Somewhere in the far reaches of the multiverse, Orson Welles voiced Darth Vader, Arnold Schwarzenegger piloted the Millennium Falcon as Han Solo, Michael J. Fox took up the mantle of Luke Skywalker, and someone other than Alec Guinness wound up filling the shoes of an elder Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Truthfully, the idea of a Guinness-less Obi-Wan is an incomprehensible one for many, but there’s a certain whimsy in imagining what could have been if George Lucas managed to land the first name on his list for the role of Kenobi, and the masses of r/StarWars have gathered to chew over lost possibilities.
Indeed, Lucas’s first choice for the now-eponymous Jedi was the late Toshiro Mifune, an iconic figure in Japanese cinema and frequent collaborator with filmmaking auteur Akira Kurosawa. In fact, the character of Obi-Wan Kenobi was based on General Makabe Rokurōta, a role that Mifune played in Kurosawa’s 1958 film The Hidden Fortress.
Mifune declined the role, which is how it ultimately landed in Guinness’ hands, and some fans wound up learning that Mifune’s decline stemmed from his anxiety of how the film and its effects may have cheapened the image of samurai, which Mifune was a staunch defender of.
Others admitted that while Mifune’s turn as Kenobi would have been a fascinating one, having Guinness (and, subsequently, Ewan McGregor) out of the picture is just too odd to imagine.
In another life, perhaps a different string of events could have led us to Ken Watanabe bringing Obi-Wan to life in the prequel trilogy. But for now, that will have to settle for the title of the world’s most iconic dream.
