Obi-Wan Kenobi Writer on Writing for Ewan McGregor, What’s Happening Inside Vader’s Mind, and More

In a new interview with IndieWire, Obi-Wan Kenobi head writer Joby Harold covered a lot of ground as far as his approach to the new series is concerned. He tried to provide some insight into their creative decisions on the show, like including 10-year-old Leia as a big part of the narrative, and into the characters' minds, like what is going through Darth Vader's head. In this article, we have included some of the highlights of the interview, but make sure to head over to IndieWire to read the piece in full.



Harold was asked in what ways he tried to keep Obi-Wan Kenobi as fresh as possible, given it features characters we already know and action scenes, like lightsaber duels, that already are familiar to the audience. Harold's key is someone named Deborah Chow:

An example of keeping familiar things fresh to the audience came in Part IV, when Obi-Wan rescued Leia by killing the lights in the room and striking the stormtroopers while they were confounded. According to the writer, that was written in the script, but it was Deborah Chow's execution that really brought the moment to life:

He then explained that when writing Obi-Wan Kenobi, he always tries to include as many detailed descriptions of the action sequences as he can:

Part IV saw Obi-Wan starting to put himself back together, and more tuned into the Force than he's been for the last 10 years. Harold confirmed that this was indeed another big step in his upward progression of getting back into the game:

One of Harold's biggest priorities while writing the show was to give Ewan a lot of room to shine, as he explained:

Harold was then asked about the decision of bringing Leia into Obi-Wan Kenobi. The writer explained that, in his mind, she was the only reason why Obi-Wan would leave Tatooine. That also gave them a huge chance to remind everyone, including Obi-Wan himself, that Leia is as important to the story of Star Wars as Luke is. He said:

Another key character in Obi-Wan Kenobi, and one that certainly has initiated a lot of conversations, is Moses Ingram's Reva. Harold explained that this was a character that already existed when he boarded the series and that he always liked it because it gave them the chance to write something new:

The writer's ultimate hope for the series is that it felt like it had some patience to it, that it didn't feel rushed, as he said:

He was also asked about the trend that we're seeing in the Disney Plus Star Wars series like The Mandalorian or The Bad Batch, and now Obi-Wan Kenobi, of having the main character (or group of characters) in charge of a little kid. Harold said the following about it:

Harold then addressed the two scenes we've seen so far of Obi-Wan reaching out to Qui-Gon, paying off his exchange with Yoda in Revenge of the Sith. According to Harold, the intention behind that was to show how much he's isolated from the world at the beginning of Obi-Wan Kenobi:

Changing characters' headspaces, IndieWire then asked the writer about Darth Vader's inner thoughts. Is there anything left from Anakin or is he Darth Vader in full form by now? He said:

And staying with the theme of characters' headspaces, Harold then addressed the character of Tala, who is perhaps one of the most interesting people we've met in the series so far. He said the following:

Zooming out now and studying the series as a whole, Harold also addressed the fact that there have been multiple instances in the series where fans have claimed the writers may have broken canon continuity. He didn't mention any of them specifically, but stabbing the Grand Inquisitor at the end of Part II certainly comes to mind. This is something he already addressed in a recent interview, and he gave a similar answer here, trying to calm everyone down and saying there's a plan in place:

There has been a lot of speculation and a few rumors over the past couple of months about a possible second season of the show. However, Joby Harold won't address any of that:

This was initially started by Kathleen Kennedy herself, who told Entertainment Weekly in the big article they published in March that they haven't ruled out the possibility of another season. Obi-Wan Kenobi was always thought of as a limited event, but multiple people have gone on record saying they would like to come back, including Ewan McGregor himself, so there is hope out there.



Part V will drop on Disney Plus next Wednesday. If you haven’t already, make sure to check out the Resistance Broadcast’s live discussion on Part IV here, and read our written review here.



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