If you hit him, Obi-Wan Kenobi will become more powerful than you could imagine – and he might transmit his name confusingly.

Concept and storyboard artist Iain McCaig has revealed a bizarre twist to Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace this director George Lucas ultimately cut from the film at the last minute. The twist involves a name change between Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) and his Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson), who perished at the hands of Darth Maul (Ray Park) at the end of the divisive prequel.

“It’s interesting to see how things evolve,” McCaig said. StarWars.com. “For a time, the older The Jedi’s name was Obi-Wan and the younger The Jedi’s name was Qui-Gon. It was very poignant that at the end, as Obi-Wan dies and Qui-Gon defeats Darth Maul and stays with his master as he passes away, he not only takes on his master’s quest, but he takes also his name. Qui-Gon becomes Obi-Wan.”

It wouldn’t change much overall. Star Wars tradition, but McCaig thinks this clarifies a comment from old Obi-Wan in the 1977 original. Star Wars. “That’s why when you see Alec Guinness in A new hopehe pulls down his hood and says, ‘Obi-Wan? Now, that’s a name I haven’t heard….'”, the artist explained. “Because he’s not Obi-Wan, he’s Qui-Gon. And right at the end, George changed it.”

However, McCaig’s words don’t really hold water. If McGregor’s character was originally named Qui-Gon Jinn and later adopted his fallen master’s name at the end of The Phantom Menace…then he would still have gone by Obi-Wan Kenobi for the rest of his life, right? If he’s taking on the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi, why would he be surprised to hear that name? The most surprising name to hear A new hope would be Qui-Gon Jinn, because if McCaig is right, then Who Gon is the name he hasn’t heard in a long time, not Obi-Wan.

Regardless of the Guinness wrinkle, the supposed Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan switcheroo would have made a very different Phantom Menace visual experience for audiences in 1999. If Lucas hadn’t changed his mind, then Episode I and his barrage of marketing would have led the public to believe that Neeson’s Jedi Master was Obi-Wan, meaning everyone would assume he would eventually age into the Guinness version of the character, thus sheltering him of danger. And if everyone thought Neeson was invincible, then his climactic death would be much more shocking. (Although it would be difficult to explain why the very Scottish McGregor spent the entire film doing a perfect impression of Guinness’s English accent without giving away the twist.)

Neeson also makes more sense as the Guinness character’s alleged predecessor in terms of his age: he was 43 when Phantom Menace released in 1999, and Guinness was 63 years old when Star Wars was released in theaters in 1977. Since Phantom Menace takes place approximately 30 years before A new hopeIt looks like Neeson might achieve the wizened, gray-haired Guinness look by the time he gets a visit from Luke Skywalker.

McGregor, on the other hand, ends up looking about 30 or 40 years younger than the 2005 Guinness. Revenge of the Sithwhich only takes place about 19 years before A new hope (and still looks pretty sharp in the Disney+ spinoff series Obi-Wan Kenobiwhich takes place less than 10 years before A new hope). Obi-Wan must have fallen into a trap terrible straits to end up looking like Guinness.

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Star Wars Eventually, a key character adopted the name of his fallen master in, as of 2024, the last line ever spoken in a play. Star Wars project. Rey (Marguerite Ridley), who is never given a last name, takes the name Skywalker in the final scene of the 2019 film. The Rise of Skywalker according to his master Luke Skywalker (Marc Hamill) died defending the Resistance in the previous film.