Lucasfilm Exec Reveals Why George Lucas Has Called OBI-WAN KENOBI "One Of His Favorite Things" From Disney Era

Lucasfilm Exec Reveals Why George Lucas Has Called OBI-WAN KENOBI "One Of His Favorite Things" From Disney Era

Disney's Star Wars offerings have frequently divided opinions, but the Obi-Wan Kenobi TV series managed to earn the seal of approval from franchise creator, George Lucas! Read on for further details...

By JoshWilding - May 11, 2024 04:05 AM EST
Filed Under: Obi-Wan Kenobi
Source: SFFGazette.com

Since selling Lucasfilm to Disney for a massive $4 billion, George Lucas has left the House of Mouse to do what it will with Star Wars. Sure, he's visited the set of The Mandalorian and offered a few thoughts on the sequels, but he hasn't been creatively involved.

Disney has returned to many of his greatest creations in recent years, whether it's with a "Baby Yoda," The Clone Wars' Ahsoka Tano, or by filling in the gaps between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope by enlisting Ewan McGregor for Disney+'s Obi-Wan Kenobi.

During an interview with the Full of Sith podcast (via SFFGazette.com), Pablo Hidalgo - a Lucasfilm executive tasked with maintaining the canon of the franchise - confirmed that Lucas was a big fan of the latter series. 

"Early on there was a conversation had with George [Lucas] over what his thoughts were, and whether or not, honestly, he bought the whole concept, and he was one hundred percent supportive," he explained. "And I’ve heard tell it’s one of his favorite things that’s come out of Star Wars."

As for why Lucas enjoyed Obi-Wan Kenobi so much, Hidalgo added, "Because he recognizes so much of what he did in the prequels, basically brought forward and celebrated in a way that I'm sure surprised him."

With another 10 years between Obi-Wan's battle with Darth Vader and the Jedi's demise on the Death Star, plenty of Star Wars fans are optimistic a second season could happen which fills in more of the gaps and perhaps revisits the Jedi Master's rivalry with Maul. 

In March, McGregor confirmed he was still waiting for a call. "The truth is I've talked about having to cover for doing the Obi-Wan season for years, I had to lie about that and I'm not lying about this now," he said. "I don't know. There's been no phone call to me from Lucasfilm, or Disney saying, 'Let's do another one.'"

"Obi-Wan was made as a limited series and it's out and people like it, which I'm very, very pleased about."

"I love doing it. I hope we get a chance to do another one and I'm sure we will. I'm pretty sure, you know," the actor later teased. "I've got a few years yet before I'm the same age as Alec Guinness was in A New Hope. So there's time to tell more stories in there."

We'll see what happens, but Disney and Lucasfilm will surely have to take notice of the demand from fans, even if it's by bringing Obi-Wan and Vader back in another show set between Episode III and IV.

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JackBurton1
JackBurton1 - 5/11/2024, 4:41 AM
Sure he did.....
WarMonkey
WarMonkey - 5/11/2024, 9:38 AM
@jst5 - Pablo Hidalgo has been caught lying about stuff for many years now. He's kinda a big old POS and one of the main reasons SW is so shite now.
TK420
TK420 - 5/11/2024, 4:52 AM
Even if he hates it, [frick] him. It's his fault Disney's making Star Wars. He didn't have to sell it.
IronSpider101
IronSpider101 - 5/11/2024, 5:00 AM
@TK420 - Deranged take
ObserverIO
ObserverIO - 5/11/2024, 5:10 AM
@TK420 - It's our fault he sold it. We drove him to give Star Wars up with all that hate we gave the prequels.

And Sith wasn't actually all that bad. Sure it was ridiculous because of Hayden's performance and on-the-nose dialogue and that double "Noooooooooo!", but all in all a pretty damn masterful piece of filmmaking.
Twenty23Three
Twenty23Three - 5/11/2024, 7:08 AM
@TK420 - grow up
Blergh
Blergh - 5/11/2024, 8:08 AM
@TK420 - How dare the man sell his franchise to the highest bidder for a wealthy sum of money to live happily ever after. Especially after he had been torn to shreds by his own fanbase and fallen out of love with his baby because of that particular vitriol against himself and his employees. Driving one almost go through with killing themselves and destroy a childs life.

How dare he.
TheVisionary25
TheVisionary25 - 5/11/2024, 4:58 AM
So they had explained to him what they were doing with the show early on , he approved it and might have even been a big fan of it?.

I’m sorry , I don’t buy that because some dudes on YouTube told me how much he hates Disney for ruining the franchise (even though he had been blamed by the fandom for doing the same thing with the prequels and is partly the reason he sold it) and we know those guys are legit.

Kidding aside (kinda) , the show could have improved or been stronger in certain aspects but overall I liked it…

It effectively bridged the gap between ROTS & ANH while telling an engaging arc imo for Obi Wan as he was forced to face his past and deal with his guilt & trauma.

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ProfessorWhy
ProfessorWhy - 5/11/2024, 5:07 AM
It's not like Lucas is some cultural arbiter of good taste. He likes old fashioned, cheesy kids stuff. Kenobi was all that plus he found it flattering. I'm sure he was appalled by the young Leah escape sequence just like the rest of us. Except Flea
CoHost
CoHost - 5/11/2024, 5:08 AM
Lucas loved The Last Jedi.

