Ewan McGregor got candid during a panel at Sweden’s Gothenburg Film Festival (via Variety) about his reaction to the fierce critical backlash to the Star Wars prequels. McGregor memorably played Obi-Wan Kenobi in George Lucas’ follow-up trilogy, and reprised his role for a well-received Disney+ series.
Though they’ve been reevaluated in some circles, critics and fans alike were deeply disappointed with the quality of the prequels upon their initial release. The worst reactions were reserved for the first film, 1999’s The Phantom Menace. McGregor talked about the distinct anxiety of knowing he had to go back and shoot two more sequels after the first installment was universally “panned.”
“When these films came out, they were so disliked,” the Fargo actor recalled. “That was hard. The first one was panned and we still had to make another two! It was weird to be in a film that was hammered,” McGregor emphasized.
The remaining films in the series, 2002’s Attack of the Clones and 2005’s Revenge of the Sith, both represented marginal improvements over their predecessors, but the prequels were never embraced by critics. In recent years, fans who grew up watching the prequel trilogy rather than the original films have voiced their appreciation for Lucas’ movies.
With retrospect, McGregor is “happy that I am this character for a lot of people.” He was able to relax more into the experience of shooting the Obi-Wan Kenobi spin-off, knowing that he’s now unambiguously embraced by fans of the series.
“I would love to do the second season,” McGregor enthused, “but there’s no talk of it yet. There is a lot going on at Disney.”
In 2022, McGregor elaborated to GQ about how his feelings towards the series have morphed over time. “I think [my relationship to the prequels] has changed for me as I've met more people in that generation,” he explained.
“I admire George for having tried to do something different with them. He didn't just set out to make another three Star Wars films that felt like the original ones. I respected him for that. I think that's ballsy and interesting," he reflected.
“I think the critics just wanted to feel like they were seven or eight again, and they didn't get that,” McGregor opined. “So I was left with that [reaction] for years and years, [until I started] meeting people, and I realized how important our films have been to them.”
from Men's Journal https://ift.tt/5c3Wm6F
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