Obi-Wan Kenobi once famously boasted (in an un-Jedi-like manner,) that Sith Lords are his “speciality.” However, the just-dropped teaser trailer for his upcoming Disney+ series, Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi, shows Ewan McGregor’s title character wracked with guilt and dealing with despair within the confines of spartan digs as he prepares to face an army of lightsaber-wielding, Dark-Side-adept adversaries.
Just under a month after an arid teaser poster, Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi has pulled back what had been a powerfully opaque veil of secrecy to release its long-awaited teaser trailer—the one fans had expected to arrive after last month’s conclusion to The Book of Boba Fett. While, as typical with teasers, the clip is clearly saving some of the show’s most potent morsels for a proper trailer in the future, we have been given substantial material to unpack.
You can check out the Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi trailer just below.
With that set, let’s take a look at the details the clip has disclosed.
Unfrozen Caveman Jedi
McGregor’s final moments in 2005 Prequel Trilogy closer Revenge of the Sith seemingly set Obi-Wan on a direct path toward becoming the wise, watchful desert sentinel we saw in Alec Guinness’s version of the character in 1977 franchise launcher A New Hope; one who observes from a distance as an infant Luke Skywalker is raised to young adulthood by his father’s moisture farmer foster brother, Owen Lars (played here by returning prequel player Joel Edgerton), and his wife, Beru (prequel returnee Bonnie Piesse)—guardians he would grow to call uncle and aunt, respectively. However, Obi-Wan will have to put aside his passive approach as trouble comes to the Lars family’s doorstep, literally.
However, it appears that said path was more circuitous than we were led to believe. While the trailer shows Obi-Wan continuing to watch over a growing, pod-race-fantasizing child Luke, he does so while living in squalor inside a cave, and his dirty hermit look validates the notion. Indeed, the style might initially seem familiar since it displays a longer hairdo that delves into mullet territory, akin to Kenobi’s look in 2002’s Attack of the Clones, but his overall presentation is more unkempt than we’ve ever seen him. It’s a testament to—at the time of the show—over a decade of hiding on desert planet Tatooine, living an unsightly lifestyle that seems to be a manifestation of his own mental anguish, arguably mirroring Luke’s eventual jaded, nihilistic state in 2017 Sequel Trilogy middle act Star Wars: The Last Jedi. As McGregor himself describes in an upcoming EW cover story, “We find Obi-Wan at the beginning of our story rather broken, and faithless, and beaten, somewhat given up.”
Of course, Obi-Wan is about to be thawed from his proverbial frozen status when Imperials show up uncomfortably close to his little desert patch. As we can see, the arrival will force him to temporarily leave in a hasty, desperate manner on what appears to be a transport filled with other displaced people.
The Inquisitors Make Their Live-Action Debut
It appears that the new character, Inquisitor Reva (pictured directly above), as played by Moses Ingram (The Tragedy of Macbeth, The Queen’s Gambit), will be one of the primary antagonistic forces of Obi-Wan Kenobi. The character, however, is merely an agent of a specialized organization of Jedi hunters within the Empire, called the Inquisitorius. She is pithily described by writer Joby Harold and director Deborah Chow as “ruthlessly ambitious.”
After the events of the 2005 prequel closer Revenge of the Sith, the newly formed Galactic Empire continued to hunt down the scattered population of Jedi who survived the Order 66 purge. Since the average stormtrooper stands no chance against the power of the Force, the Inquisitorius program, as overseen by Darth Vader himself, recruits, trains and dispatches red-lightsaber-wielding Force-sensitive Inquisitors to continue the hunt. Indeed, the concept, as introduced to the Disney-codified canon on the animated series Star Wars Rebels, is manifesting in the live-action arena, starting with Reva.
However, Reva won’t be alone in the red lightsaber department since, as we’ve long known, Vader himself, as played by returning Prequel Trilogy star Hayden Christensen, will eventually feature prominently in the events of Obi-Wan Kenobi, with a climactic, previously unknown pre-ANH showdown teased for the series. Moreover, the Grand Inquisitor (pictured directly above), a prominent villain from the aforementioned Rebels (which was set slightly later in the timeline,) has also been revealed in all his pale, signature spinning-lightsaber-wielding live-action-debuting glory, as played by Rupert Friend.
“They share a common dark-side goal,” Ingram says to EW about the villainous trio of Reva, the Grand Inquisitor, and Darth Vader. “They’re on the same team.” She adds about her character, “It’s all heart.”
Thus, as previously teased, the series will see Obi-Wan suffer a terrible triumvirate of Dark Side evil, with Reva aiding one part of that, the Grand Inquisitor. Yet, she’ll be joined on this front by an array of fellow rank-and-file Inquisitors, most notably, one—in a distinctive dark coolie-like hat—who is presumably the live-action version of the Fifth Brother (Sung Kang, pictured directly above), a character who was also prominently featured on Rebels. Pertinently, the trailer shows that the pursuit of Obi-Wan by Reva and the rest of the Inquisitors eventually leads to an urban planet called Daiyu, which showcases a Hong Kong-like aesthetic, which McGregor describes to EW as having “graffiti-ridden nightlife, and is kind of edgy. It’s just got a different lane and a different feeling.” Of course, the Inquisitors are hardly there for bar-hopping, and their efforts clearly involve violence and bullying tactics dealt to the local denizens.
A New Imperial and a Droid Named “Ned”?
For all that we’ve learned today about Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi, we are still stuck in the dark about many things, desiring more info—as it should be at this stage of the hype. Regardless, there’s still a lot to discern amongst the current clip’s array of context-deprived split-second imagery.
Indira Varma (Game of Thrones, Carnival Row) was one of the more prominent cast announcements for the series, but her character has remained a secret. Well, the secret just loosened with the trailer’s quick shot of the actress walking in the desert wearing a familiar grey Imperial officer’s uniform. We are still without official details on her character’s name and motivations, but it will be interesting to see what Varma brings to the series.
Lastly, here’s a shot of a white humanoid-style droid standing in front of what looks like a bewildered stormtrooper. The initial imagery is quickly followed by a shot from behind revealing the droid to be holding a hand blaster. It remains to be seen if the droid is destined to be a major character or just the center of an intriguing red herring. However, it does display some lettering in Aurebesh (the alphabet of the Star Wars universe) on its left collar area that—based on what’s clearly visible—translates to “Ned.” Make of that what you will.
Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi kicks off its six-episode weekly run on Disney+ on Wednesday, May 25.
