After years of reports and rumors, Ewan McGregor is finally officially coming back as Obi-Wan Kenobi. Deadline broke the story yesterday that the Scottish star is currently in talks with Lucasfilm to return as the Jedi master in an upcoming Disney Plus series. Now that this is definitely, or at least 99%, happening, it’s time to start theorizing. To start with, let’s tackle the big question: where in the Star Wars timeline will it be set?
Due to McGregor being the perfect age for it now, it’s widely assumed that the Obi-Wan show will take place during the gap between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, in which “Ben” Kenobi is living as a hermit on Tatooine as he watches over Luke Skywalker growing up. If this is the case, then the series will have to skirt around what Star Wars Rebels already did within the same period.
The Disney animated series dropped in on Kenobi during his quest to watch over Luke, but also featured his final confrontation with Darth Maul, with the Jedi at last defeating the villain who killed Qui-Gon for good. You might think there’s no room for more Obi-Wan/Maul conflict, then, but We Got This Covered’s own sources have informed us that Maul will play a major role in the show following on from his cameo in Solo.
There’s 20 years to fill between the prequels and the Original Trilogy, though, so the show could easily bend canon a little and say that Obi-Wan left Tatooine and had some adventures before coming back in time for Episode IV. Then again, with the thriving criminal element on the desert world itself, maybe some kind of western-like plot could be achieved with a reluctant Obi-Wan Kenobi having to come out of retirement and get involved?