Kenobi: A Star Wars Story Poster

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As longtime Star Wars fans, Kenobi presented a unique challenge for us: how to find a story angle that could naturally slide into the established canon, but also provide a few surprises along the way.

What I think we landed on is somewhere in the ballpark of the other anthology films; a blend of familiar Star Wars concepts and characters, with some unexpected genre elements.

For Kenobi, among those familiar elements has to be the character himself. Obi-Wan is one of the most recognizable and beloved characters in the entire saga, so we wanted to take extra measures to make sure his arc felt like a genuine mid-point between the Ewan McGregor and Alec Guinness eras.

In terms of bringing something new and fresh to the Star Wars universe, we were a bit inspired by George Lucas’s love of Asian cinema, and found ourselves returning again and again to thematic parallels with the wuxia genre, and martial arts films in general (Ip Man and The City of Violence were particularly present in my head at least).

And yes, maybe at least a little part of it was just wanting to watch a Jedi fist fight.

Working within such a complex web of canonical material, I’m sure we’ve made a few missteps that we’ll account for in the future. In the meantime though, I nonetheless hope what we have feels like a genuine anthology entry: a bit of fan service, a few surprises, and a whole lot of Star Wars.

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