Tag: Luke Skywalker

Posted on in Television News

‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’: Ewan McGregor Teases Lightsaber Fights & Comments On Young Luke Skywalker Showing Up

The Obi-Wan Kenobi series has had a long journey originally designed to be a feature film similar to Rogue One and Solo until Lucasfilm pumped the breaks then pivoted to a series that would be directed by Deborah Chow. Ewan McGregor was officially confirmed to return to the Kenobi role alongside other prequel actors including Hayden Christensen playing Darth Vader.

The story begins 10 years after the dramatic events of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith where Kenobi faced his greatest defeat, the downfall and corruption of his best friend and Jedi apprentice, Anakin Skywalker turned evil Sith Lord Darth Vader.

Indira Varma, Kumail Nanjiani, Sung Kang, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Benny Safdie, Rupert Friend, Joel Edgerton, Moses Ingram, Bonnie Piesse, and Simone Kessell. Joel and Bonnie reprising their prequel roles of Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru. A huge sign we’ll be seeing a young Luke Skywalker after the character returned for Star Wars: The Last Jedi and The Mandalorian Season 2 finale.

Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter, Ewan McGregor says that photography hasn’t started but has been doing screen tests with other actors, and teased it could be for young Luke Skywalker.

While principal photography has not yet commenced, McGregor says he “has done some screen tests with Deborah and other people, and I can see that she is a really, really good director.” Might some of those screen tests be with a young Luke Skywalker? He flashes that famous Ewan McGregor grin. “That’s very possible,” he says. “I don’t know.”

He also hinted that he’s been training hard for future lightsaber battles in the show after previous teases that we’ll see the series tackle other locations other than Tatooine. Suggesting we might not being seeing the boring hermit wondering the desert for the entire run of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

MCGREGOR: “For months, we’ve been doing these monster, two-and-a-half-hour sessions of sword fights and hand-to-hand stuff.”

Kenobi will have 6-episodes and debut on Disney+ sometime in 2022.

SOURCE: THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

Posted on in Television News

Sebastian Stan Would Only Play Luke Skywalker If Mark Hamill Called Him Personally About Sharing The Iconic ‘Star Wars’ Role

In Season 2 of The Mandalorian, Mark Hamill reprises the Luke Skywalker in an action-focused cameo. That scene had a de-aged version of Mark Hamill and used good amount of CGI to accomplish. If there was ever a Luke Skywalker series or if the Jedi had a bigger role in the future for other shows that might become too expensive for Lucasfilm to do on a regular basis. A more cost effective move would be hiring another actor.

We’ve seen for ages that Marvel actor Sebastian Stan would make a good Luke Skywalker because he is the spitting image of Hamill. This led to Mark Hamill informally giving his approval on social medial.

Stan was recently on Good Morning America promoting his Disney+ series The Falcon & The Winter Soldier and was asked about the possibility of playing Skywalker in the future.

STAN: “If Mark Hamill called me, personally, to tell me he feels inclined to share this role with me, then I will believe it. Until then, I won’t believe it.”

UPDATE: Mark Hamill has responded on Twitter and downplays what his endorsement/blessing would do for Sebastian Stan landing the part.

We still don’t know if Lucasfilm has plans for Luke Skywalker beyond the cameo in The Mandalorian but since Stan is already in the Disney+ family there is a possibility they could at least ask him about it. While Kevin Feige confirmed there are ideas for a second season of The Falcon & The Winter Soldier, there doesn’t seem to be a commitment for multiple seasons at this point and that might have to do with Captain American 4 being on the table as a follow-up to the series.

The Obi-Wan Kenobi series is already opening the door for a new Luke Skywalker actor as the the project is expected to have a young version of him as we’ll see the return of Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru with the setting taking place 10 years after Star Wars: Revenge of The Sith.

SOURCE: GOOD MORNING AMERICA

Posted on in Television News

Liam Neeson Open To Appearing As Qui-Gon Jinn In Flashback For ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’ Series – “I’d Be Up For That”

In Star Wars, death is not the end.

We’ve seen that anything can happen with Star Wars projects concerning the resurrection of characters and having actors reprising their roles. Collider recently spoke with The Phantom Menace actor Liam Neeson while promoting his new film The Marksman where they asked him if he’d be open to returning to the franchise potentially doing a flashback scene for Lucasfilm’s Obi-Wan Kenobi series starring Ewan McGregor as the former Jedi, now in hiding on Tatooine as he protects a young Luke Skywalker from being discovered by his father Darth Vader.

Liam sounded open to the idea of doing something for the Disney+ series.

NEESON: “Sure, I’d be up for that, yeah.”

Last month, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy revealed during the Disney Investor Day presentation that Hayden Christensen would be returning to the franchise and will play Darth Vader. How much we’ll see of Hayden is unknown at this time.

Australian actor Joel Edgerton just might be back as Uncle Owen alongside a new actor playing a young Luke.

