
(I agree all the name-changing stuff is a little harder to swallow but I can also accept that Vader just never wanted to go there – although it will be interesting to see what Kenobi does with this – and that it’s effectively a narrative convenience. In part due to the fact that Luke wasn’t originally Vader’s son anyway ;) )
Lisamarie@33:
To back up that point, there are 35933 municipal and civil townships in the United States. I grew up in the 31st largest city in the United States. Ask anyone in my school where the backend of nowhere was, and they would tell you Milwaukee. Every teenager thinks they come from the furthest point from the bright center of the galaxy, unless they grow up in about 10 cities in the US. Maybe 5.
@33/Lisamarie: It’s not about whether it makes sense. It’s about whether they changed the original intention, and that I think the original idea was preferable. I get tired of everything associated with the protagonists in a series becoming the most important [whatever] in the galaxy just because it connects to characters we know. I mean, it’s rather a large coincidence that the planet that’s home to both the man who destroyed the Jedi Order and the man who brought it back (after a fashion) is also the home of one of the biggest crime syndicates in the galaxy. That’s a pretty impressive resume for what’s supposed to be an unimportant flyspeck.
Well, Star Wars takes the cake in some way when it comes to changing the intention (if I had to pick, I’d say Luke and Leia being siblings is a bridge too far and my personal opinion doesn’t add that much to the lore, even if that also has some interesting potential – that unfortunately the sequels didn’t really tap into, in my opinion. So I’m not saying this is all a great example of tight storytelling by any means), but it’s pretty common for creators to expand on ideas in directions they didn’t originally intend.
This particular point doesn’t seem all that egregious, is what I’m trying to say. I don’t think the Hutts having an outpost (I think even in either TCW/Rebels Nal Hutta was re-canonized as their headquarters) on an otherwise isolated planet really is that non-sensical (in fact, that’s probably WHY they are there). Nor am I convinced it was the intent that Tatooine was completely unremarkable in the first place. We see it has a fairly cosmopolitan/bustling spaceport right in the first movie and Luke’s experience appears to be more focused on the outskirts of Anchorhead. (And I personally did take Obi-Wan’s use of wretched to mean ‘dangerous’, since the context is that he’s telling Luke he has to be cautious, and Luke blows him off…and then pays the price).
I think it does get an inordinate amount of screen time for sure, but that’s in part because it’s thematically appropriate to the characters the movies are about (and because Lucas loves mirrors/cycles, and so the prequels then try to explain why they are there in the first place. Maybe we don’t strictly need that, but it doesn’t bother me that we get it).
Now, yes, I do think there can be a fair amount of fan-wank when non-Skywalker related stories have to make a point of going to Tatooine; even Mandalorian going there was perhaps a stretch even if I enjoyed it. But then again, maybe not. Perhaps in some circles (smuggling, bounty hunting) it IS considered more prominent, and if course it sets up the Boba Fett stuff. And to me it IS believable that there’s more going on than is directly relevant to Luke who is a bit of a bumpkin who gets excited about heading over to the local garage to pick up some parts. I appreciate that the prequels and Mandalorian at least added Mos Espa and Mos Pelgo (or did that come from one of the novels?), respectively.
I don’t know – to me this one feels organic. As I said, other retcons don’t.
@34 – hello fellow Wisconsinite :) I, for one, think Milwaukee is great! But I’m in Madison so it seems to me like it’s more of a ‘city’. (I grew up in a suburb of Detroit, fwiw).
That said (hit send too soon!) this conversation definitely makes me think of some great Auralnauts videos (One of my VERY favorite YouTube channels that perfectly skewers some of the sillier conceits in Star Wars, but also the way some fans may take it waaaay to seriously).
Ah yes, it was the ‘Kylo Ren Reacts to D23 Special Look’ (I seriously cannot reccomend that entire series enough). Specifically at 5:10 he goes into how this is all absurd :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNCbZiPaZjY
@36/Lisamarie: “I’d say Luke and Leia being siblings is a bridge too far and my personal opinion doesn’t add that much to the lore”
It wasn’t so much about adding as subtracting. It was the simplest way to resolve the Luke-Han-Leia romantic triangle, by disqualifying Luke as a potential suitor for Leia.
@38 Ha, true.
Never mind that Leia could have just…chosen him. Can’t have that!
Didn’t Leia telling Han she loves him in Empire resolve the romantic triangle? I thought the primary reason Lucas revived the siblings idea was to make Luke’s rage at Vader suggesting Leia could be turned to the dark side more raw or believable or something.
Which was unnecessary in my opinion. Luke already cared deeply for her. And she could be strong with the Force either way.
