With the series premiere Obi-Wan Kenobi on Disney+. Many wonder how Obi Wan could have aged so much in A new hope
Disney+ series, Obi-Wan Kenobi has brought the iconic Jedi Master played by Ewan McGregor back to the live-action Star Wars Universe. And of course the debate is served, both because of the episodes that we have seen and because of the question that many fans ask themselves, why if it has been 10 years since Revenge of the Sith to the events that follow the series, and Obi-Wan holds up so well, how can it be that in A new hope which takes place 7 years later look so old with the interpretation of Sir Alec Guinness.
You have to know that currently, Ewan McGregor is 51 years old, while Alec Guinness was 63 in 1977, the year in which Episode IV was released. So in nine years (when the events of A new hope) McGregor will be 60 years old, which would leave him just three years shy of the age Guinness actually was. Very few years difference, certainly. Keep in mind that current generations do not age in the same way, and we appear to be younger than our parents when we reach a certain age, however Star Wars has explained why Guinness’s Obi-Wan appears to be older. And the explanation is in the two suns of Tattoine.
The explanation of why Ben Kenobi looks so old in A new hope
The Tatoo system is a binary star system located at the crossroads of the Triellus Trade Route and the Old Corellian Corridor in the Arkanis sector of the Outer Rim segment known as The Cut. The system formed around the G-type stars Tatoo I and Tatoo II, and contained the planet Tatooine, its moons Ghomrassen, Guermessa, and Chenini, and the gas giants Ohann and Adriana, and their seven moons.
Tatooine is believed to be one of the oldest worlds in known space whose geography has changed over time, although the cause of why it is an inhospitable desert world is unknown, the planet once harbored tropical jungles and was covered with oceans. , as we were told in the series boba fett book, through the Tusken, the original race of the planet before it was colonized by the mining companies and later, when they left the planet, by all the scum of the galaxy that came to it to hide.
Currently the landscape is only sand dunes rich in sodium, mountains and rocky canyons, in fact, given the absence of water on the surface, the inhabitants of Tatooine must extract humidity from the dry air in the so-called humidity farms.
Due to these extreme conditions only a relatively mild region of the Northern Hemisphere is habitable, where Fort Tusken, Anchorheard, Bestine, Mos Espa and Mos Eisley are located, as well as small independent settlements. In addition, the harsh arid climate of the planet causes signs of accelerated aging in humans, which explains why Owen Lars o Obi Wan Kenobithey will appear to be so old in A new hope.