Thank Goodness George Lucas Cut a Planned Twist for Ewan McGregor's Obi-Wan

I’m old enough to remember the overwhelmingly negative response to Star Wars Episode 1: A Phantom Menace, but young enough to have friends who did not experience that backlash and love the film unironically. They exist! Young folk who marveled at Darth Maul and Podracing without years of expectations swimming in their heads. Hell, for some of them, Phantom Menace was their introduction to Star Wars. The Trade Federation is the true threat to the galaxy in their eyes!

None of this is a bad thing. I am certainly not here to yuck anybody’s yum. More to say that I fall somewhere in the middle. I don’t love The Phantom Menace, but I don’t loathe it nearly as much as The Rise of Skywalker or Attack of the Clones. There are things I can appreciate, but I’m never itching to watch it. I even made plans to see it in a theater this summer and canceled at the last minute because once I got closer I just really didn’t feel like seeing it anymore.

I think everyone has their reasons for disliking the prequel movies. Yes, a great deal of that has to do with quality. Still, quality is subjective, so you may get different answers if you ask people to go into specifics. I’ve always felt that the film spends too much time universe-building and not enough time trying to live in the story. The focus is so firmly on the events and not the characters experiencing them that said characters often move through each scene with little to no reaction. it’s all about the convoluted series of events, which could have been more so.

It’s been twenty-five years since the Phantom Menace and we’re somehow still finding things out about it. The newest tidbit comes from storyboard artist Iain McCaig. “For a time, the older Jedi was named Obi-Wan and the younger Jedi was named Qui-Gon,” McCaig told StarWars.com. “It was very poignant that at the end, as Obi-Wan dies and Qui-Gon defeats Darth Maul and stays with his Master as he passes away, he not only takes on his Master’s quest, but he takes on his name. Qui-Gon becomes Obi-Wan.” That’s no Darth Jar Jar but it’s still a pretty big deal.

McCaig continued, saying, “That’s why when you see Alec Guinness in A New Hope, he puts his hood down and goes, ‘Obi-Wan? Now that’s a name I’ve not heard…’ Because he’s not Obi-Wan, he’s Qui-Gon. And right at the end, George changed it.” And thank goodness George did! I don’t even think this is a terrible idea, it’s just unnecessary. It complicates things in a way that feels needless. Still, there are some 22 to 28-year-olds out there who might have loved it.