Director Deborah Chow shows the difference between The Mandalorian and Kenobi Star Wars projects
Deborah Chow made her name known with Star Wars fan when she directed a couple of episodes of The Mandalorian, specifically Chapter 3 ‘The Sin.’
The episode was filled with action, emotions, and some of the best scenes of the Disney+ series. In the episode, the Mandalorian returns The Child to the Client but is filled with a sense of wrongness the whole time. So, while he collects his bounty for returning ‘Baby Yoda,’ we know he can’t live with it.
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Din Djarin rescues The Child and on his way to escaping, is ambushed by the bounty hunter guild. He’s rescued by the Mandalorians that have been in hiding. It was a great episode and one that really made any doubters, a fan of the series.
With that episode, Chow also became the first woman to direct live-action Star Wars. All the movies had been directed by men and the previous two episodes of The Mandalorian featured men at the helm. It was a big deal because it’s something that hadn’t happened before.
It also wouldn’t be the last time. She directed another episode and The Mandalorian also saw Bryce Dallas Howard direct an episode of The Mandalorian as well.
Chow was tabbed as the lone director for the upcoming Kenobi Disney+ project. Recently, Chow chatted with The Hollywood Reporter in the TV Director Roundtable. There was a wide range of topics, and inevitably Star Wars came up.
She was asked about being the first woman to direct live-action Star Wars and discussed the weight of it, but something she didn’t feel until after her work was finished.
She told The Hollywood Reporter:
"I think I underestimated it, for sure. When we were making it, honestly, we were not overthinking it. Like, I wasn’t sitting there going, “Oh my God, I’m going to be the first.” But when the show came out streaming at midnight, I think, then I woke up at 7 a.m. and all the sudden, I’ve got 27 texts telling me I’m trending on Twitter, which I had never in a million years expected would happen. It was at that moment, you’re like, “Wow, there really is a responsibility and weight with this.” You do feel it because it’s not only the responsibility of Star Wars, of trying not to screw up Star Wars, but it’s also the responsibility of trying not to be the first woman or Asian who screws up Star Wars."
The experience she had on The Mandalorian is already different than what she is doing on the Kenobi project. With The Mandalorian, there were several directors who had to work together to fulfill a vision. In this case, Chow is working on her own, which comes with the good and the bad.
She added:
"It’s definitely going to be different, just in terms of the sheer workload, obviously, of doing the whole thing. But in some ways, I’m going to miss having a team, and having people who are there to bounce ideas off of. But then obviously the flip side is, it is nice to have a coherent voice and know what you’re doing from beginning to end."
The Kenobi project doesn’t have a start date, which likely got pushed due to productions shutting down over COVID-19 concerns. It’s presumed the series will stream on Disney+ in 2022. It takes place several years after Revenge of the Sith, looking at a time in Kenobi’s life we haven’t explored yet.
Stream The Mandalorian on Disney+.