Hayden Christensen Reportedly De-Ageing For Kenobi Series

If I Could Turn Back Time

By Culture SlatePublished 2 years ago • Updated 2 years ago • 4 min read

It is March, which means there are only two full months of school left, spring break should be around the corner, and Obi-Wan Kenobi is on the horizon for Disney+. This highly anticipated show will focus on Kenobi’s life in Tatooine after Revenge of the Sith and before the fateful encounter with R2-D2 in A New Hope. Ewan McGregor is due to return to the role that established him as a star in order to further flesh out what the legendary character was doing during that time period. McGregor is not alone in this endeavor. His co-star Hayden Christensen will also be returning to the role of Anakin Skywalker, or rather, Darth Vader.

Actually, Christensen might be doing a bit of both. Rumors are spreading that there might be a flashback or two to the prequel era of the Clone Wars. For those scenes, they could be using De-Ageing once again. De-Ageing is one of the latest special effects to come out of the Hollywood studios, which enables older actors, through CGI and possibly body doubles, to appear younger. You may have seen it used in The Mandalorian to give Luke his Return of the Jedi appearance. Similar techniques, like deepfake, have been popular online. If the rumors are true, it will be used to take about seventeen years off of Christensen, making him look as he did during Revenge of the Sith. It is also likely that McGregor could also be undergoing the same De-Aging process as it has also been seventeen years since his last on-screen appearance. We know that Christensen will be wearing the infamous armor for his role as Darth Vader. It remains to be seen if James Earl Jones will be along for the ride to provide the voice.

Of course, we do not actually know how much of the De-Aging technique will be used, if at all. The production team could be using it for one scene, multiple scenes, or maybe even an entire episode. It will be a while before we get an official trailer for the show, so we have some time to speculate on the topic. In my eyes, they will try to avoid using De-Aging too often in order to cut down on costs. This is especially true if they will have to use it on both Obi-Wan and Anakin as I have speculated earlier.

As stated before, the De-Aging process was used to recreate the younger Luke Skywalker in The Mandalorian. However, due to Mark Hamill’s age, the production team decided to use a body double with Hamill’s younger face pasted on him. I doubt that this would be the case for Anakin and Obi-Wan as Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen are younger. They will most likely be doing their own acting and just have their features de-aged. We may even see a few de-aged Temuera Morrisons, if certain rumors are to be believed. Although, it is much too soon to predict that.

The final question for today is this, how many Clone Wars scenes will we get in Obi-Wan Kenobi? The Clone Wars was a big part of the prequel trilogy and laid the foundations for the Galactic Empire. On the other hand, we already had two full series exploring this conflict, and it would not make much sense to focus on it too much. I predict that we will get a scene or two at most, with the focus being on the happier times before the Empire.

With that being said, it is time to jump to light speed for more Star Wars content.

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