For decades now, some Star Wars fans have made it a sport to kick around the prequel trilogy starring Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi. McGregor has usually stayed above the fray, though recently he admitted that some of the criticisms have stung. Last weekend, while speaking at the Edinburgh Film Festival in his home country of Scotland, McGregor talked about his decision to take the role, the toll the harsh reviews took on him, and why he was so gratified when he returned to the franchise in Obi-Wan Kenobi, available on Disney+.
While McGregor was attending the festival in celebration of another one of his most beloved movies, Trainspotting, he did answer a few questions at a Q&A about Star Wars. Shooting the movie marked a stark contrast to his previous experience on movies like Trainspotting. On that topic, McGregor says (via Deadline):
It’s a different experience. You’re not really trying to find [the character’s interior life]. The job of an actor in those films is a very different one than The Pillow Book or something, when you’re really trying to discover someone’s emotional life. It’s different.
But he ended up really embracing the experience, even if, at the time, the movies weren’t very popular with the long-time fans of the sci-fi franchise. It's not secret that the three George Lucas-directed films -- released between 1999 and 2005 -- have taken heat over the years, and some of that continues today. Despite that, McGregor reveals one thing he took from that experience. He adds:
I did them, and I enjoyed them, and they were not well received. And so that was weird and hard — to sort of put yourself into something like that, and then for them to be really dragged through the mud by the critics. But I learned a lot about not giving a shit.
Over the decades since, opinions have shifted on the prequels, especially as younger fans, those who grew up with those three movies as their first Star Wars experience. It’s something that McGregor has noticed and is grateful for. He says of that:
The truth is, I didn’t know that when we made the series [Disney+’s Obi-Wan Kenobi]. I found that out later when they premiered the series. They showed it at a Star Wars convention in California. And I’d never been to one. I never went to conventions, or anything like that.
Going to a convention, and meeting some of the franchise's biggest fans, allowed McGregor to see the movies in a whole new light, saying:
When we went to the premiere, they played the first two episodes. I had many thousands of people behind me, and I felt a rush there. When I started signing autographs, I started meeting people who we made those films for: They were children when we made them. And then I started realizing that [those films] were loved.
McGregor makes an excellent point that I think is too often overlooked by the older Star Wars fans. The movies, as George Lucas has often pointed out, were made for kids. They weren’t just created as fan service to the millions of people who already loved the franchise; they were for their kids. It turns out, millions of those kids love them. So they might have been dragged by fans and critics at the time, wounding McGregor, but he and Lucas are getting the last laugh.
On that note, stream the Star Wars prequels -- along with other entries in the Skywalker Saga -- using a Disney+ subscription.
