Doing a Star Wars movie or Star Wars series is a dream gig for many. After growing up with a galaxy far, far away, you get to add to the overall canon, perhaps even in a profound way. Magic! Except, for Andrew Stanton, a writer on sci-fi series Obi-Wan Kenobi, it was great, but not without its drawbacks.
“It’s like one, you’re geeking out that you get to type ‘Vader says’ this and ‘Kenobi says’ that. You pause and say ‘I can’t believe I’m actually getting paid to type this. I can’t believe these words may be said’,” he tells Gizmodo about the writing process. “But then another part of you, it has to go through such a rigorous like ‘Does that fit the canon?’ And I feel like it’s bittersweet.”
He goes on to state that this happens because everyone cares so much, but it can hurt the flows of ideas. “It also kind of doesn’t allow, sometimes, things to venture beyond where maybe they should to tell a better story,” he adds. “So it can sometimes really handicap what I think are better narrative options.”
This varies by degrees. Stanton was writing for two incredibly important Star Wars characters, Darth Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi. What happens with them has to line up with almost 50 years of storytelling. For a drama series like Andor, where the heroes and villains are newer and it’s less about Jedi and Sith, there’s more freedom, and Stanton admires that.
“I love it when something like Andor is in a safe spot, and it can just do whatever the heck it wants,” Stanton says. “But I felt, you know, Joby [Harold], to his credit, kept the torch alive and kept trying to thread the needle so that the story wouldn’t suffer but it would please all the people that were trying to keep it in the canon. But I got some moments in there that I’m very happy with.”
Star Wars seems to be venturing more towards creative freedom. Ahsoka will feature Hayden Christensen as Anakin, but then we have The Acolyte, which is taking on the High Republic, The Bad Batch season 2, and The Mandalorian season 3. That’s a varied spread for fans of a long, long time ago.
For now, you can watch all of Obi-Wan Kenobi and Andor on Disney Plus.