'Star Wars' for Vanity Fair - The Rebellion Will Be Televised
The ‘Star Wars’ universe is expanding-and, for the first time, Lucasfilm is lifting the secrecy surrounding its master plan. In V.F.’s June cover story, Anthony Breznican welcomes you back to a galaxy far, far away. https://t.co/jwdWVfGh8B
- VANITY FAIR (@VanityFair) May 17, 2022
- An exclusive look at the master plan for Obi-Wan Kenobi with Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen, Andor with Diego Luna, Ahsoka with Rosario Dawson-and a fleet of new shows.
Rosario Dawson, Pedro Pascal, Ewan McGregor and Diego Luna, the future of Star Wars in television, on the cover of Vanity Fair. pic.twitter.com/D6xhQC6r3O
- DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) May 17, 2022
- Obi-Wan Kenobi series stars (from left to right) Darth Vader (Hayden Christensen), Reva the Inquisitor (Moses Ingram), Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor)
- Genevieve O'Reilly, Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) for Andor (series to premiere in late Summer 2022). Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) - season three of The Mandalorian to return in late 2022/early 2023 and Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson), the Ahsoka series is set to premiere in 2023.
- Hayden Christensen rehearses on set with Ewan McGregor's stunt double, Ross Kohnstam.
- Deborah Chow, a director from The Mandalorian, came aboard with the goal to keep the series cinematic in scope. There remained one missing component. McGregor’s prequel costar, Hayden Christensen, had been Anakin Skywalker to his Obi-Wan, brothers-in-arms until their brutal battle on a lava flow in Revenge of the Sith. Still, in the early iterations of the Obi-Wan-in-exile story, Vader wasn’t included.
- In the fall of 2019, Chow sat in Christensen’s living room, asking him to return as the most fearsome tyrant in the galaxy. Logs crackled in the fireplace. A cup of herb, lemon, and ginger tea steamed in Chow’s cup. Vader, she told Christensen, would add a new dimension that could ultimately reframe the way fans look at their classic duel in the original movie.
- At the time of the meeting, it had been 14 years since Revenge of the Sith, and the actor assumed his galactic glory days were done. He was happy to be wrong. “This is a character that has come to define my life in so many ways,” he says. “I was originally hired to play a very specific portion of this person’s life. Most of my work was with Anakin. And now I get to come back and explore the character of Darth Vader.”
- “A lot of my conversations with Deborah were about wanting to convey this feeling of strength, but also coupled with imprisonment,” Christensen says. “There is this power and vulnerability, and I think that’s an interesting space to explore.” When Chow became the showrunner, she championed a rematch between Vader and Kenobi as the Lucasfilm brain trust mulled whether to go that route. Meanwhile, soundstages had been booked in England and then canceled as the story underwent more internal scrutiny, sparking fears from fans that the show itself might go away too. In March 2020, shortly before lockdown began, the decision was finalized: Vader would return.
- Part of Chow’s successful perspective on “why” Vader and Kenobi should face each other again may surprise even the most ardent Star Wars fans, especially those who think of the two as harboring an epic contempt for one another. “For me, across the prequels, through the original trilogy, there’s a love-story dynamic with these two that goes through the whole thing,” Chow says. “I felt like it was quite hard to not [include] the person who left Kenobi in such anguish in the series.” What intrigued her was the idea that despite what Vader had become, Kenobi might still care deeply about him. “I don’t know how you could not,” she says. “I don’t think he ever will not care about him. What’s special about that relationship is that they loved each other.”
- Dave Filoni, Deborah Chow, Jon Favreau & Kathleen Kennedy on the Volume set. Filoni, Chow & Favreau first collaborated on The Mandalorian. Now Filoni is developing the Ahsoka series and Chow is overseeing the Obi-Wan Kenobi series.
- Jon Favreau on set with heart-stealer Grogu.
- on Favreau had inaugurated the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Iron Man a decade before and was steeped in large-scale serialized storytelling. The actor and director had also become so proficient with visual effects that his most recent Disney projects, The Jungle Book and The Lion King, were often mistakenly described as live-action even though both are almost entirely digitally simulated. “I knew that Jon Favreau was always deeply interested in Star Wars. He was the first person I went to,” Kennedy says. “He said, ‘Not only would I have an interest, I have an idea.’ ” Plus, he was willing to meet that new criteria of hers. “What’s unique about Jon is his commitment,” Kennedy says. “He’s had a sole focus pretty much on this for the last several years. That’s been a godsend.”
- After meeting at Kennedy’s office in Santa Monica, Favreau started work without even a contract. “I just started writing,” he says. “So by the time I was officially hired, I had already written the first, I think, four episodes.”
- But there was a problem. Favreau’s idea was about a Mandalorian, the helmeted tribe of galactic warriors who frequently turn up as mercenaries or bounty hunters. The first, and for a long time the only, Mandalorian in the early Star Wars films was Boba Fett, and Lucasfilm planned to make him the central character in a feature film being developed by director James Mangold. That wasn’t the problem, although Favreau would eventually pick up the Boba Fett story after Mangold moved on to another Lucasfilm property, directing Indiana Jones 5. The problem Kennedy faced was that another esteemed creative executive, Dave Filoni, had also devised a series focused on Mandalorians. Filoni is the colorful cowboy hat-wearing mastermind behind many of Lucasfilm’s animated shows. He joined the company in 2005 as an apprentice to Lucas himself and developed The Clone Wars with him. Filoni wanted to explore some of the ideas they’d never fully realized. “I remember when I did Clone Wars, George came in and said, ‘Well, the Mandalorians are pacifists in this time period.’ I’m like, ‘Oh, well, that’s very different than what everybody thinks they were.’ And he was like, ‘Well, you’ve got to remember that people are never just one thing. Cultures evolve and they change over time.’ ”
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