Star Wars Creator George Lucas Loved The Obi-Wan Kenobi Series

On May 4th, as part of the 2024 Podathan charity streaming event benefiting the Make-A-Wish Foundation, members of Lucasfilm's "Star Wars" story team Pablo Hidalgo and Matt Martin spoke to the hosts of the Full of Sith podcast. (In an effort to provide full disclosure, I am one of the hosts of the Full of Sith podcast and it has no affiliation with /Film.) The show has been producing almost weekly episodes since 2013 and has covered plenty of "Star Wars" news, and Hidalgo and Martin, among others, have been frequent guests on the podcast over the years.

Hidalgo spoke to my co-host Holly Frey ("Stuff You Missed in History Class") in a wide-ranging interview about his work with Lucasfilm and on "Star Wars". As someone who is intimately involved with the storytelling process at Lucasfilm, Hidalgo elaborated on how that works and what he really does. He's been working at Lucasfilm for over 20 years and was on set for most of the prequels and was even in charge of the revolutionary web-cam that was on set for "Attack of the Clones." During his discussion, he mentioned some of his work on the "Obi-Wan Kenobi" show that premiered in 2022 on Disney+ — including the fact that "Star Wars" creator George Lucas loved the series.

As part of the interview, Frey asked Hidalgo about the struggle of working on "Obi-Wan Kenobi," where the events of the two main characters were fairly well-charted and where people have assured themselves that they knew what had happened in between. He replied:

"There were a couple of things that gave us the confidence to move forward. Part of that was interfacing with George. Early on, there was a conversation had with George over what his thoughts were and whether or not, honestly, he bought the whole concept of taking Obi-Wan and Vader into this, and he was 100% supportive. I've heard tell that it's been one of [his] favorite things that's come out of 'Star Wars,' because he recognizes so much of what he did in the prequels basically brought forward and celebrated in a way that I'm sure surprised him. I'm sure everyone who was involved in the prequels feels the appreciation that was put into that series."

Hidalgo further talked about the big swings the show took that I know I personally was grateful for. As one of those big prequel fans from the beginning, it paid respect to the era and the style of storytelling George Lucas pioneered, and it was a lot of very emotional fun. The series also filled in gaps in the character arcs of many of our favorite characters. 

It's also interesting to note that the folks at Lucasfilm still respect and take in the opinion of George Lucas before embarking on some of these projects, making Hidalgo an important liaison between the creatives and the maker himself.

This isn't the first time George Lucas has had positive things to say about movies made after the time he passed the torch of his company to Kathleen Kennedy. Tony Gilroy, who worked on reshoots for 2016's "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story", said in an interview last year with Deadline that "George Lucas called me after 'Rogue', I had a 45-minute conversation with him after he saw 'Rogue,' and that's the only time I've ever spoken to him. He loved it. He really did. He had a lot of things to say that I [...] It was like a call from the president."

And in 2017, George Lucas told The Hollywood Reporter that "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" was "beautifully made" and he had a "very complimentary" phone call with Rian Johnson after seeing the film.

On the other hand, it was reported that he had less than flattering things to say about "Star Wars: The Force Awakens," according to Disney CEO Bob Iger in his book "The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned From 15 Years As CEO Of The Walt Disney Company":

Just prior to the global release, Kathy screened "The Force Awakens" for George. He didn't hide his disappointment. "There's nothing new," he said. In each of the films in the original trilogy, it was important to him to present new worlds, new stories, new characters, and new technologies. In this one, he said, "There weren't enough visual or technical leaps forward."

Though I still loved the experience of "The Force Awakens," it's hard to argue with that assessment. And it did pave the way for the masterpiece and "beautifully made" film that is "The Last Jedi."

To listen to the full interview, where Matt Martin discusses his work on the story team and Pablo Hidalgo details this story about George Lucas and more, check out the Full of Sith podcast. You can also listen to every episode going back to 2013, including many interviews with everyone from Dave Filoni and Carrie Fisher to Phil Tippet and Timothy Zahn.