PT actors' thoughts on the films

Ewan McGregor is to the PT, as Obi-Wan is to Jar Jar.

"A local." 

Good, one more reason for me to never bother to watch that show.

I understand how you feel. It's kinda distasteful when a major cast member keeps laying into the prequels over and over and over. You can't help watching the films and thinking, "There's that guy I used to be a fan of. The guy that's kept pissing and moaning about these films and the incredible opportunity he was given ever since."

What makes it more insulting is the boorish, entitled tone that is being displayed in the promotion of something new. Instead of the new thing being celebrated for its own qualities or tactfully spoken of as a complementary piece to the prequels, there's yet more prequel bashing being smuggled in. 

Honestly, what does it say about the new thing (e.g., "The Force Awakens") when the prequels must be invoked to elevate it -- as if it were made to "fix" the faults of the prequels and give people what they wanted all along? It's one thing for J.J. Abrams to do it. It's quite another when a prequel actor is running his mouth and embracing the same PR tactic. 


Nice. The comments appear to derive from the following source:

www.gamesradar.com/ewan-mcgregor-obi-wan-kenobi-return-star-wars/


I'm pleased that Ewan claims to have truly enjoyed himself this time around. It must suck to involve yourself in something that quickly becomes a chore and a disappointment. But again: He does it (as you've picked up) by hyperbolically inveighing against the prequels, which is the whole reason he got to do this new project in the first place. He appears, like many decorated celebrities, to be a tad narcissistic and lacking in self-awareness. Not very Jedi.


Yep. Ewan seems to be floating out a reductive sentiment. By inflicting binary thinking on others, he's feeding into the media machine that constantly promotes simplistic, "us-vs.-them" memes, which only increases intolerance and division in the world. Shame on him. It's funny that Disney aspires to encompass the world and to provide entertainment for all (a highly dubious concept in itself, one must admit), yet many of the people working on their shows/projects are narrow-minded, ideological arseholes.  


Bingo. He comes off looking like a chump: a beta cad whining about how hard it was to execute a decent performance with all that horrible writing, terrible direction, and oppressive greenscreen (does this not tell us something about his acting abilities, maybe?). He should have learned by now to take a leaf out of his Jedi Master's book and comport himself more like Liam Neeson. Liam has never said anything untoward about working with Lucas or about the prequel he starred in. He has only ever expressed warmth and gratitude. Ewan, on the other hand, still acts like he's in his twenties, opining on this or that and thinking he's still some kind of anti-establishment rebel -- even as he blatantly sucks up to Disney in the same article, no less!!!


Oh, you think, Ewan??? Jeebus. Why not just fellate Mickey Mouse and beg on camera to do more Disney projects for the next ten years? 


Or he wants A+ treatment -- which, by the sounds of it, he received on this project which has his character's name as the title of the damn series, but not so much when making the prequels, where Lucas had a thousand things to consider, a thousand pieces to orient and align. 

I really don't know what to make of Ewan or Star Wars under Disney anymore. It's such a twisted situation. It feels like prequel fans have been gaslit from Day One. Yeah, I know. It's an overused word these days. But it really fits here. 

Okay, here's a good joke:

Q: How many Ewans does it take to change a lightbulb?

A: Obi-One.

No, sorry. I'll do that again:

Q: How many Ewans does it take to change a lightbulb?

A: Ewan doesn't change lightbulbs. Ewan has evolved beyond the need for light. Ewan brings his own illumination to everything. Just don't interrupt Ewan's divine mission by mentioning the prequels. Every time Ewan looks into the night sky, the blackness of space reminds him of the prequels. Then he remembers he's his own source of light and doesn't need to change lightbulbs. 

Isn't it? Ewan is like a broken record at this point.


Yeah. It's not particularly rare that actors are indifferent or even doleful of past projects and roles, but they don't usually keep picking at the same wound. Ewan is also punching down at an underdog. Despite the enormous financial success of the prequels, and the fact that there are plenty of fans of the prequels around (and increasingly speaking up about them now), they are still an object of scorn and derision; still entangled in the thorns and thistles of twenty years of rampant critique and vicious naysaying.

