I launched Naboo News in early 2017, at a time when the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy was constantly denigrated and mocked by the mainstream entertainment media and by a small but very noisy faction of fans. On top of that, Lucasfilm and some Star Wars creators were shamelessly pandering to these people in their communication.
Naboo News was conceived as a press review where fans who loved the Prequels could read and comment Star Wars news without having to comply with this atmosphere of contempt towards Episodes I, II and III.
But some time later, big changes took place. First, The Last Jedi was released in late 2017, and it took the place of the Prequel Trilogy as the most controversial topic in the fandom. Secondly, a new generation of fans who grew up with the Prequels and genuinely loved them massively invested social media.
Prequel haters became less and less visible over the years. Now they’ve almost disappeared. References to the Prequel Trilogy became more and more present in the new films and series. Now it has become a normal thing. We won. And I’m happy to have been part of this movement, even at my humble level.
Of course, the counterpart of these big changes is that Naboo News became useless. Now fans celebrate the Prequels everywhere on social media, so nobody needs safe spaces like mine anymore. And I’m glad of it.
That’s why this blog is no longer active. But I’ll keep it online as long as possible.
I thank all the people who encouraged me by commenting here or by liking, commenting and sharing my posts on social media. I’m still a bit active on Twitter if you want to follow me.
As is now known, the story of Obi-Wan Kenobi is largely based on a script written by Stuart Beattie when the project was still supposed to be a movie. In a new interview with The Direct, Beattie reveals that Commander Cody and other clone troopers had key roles in his version of the story:
“Yeah, yeah. Cody was the [other] big [legacy character]. I love the idea of Obi-Wan having a buddy on Tatooine. Like a secret buddy. So like the first time he goes into town, you see, Cody, and he’s following him through the streets and attacks him, takes him into an alley with a knife to his throat and says, ‘You’re dead.’ And then you realize, ‘Oh, no… Cody’s making a point.’ Like, ‘Come on. You got to be more careful.’”
“And you realize, ‘Oh, Cody has now morphed from someone who was trying to kill him when we last saw them to someone who is now devoting his life to protect him.’ Because by now he’s had the biochip taken out of his head, and now he realizes, ‘Oh my god, what I did was wrong.’ And he has driven by guilt, as much as Obi Wan is driven by guilt. So you got these two kind of old warriors bickering like this old married couple, bitching about, ‘God, it was so much better when we had an army at our backs,’ you know?’”
“And the idea of mine was that when Obi-Wan had to leave Tatooine, he left Cody in charge of Luke. And that gave us a fun little B-story to keep cutting away to. And yeah, he’s a really fun character and a guy racing against the clock obviously, because he’s aging twice as fast. He’s trying to atone for the worst thing he’s ever done in his life. So tragic in a way, but just fun… The way they bickered in my stuff, it was just, you know, put a smile on your face and, you know, (laughs) just arguing all the time. […]”
“[Reva] actually had a squad of Stormtrooper Marshals. So, I thought, ‘Yeah, of course the Storm Troopers have like the equivalent of the U.S. Marshals, right?…’ Except that these guys were Clones. So she was using Clones that, yes, they were all Cody basically.”
“They were all Temuera Morrison, you know, speaking in his voice, and they were all veterans of the Clone Wars, they all knew Kenobi, they knew these Jedi they were hunting, and they were still with the biochips in them… and they did not miss when they shot, and they were absolutely ruthless. There were ten of them. And they were commanded by a guy named Commander Jet. And so they were her squad basically. And they all ended up dying over the course of the story…”
Beattie also says that Obi-Wan was supposed to fight an adult Luke Skywalker on Mustafar in a Force vision.
“When he opens his eyes, he’s on Mustafar. And it’s like, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, how I get here?’”
“And he sees a guy in a dark robe with a red lightsaber, and he’s like, ‘Anakin, Anakin, Anakin!’ And as… the guy in the robe comes up, he lifts his lightsaber, you see, it’s Luke. Mark Hamill, 19. And so, Luke attacks him. Obi-Wan and Luke had this lightsaber battle in mine, which was mirroring, of course, Empire Strikes Back… so it was that kind of a thing that ends with, you know, Luke, just almost killing Obi-Wan, and Obi-Wan is snapping out of the, you know, the vision, basically, but it’s a vision of the future if Obi-Wan keeps training Luke and putting all his guilt on this kid, Luke’s gonna turn to the Dark Side.”