Take that, nerds.
Slotherin
Slotherin - 5/11/2024, 8:35 AM
@CoHost - makes sense honestly. People were appalled Luke wasn't the ideal Jedi but much of what Lucas did in the prequels with the Jedi was subverting the expectations anyway.
He toyed with the notion of Luke giving in to the dark side well before then too.

It bridged the different trilogies depictions of the Jedi. If Lu
ObserverIO
ObserverIO - 5/11/2024, 5:14 AM
It totally ruined the rematch between Obi Wan and Vader in A New Hope.

At this point they may as well start doing remakes. Don't wait decades, bring back Ewan and Hayden and do A New Hope again. Have Rey go through the world between worlds into Acolyte and use that as an excuse to do remakes.
ProfessorWhy
ProfessorWhy - 5/11/2024, 5:45 AM
@ObserverIO - I hope I'm around for the eventual redo. But I think it won't be until Lucas has passed
harryba11zack
harryba11zack - 5/11/2024, 6:27 AM
he like Money.
Timerider
Timerider - 5/11/2024, 6:36 AM
They’re working on these shows

Andor Season 2
Ahsoka Season 2
The Acolyte Season 2 (early stages)
Grogu and the Mandalorian movie
Rogue Squadron movie
Skywalker series

And a few yet to be announced and in very early stages in development.



Whoelsebutkevin
Whoelsebutkevin - 5/11/2024, 8:40 AM
@Timerider - I bet there's an animated series in the somewhere, that's not Tales of the Jedi(Empire).
dragon316
dragon316 - 5/11/2024, 6:41 AM
Coming from guy gave us jar jar not surprise
Twenty23Three
Twenty23Three - 5/11/2024, 7:08 AM
He ain’t wrong
Batmangina
Batmangina - 5/11/2024, 7:17 AM
Pablo Hidalgo sounds made up AF



Blergh
Blergh - 5/11/2024, 8:19 AM
I do agree with him, I liked the show a lot.
Did Obi-Wan make dumb choices? Sure.
Did they add annoying new characters to spin-off later? Absolutely.
Did the music absolutely suck? Yes.

But the series inhibited the spirit of the prequels and underlined the fall of the Jedi even better.
It had some great performances by McGregor and was a really fun ride (to me at least).
As a matter of fact I enjoyed pretty much all of Disney's Star Wars television shows.

Ashoka was a great adventure tale in the vein of Arthurian legends, I felt propelled back to Xena/Hercules days with it.
Boba-Fett had more potential than greatness, I'll admit. But they way it fleshed out the character and added to Tattooine's lore by casting the Tusken's as a savage but interesting culture was great.
Mandalorian is fantastic at best and okay at worst, I've never seen any episode of the show I genuinely thought had bad elements.

I did loathe Episode 8 and 9 but the television stuff? That was great fun! It wasn't a drag, they didn't destroy legacy characters and did what they set out to do: entertain!
Some Star Wars fans expect every product to be flawless, or cater to their very specific tastes. Star Wars is a vast universe, people will enjoy different things and I think the SW fanbase is easily the worst where cannibalizing itself is concerned.
WarMonkey
WarMonkey - 5/11/2024, 9:45 AM
This Pablo Hidalgo guy is the one that mocked youtubers and fans for getting emotional during Luke's return in the Mando season 2. He's been attacking fans for years and this was one that he actually was forced to apologize for cause it went viral. He's one of the main reasons that SW is crap now. He's a mean demented jerk who's only there cause of his politics.

From the article: "Lucasfilm executive Pablo Hidalgo apologized to the “Star Wars” fan behind the popular YouTube channel Star Wars Theory after seemingly mocking his tearful reaction to “The Mandalorian” Season 2 finale.

Over the weekend, Hidalgo, a Lucasfilm story executive who has a private Twitter account, tweeted, “emotions are not to be shared” in response to a thread with the reaction video. He later deleted the tweet and posted a screenshot of it as his header image on Twitter after “Star Wars” fans began to make his name trend on the site."
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/lucasfilm-exec-pablo-hidalgo-apologizes-172702983.html
GhostDog
GhostDog - 5/11/2024, 10:08 AM
Bro lying
TheVisionary25
TheVisionary25 - 5/11/2024, 11:39 AM
@GhostDog - or maybe he genuinely did?

People can enjoy things that you may not have , shocking I know …;).

You don’t think the guy who made the prequels of all things could have liked the show?.
marvel72
marvel72 - 5/11/2024, 1:10 PM
Yeah I do believe it, Kenobi was crap quite possibly the worse Disney Plus show.
Jdoubleu666
Jdoubleu666 - 5/14/2024, 12:05 PM
@Blergh He donated almost all of what he made selling it to Disney, dipshit.

All you whiny little boys who piss and moan about Disney Star Wars stuff need to stop. It's pathetic. If you don't like it, don't watch it. You don't have to try to ruin it for everyone else because you have literally nothing else in your life. You don't have a say in what gets made or how it's made and you never will. All your crybaby antics amount to nothing more than peak entitlement. Also, The Last Jedi is brilliant and tops every other Star Wars movie or show. Period.
Blergh
Blergh - 5/14/2024, 2:09 PM
@Jdoubleu666 - Read my post, I'm actually quite pro Disney

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