During the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, there was talk of Obi-Wan Kenobi being Rey’s father. This turned out not to be the case, partly because the powers that be at Lucasfilm are unlikely to ever let the Master Jedi engage in hanky-panky.
In a recent interview with Vanity Fair, Kathleen Kennedy, the president of Lucasfilm, discussed the idea of Obi-Wan having children, and said it might alter the Jedi code too much to really consider. “In order for Obi-Wan to have a child, you are really, really impacting the rules around the Jedi. What does that mean?” she explains. “Certainly there were a lot of ideas being thrown around – but anything to do with Obi-Wan in that regard was pretty much off the table because it flies in the face of everything George created in the mythology.”
She goes on to say that Lucasfilm isn’t “rigid about it”, but enthusiasm is low, too. “That’s a pretty significant tenet in the mythology of the Jedi that we’d be reluctant to mess with,” she states.
In other words, don’t be expecting Ewan McGregor’s Obi-Wan to be a man about town in his Disney Plus TV series, or really have much of any romantic relationship. He appears as a hermit in A New Hope, and between the Empire’s rise in Revenge of the Sith and then, it sounds like he never got tempted to whip out Tinder and organise a quick meet-up at the Mos Eisley Cantina.
Now, you could argue this is all a cop-out, because fiction should be fluid. What’s “significant” now can evolve and change, to make something else significant tomorrow. George Lucas probably wasn’t designing any of these rules to be too rigid, least of all decades of lore later.
There’s also the symbolism involved with Anakin Skywalker being the only Jedi we’ve seen father kids, only to succumb to the Dark Side and become a fascist. Is the implication that being heroic also means being celibate? It’s all a tad grey, so perhaps it’s best if a galaxy far, far away just doesn’t go there.
The Obi-Wan Kenobi release date arrives May 27, where you’ll have the first two episodes to watch on Disney Plus. Check out our Star Wars movies ranked for more thoughts on the franchise.