New Star Wars: how the TV spin-offs became more The Phantom Menace than The Empire Strikes Back

Fans of the unique Star Wars trilogy, your time is up. Bear in mind if you knew that the one true set of works primarily based in a galaxy far, far-off had been those about Luke Skywalker? That the dreadful Assault of the Clones couldn’t be held as much as The Empire Strikes Again? And that simply excited about Jar Jar Binks and Jake Lloyd’s performing was sufficient to make 1,000,000 voices cry out in terror? Dangerous information: should you suppose like that, then in the case of TV, Star Wars is not for you.

Disney+ has confirmed that 25 Could would be the launch date of its new Star Wars spin-off collection: Obi-Wan Kenobi. After the announcement, Ewan McGregor – who reprises his position from the prequel trilogy of the late 90s and early 00s – defined who this present is being made for.

“Individuals of their late teenagers or early 20s, these individuals who had been youngsters who we made these movies for, they liked them,” he informed Forbes. “To them, they’re their Star Wars movies, ? For us, it was the unique movies of the 70s, however for them, it was our movies had been their Star Wars. So to step again into his sneakers once more now and do a collection, an entire collection about Obi-Wan Kenobi for these followers, it simply makes me actually glad.”

David Prowse and Alec Guinness as Darth Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi in 1977’s Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope.
David Prowse and Alec Guinness as Darth Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi in 1977’s Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope. Photograph: Lucasfilm/Allstar

That that is the present’s target market in all probability shouldn’t come as a shock, provided that the Disney+ collection immediately follows on from Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, and takes place at some extent the place McGregor is but to change into Sir Alec Guinness. However the actor’s phrases verify one thing that has appeared more and more apparent to watchers of The Mandalorian and The Guide of Boba Fett: Star Wars actually isn’t aimed toward diehard followers of the unique trilogy any extra.

It’s not simply that Disney+’s Star Wars collection are created with a youthful technology in thoughts, they’re additionally clearly created for individuals who have adopted post-prequel content material just like the animated exhibits, novels and comics. They’re stuffed with nerd-pleasing references to what I’m going to name “New Star Wars”, which expands on occasions hinted at within the unique trilogy and introduces a raft of recent characters. Until you’d adopted the animated collection Star Wars: The Clone Wars or Star Wars Rebels, to look at The Guide of Boba Fett was to seek out your self repeatedly asking issues like: “When did that pointy black lightsaber change into a factor? What does this Ahsoka individual must do with something? And who the hell is Cad Bane, and why does he appear to be an alien Clint Eastwood?”

Given its target market and the interval wherein it’s set, the Obi-Wan collection is more likely to characteristic its fair proportion of references like this. Is completely everybody conscious that Darth Maul was glued again collectively after being lopped in half and positively killed in The Phantom Menace? In case you had been confused by his cameo in 2018’s Solo, put together for additional befuddlement.

What’s ironic about Star Wars focusing on youthful audiences, although, is that about 87% of the franchise’s attraction comes from pure nostalgia. Irrespective of how a lot further materials is launched, followers new and previous will at all times be drawn in by photographs of Darth Vader, the Millennium Falcon and Luke Skywalker doing a flip whereas sporting Yoda as a backpack.

Nevertheless it’s a more moderen type of nostalgia Disney+ is more and more focusing on: nostalgia for the prequels and the instant content material that adopted. Many can be delighted to see that Hayden Christensen is again as Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader for Obi-Wan Kenobi – even when his face is roofed by a black helmet more often than not. They’ll even be wanting to spend extra time with McGregor’s Obi-Wan, who, in equity, alongside Ian McDiarmid’s Chancellor Palpatine/Darth Sidious, was probably the greatest issues concerning the prequels.

Is it a good suggestion to maintain revisiting previous characters and filling within the blanks, although? The true concern right here is that this present will commit the identical crime as The Guide of Boba Fett: destroy an iconic character’s mystique and legacy by exploring a narrative that basically didn’t have to be informed. Do we actually have to see what Obi-Wan received as much as on Tatooine whereas watching over a child Luke Skywalker? Presumably there was a number of hanging round whereas making an attempt to not look creepy. There'll absolutely even be a bit that explains why Obi-Wan has no recollection of R2-D2 when he meets him within the unique trilogy, regardless of spending a big chunk of his life with the bin-shaped droid. A fan of New Star Wars would argue that this sort of continuity correction is motive sufficient for the present to exist. Others would fortunately go with out.

Pedro Pascal as Din Djarin in The Mandalorian.
Pedro Pascal as Din Djarin in The Mandalorian. Photograph: Disney+/AP

Like The Mandalorian, there'll undoubtedly be lots to get pleasure from about Obi-Wan Kenobi. If the considered it being aimed toward prequel-loving followers who have to discover each nook of the galaxy fills you with abject horror, although, you need to in all probability mood your expectations now.

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