It’s well-known that the Star Wars franchise was heavily inspired by westerns on samurai films and as you might expect, the upcoming Obi-Wan Kenobi series is no different. During a recent interview with Total Film, series director Debora Chow revealed the “gritty, poetic Westerns” that inspired her as she made the series and they were actually pretty surprising.
The reason I say they are surprising is because most Westerns that inspired the Star Wars franchise are older classics, but when it comes to Obi-Wan Kenobi, she named Andrew Dominik’s The Assassination of Jesse James and John Hillcoat’s The Proposition. Of course, she also looked to Akira Kurosawa’s work.
Chow explained, “I love Kurosawa, too. There’s such a strong correlation for me between the Jedi and the Ronin – particularly in this period where all the Jedi are being hunted. I was really looking at what you do if you’re the last samurai. You’re more than just a warrior. There’s also an ethical code that goes along with it, in a world that’s vastly changed. That really had a pretty big effect on what we were trying to do.”
Obi-Wan Kenobi is set 10 years after the dramatic events of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, “where Kenobi faced his greatest defeat, the downfall and corruption of his best friend and Jedi apprentice, Anakin Skywalker, turned evil Sith Lord, Darth Vader.”
The series stars Ewan McGregor as Kenobi, Hayden Christensen back as Vader, and Moses Ingram, Joel Edgerton, Bonnie Piesse, Kumail Nanjiani, Indira Varma, Rupert Friend, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Sung Kang, Simone Kessell, and Benny Safdie.
Obi-Wan Kenobi will drop on Disney+ on May 25th!