Obi-Wan Kenobi series reportedly delayed, but don’t freak out yet

Reports emerged on Thursday night that the Obi-Wan Kenobi series for Disney+ was being delayed, which sent plenty of fans into a panic. But as Master Kenobi might advise, patience.

It turns out it probably isn’t as dramatic as it might seem.

On Thursday night, Ewan McGregor – the actor who portrayed Kenobi in the prequel trilogy and is returning for this series – spoke at an event about the reports.

“I think we start shooting early next year as opposed to summer this year,” McGregor told Variety. “I think the scripts are great. They’re in really good shape. They want them to be better. I think we keep our same airdate. All good.”

Additionally, in regards to the internet concerns McGregor said, “it’s not really as dramatic as it might seem.”

McGregor echoed those sentiments to The Wrap, saying, “All this bulls— about creative differences and all that stuff is, none of it true. We just pushed the dates, they want — last episode, episode 9 came out, everyone had more time to read the stuff that had been written, and they felt that they wanted to do more work on it. So they slid the shoot. It’s not nearly as dramatic as it sounds online.”

So have patience and calm down, Star Wars fans. Here’s what it seems is happening: the filming date has been pushed back from August to January, but the release date (which was never officially announced anyway) remains unchanged. So nothing really is changing for viewers; they just want to take extra time on the scripts to make sure they’re even stronger. McGregor seems to think the scripts are great, but that Lucasfilm wanted to spend a bit more work on it. Other reports have said that the show might be shortened from six episodes to four, which could account for some of the script changes.

But here’s the thing: none of this should be frowned upon. A project that hasn’t even received a release date yet delaying filming for a few months in order to strengthen the scripts is not a negative. There are already questions about what this show could possibly be about, since Obi-Wan was just kinda hanging around in the Tatooine wilderness as far as we know, so I’m all for them taking the time to make sure the story they’re telling is a worthwhile one – even if that means shortening the episodes to filter out some of the filler. All of this is good and a normal part of production.

So don’t freak out. Ewan McGregor is still going to be returning to the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi, and this really isn’t a big deal right now. But hopefully they’re able to work out the story to create a really strong one worth telling.