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Credit: LucasfilmStar Wars fans have gotten some bad news: Obi-Wan Kenobi has been canceled by Disney after a single season.
In many ways, Obi-Wan Kenobi has been kicked around by Lucasfilm and the Walt Disney Company since it was first conceived. Originally, it was intended to be a feature film starring Ewan McGregor as the reclusive Jedi Master, only to be hastily retooled as a Disney+ series after the commercial and critical disappointment of Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018). Then, Lucasfilm stopped production only a few months before it was about to begin, demanding day-one rewrites of existing scripts.
Basically, despite starring one of the most iconic and beloved characters in the Star Wars universe and featuring the triumphant return of Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen (back as Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker for the first time in years), Lucasfilm and Disney have always treated the show as a bit of an afterthought.
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Now, after months of rumors and Ewan McGregor himself expressing cautious optimism for a second season of the show, it has been pretty conclusively confirmed that Lucasfilm and Disney have canceled Obi-Wan Kenobi. Two years after the show premiered on Disney+, it is finally getting a 4K and Blu-Ray release, but there’s a catch.
The new release of Obi-Wan Kenobi is subtitled “The Complete Series,” which definitively says that there are no plans for a second season of the show to be produced. It is a pretty ignoble way to shut the door on one of the greatest Jedi Masters in the Star Wars franchise, but, unfortunately, it is very consistent with how Disney and Lucasfilm have treated the series in general.
The first (and only) season of Obi-Wan Kenobi picked up ten years after the end of the Clone Wars and Order 66, which exterminated the vast majority of Jedi in the galaxy. Kenobi (McGregor) is now a recluse on Tattooine, working a menial job, trying to keep an eye on a young Luke Skywalker (Grant Feely) until he is called back into action to rescue a young Princess Leia Organa (Vivien Lyra Blair) from Imperial Inquisitors.
The series was widely anticipated, in large part because of the return of both McGregor and Hayden Christensen, but also for its increased inclusion of post-prequel aspects of the franchise, like the Inquisitors, Jedi survivors, and abandoned clone troopers (like one played by Temuera Morrison). Since its premiere, Disney+ has leaned hard into including characters created by Dave Filoni, like Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson) and Bo-Katan Kryze (Katee Sackhoff), but it really kicked off with Obi-Wan Kenobi.
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Sadly, we will likely not get any further adventures of Obi-Wan Kenobi, at least not in his own series. It seems entirely possible that Ewan McGregor could persuaded to show up for a guest appearance here and there, perhaps as a Force Ghost in the upcoming Daisy Ridley-led feature film or The Mandalorian & Grogu. But, at least for now, Disney has decided the only thing to do with an iconic character like this is to quietly cancel him.
Do you want to see Ewan McGregor back as Obi-Wan Kenobi? Let us know in the comments below!