UPDATE: Frank Oz and Alec Guinness joined Ewan McGregor in The Force Awakens
Living or dead, Star Wars acting-legends joined J.J. Abrams in creating a memorable scene from Star Wars: The Force Awakens…
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Yesterday we brought you a story about Ewan McGregor voicing a part as Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The scene unfolds in the basement of Maz Kanata’s castle, as Rey places her hand on the Skywalker familial lightsaber. Upon touching the lightsaber, Rey is thrown into a Force vision where not only her past was shown, but moment’s from Luke’s past as well. In the vision, voices could be heard that sounded very familiar: Obi-Wan, and Yoda.
As we told you, Ewan McGregor was secretly asked to come in and voice a line or two, but what we didn’t know was that Frank Oz was asked to come in and do some Yoda voice-acting, and in an extremely neat twist, the folks at Bad Robot were able to manipulate a word from Sir Alec Guinness for one word of Obi-Wan’s line. Entertainment Weekly was able to find out exactly how it went down:
"“You do hear a little bit of Yoda. You hear Luke yelling out, ‘Nooo!’ from that moment in Empire. And you hear Obi-Wan at the end say, ‘Rey … these are your first steps’. Here’s the cool part. We asked Ewan McGregor to come in and do the line. And he was awesome and we were very grateful. He was incredibly sweet and handsome, and all that stuff. Then he rode off on his motorcycle. Literally the coolest voice over actor ever.”"
Can we just sign Ewan McGregor up for his own standalone Obi-Wan movie…please? Abrams continued with the story of how Obi-Wan said the word Rey. As we originally thought last night, Ewan McGregor said “Rey” but it seems the folks at Bad Robot had a surprise up their sleeves.
"“I said, ‘That’s cool, is that the thing from Ewan McGregor?’ He said ‘No, we took a line from Alec Guinness saying ‘Afraid.’”"
So there it is, Abrams and his amazing crew at Bad Robot cut and pasted and reworked words to include both Ewan McGregor and Alec Guinness in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Then there’s the bit about Yoda’s part in this whole thing, Frank Oz himself came in and did the work:
"“He was incredibly generous and came in to Bad Robot, where we had a recording area, and he was doing Yoda, saying a number of lines we gave to him.”"
Abrams even mentions that the way Oz came in and did several takes, there may be a chance we see or hear the spirit of Yoda in Rian Johnson’s Star Wars: Episode VIII. Let’s also hope we haven’t heard the last of Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan, because more than anyone else — all due respect to Sir Alec Guinness — he is Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Next: Dork Side Review - Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Abrams and Kasdan do mention that Rey’s Force vision could have told more, but that they didn’t want to give the whole story away in the first film. Hopefully, Rian Johnson will explain more, when May of 2017 comes around.