Star Wars Creative Director Answers Obi-Wan Questions

E! News: The Star Wars fans already know who you are. But for all of those newbies out there, would you be so kind as to introduce yourself? And tell us a little bit about what you do on Obi-Wan Kenobi?

Doug Chiang: I am the Vice President and Executive Director for Lucasfilm and a production designer and co-producer for Obi-Wan Kenobi. On Obi-Wan Kenobi, I was essentially charged with designing the look, the characters, the environments, all the sets and the planets. It was actually quite an amazing endeavor because Obi-Wan Kenobi bridges the prequels with the original trilogy. It was a really wonderful opportunity to actually blend the aesthetics of Tatooine from where we saw it in the prequels to where we saw it in the original trilogy. There was obviously about a 20 year period. How did the planet evolve and how do we make it distinct for Obi-Wan Kenobi?

E!: There’s such a Star Wars fan geek-out moment in the trailer when young Luke Skywalker looks so much like Anakin.

DC: One of our biggest challenges was, of course, how to portray a young Luke Skywalker. What did the homestead look like with Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen? It was really interesting because not a lot changes on Tatooine. It’s a pretty timeless environment. Our challenge was to make it so that it was still very familiar to the fans of the original trilogy, with an update to bring something new to it. I think Luke was a really fun example of that, where we tried to imbue a lot of that nostalgia into his character and into the design of ‘What would a young Luke be doing on the homestead?’

E!: When you found out that they were going to be doing a standalone series for Obi-Wan Kenobi, what was your initial reaction?

DC: I was really thrilled. Obi-Wan Kenobi is one of my favorite characters and to actually learn more about his character and what happened between the prequels and the original trilogy was always something that I was really curious about. Obi-Wan Kenobi is very endearing because he’s one of the last remaining characters from George Lucas. We were very protective of making sure that we were very respectful to the character development. What would that be? What would his evolution be? What was his motivation during this period? Obviously when we see him in A New Hope, he’s a completely different person and we want to really learn ‘OK, what happened during those 20 years?’