The decision to bring back Hayden Christensen for the new “Star Wars” show “Obi-Wan Kenobi” was not made without serious discussion and pushback, Lucasfilm’s president said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly.
Catch up quick: Disney announced in December 2020 that Christensen, who played Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader in the “Star Wars” prequel trilogy, would return to the “Star Wars” universe for “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” as I reported for the Deseret News.
Details: Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy told Entertainment Weekly in an interview that the decision came after serious debate within the company.
What she said: “The debate around whether we should do that or not carried on for quite some time. Everybody within our creative team has strong opinions, and all of our fans have strong opinions. So when you realize that you’re under that level of scrutiny, certainly a story point like that is going to be scrutinized at a very high level. We talked about it constantly.”
The bigger picture: Christensen will play Darth Vader in the forthcoming “Obi-Wan Kenobi” series, and we will apparently see a different version of Vader than what we’ve seen before, “Obi-Wan Kenobi” director Deborah Chow said last week.
What she said: “I really wanted to do something that was character-based and character-driven, because that is the benefit of the limited series, is that you have more time to sort of tell a real character story. And so for me, the starting place of character is you just start and you look at who has been important to him in his life,” Chow said.