Ewan McGregor is set to reprise his role as Obi-Wan Kenobi for a new series on Disney+, but beyond that, we don't know much about the show. Is it a Dick Cavitt-style intimate talk show, where McGregor, in full Jedi regalia, probes into the inner lives of Star Wars' most beloved characters? Or is it a sitcom set in a one-bedroom apartment in Tatooine, following the hilarious prevails of an aging bachelor named Ben Kenobi, and his only friend, the force ghost of Qui-Gon Jinn? Honestly, I'm down for both.
What is the new Obi-Wan show going to be about?
While Disney has been super secret about the recently-announced untitled Disney+ series, one thing is for sure: a lot of people are extremely excited about the return of Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi. And for good reason–new details on the Star Wars show have confirmed that the series will tackle a very momentous and legendarily mysterious period in Star Wars history: Kenobi's years on Tatooine between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope.
Disney recently announced that the show will take place eight years after Sith. Based on some estimates regarding Rogue One's place in the Star Wars timeline, that puts the Obi-Wan show right smack in the middle of Sith and New Hope. It also means the series could potentially span 10 whole years of Obi's life. That's pretty significant, given the fact that the live-action Star Wars films usually tackle less than a month's chunk of time, give or take. But that's not to say that Star Wars avoids long-spanning storytelling. Between the comics, novels, and animated series, we've seen huge blocks of time filled in.
Where does the Obi-Wan series fit within the Star Wars timeline?
Which leads us to one of the most glaring issues surrounding the Obi-Wan show: this scene in Star Wars Rebels.
Long have fans anticipated the big live-action return of Darth Maul. We saw him very briefly (in an unfortunately lame hologram) in Solo. But, a few animated series have been following Maul's big comeback for years now–and always, Maul's fate is intertwined with the man who chopped him in half, Obi-Wan. The question is, how will this live-action Obi-Wan show reckon with the events of the animated series? It's likely that Maul will appear on the show in some way–especially since this series takes place around the same time as Solo, the Han-centric movie that took special care to mention the Sith lord in its big finale.
When Disney acquired Lucasfilm, they retconned a ton of Star Wars history from the non-live-action works. However, Rebels is a Disney Star Wars show, so everything in the series is canon. It's easy to predict that the Obi-Wan show will be centered around Obi (or "Ben") and his quest to protect a young Luke Skywalker from any/all threats, both Sith-related and otherwise. The series would be remiss to not tackle Maul and Kenobi's long-running beef. Does this mean we'll see the same showdown from Rebels?
The showdown happens three seasons into the the animates series. Rebels is said to take place 5 years before A New Hope. So with the timelines definitely link up. At the very least, if the Kenobi show turns out to be some sort of Seinfeld-style comedy, hopefully Maul turns out to be Ben's Newman. Now that's a show that I would watch.
Dom Nero is a staff video editor at Esquire, where he also writes about film, television, tech, and video games.
