Obi-Wan Kenobi debuted on Disney+ to fill in some blanks in the Star Wars saga between the end of Revenge of the Sith and the beginning of A New Hope. Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen both reprised their roles for the limited series, which is shedding more light on these legendary characters at a previously unexplored point in the Star Wars timeline. Speaking with CinemaBlend, Hayden Christensen opened up about how he feels the show is handling the characters’ stories.
Hayden Christensen has actually only appeared without some serious makeup effects and/or the iconic Darth Vader suit for a few moments in one episode when Obi-Wan thought he saw Anakin from afar, but Vader on the whole has been arguably scarier than ever before. When the actor spoke with CinemaBlend, he weighed in on what it’s like to watch the show compared to what he read in the scripts and performed on the day as Vader, saying:
I'm really enjoying the show. I really loved the scripts when I read them, and I think they're coming to life in a really exciting way that presents these characters in a new light. I think there's still a couple more episodes to go, so I won't say too much, but I've really been enjoying it.
Christensen is a fan of how Obi-Wan Kenobi is presenting the characters in “a new light,” although he of course didn’t drop spoilers about what’s coming for Darth Vader in the final two episodes of the show. This is a limited series, so the next two episodes could be the final chapters in the Vader vs. Obi-Wan saga until their fateful duel in A New Hope.
The show certainly is showing characters in a new light, and Vader himself is still many years away from finding any kind of redemption, so it seems likely that his single-minded focus on getting Obi-Wan is only going to cause more problems. The Vader of the original trilogy was a little calmer and cooler than this version of the character. Considering that he quite literally roasted Obi-Wan as vengeance for Mustafar the last time that he had his former master at his mercy, we can only hope that Obi-Wan puts up more of a fight if they have a rematch in the series.
As for Obi-Wan, he’s a far cry both from who he was at the end of Revenge of the Sith and the kindly hermit who encounters Luke early in A New Hope. The show is addressing all of the trauma that he’d naturally feel after Order 66, the rise of the Empire, and dismembering his former student and brother-in-arms. He was falling back into some of his old Jedi habits while rescuing Leia; if the confrontation with Vader in Episode 3 wasn’t what Kathleen Kennedy previewed as the “rematch of the century,” then he seems likely to at least be handier with his lightsaber and Force mastery.
Only two episodes of Obi-Wan Kenobi are left to reveal whether or not Vader and Obi-Wan do face off one more time before the beginning of the original trilogy. Reva saved her own life by planting a tracker on Lola and then supporting Vader by declaring that “Kenobi is all that matters,” so the heroes still have her to contend with as well. Keep using your Disney+ subscription to see what comes next and whether Hayden Christensen will appear without bacta tank prosthetics and/or without the mask before the end.
New episodes of Obi-Wan Kenobi release on Wednesdays at 12:01 a.m. PT on Disney+. You can also find plenty of other Star Wars options on the Disney streaming service, and Hayden Christensen himself has said that he binge-watched both Star Wars Rebels and The Clone Wars before reprising his role as Darth Vader. You can do the same!
