The Obi-Wan Kenobi TV show reportedly made Legends character A’Sharad Hett, a Tusken Raider Jedi, canon. There was much excitement about Ewan McGregor’s return as Obi-Wan for a Disney+ series when it was officially announced at D23 last summer, but fans unfortunately will have to wait a bit to see it come into fruition. In late January, after rumors spread around online, it was confirmed the Obi-Wan show was indefinitely delayed, apparently due to concerns about the scripts. As the show is getting a rewrite, there’s talk it could be whittled down to four episodes, as opposed to the original six.
Whenever an anticipated project such as this undergoes an extensive overhaul behind-the-scenes, there’s always great interest in what the plan was. Word is the Obi-Wan story was too similar to The Mandalorian, with the old Jedi protecting Luke (and possibly Leia) during his exile. What wasn’t revealed is who or what Obi-Wan was guarding Luke from, but now some more information has come to light. Initially, Lucasfilm was going to make another Legends character canon.
Per The Illuminerdi, the Obi-Wan show was going to feature A’Sharad Hett as a main villain. For those unfamiliar with Legends, Hett was a Jedi during the Clone Wars who survived Order 66. Following the Jedi Purge, he returned to his home planet of Tatooine and became a Tusken Raider warlord. Hett encountered Obi-Wan on the desert world when his army planned to move against the Lars homestead, and the two had a lightsaber duel.
Lucasfilm’s drawn quite a bit from Legends for their canon materials in the Disney era, so it isn’t surprising they were looking to canonize Hett. Of course, there likely would have been some alterations between the two iterations (A’Sharad was friends with Anakin Skywalker, something tricky to pull off without retconning Clone Wars), but the Obi-Wan show probably still could have found a way to capture Hett’s spirit and essence, staying true to the original source material. Obi-Wan crossing paths with another former Jedi had the potential to be a fascinating dynamic for the series to explore, and it would have been interesting to watch that unfold onscreen. The Mandalorian took baby steps to humanizing the Tusken Raiders, so Obi-Wan might have been able to expand that concept even further.
Now that Obi-Wan is going back to the drawing board, it’s unknown if A’Sharad will still have a role. Based on what’s come out about the series, it sounds like the show was going to follow a similar arc to Legends, with Hett and his fellow Tuskens threatening to attack the Lars farm. If Obi-Wan was scrapped due to close parallels with The Mandalorian, then perhaps Lucasfilm is going to take things a new direction and find a different story to tell. That’ll be disappointing for those hoping to see another Legends figure make the jump to official franchise canon, but it’d be even more frustrating if Obi-Wan was a rehash of something that came before.
More: Every Star Wars TV Show Coming to Disney+ After The Mandalorian
Source: The Illumerdi
