Star Wars fans and favorites coalesced over the weekend for 2023’s official Star Wars Celebration, amping up excitement for the franchise’s upcoming slate of projects.
During the celebration, which saw a range of longtime Star Wars favorites show up to participate in panels, meet and greets, and photo ops, fans got the chance to feast their eyes on the first Ahsoka trailer, and learned of a range of new projects in the franchise’s future. Most importantly, however, the stars literally aligned, and brought together two Obi-Wan Kenobis, nearly breaking the internet in the process.
Ewan McGregor is broadly acknowledged as the one true, overarching Obi-Wan, but he’s not the only actor to bring the character to life. He has played the character in (almost) every live-action appearance, with the obvious exception being the OG himself: Alec Guinness. In animation, however, a few additional actors have lent their talent to the broadly-popular Jedi Master. The most vital of these is inarguably James Arnold Taylor (sorry, Seth Green), who played Obi-Wan across each of Star Wars: The Clone Wars‘ seven seasons.
At this point, he’s honestly spent more time with the character than McGregor. Between seven seasons of The Clone Wars, three seasons of its predecessor, titled simply Clone Wars, cameos in Rebels and Tales of the Jedi, and several Star Wars video games, the man has spent literal decades contributing his voice to the character of Obi-Wan.
For those who solely enjoy live-action Star Wars offerings, there may be two, and only two, actors associated with the character, but fans of the broad offering of supplemental Star Wars content are well aware of Taylor’s many contributions to the franchise. It is these fans, more than anyone else, who absolutely delighted in the very-overdue converging of the two men who’ve embodied Obi-Wan Kenobi over the last two decades.
In an instantly-popular tweet, Taylor celebrated the fact that — after several dozen years — he finally got the chance to meet the man he based his Obi-Wan performance off of. He and McGregor had the chance to exchange a few words and enjoy a quick photo op before McGregor was once again swept away by his army of fans. The resulting image blew fans’ minds, as they recognized the fact that this is somehow the first time the pair of Obi-Wans have ever met in person.
Taylor gushed about the opportunity to quickly meet McGregor in text accompanying the image, noting that he only had time to briefly introduce himself as “the guy that does Obi-Wan in Clone Wars” before McGregor was forced to return to his hordes of adoring fans. Still, the attached photo clearly displays Taylor’s absolute delight at finally meeting McGregor, and that same excitement was echoed in the post’s comment section.
People jumped at the chance to celebrate Taylor and McGregor’s meeting and soon were demanding a panel featuring the pair. Noting Taylor’s “wholesome” nature and charm with fans, people heaped praise on the actor and littered his comments with endearing Star Wars jokes.
It’s a bit mind-boggling to think that these two men, who’ve contributed the most time by far to the character of Obi-Wan, are only meeting in 2023. But it is a clear example of the distance between separate projects, even those that take place in the same world — or galaxy, in this case. It may be long overdue, but fans are overjoyed to see the pair of Obi-Wan actors finally share a moment together, and are ardently hoping for more in the future.
