Oh boy, it looks like Star Wars just can’t catch a break. The Obi-Wan Kenobi series starring Ewan McGregor reprising his role as the character is something Star Wars fans have been looking forward to for ages. While initially meant to be a feature film, screenwriter Hossein Amini (Drive) was told to expand the material for a Disney+ series, which of course got Star Wars diehards even more excited. Deborah Chow, which arguably directed the two best episodes of The Mandalorian (3 & 7), was tapped to helm the Obi-Wan series.
Everything seemed to be going well until now. Collider reports that the Obi-Wan series has been put on hold indefinitely and the crew that had assembled at Pinewood Studios, London, was sent home packing. Apparently, Lucasfilm president (and Obi-Wan producer) Kathleen Kennedy was unhappy with the screenplays and wants them to be reworked before hopefully reassembling in the summer of 2020.
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I’m already starting to see things like “fire Kathleen Kennedy” posted in Star Wars fan groups, which I think is unfair and uncalled for. Yes, these type of news stories are always a bummer and we’ve been waiting for an Obi-Wan series since woolly mammoths roamed the planet, but hear me out. It’s always better to push back a project in the name of perfecting scripts rather than just going with the flow and hoping the end product turns out good. If what’s on the paper is not good, it’s more than likely that what’s on-screen will not be good. I don’t mind waiting for a little longer, as long as what we eventually get is kickass.
Kathleen Kennedy is not flawless. Her decision to not have an overarching plan for the Star Wars sequel trilogy was a huge miscalculation on her part. However, what Kathleen Kennedy is good at, is damage control. Remember, it was her decision to call for large parts of Rogue One to be rewritten and reshot. In fact, the entire 3rd act of Rogue One, which most of us agree is bloody brilliant would’ve been drastically different if it wasn’t for Kennedy’s instincts as a producer.