Concerning Luke’s surname – they could explain this by Luke only somehow discovering that he was adopted at some later point prior to New Hope and changing his family name as a result. It would make perfect sense for a teenager to do so. So, he could have been a Lars as a child during the first decade + of the Empire, which might have shielded him from unwholesome attention when the memories of a very prominent Skywalker were still fresh.
Lisamarie @36:
Agree 200% re: Leia! It made zero sense that she had been swanning in front of the Emperor/Vader as a senator, without either noticing that she was force-sensitive and a daughter of one of them. Or that her adoptive parents/Kenobi would have ever thought that it was a sensible thing for her to do. It is even worse when Vader still didn’t catch on during their close interactions in ANH and ESB. And how was she supposed to be “another hope”, when she was completely untrained?! It was such an unnecessary retcon, IMHO, all to tie up a random cryptic sentence from ESB. Hopefully, they’d now use this chance to explain why nobody was aprehensive that she might exhibit Force abilities unconsciously. Maybe it is possible to block sensitives and Kenobi did it to her? Still, she’d be one blood test away from discovery…
Anyway, I am glad that this is finally being made. McGregor was one of very few high points of the prequel trilogy and, of course, there was lots of great stuff about Obi-Wan in the animated series. I have also always thought that a Jedi living in hiding and trying to do their best without revealing themselves would provide good material for an adventure show. Too bad that they’ll likely park him on Tatooine and have him use his lightsaber in this series. It would have made more sense for him to risk being active while far away from Luke.
@40/Jelly: “Didn’t Leia telling Han she loves him in Empire resolve the romantic triangle?”
Ilsa Lund was already married to Victor Lazslo, but that didn’t end that romantic triangle. The whole point of a love triangle, usually, is that a person loves two people and is torn between them. Leia falling in love with Han created the triangle. It wasn’t resolved until the issue of her relationship with Luke was sorted out.
Audiences today are so used to taking Leia/Han for granted that they’ve forgotten what a swerve it was from our expectations. By conventional movie logic, the clean-cut hero was entitled to end up with the beautiful heroine, and the roguish bad boy was just an obstacle for him to overcome in winning his happily-ever-after, a mistake that the beautiful heroine would come to regret. When I was a kid seeing these movies for the first time, I resented Han for horning in on Luke’s girl and expected that Luke would win her back in the third movie. The only way to make it totally acceptable to viewers like me that the heroine ended up with the bad boy was to establish that the clean-cut hero was never an eligible romantic prospect for her in the first place.
Owen and Beru seem to be most concerned with explaining Luke to their neighbors. They elect to go with the truth: Luke is the orphaned son of Owen’s stepbrother, if not the whole truth. Did Obi-Wan even tell them the whole story? That Luke would be of interest to the Empire? Possibly not. Perhaps he felt that side of the matter was his problem.
I understood that Luke was always going to have a sister but she wasn’t always going to be Leia. Maybe not. Vader and Palatine both believe Anakin’s child died unborn. They had no reason to identify Leia as such even if they sensed her Force potential. Much less trawl the Tatooine badlands for kids named Skywalker. Now if Luke had transmitted an application to the academy that might have gotten their attention.
@42
Uh, what Lisamarie said. She could’ve just chosen Han instead. Retconning them as brother and sister… ick. Easily the worst creative decision Lucas ever made, in my opinion.
ChristopherLBennet @42:
The absurd ret-con of Leia’s origins that made the Emperor, Vader, Obi-wan and Yoda look like complete idiots was much worse, IMHO. Would many young boys at the time have been invested in any of the romances anyway? I have only watched the OT movies when Phantom Menace came out, but I knew a number of kids over the years who commented on the silliness of Vader being unable to sense her or Obi-Wan/Yoda never thinking to train her and yet considering her “another hope”. Granted, many of them were girls… Anyway, this new series would be a good place to explain away some of the contradictions. Clone Wars successfully did it for PT…
Princessroxana @43:
But shouldn’t the Emperor/Vader merely sensing Leia’s Force sensitivity had been more than enough to put her in mortal danger? Regardless of her parentage. As well as drawn some unwanted attention to Aldaraan. I have forgotten that paternity tests were not a thing when the OT was made, so I withdraw that objection. But PT’s introduction of the midichlorian blood test made the Leia situation retroactively even worse, since as a high profile public person, a routine medical check-up while on Coruscant could have easily revealed her as a Force sensitive, even if she didn’t subconsciously use the Force while around the Sith.
And yes, I too have heard that Luke was originally supposed to have a sister who was not Leia, and who would have been a Jedi too. And that Lucas ret-conned Leia into that role when he decided that he didn’t want to make any more Star Wars movies after RoTJ. But there was really no need, and it made the trilogy worse, IMHO, because of all the resultant incongruities about her, incest vibes, etcc. YMMV.
@44/Jelly: “She could’ve just chosen Han instead.”