“So… it’s one of those moments that makes Obi-Wan realize, ’I’ve got to let this go, because this is the future I’m headed on right now. Luke is going to become a Sith and try to kill me on Mustafar at some point. So I love that. I love bringing in Luke… and this was before they brought back Luke in The Mandalorian. We were gonna be the first to do that, which would have been really fun. And a nightmare… Yeah, that’s probably the one I miss…”
Check out the full article if you want to know more about Beattie’s draft for Obi-Wan Kenobi. You should also read the firsttwo parts of his interview.
It is well known that Lucasfilm had planned a movie centered on Obi-Wan Kenobi before turning it into a TV series. But in a new interview with The Direct, Obi-Wan Kenobi writer Stuart Beattie reveals that the studio actually wanted to make a trilogy of Obi-Wan movies set between Episodes III and IV.
Although he has writing credits on the series, Beattie technically didn’t work on it. He wrote a script for the first movie of the then-planned Obi-Wan trilogy:
“I wrote the film that they based the show on. So, yeah. I spent like a year, year-and-a-half working on it. And then, when the decision was made not to make any more spin-off films after Solo came out, I left the project and went on to other things. Joby [Harold] came on and took my scripts and turned it from two hours into six. So, I did not work with them at all, I just got credit for the episodes because it was all my stuff.”
“So when I pitched my Obi-Wan story to Lucasfilm, I said, ‘There’s actually three stories here. Because there’s three different evolutions that the character has to make in order to go from Obi-Wan to Ben.’ And the first one was the first movie, which was the show, which was, ‘Surrender to the will of the Force. Transport your will, surrender your will. Leave the kid alone.’ So then, the second [movie] was thinking about where Kenobi ends up. And one of the most powerful and probably the most powerful moment in all of Obi-Wan’s story is that moment where he sacrifices himself in A New Hope. Great moment, you know, makes you cry. But, if you stop and think about it, it’s a pretty sudden thing, to just kind of go be fighting a guy, to see Luke and go, ‘I’m gonna die.’ You know, that to me, that required forethought. That required pre-acceptance that this was going to happen.”
“So again, it’s one of those universal things we all struggle with, to come to terms with our own mortality. So, that was the second step of the evolution for me, that Obi-Wan now has to come to terms with his own mortality, somehow in a prophecy, or Qui-Gon telling him, ‘There’s going to come a moment where you’re gonna have to sacrifice yourself for the good,’ And then [Obi-Wan] is like, ‘What? No, no, no, no, I’m here to help… I can’t, no.’ And get him to that point where Obi Wan has accepted the idea that he’s going to die, and that he’s going to die willingly at a crucial moment, and you will know when that moment presents itself. So that when that moment comes up in [A New Hope], you understand. He’s recognizing he’s been on this journey already, and he’s waiting for this moment, and that’s how he’s able to make it so easily. To do this [sacrifice], and die. So that to me was the second evolution, the second film, the second story. So for me, if I have anything to do with the second season of Obi Wan, that’s the character evolution that I would take him on. That, to me, is really interesting. And like I said, universal.”
Beattie claims that both Lucasfilm and Obi-Wan actor Ewan McGregor wanted to do the trilogy he had pitched.
“Oh absolutely. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, Ewan was on board, everyone. We were like, ‘Yeah, ready to go.’ And we were so excited about it, too… It’s a great story to tell, right? It’s such a fitting character and Ewan is just so fantastic at it. And he’s the perfect age, everything.”
“It just was dying to be done. You know, unfortunately, it’s just, it was Solo that changed the direction of the system. I like Solo, personally, but it hadn’t made a lot of money. It is crazy in some ways to think about it how it [was directed by] of the best filmmakers working today. But, just because it didn’t hit a certain number, they just had to rethink. And, again, way above my paygrade, but it certainly crushed us. Devastated, absolutely devastated. But, that’s the business, you know, highs and lows. I’m glad it got made. I’m glad the show got made. I’m proud of my story that [got] told. I’m glad my characters are all through it. And I’m glad I got credit for it. I wish, I wish they’d been able to make my movies.”
