The new Star Wars Disney+ series Obi-Wan Kenobi repeats one of Rogue One’s most successful character tricks. Ewan McGregor’s turn as the young Jedi master remains one of the most successful performances in the franchise’s history, influencing meme culture for more than a decade afterward and serving as the face of his Star Wars era. Now the character has returned in a highly-anticipated series, which has put itself ahead by taking a lesson from one of its popular predecessors.
Obi-Wan Kenobi is a six-part miniseries set during the fugitive Jedi master’s exile on Tatooine. Years after the events of Star Wars expanded universe.
Obi-Wan Kenobi shares a good deal structurally with Rogue One, with both stories taking place in between the prequels and the original trilogy. The Disney+ series even reintroduces Darth Vader to the franchise following his brief but memorable appearance in Rogue One. However, the greatest strength of both Rogue One and Obi-Wan Kenobi is not their reintroduction of Star Wars’ greatest villain, but rather their shared decision to give context and depth to familiar stories from a time between films.
Although most Star Wars fans likely know much of how both Rogue One and Obi-Wan end, both projects justify their existence beyond merely their nostalgic and referential value. Including iconic characters and landmarks brings an element of intrigue to the projects, but the stories capitalize on their nostalgia while including new Star Wars characters and story elements to keep their audience engaged. Building upon and giving context to already established stories helps to further expand the ever-growing Star Wars universe, fleshing out details while giving the projects an overall sense of familiarity.
Obi-Wan Kenobi is certainly not the first Star Wars project to make use of empty time within the franchise, and it is unlikely to be the last. The format has not always been a success, with Solo: A Star Wars Story nearly dooming Obi-Wan with its attempt at portraying Han Solo’s infamous trek of the Kessel Run. But despite their well-established endings, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Rogue One’s balance of original and referential content land them among the better Star Wars installments in recent memory.
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New episodes of Obi-Wan Kenobi are released Wednesdays on Disney+.