Obi-Wan Kenobi director Deborah Chow has explained why she decided to bring back the most iconic Star Wars character of them all, Darth Vader. The Kenobi sci-fi series will debut on Disney Plus later this year, and fans eagerly anticipate a showdown between the old Jedi master and his fallen apprentice Vader.
While Star Wars might be desperate to see the former friends draw their lightsabers for Chow told Entertainment Weekly that the motivation to bring back Vader came from an interest in the characters.
“Honestly, for me, the starting place was that I really wanted to do something that was character-based and character-driven… the benefit of the limited series is that you have more time to sort of tell a real character story,” Chow explained. “The starting place of character is you just start and you look at who has been important to him in his life… It’s quite hard to avoid Anakin/Vader in that scenario, especially coming out of Revenge of the Sith.
Chow went on to say that returning Star Wars actor Hayden Christensen was “absolutely wonderful” but admitted to being a little intimidated when he loomed on to set for the first time in Vader’s full Sith armour.
“The first time I saw him in costume and the full thing going, he’s towering over me,” Chow explained. “He’s like literally almost twice my size, it felt like. It’s really intense to have such an iconic character, and then to be directing him and to be doing new scenes with him.”
The interview finished with Chow explaining that the version of Vader we’ll see in Kenobi is different to the version we see in A New Hope; he’s younger and less fully formed. Sounds fun.