There is an expectation as with Andor, we could be hearing more casting announcements in the very near future ahead of it’s production start in a couple of months. We’ll keep our fingers-crossed that some Legends characters that has yet to join canon or live-action could be reworked for upcoming Star Wars shows such as Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Deborah Chow, who directed action-heavy episodes of The Mandalorian in Season 1 will be helming Obi-Wan Kenobi with filming set to begin this March in the United Kingdom as announced by Kennedy and it’s release date expected to be sometime in 2022.

SOURCE: COLLIDER

Posted on in Television News

SPOILERS: ‘The Mandalorian’ Chapter 16 Recap – Where Does The Show Go Now?

WARNING SPOILERS AHEAD FOR THE SEASON 2 FINALE OF THE MANDALORIAN

The Season 2 finale titled The Rescue was directed by Peyton Reed (Ant-Man) and seemingly gives some closure to The Mandalorian‘s Season 1 narrative.

As I assumed, Mando seeks out help from Bo-Katan and Koska Reeves they agree to help as long as they get a shot at Moff Gideon and returning the Darksaber back to Mandalorians.

Things go south once they get on Gideon’s ship and Dark Troopers are activated, luckily, Mando sends them into space via the airlock and then has a duel with Moff Gideon.

Mando survives and with the Darksaber brings Moff Gideon to the bridge where everyone else is. Gideon informs Din Djain that he’s won the Darksaber and he cannot just hand it over to Bo-Katan it has to be won in combat.

The Dark Troopers return to the ship and start taking apart the blast doors at the bridge only for a lone X-Wing to arrive. A cloaked Luke Skywalker takes care of the Dark Trooper droids in what is likely the most action the character has seen in the entire franchise.

Mark Hamill reprises the role with the help of some uncanny valley CGI which I’m shocked Lucasfilm is still attempting to use after Tarkin and Princess Leia in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story was such a mess, the VFX is slightly improved but, in my opinion, they should have gone with an actor like Sebastian Stan instead.

Skywalker with R2-D2 at his side agrees to take Grogu and train him as Mando gives a tearful goodbye promises they’ll see each other again.

With Grogu in the hands of Luke Skywalker and The Jedi, Din Djarin may end up joining forces with Bo-Katan if she doesn’t kill him for the Darksaber to regain her power. Season 3 will likely see focus on the Mandalorians trying to restore things post-Empire.

The episode ends with a button scene teasing the upcoming Boba Fett and Fennec Shand project The Book of Boba Fett which is coming out in December 2021. We see the pair arrive on Tatooine and blast their way into Jabba’s Palace with Fett killing an older Bib Fortuna seemingly taking his spot as the head of the criminal syndicate. I have to assume the series will see Fett positioning himself to be a leader within the criminal underworld of Star Wars.

Rosario Dawson will be leading the spinoff Ahsoka.

However, we don’t know who will be leading the other spinoff series Rangers of The New Republic.

Posted on in Film News

George Lucas Wanted ‘Star Was’ Sequel Trilogy To Include Leia As Supreme Chancellor of The New Republic and Luke Reviving The Jedi With Survivors of Order 66

An excerpt from a new interview from George Lucas has been making the rounds online (via Reddit) that comes from a new book titled The Star Wars Archives: 1999-2005 has the franchise creator talking-up ideas he had for the sequel trilogy that ultimately weren’t used by Lucasfilm/Disney. Lucas first mentioned that Disney wasn’t interested in his ideas during his infamous interview where he called them “white slavers”.

He alludes that he wanted Luke Skywalker to restart the Jedi with what seems to be 50-100 Jedi that survived the events of Order 66 from Revenge of The Sith, it sounds like a much larger amount than we would have expected.

LUCAS: “It starts out a few years after Return of The Jedi and we establish pretty quickly that there’s this underworld, there are offshoot stormtroopers who started their own planets, and that Luke is trying to restart the Jedi. He puts the word out, so out of 100,000 Jedi, maybe 50 or 100 are left. The Jedi have to grow again from scratch, so Luke has to find two and three-year-olds, and train them. It’ll be 20 years before you have a new generation of Jedi”

“By the end of the trilogy Luke would have rebuilt much of the Jedi, and we would have the renewal of the New Republic, with Leia, Senator Organa, becoming the Supreme Chancellor in charge of everything. So she ended up being the Chosen One.”

I’m slightly curious if this germ of an idea is why Disney wanted to explore a Jedi characters like Cal Kestis in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Kanan Jarrus in Rebels both survivors of Order 66. I’m also curious if they try to reuse it in the Disney+ shows.

Ultimately, the version of Luke Skywalker we saw wasn’t this version as Lucas alludes wanting to have a new Jedi Order established, which never happened in the films we got.

Leia’s final journey was more than likely hindered because of her sudden death while Colin Trevorrow was still working on Duel of The Fates and they had to make creative choices to work around that tragedy.

SOURCE: THE STAR WARS ARCHIVES 1999-2005