Obi-Wan Kenobi trailer teases Ewan McGregor's Star Wars return and a young Luke Skywalker
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Disney on Wednesday dropped the first trailer for the highly-anticipated new Star Wars show Obi-Wan Kenobi. The series sees Ewan McGregor return as the titular Jedi in live-action for the first time since 2005's Revenge of the Sith.
By the end of that film, Obi-Wan was tasked with watching over Luke Skywalker on Tatooine years before the events of the original Star Wars trilogy. Obi-Wan Kenobi picks up a decade later, and in the trailer, we see a dejected Obi-Wan looking after a young Luke. "The fight is done," Obi-Wan says, referring to the rise of the Empire. "We lost."
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But the trailer shows some villainous Jedi hunters known as Inquisitors are after Obi-Wan, who barely survived Emperor Palpatine's massacre of the Jedi in Revenge of the Sith. They're led by the Grand Inquisitor, a character from Star Wars Rebels played in live-action by Rupert Friend, and an Inquisitor named Reva (Moses Ingram) is shown confronting Luke's uncle, Owen Lars (Joel Edgerton).
The trailer also confirms Obi-Wan will be leaving Tatooine in the show, even though some fans assumed he stayed put between the prequel trilogy and the original films. He's seen at one point on a new planet called Daiyu. The trailer also features the return of some iconic Star Wars music from the prequels, including The Phantom Menace's famed "Duel of the Fates."
Obi-Wan Kenobi will be the biggest example yet of Disney appealing to the Star Wars fans who grew up loving the divisive prequel films, and though he's not featured in the trailer, Hayden Christensen will also be back as Darth Vader. The series is expected to feature a rematch between Obi-Wan and Vader after their spectacular final battle in Revenge of the Sith.
The fun begins in two months, as Obi-Wan Kenobi debuts on May 25 — the 45th anniversary of the original Star Wars. Check out the trailer below.
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Brendan worked as a culture writer at The Week from 2018 to 2023, covering the entertainment industry, including film reviews, television recaps, awards season, the box office, major movie franchises and Hollywood gossip. He has written about film and television for outlets including Bloody Disgusting, Showbiz Cheat Sheet, Heavy and The Celebrity Cafe.
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