Like Luke Skywalker shooting at womp rats, the Star Wars prequels used to be easy targets. An over-reliance on CGI, bureaucracy, and an unbalanced plot, though, has since given way to a more positive response to The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith.
Now, Obi-Wan actor Ewan McGregor has opened up about the "wave of positivity" he’s witnessed from a new generation of Star Wars fans who grew up on the prequels.
"Now I meet the people who we made those films for, who were the kids of the time. And our Star Wars films are their Star Wars films. In the way that Carrie Fisher and Alec Guinness and Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford's films were ours, we're theirs," McGregor – who is returning for the Obi-Wan Kenobi series on Disney Plus – told Entertainment Weekly.
"And that's beautiful that they were important to the kids who we made them for. It's just so nice to finally get that wave of positivity about them."
Excitingly for many a Star Wars fan, the prequels will have major ties to the Obi-Wan Kenobi series. "The strongest connective tissue for us is to the prequels," director Deborah Chow revealed. "Because that's where our characters are coming from and that's where their stories started. So, really, the prequels are the most connected to our series."
One of those key links is that between Ewan McGregor’s Obi-Wan and Hayden Christensen’s Anakin Skywalker-turned-Darth Vader. The last time we saw the pair together, one had the higher ground while the other was being submerged in lava. We don’t know much about what Kathleen Kennedy has called the "rematch of the century" but the first look at Darth Vader from the upcoming series reveals the Sith Lord is just as menacing as ever.
For more from the Obi-Wan Kenobi series, check out the first trailer as well as our accompanying trailer breakdown. Plus, there’s more on Rupert Friend’s villain, The Grand Inquisitor.
