In the new Disney+ series Obi-Wan Kenobi, Star Wars takes a look into life following Order 66. Ewan McGregor reprises his prequel series’s role in this show, which fills in several of the voids between Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars: A New Hope. While this is an era that fans have been eager to discover, it has also resulted in a handful of possible continuity concerns for the franchise. Following a barrage of criticism, writer Joby Harold now defends the show. Here’s what he had to say:
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The continuity error in Obi-Wan Kenobi:
Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader’s clash on the Death Star in A New Hope was widely assumed to be the first time the two had encountered each other after Anakin’s conversion to the Dark Side. However, the duo meets a decade after Mustafar in Obi-Wan Kenobi’s third episode. Joby Harold, the series’ writer, was recently questioned by The Hollywood Reporter if there was any part in A New Hope that hinted at this new meeting.
“It was much the opposite. There was no line in A New Hope that said we couldn’t,” Harold explained. “One could argue that Obi-Wan’s ‘from a certain point of view’ thing is obviously revisionist storytelling in regards to the original trilogy, or it’s another way of saying there are gray areas and things we don’t know. There’s nothing wrong with uncovering the past and its truths in storytelling, so it never felt wrong to me. There’s nothing that I feel like we’ve violated at all. If anything, we’ve informed those scenes so that some of the choices that we’ve taken for granted in the [original trilogy] actually make more sense now. If you came to the entire Star Wars storytelling world fresh and watched it all the way through from Episode I, this would feel like a natural link between those two trilogies”.
Will Obi-Wan be able to address these timeline issues?
It’s worth noting that right now, just half of Obi-Wan Kenobi’s episodes are accessible for watching, and the series may even be renewed for a second season. As a result, the drama is obviously unfolding and far from done. Thus, maybe it would be helpful to stand back and gain some perspective on the program as a whole. Even after the Grand Inquisitor was stabbed, there are still three episodes to go! Maybe the Empire might have tracked him down and placed him in a bacta tank before it’s too late, sparing his life.
When it comes to Obi-Wan and Darth Vader battling before their momentous showdown on the Death Star, there’s nothing in A New Hope that suggests they didn’t have a pre-Mustafar encounter. The sentence Darth Vader says, is one of his most memorable lines saying, “I sense something. A presence I have not felt since…”. He then stops short of concluding the statement, allowing plenty of space for further narration, which may even provide new background for their fight in the film. It is natural to make conclusions, but it’s also incredibly beneficial to step back and examine from a more reasonable perspective.
Obi-Wan Kenobi releases new episodes on Wednesday, only on Disney+. The next episode drops today, on June 8.
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