Beattie specifies that he didn’t write treatments for the second and third movies before moving on:
“No, just the first. Because they hadn’t hired me to do the others yet, ’cause I was busy working on the first one.”
The soundtrack album for Obi-Wan Kenobi has been released today, and you can listen to it entirely on Youtube thanks to Universal Music Group. Here’s the playlist:
As a reminder, Natalie Holt is the main composer, but John Williams composed the new “Obi-Wan” theme and William Ross adapted it into various iterations.
I have to say I regret the absence of any theme from the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy in the score. Just a few seconds of “Battle of the Heroes” or “Anakin’s Betrayal” at the right time could have been great.
Screen Rant has published a new interview with Obi-Wan Kenobi main composer Natalie Holt, where she explains why director Deborah Chow asked her to use Star Wars classic themes sparingly:
“Screen Rant: You have these iconic characters who have been scored by John Williams before, but then you’re scoring them when they’re at a different place in their lives. How do you reconcile the music that came before with this new story that’s being told?
Natalie Holt: When I started up on this project, we weren’t sure that we were going to be allowed to use the John Williams themes. Deborah [Chow] was saying to me, “I think we need to score the show as if we’re not going to be able to use them.” She was like, “I don’t want to find out that we can’t, so let’s make it work without. Let’s do our own thing.” And she was saying, “Actually, if we were going to use the Vader theme, I don’t think we should use it until episode six, because he’s still half Anakin, half Vader at this point. When his mask cracks open at the end, and he says ‘You didn’t kill Anakin Skywalker. I did,’ you realize now he’s Vader, now he’s earned his ‘Imperial March’.” Now when you hear it, it’s so powerful. Deborah didn’t want that theme playing every time you see Darth Vader, she wanted to explore his journey to get there.
And I did use the rhythm from “The Imperial March” underneath the sound design. I had a hunting horn, and slowed-down double bass, the low end of the orchestra playing this really gnarly, angry theme with these war sticks and stuff. Deborah wanted to have really visceral sense, when he’s walking down the street kind of killing people, she’s like “We’ve never really seen this side of Vader. He’s in his prime. He’s super angry, he’s just full of rage.” And actually, the Vader that we kind of see in A New Hope and onwards is much more measured, and we never see him lose control, or randomly kill people in such an evil way. He’s more thoughtful and centered. So, yeah. That was a very deliberate decision.”
Here are some other interesting excerpts from the interview:
“Screen Rant: When you found out you were scoring Obi-Wan Kenobi, did you do homework? How did you prepare for this?
Natalie Holt: During the lockdown, I’ve got a – she’s just turned eight last weekend, but she was a seven-year-old during the lockdown. And we’d have a cinema night – or a couple of nights, if I’m honest – and we’d watch through Star Wars in order. We watched the prequels and then A New Hope, and… And so I’d just, even before I knew that I was going to do that [Obi-Wan Kenobi], I’d literally just watched the whole thing through with my daughter.
What was interesting was the prequels. I was slightly the wrong age for them when they came out, and then I think with the Jar Jar Binks character, I was kind of like, “Oh, I’m not sure. I think I’ll stick with the original trilogy. I don’t think I want to see those.” I never even watched them. I watched the J.J. Abrams stuff, and Rogue One, and the Han Solo movie, but I hadn’t seen them. So, it was really interesting to watch them with my daughter and appreciate them. Anakin Skywalker is her favorite character, because you see him from a little boy, pod racing. Annie just thought it was the coolest thing. It was great to also just be a fan of those as well.
And when you see George Lucas’ vision for Star Wars, it was a family movie. It was a movie for kids. It makes more sense to have the Jar Jar Binks character, actually. And Annie just thought it was hilarious. […]
Screen Rant: I personally really love the music you wrote for Alderaan. It just feels so royal, obviously, but optimistic and gleeful. What’s your process for creating these new tones for the Star Wars universe?
