Lucasfilm
The optics of Obi-Wan Kenobi’s plan for hiding Luke Skywalker after the rise of the Galactic Empire and his father’s turn to the dark side have always been … let’s just say sketchy. To be fair, “Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith” went a long way in justifying Obi-Wan taking Luke to live with his aunt and uncle on Tatooine, as it revealed the boy’s old man, Anakin/Darth Vader, had no idea he was even alive. That and Obi-Wan knew Vader would have little reason to revisit his backwater home planet, a place that holds lots of bad memories for him. (Also, sand. Anakin hates that stuff, and for a narratively sound reason.)
Still, was changing his name to “Ben Kenobi” really the best idea Obi-Wan could come up with? Perhaps “Kenobi” is a much more common surname in the “Star Wars” galaxy than we know. Or perhaps I’m just overestimating how much interest a middle-aged hermit who goes by “Ben” would attract on Tatooine in the first place. It’s not as though, say, an old rando moved into my neighborhood and said he was named “Duncan Cooper,” I would immediately suspect him of being the notorious Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305 hijacker D.B. Cooper in disguise. Then again, I wouldn’t not think that.
At least by the time “Obi-Wan Kenobi” picks up around a decade after the events of “Revenge of the Sith,” ol’ Obie has swapped out his Jedi robes for a more discreet blue tunic. “The challenge is that he’s hiding on Tatooine, a place where the clothing is very innately similar to Jedi clothing in terms of construction, cut, and fabric,” the show’s costume designer, Suttirat Larlarb, noted in an interview with Variety. “It has basic geometric component parts in loose-weave and drapey fabrics.”
Shedding those Kenobi blues
Lucasfilm
This is why Larlarb opted for Obi-Wan’s blue attire — not just because it makes sense as something he would actually wear to blend in more with the locals on Tatooine, but also because it’s symbolic of where he is mentally and emotionally when the series begins. Larlarb explained:
“With the blue, we can understand that he is not the same Jedi legend. As a Tatooine citizen, he has a more relaxed, less structured feel than the Jedi elite. We could play on the shapes of the garments to the degree where I was making choices that were less architectural than the Jedi [clothing] language. This fits into the Tatooine language, and this is the main factor. He’s hiding in plain sight among Tatooine’s population.”
In time, Obi-Wan makes peace with the demons of his past, but it’s obviously a gradual process that takes place over the course of the series. This, too, is reflected in the ways his clothes evolve throughout the show. While Obi-Wan begins to dress the part of the Jedi he once was upon undertaking a mission to protect a young Leia (Vivian Lyra Blair), “the precision of his Jedi look doesn’t come until later in the series,” Larlarb observed. “We build our Obi-Wan back piece-by-piece until the inarguable Jedi has returned.”
Costuming has always been an extremely important component of the visual storytelling language of “Star Wars” (what would Vader even be without his jet-black life support system?), and Obi-Wan’s getup in the “Obi-Wan Kenobi” series is no exception. That his blue outfit also nicely compliments McGregor’s naturally blue eyes, well, that’s just the icing on the cake when it comes to really nailing that “Sad Jedi Boi, But Make It Fashion” look.
