As much as I love the character of Obi-Wan, and especially Ewan McGregor's portrayal, this "going back and filling in the gaps" still isn't my favorite approach. I may be swayed and it may be really good and I get to be pleasantly surprised.
But I know for a fact that the reason I enjoyed
The Mandalorian as much as I have is the newness/unknown. I know it's set in a period before the sequels, but a) I don't acknowledge them anyway so there's no bearing on anything
, and b) with a few exceptions (Luke, Boba Fett) it's all new characters/playground.
I actually don't want
The Mandalorian to get weighed down with Skywalker/Jedi/Sith stuff, so I'm hoping, as good as that episode was a few weeks ago, we just don't really see much more of CG/deep-fake Luke, going forward.
The Obi-Wan thing presents a special case...familiar characters/locations, but, like the prequels, we've yet to see how it all happened and played out. That's a good, and a not-so good thing. The curious part of me wants to know how far did Obi-Wan take the "crazy desert hermit" act to lay low, but, as the prequels taught me, "be careful what you wish for". Having
everything shown/explained didn't always work well in those movies, so that's probably a huge part of the reason I don't look forward to "going backwards" with familiar characters.
At least with
The Mandalorian, those characters/adventures are reasonably new and they really have no real narrative gaps to fill or things they feel they need to work on. The sequel timeline is so far out, 9 ABY, that even the show itself, barring any sort of significant time-jump with the upcoming season, shouldn't have to wade into any sort of First Order/Snoke/Kylo waters. Man, I sure hope not.
The Mandalorian has taught me that I love Star Wars stuff - vehicles, tech, locations, tropes - paired with new characters/adventures. I'm hoping the Obi-Wan show finds a way to do the "filling in the blanks with known characters" a lot better than the prequels. They've had plenty of time to learn from those missteps, so I'm confident they'll do a good job.
I'd like to think that McGregor wouldn't have signed on if he got the sense that "ugh, this is really going to be a bit lame...". I don't know if he saw an outline, or actual scripts, before coming on board, or if he just went on faith and said "I'm in, whatever...".
It looks like a large part of the show will be the Empire going after any scattered Jedi, so I'm looking forward to seeing how that plays out and gets handled. I know a little about those Inquisitor(?) types, so I guess those are shaping up to the be the main, constant villain (vs. full-on Vader-in-every-episode)?
It looks great.
I do think it's funny how Star Wars can/will never fully depart from Tatooine, no matter what they do or how hard they try. That planet is just going to loom large in everything. The TV shows are wearing it out, for sure.
But I like deserts, so I'm totally okay with it. I'd rather have stuff set there than, say, Hoth or Naboo. Tatooine just screams "Star Wars", and puts me back to that eight-year-old in 1977, which is a feeling I like, especially the older I get. It's a genuine comfort and "I know this place..." to me.
So, yeah...I'm looking forward to May 25th because it'll be nice to see the best part of the prequels doing his thing again. I'm glad he's on board and is getting the attention he deserves (both the character
and the actor).