Natalie Holt: Every planet has its grounding in Earthly things. And we went about maybe having some South American flavors to Alderaan, because of the casting, and Jimmy Smits, so I did an experiment with some more rhythmic elements – which stuck in for the party scene, really quiet in the background. Deborah was kind of like, “It’s like a really socialist country, green, modern, tech…” She felt like it was a very sleek but very ethical place. ?odern synths felt like they would work. And obviously they’re a royal family, so we wanted to have some kind of gravitas but not be too pompous. Like, kind of everyman. She was like “It’s sort of like the Obamas or something.”
So, that was kind of the M.O. for Alderaan in the end. And it was a balance between orchestral and synths. And when the ship lands, and we first show the planet – it’s like another character in the series. Like the planets are their own characters as well. Like Mapuzo, and Daiyu. Daiyu felt like it had lots of flavors from Hong Kong and the night markets, and bells, and Indonesian instruments. I was using some gamelan in there, and I used this 5/4 rhythm that just never lands, it’s just constantly propelling forward. It’s like Obi’s being dragged through this – he doesn’t really want to go. […]”
Film Music Reporter informs us that the soundtrack album for Obi-Wan Kenobi will be released digitally on June 27 by Walt Disney Records. We already knew that Natalie Holt was the main composer and that John Williams composed the new “Obi-Wan” theme, but now we learn that William Ross was the one who adapted William’s theme into the several iterations heard in the series.
Here’s the tracklist:
Obi-Wan – John Williams (4:07)
Order 66 – Natalie Holt (1:41)
Inquisitors’ Hunt – Natalie Holt (3:10)
Young Leia – Natalie Holt (1:05)
Days of Alderaan – Natalie Holt (1:38)
The Journey Begins – William Ross (2:58)
Bail and Leia – Natalie Holt (2:20)
Nari’s Shadow – Natalie Holt (1:14)
Ready to Go – Natalie Holt (2:27)
Daiyu – Natalie Holt (2:25)
Cat and Mouse – Natalie Holt (3:11)
Spice Den – Natalie Holt (1:10)
First Rescue – William Ross (3:11)
Mapuzo – Natalie Holt (1:18)
The Path – Natalie Holt (1:35)
Sensing Vader – Natalie Holt (2:50)
Parallel Lines – Natalie Holt (2:13)
Some Things Can’t Be Forgotten – William Ross (4:47)
In almost every press article about Obi-Wan Kenobi, they tell you the same story, which can be summed up as follow. “The Episodes I, II and III of Star Wars were universally panned when they were released. Everyone hated them. Except the children, who are now grown up and and can at last fully express their love for the Prequel Trilogy.”
It’s a nice story, and many people have accepted it as truth, whether they like the Prequels or not. But it’s actually completely false.
The reality is that every movie of the Prequel Trilogy was well-received by critics. In 2005, the review-aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes published an article about the critical reception of each Star Wars movie at the time of their original release. It included this ranking based on the percentage of good reviews:
“83% – Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith 79% – Star Wars 65% – Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones 62% – Star wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace 52% – The Empire Strikes Back 31% – Return of the Jedi”
Yes, you’ve read that correctly. Every Prequel got a majority of good reviews. The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones had a better critical reception than The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. And Revenge of The Sith had been even more praised than the original Star Wars.
So why are we told otherwise? This is largely due to the Prequel bashers and their relays in the media, who afterwards constantly repeated that the Prequels sucked and that nobody liked them, without any statistical backing. These strange and obsessive people had influence in the 2000’s and the 2010’s, and they succeeded to impose their views. “Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth.”
But ironically, George Lucas is also responsible for the success of this falsehood. The creator of the Star Wars saga was one of those who propagated the theory that only children had liked the Prequels. He acted as if the clear majority of good reviews had never existed. “Why would I make any more [Star Wars movies], when everybody yells at you all the time and says what a terrible person you are?”, Lucas said in 2012.
Maybe Lucas was too affected by the toxic environment created by the Prequel bashers. Maybe he was trying to convince himself to break free from Star Wars and move on with his life. Maybe a little bit of both.
Regardless, the facts are there. The three Star Wars Prequels were well-received by critics at the time of their release. The story that these movies were universally panned is false.