She did, but they wanted it to happen in a way that it would be a happy ending for Luke too, for all three of them. By having Luke discover his long-lost sister, he gained something from it too, and any question of jealousy or rivalry with Han was short-circuited.
@45/Isilel: “Would many young boys at the time have been invested in any of the romances anyway?”
That’s exactly why they wanted to resolve it in the easiest, cleanest way possible, to get it out of the way efficiently rather than dwelling on the complexities of a love triangle.
Instead we’re retroactively given the complexities of incestuous smooching for two movies. Hardly a clean solution.
I think Luke seeing the happy spirit of his father — I mean the original actor standing there with a smile on his face rather than an evil smirk — was a happy enough, if bittersweet, ending for Luke. But this is where Star Wars started going off the rails, doubling down on bloodlines and how special and supreme those are, then tripling down with Force chiggers crawling in your bloodstream or something.
Luke had already made a family in his travels, with a sister and lots of brothers. They’re surrounding him in the final shot of ROTJ. We don’t need DNA results for that.
For a romantic triangle to be solved through the revelation that two of those people are siblings (and have kind of engaged romantically, the kissing at the end of Empire and Luke looking smug about it) is normally the path for more dramatic tension and not least. Normally this happens in soap operas and dramas and leads to lots of angst.
It’s very interesting and weird that in Star Wars this was as seen as the path for least tension and everybody thought was A-OK with what happened before. Leia saying “Somehow … I’ve always known”, If that was so, why did you decide to kiss the guy who’s giving brother’s vibes, Leia?
Maybe it’s just a question of when the movie was made. Movies used to portray romantic leads as having to try until the end to get the other partner, giving up only when the somebody was revealed as an evil jerk or another person appeared to make everyone happy in the end with the right amount of partners. To just have the point of the triangle choose one over the other and the person who was rejected to live fine with that was not shown. Even though that’s way more common in real life than any other solution, and most people will live through that kind of situation so it’s way more relatable to the audience.
@47/Jelly: “Instead we’re retroactively given the complexities of incestuous smooching for two movies. Hardly a clean solution.”
Just a couple of brief, relatively chaste kisses. Calling that “incestuous” is an overreaction. Again, these were kids’ movies. There’s no actual sex going on. No lines were crossed that would warrant anything more than embarrassment.
Besides, things are as clean or as complex as the story chooses to say they are. Luke Skywalker almost certainly killed a lot of innocent prisoners when he blew up the Death Star; there were multiple detention levels and the guards were unsurprised by an unfamiliar Wookiee prisoner, which would not have been the case if the prisons had been totally empty aside from Leia. And yet that’s a complexity the movies ignore in favor of a pat, simple happy ending.
@48/Ryamano: “For a romantic triangle to be solved through the revelation that two of those people are siblings (and have kind of engaged romantically, the kissing at the end of Empire and Luke looking smug about it) is normally the path for more dramatic tension and not least. Normally this happens in soap operas and dramas and leads to lots of angst.”
But those are stories designed to be angsty and complex and engaging for adults. These movies were meant for children. They were meant to be simple, harmless spectacle to while away an afternoon with. People today keep trying to judge them by the standards of adult storytelling, and as someone who was exactly in the movies’ pre-teen target age range when the original trilogy came out, I always find that startling.
I mean, come on, they open with “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.” They are literally telling you up front that these are fairy tales.
There’s a deleted scene (thankfully) from ESB that makes the Hoth kiss a bit more squicky – you can still kind of play it off as ‘she’s just trying to make Han mad’ but in the deleted/extended scene that’s clearly not the case. At any rate, at the very least, I certainly wrote scenes where Han has no compunctions about good naturedly ribbing them about it in my own fanfic, ha.
But yeah, I will still poke fun at it. I don’t think Luke *needed* to gain a sister given that he’s got his own found family (and peace with his father) right there, as well as his own renewed purpose/mission. And I agree that it’s possible this led to the whole obsession with Rey having to be a Skywalker or whatever else. I don’t mind the midichlorians – if anything, they make the Force less tied to mystical bloodlines. There is potentially a genetic component, yes (although I’ll always allow for things like a Force sensitive clone) but it’s not necessarily because a bloodline is super *special* if that makes sense. Even if the Skywalkers may be an exception simply because of all of the prophecy and what not swirling around Anakin, but to me that’s an exception, not the rule.
That said it stlll doesn’t mean Leia has to be one of them, any more than Rey did (or a Palpatine for that matter, although they could have gone some interesting places with that, such as her being an attempt at a clone or a new chosen one created like Anakin was created instead of just his long lost granddaughter).
I love Star Wars, warts and all, but I’ll still poke fun at things. I just wish that they had actually given us more with Luke and Leia’s slbiing relationship – if they are going to go there, I want to see that developed. I cried so hard at their once scene together in TLJ and of course we got the little tidbit that they had trained together, and it’s that kind of thing I wanted to see more of.