It isn't big or kind of Ewan to keep disavowing them, least of all in service of propping up another Star Wars project -- and one that is meant to tie into the prequels, pretty directly, at that. He must think he still has the ear of the average fanboy. This shows some insularity on his part. Then again, it's probably not going to harm him anything. He probably wouldn't still be banging that drum otherwise. 

If he were more like his character, he'd be more whimsical about his involvement, speaking to the good and the bad, and ultimately soldiering on and showing some loyalty in the process. Obi-Wan, after all, claims to be on Anakin's side with regard to the Jedi Council giving him his mission to spy on Palpatine, and he defends Anakin on the gunship to Mace and Yoda, but he also comes out in defence of the Jedi path and the Republic when the world (thanks to Anakin siding with Palpatine) has turned against him. Ewan, by contrast, just isn't that heroic or redoubtable, it would seem. Although his work with UNICEF is commendable.  


Well, back on the first page of this thread, one year ago to this very day, I shared another Ewan quote where he also spoke more positively about them a while ago:

www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/01/25-best-movie-scenes?verso=true


Looking back, I wonder if that was his way of daubing down his criticism a bit because he was mindful of the Obi-Wan miniseries and trying not to come across like he was defaming the character. He was officially confirmed to be starring in the show in August 2019, and the Vanity Fair article dates to January of that year. As Ewan has subsequently said, he had to keep his involvement a secret for several years. Thus, he was obviously being careful with his words as they pertained to the upcoming project, careful not to lend the impression he was keen to obliterate all memory of Star Wars. Indeed, "this link to Alec Guinness" is an interesting turn-of-phrase, when juxtaposed against the miniseries, which is set ten years after ROTS and all that closer to the timeframe of the OT. This morsel therefore gives a hint that Ewan, while not necessarily insincere, was at least being tactical when he qualified his criticism in that concise manner.

But that still doesn't mean Ewan is especially self-aware. It merely indicates that he knows which way his bread is buttered. He doesn't seem to understand the more fundamental problem. To give him his due, I think ArchdukeOfNaboo nailed it back in the first reply to this thread:

I dig Ewan's portrayal in all three films. I think his character also gets weightier and more substantial, along with his performance, in each film. In fact, I share George Lucas' evaluation on the ROTS commentary track that Ewan really shines and carries the picture in its final act. I can still look past Ewan's personal/professional hangups if only because he does a very "good job" in that last stretch. And when Obi-Wan hands baby Luke off to the Lars and turns away, rubbing his beard, I can almost detect a deeper note of satisfaction from Ewan himself, glad to have made it to the end and to have been the one chosen to be that "link to Alec Guinness". It's certainly not all bad. 

In fact, I hope Ewan one day recovers some of his early boyish enthusiasm, nicely captured in this raw moment in "The Beginning":



(29:29)

EWAN (whispering while lying on the crash mats): "Fucccckkk!"

EWAN (glancing at NICK GILLARD as he climbs to his feet): "'Do you wanna do Star Wars?', they said. I said, 'Too fucking right!'"

Please, let's have that Ewan back.

It's funny how that part is uncensored. I can't remember if it's the same on the DVD. Later on, however, in the YouTube upload, Rick McCallum greets the lively crowd, gathered to watch the midnight premiere of the film in San Francisco (man, how I'd love to have been there!), with an f-bomb of approval that is blanked out:



(1:04:30)

RICK: "This is f----ing awesome!!!" 

Well, partially blanked out. 

Rick can be heard, or partially heard, cussing quite a lot in the documentary. Pay close attention to the mid-point of the documentary in Tunisia, right after the storm hits and causes significant damage. There's a few f-bombs in that passage. 

Anyway, yeah, I suppose you could call the young Ewan a ned (Scottish term) or a scallywag (English term with Scottish roots). Ned seems to be a bit more derogatory than scallywag. But Ewan had that quality about him back then. After all, he got the prequel job largely on the strength of his role in "Trainspotting", which gave him something of a brash, edgy, Young Turk persona. It is actually surprising how restrained the character of Obi-Wan is in Episode I by comparison. No wonder people thought the performances in TPM were quite muted overall. Lucas kinda sandbagged everyone.

Christopher Lee is probably the best thing to ever happen to Star Wars.