The Hollywood Reporter has published a new interview with Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader actor Hayden Christensen, where he talks about Obi-Wan Kenobi and the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy. Here are some interesting excerpts.
“How long is that vastly intricate makeup process?
It’s pretty extensive. It’s a good four to five hours in the makeup chair, but I got to work with a great team of makeup artists. And we all got to work very closely with [executive creative director of Lucasfilm] Doug Chiang, who gave great input into the overall look. But yeah, it’s a lot of time. (Laughs.)
Is it always you in the suit, or is there a double, so you can get a rest from wearing that beast of a costume?
I’m not the only one in the suit because of the height difference between myself and the character. There’s some stuff that’s just a little bit too challenging for us to try to film with me in the suit. So I do what I can, and then I have the help of a couple of other great performers who do a lot of the work as well. […]
I loved the Mapuzo fight because it reminded me of the duel in A New Hope. The confrontation was more about the meaning of the fight, rather than the battle itself. When your characters fought in Revenge, it was this eye-popping spectacle, but this was slow and deliberate. Can you expand on this from your mind’s eye?
Well, I think that came as a shock to Vader to see how disconnected from the Force Obi-Wan is at this point. I think Vader wants Obi-Wan to be able to put up more of a fight. I don’t want to say too much [about what’s to come].
[…] I’m curious if you looked back at the work in the prequels to prepare for Obi-Wan Kenobi, and is there a moment that you are particularly proud of?
I certainly went back and watched all the films again and studied Anakin as much as I could. There is just a lot going on with the character. He’s always sort of processing and trying to figure out what’s going on around him.
I don’t know that I have a scene that I was most proud of, but there’s a scene where Anakin goes back to Tatooine in Episode II [Attack of the Clones] and speaks to Watto. The script had the dialogue written in English and then, in parentheses, it said: “in Wattanese.” It wasn’t until the day before we started filming that I went to George, and I was like, “What should Wattanese sound like?” And he was like, “Well, you know, so long as it doesn’t sound like English or any other language that might sound familiar. You can just make it up.” (Laughs.) So, I was rushing the night before to try to figure out how to make up Wattanese, and every time I see that scene, I get a bit of a kick out of it. […]”
In a new interview with Nerdist, Obi-Wan Kenobi writer and executive producer Joby Harold explains how important it was to include nods to Padmé Amidala in the show:
“[Padmé] is a massive part of where [Obi-Wan] was, who he was. The guilt to which you speak, that is really important. And it’s not what the show is about. But to not acknowledge Padmé… I agree she’s a massive part of the prequels, and I just didn’t want her to not be part of the conversation of the show because she deserves to be. Padmé and her relationship with everyone, and the residual feelings of the past and that which he carries with him, she’s part of that.”
“You take the hit a little bit on [the Padmé nods] a couple of times, because it’s so worth including her within the subtext of a scene. And certainly when she becomes part of the storytelling. Like in the scene with Leia on the transport, then it works because it’s about Leia within the scene. Padmé is the chess piece within which we get to have that character relationship evolve. And that makes her vital, as opposed to just a piece of the context of canon.”
I’ve always been frustrated by the lack of acknowledgement of Padmé in the original trilogy, even though it’s understandable since the character hadn’t been fleshed out yet. It’s great that Obi-Wan Kenobi finally explores the memories people have of Padmé after her death.
If you’re interested in the writing of Obi-Wan Kenobi, check out the whole article and those two other interviews of Harold:
Big news! According to the very reliable site MakingStarWars.net, Obi-Wan Kenobi will have a second season, even though it was presented as a “limited series” in six episodes. It seems that the huge interest generated by the show has convinced Lucasfilm and Disney to continue the story.
The finale has allegedly been altered in order to pave the way for the second season.
Warning! The rest of this report is spoilery.
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MakingStarWars had revealed that Reva was to be killed by Darth Vader in the finale of Obi-Wan Kenobi. Now the site claims that this scene has either been cut or altered. In the final cut, Reva is alive at the end of the season. And she’ll return in the continuation of the story.
MakingStarWars also claims that O’Shea Jackson Jr’s character “Roken” (who has yet to be introduced) will return in season two.
Naboo News 