It’s no secret that Obi-Wan Kenobi, the latest Star Wars show to hit Disney Plus, was originally supposed to be a movie. What we didn’t know is that the movie was originally envisioned as a trilogy, and what we’ve seen so far was just the first part of that saga. Could this potentially set us up for Obi-Wan Kenobi season 2?
This news comes from writer Stuart Beattie, who in an interview with The Direct said that he wrote the screenplay for an Obi-Wan Kenobi movie, which the TV show was based on. Beattie’s original pitch was a trio of films which would focus on different aspects of Obi-Wan’s evolution into Old Ben Kenobi.
“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,’” Beattie said. “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'."
While it doesn’t sound like there was a plan for what the second movie would have involved, Beattie says he knew where Kenobi had to go before he sacrifices himself in the middle of A New Hope. The fact that Kenobi sacrifices himself in the fight with Vader was too sudden not to be premeditated according to the writer.
So a sequel, according to Beattie, would get to the story of Obi-Wan realizing he would have to die for Luke and Leia to succeed. However, he never got round to writing either sequel, instead making the sensible decision to do the first movie properly.
Of course, that movie never got made, thanks to Disney’s decision to lay off Star Wars movies in the wake of Solo tanking at the box office. Instead, Disney switched its attention to Disney Plus, and the movie Beattie wrote got converted into the TV show that just finished airing.
Beattie admitted he had nothing to do with the show itself, though he did get credit for the work he originally did — from a certain point of view. The writer has writing credits on the first and third episodes of Obi-Wan Kenobi, as well as story credit on episodes one, two and six. As Beattie himself put it, he “got credit because it was all [his] stuff."
The revelation that Obi-Wan Kenobi was pitched as a trilogy does offer some hope that there may be more seasons of the show to come. As far as we know the show was supposed to be a single limited series of six episodes with a solid beginning, middle and end. To the point where us Star Wars fans at Tom’s Guide wondered whether a second (or third) season was even necessary.
There may still be plot lines and characters that can be explored, like the eventual fate of Reva/Third Sister and The Path. However, Obi Wan’s story does seem to have wrapped up pretty well. At least from a TV/movie stand point. Star Wars fans will know that there’s always room for more stuff to appear in books and comics.
But that doesn’t mean the second season couldn’t happen. Ewan Mcgregor himself has expressed interest in doing more, in an interview with British GQ, and director Deborah Chow admitted that you can never say never — even though the show was intended to be stand-alone. Hayden Christensen has said much the same, but would be excited to explore more of Vader if given the opportunity.
Lucasfilm head Kathleen Kennedy also reiterated the stand-alone aspect of the show, but admitted that they may consider another season of Obi-Wan Kenobi if fans asked for it.
We’re just going to have to wait and see what happens over the coming years and whether Obi-Wan Kenobi season 2 ever does get made. There’s still a nine year gap between Obi-Wan Kenobi and a New Hope, so it’s not like it would be difficult to add to the Jedi Master’s story.
