Ewan McGregor Talks Making ‘Panned’ ‘Star Wars’: ‘It Was Weird To Be in a Film That Was Hammered, And We Still Had to Make Two!’

by GroundbreakingSet187

19 comments

  1. Ewan McGregor was “very reluctant” to play Obi Wan-Kenobi in “Star Wars,” he admitted.

    **McGregor :**

    > “It wasn’t a done deal for me. I didn’t think it was at all who I was. I believed, at that point, I was a Danny Boyle actor. ‘The Beach’ was more important and I meant it, it wasn’t flippant. I did ask a lot of people for advice.”

    > “I am happy that I am this character for a lot of people, but when these films came out, they were so disliked. 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.”

  2. I really hate when we blame the actors. This was George Lucas believing too much in himself as a writer/director when he never would’ve been as successful doing that in the first place. Why he surrounded himself with a weaker team for the more challenging prequels, I’ll never understand. At a bare minimum we can safely assume there was way too much “yes, George!” going on. It’s not like Harrison Ford doesn’t give plenty of examples of how they (original cast) had to press Lucas on dialogue, delivery etc for the original trilogy.

    https://www.slashfilm.com/1110034/harrison-ford-wasnt-always-a-fan-of-george-lucas-star-wars-writing/

  4. then made a terrible ObiWan TV show. Poor guy deserves way better.

  5. Lol the prequels were great especially knowing what came after.

  6. The Phantom Menace wasn’t panned. Ebert gave it a good review. Plus it’s a very well made film. One of my childhood faves. Much better than anything Disney made.

  7. Honestly – I think he was probably one of the best bits of the prequel movies. Anakin and Padme had less chemistry than a laboratory playset, so the ‘They’re in love damnit! He fell to the Dark Side for her’ was a…_pretty_ hard sell.

  8. Never understood why people ever treat Star Wars as high brow cinema. The writing and acting in the originals is trash and is loved for it yet the prequels are panned for it. They were awesome, episode 1 is one of the most memorable movies ever. It should be well regarded for its insane meme value alone. People need to not be so up tight

  9. Lucas can’t right dialogue. Or direct. And he’s far too egotistical to realise it.

  12. I’m so tired of the redemption of the first two films because Gen z grew up with them, because clone wars fleshed them out and because memez. They’re still pretty shit. Episode II in particular. And Ewan wasn’t a “bright spot” to me, he was such a silly Billy it had almost no congruence to Alec Guinness.

    III and the clone wars eventually changed my mind but 1 and 2 alone don’t deserve any apologies.

  14. Can’t be all bad if he’s banging Hera on the regular

  15. A close friend of mine know Ewan and he seems very sound… I’d love to meet him some time!

  17. …this is the strangest written article/interview Variey has published in quite some time.

  18. I was never a big Star wars guy but I remember pretty vividly when the phantom Men is came out in ’99 there was a lot of hype and it was a lot of negative feedback, I thought it sucked myself but I only thought so much of it but that’s what happens when you have a rabid fan base like that, the love will be huge but that can also go in the other direction

  19. I love all of the prequels. When they came out, and still today. They aren’t without faults, but most films aren’t. The sequel trilogy however was bad. Really bad. The cast did what they could – and shouldn’t be held to blame. There are still good Star Wars stories, it’s just a shame that the worst possible ones wasted so much talent on the weakest stories.

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