The Disney Plus series, Obi-Wan Kenobi, has been a delight for TV and Star Wars fans alike. Over its six episodes, it has continuously broken viewership records on the streaming service and has been met with praise. However, it turns out that the sci-fi series wasn’t originally designed for the small screen.
In an interview with The Direct, Obi-Wan Kenobi writer Stuart Beattie revealed how the show starring Ewan McGregor as the titular Jedi was initially imagined as a “trilogy”. It turns out that the show was based on an original feature film penned by Beattie that unfortunately never came into fruition. According to the writer, Obi-Wan never got his own flick, thanks to the disappointing box office performance of the 2018 Star Wars movie Solo.
“I wrote the film that they based the show on. So, yeah. I spent like a year, year-and-a-half working on it,” Beattie explained. “And then, when the decision was made not to make any more spin-off films after Solo came out, I left the project and went on to other things.”
“Joby [Harold] came on and took my scripts and turned it from two hours into six. So, I did not work with them at all; I just got credit for the episodes because it was all my stuff.”
Beattie then went on to describe how his trilogy originally dealt with showing the character arc of Obi-Wan Kenobi. The writer elaborated on how he planned to explore the transformation of the character from his current state into the self-sacrificing man that we see in the science fiction movie, A New Hope.
“So when I pitched my Obi-Wan story to Lucasfilm, I said, ‘There’s actually three stories here. Because there’s three different evolutions that the character has to make in order to go from Obi-Wan to Ben.'” he states. “And the first one was the first movie, which was the show, which was, ‘Surrender to the will of the Force. Transport your will, surrender your will. Leave the kid alone.’ So then, the second [movie] was thinking about where Kenobi ends up.”
Despite his films never getting made, Beattie clarified that he holds no ill will to the studio, and is pleased that Obi-Wan’s story got told in some aspect at least.
“I’m glad it got made. I’m glad the show got made. I’m proud of my story that [got] told,” he said. “I’m glad my characters are all through it. And I’m glad I got credit for it. I wish they’d been able to make my movies.”
You can watch all episodes of Obi-Wan Kenobi on the streaming service Disney Plus now.