@50/Lisamarie: I’m not trying to defend the sibling retcon. As I said, before ROTJ came out, I thought Luke and Leia were supposed to be together and Han was just a jerk trying to steal Luke’s girl. So I don’t think I was particularly in favor of the retcon.
I’m just saying that I don’t think you should read too much into the intention behind it. I don’t think it was about bloodlines or legacies or any of that. It was just a quick-and-dirty narrative convenience to settle the romantic triangle as easily and decisively as possible. Harrison Ford had become the biggest breakout star of the ensemble, so they increased his role in the sequels and let him get the girl instead of Luke as originally planned. Making Luke her brother was just the easiest way to make that feel like the right outcome.
@51 – I didn’t think you were, and I also don’t think it had to do with bloodlines in intent. I do think there is a possibility it’s why future fans/creators took that and ran with it, though.
It is interesting how they somewhat revised Han Solo in response to Harrison Ford’s fame. The original idea was that he was kind of a con man, a two-bit boaster who wasn’t half the pilot he claimed to be. The line about the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs was supposed to use “parsecs” wrong; the script specifies that Kenobi rolls his eyes at the line because Solo clearly doesn’t know what he’s talking about (though the eye roll was all but lost in the final edit of the scene). I think the idea was that Chewbacca was really the brains of the operation. But then Ford became the breakout star and Han got elevated to a more legitimately heroic stature; as retconned, he actually was the greatest pilot around, and he became a hero worthy of winning the princess.
“Somehow … I’ve always known”, If that was so, why did you decide to kiss the guy who’s giving brother’s vibes, Leia?
Because Han is standing there, looking smug. Any woman would have done the same! And regretted it afterwards.
@45, But shouldn’t the Emperor/Vader merely sensing Leia’s Force sensitivity had been more than enough to put her in mortal danger? Regardless of her parentage.
I’ve always assumed that Leia’s position as a princess and senator protects her to some degree. Also she’s probably far from the only untrained person with Force potential who’s passed through the Emperor or Vader’s ken.
@54/roxana: “But shouldn’t the Emperor/Vader merely sensing Leia’s Force sensitivity had been more than enough to put her in mortal danger?”
Would it? I imagine there are quite a few people who are Force-sensitive to some degree but never get the training to develop it into Jedi powers or whatever. And we know in retrospect that there are more Force-using groups in the galaxy than just Jedi and Sith, like the Nightsisters. “Force” and “Jedi” are not automatically synonymous. So a policy of exterminating the Jedi shouldn’t require terminating all Force-sensitives.
Heck, if anything, you’d think the Emperor would want to cultivate Force-sensitives. After all, it’s easy to give into temptation and succumb to the Dark Side; it’s far more difficult to maintain the discipline that keeps you on the Light Side. So if you eliminate Jedi teachings but keep Force-sensitives around, you’ll end up with a lot more potential Dark Side recruits.
Princessroxana @54:
I’d have thought that the Emperor/Vader would have quietly eliminated untrained Force sensitives they came across or used them for nefarious Sith purposes. It would only be prudent – you never know when such a talent may become inconvenient. The animated shows had some ideas about that re: Force gifted children and teenagers located and used by Palpatine/the Empire. A strong, untrained adult would be a prime candidate for recruitment as a secret apprentice or a high-priority assassination target. Leia’s position probably could have protected her from the former, but not from the latter.
Again, I hope that “Kenobi” series explains that she was somehow protected from unconsciously manifesting Force powers/being sensed by the Sith. They can show child Leia without running into the CGI/re-casting problem. It would also be boring if Obi-Wan remains on Tatooine the whole time – we have already seen plenty of that world in the films, the animated series, now quite a bit in “The Mandalorian”, oh, and “Boba Fett” is going to be there too! Overkill, much?
Would it? I imagine there are quite a few people who are Force-sensitive to some degree but never get the training to develop it into Jedi powers or whatever. And we know in retrospect that there are more Force-using groups in the galaxy than just Jedi and Sith, like the Nightsisters. “Force” and “Jedi” are not automatically synonymous. So a policy of exterminating the Jedi shouldn’t require terminating all Force-sensitives.
Yeah, James Luceno actually addressed that in Darth Plagueis when Palpatine and his Master were refining the final version of the Sith Grand Plan.
IIRC, Sidious brings up that very point that Force-sensitive beings would obviously be continued to be born after a Jedi purge.
Plagueis wasn’t concerned, pointing out that in the absence of training and indoctrination, they wouldn’t be a major threat — especially if the Purge was successful in ensuring the Jedi didn’t go down as martyrs and that the galaxy would fear Force users.