Liam Neeson said in a recent interview that he’s eager to return to the role of Qui-Gon Jinn in Star Wars’ upcoming Obi-Wan Kenobi limited series on Disney Plus, but added that Lucasfilm has yet to give him a call about it. The Obi-Wan series presents the perfect opportunity for Qui-Gon’s return because it could help to bridge the gap between Episodes III and IV, and the two characters have unfinished business.
Before Obi-Wan takes baby Luke to Tatooine and goes into exile in Revenge of the Sith, Yoda tells him that he’s been contacted by his old master Qui-Gon, who has figured out how to live beyond death through the Force. Yoda recommends that Obi-Wan “commune” with Qui-Gon while he’s hiding out on Tatooine. There’s also a deleted scene that can be viewed on Disney Plus that actually depicts Qui-Gon getting in touch with a meditating Yoda. He hasn’t learned how to appear as a ghost at that point and only speaks to Yoda as a disembodied voice. When Obi-Wan faced Darth Vader on the Death Star, he told his fallen apprentice, “If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.” He seemed pretty confident that he would return as a ghost, suggesting he’d figured out how to become one with the Force. The character’s new miniseries can explain this if Qui-Gon teaches Obi-Wan this power from beyond the grave during his time on Tatooine.
Vader’s confirmed return in the Obi-Wan series has caused some skepticism among fans, because it risks undermining the weight of the characters’ rematch on the Death Star in the original 1977 movie. Qui-Gon’s return has the rare opportunity to actually enhance the original movie, because it can explain how Obi-Wan learned the secrets of Force-based immortality between the prequel and original trilogies. The scene with Yoda in Revenge of the Sith implied that Qui-Gon taught it to him in the interim, but this new Disney Plus series has the chance to fill in the specifics. In fact, depicting a Jedi training to return as a ghost after death could go a long way toward clearing up that part of the lore in general, and the canon is in dire need of some straightforward explanation after the sequel trilogy added new rules left and right.
The two have a lot to catch up on since Qui-Gon died and Obi-Wan promised to train a then-nine-year-old Anakin. Much in the way that Luke will later convene with Obi-Wan’s own Force ghost to air grievances and work through his problems, a younger Obi-Wan can convene with Qui-Gon’s spirit for discussions about the fall of Vader and the rise of the Empire and the fading hope that the Jedi will return. Obi-Wan blames himself for Anakin’s turn to the dark side, feeling that he failed him as a master, but it was Qui-Gon who discovered Anakin and insisted that he be trained against the council’s wishes, so he’s arguably more to blame, but he might not see it that way. Suffice to say, there’s no shortage of material for conversations between an aging Obi-Wan and the ghost of Qui-Gon.
As the story of a Jedi in exile following the government-sanctioned slaughter of the entire Jedi Order, Obi-Wan Kenobi should focus heavily on the Jedi. Of course, due to said slaughter, there aren’t many left in the galaxy at this point in the timeline. Bringing in the title character’s master as an apparition who doesn’t have to worry about concealing his identity in a world without the Jedi would open up the series’ exploration of the fall of the Jedi.
Qui-Gon’s potential return in Obi-Wan Kenobi doesn’t have to be confined to communing with just Obi-Wan himself. With Hayden Christensen returning as Anakin, there’s an opportunity for Qui-Gon to reconnect with another one of his beloved mentees. His spirit could confront Vader at the height of the Empire’s rule and unsuccessfully try to appeal to the good that still remains in him. George Lucas originally wrote a scene for Revenge of the Sith in which Qui-Gon’s ghost appeared to Anakin and desperately tried to dissuade him from turning to the dark side, but he ended up cutting it from the script. This would be a crucial moment in the Star Wars story, and in Obi-Wan Kenobi, it can finally happen. Including a scene like this would, of course, risk taking focus away from Obi-Wan in his own series and it might be best to avoid storylines that don’t involve Kenobi himself.
Neeson shared terrific chemistry with Ewan McGregor in The Phantom Menace, developing a tangible teacher-student relationship between their Jedi characters, and it was always a shame that he only stuck around for one movie. Since Qui-Gon’s death was integral to the beginning of Anakin’s journey, the prequel trilogy wasn’t able to flesh out Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon’s master-padawan relationship as much as the Obi-Wan miniseries can.
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