Ewan McGregor Reveals His Frustrations With Star Wars Prequels, Says Obi-Wan Will Be Different

At long last, Disney Plus limited series Obi-Wan Kenobi is officially filming, with Ewan McGregor finally doing what fans have wanted to see him do for over fifteen years by throwing on the legendary Jedi’s robes once again. It’s been a long road to get to this point, which included plans for an Anthology movie falling apart, before the concept was refitted into a streaming exclusive, only for the crew to be sent home when pre-production was in full swing so that the scripts could be reworked from the ground up.

Throughout every iteration of the project, McGregor has remained the only constant, and you can tell that he’s champing at the bit to slip back into one of the defining roles of his career. Hayden Christensen is also on board as Darth Vader, with Lucasfilm promising the rematch of the century between the two former allies turned mortal enemies, as the two stars share the screen for the first time since Revenge of the Sith.

McGregor has been open when it comes to discussing his experience with George Lucas’ Prequel Trilogy, and in a new interview, he admitted that the Star Wars creator’s constant pushing of technological boundaries often made it difficult for him to invest in what he was doing on the set. Thankfully, though, the new Stagecraft technology first implemented on The Mandalorian has eliminated those concerns.

“George loves technology and loves pushing into that realm. He wanted more and more control over what we see in the background. After three or four months of that, it just gets really tedious, especially when the scenes are… I don’t want to be rude, but it’s not Shakespeare. There’s not something to dig into in the dialogue that can satisfy you when there’s no environment there. It was quite hard to do. [Stagecraft] projects the virtual backgrounds onto this massive LED screen. So if you’re in a desert, you’re standing in the middle of a desert. If you’re in the snow, you’re surrounded by snow. And if you’re in a cockpit of a starfighter, you’re in space. It’s going to feel so much more real.”

It’s always jarring when you see behind the scenes photos from effects-heavy productions and there’s nothing but wall-to-wall green screen on a cavernous soundstage, but Stagecraft has changed all of that and given the onscreen talent something tangible to interact with, which is only going to benefit McGregor’s performance and Obi-Wan Kenobi as a whole.