Ewan McGregor took to social media to make a major announcement about the upcoming Obi-Wan Kenobi series for the Disney+ streaming service. It left some fans less than thrilled.
McGregor announced via video message that the series premiere has moved, from Wednesday, May 25 to Friday, May 27. It will also premiere two episodes instead of one.
Ewan McGregor returns as Obi-Wan, with Hayden Christensen also returning as Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader. Moses Ingram, Joel Edgerton, Bonnie Piesse, Kumail Nanjiani, Indira Varma, Rupert Friend, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Sung Kang, Simone Kessell and Benny Safdie also appear in the series.
Deborah Chow serves as the series’ director, and writer Joby Harold promises the series’ location will not be limited to Tatooine. Harold teases a new planet called Daiyu, which he says “sort of has a Hong Kong feel to it. It’s got a graffiti-ridden nightlife, and is kind of edgy. It’s just got a different lane and a different feeling.”
Some fans, however, are upset with the decision by Disney/Lucasfilm to move the date. May 25th, 2022 is the 45th anniversary of the premiere of the original Star Wars, as well as the 39th anniversary of the premiere of Return of the Jedi. Solo: A Star Wars Story also premiered on May 25, and many saw the Obi-Wan premiere as paying tribute to the fandom. They felt the May 25 premiere was a nice acknowledgement of the series’ history, and they see the move as disrespectful to the legacy of Star Wars.
Even more fans are speculating that Disney moved the date to directly compete with the season 4 premiere of Netflix’s Stranger Things. Others claim Disney moved the series to Friday to prevent overlap with and fewer viewers for Ms. Marvel, a Marvel live-action series premiering on Wednesday, June 8.
Here’s the announcement, on both Twitter and YouTube.
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