Ahead of the release of their Disney+ series “Obi-Wan Kenobi”, stars Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen are reflecting on the negative backlash surrounding the “Star Wars” prequels.
“I found it quite hard,” McGregor tells Entertainment Weekly of the reaction to the highly-anticipated trilogy received when it was first released in 1999. The first film, “The Phantom Menace”, was mocked by many long-time “Star Wars” fans for a range of aspects including its sometimes clunky-sounding dialogue and the presence of Jar Jar Binks. Now, McGregor and Christensen are both reprising their prequel roles in the upcoming Disney+ series.
“For it to come out and get knocked so hard was personally quite difficult to deal with. And also, [‘Phantom Menace’] was quite early in my career. I didn’t really know how to deal with that,” McGregor continues. “I’d been involved with things that just didn’t make much of a ripple, but that’s different from making something that makes a negative ripple.”
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For Canadian actor Christensen who played Anakin Skywalker in the two of the prequels, the backlash was “challenging”.
“When the films came out and the critics were very critical, of course that was a difficult thing — because you care so much about this thing that you’ve invested so much of yourself into,” he recalls. “So, for sure, that’s challenging.”
However, more than 20 years after the release of “The Phantom Menace”, McGregor says he’s encountering people who grew up with the prequels and have reclaimed them from the critical consensus at their release, viewing them as positive forces in the “Star Wars” universe.
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“Now I meet the people who we made those films for, who were the kids of the time,” McGregor tells EW. “And our ‘Star Wars’ films are their ‘Star Wars’ films. In the way that Carrie Fisher and Alec Guinness and Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford’s films were ours, we’re theirs. And that’s beautiful that they were important to the kids who we made them for. It’s just so nice to finally get that wave of positivity about them.”
In 2018, Christensen spoke of the negative side of the “Star Wars” fandom and the bullying of Kelly Marie Tran, telling ET Canada that while those leading the backlash tend to be the loudest, the majority of fans don’t think like that”.
“Obi-Wan Kenobi” bows on Disney+ on May 25.
