Even if the movies are based around a preexisting character like Obi-Wan, there's a pretty good chance they will be surrounded by "compelling, fun" new characters. It makes sense to use a fan favorite character to draw people into new characters' stories. It's also worth keeping in mind that as far as we know Rogue One only has one preexisting character, and she appears to be playing supporting role.Tatooine, Jakku, Tatooine, Jakku... easy to blend them together given how interlinked and mirrored ANH and TFA are.
Obi Wan, and more specifically Ewan's protrayal of him in II and III are (barring some fine music, world design and the occasional action sequence) is the main redeeming feature of those films for me. I'll watch Ewan in pretty much anything, and of course I would end up watching a trilogy of films about him playing Obi Wan, yet... they need to think larger, outside of the box. These films have the opportunity, like The Clone Wars expertly hit home, to play with everything in this universe and enrich it. You could use Obi Wan to explore that universe, but why be beholden to the old characters when you can create compelling, fun new ones - like they did Rey and Finn. And neither of them need to be sewn so tightly into the mythos that each of them is connected to people from previous films.
Still, just to clarify - very strong Teaser with the right look and feel to it.
Hugo - seriously, the SW side of the brain is not engaged today
The main saga movies are fantasy fairy tales, Rogue One is supposed to be a gritty war/heist movie.3/5.
Not bad, but like TFA just blatant pandering. Also, the "docucam" look needs to go. This is supposed to be a fantasy fairy tale.
Io9 has their analysis up, and they do say that that is Genvieve O'Reilly, who played Mon Mothma in scenes deleted from Revenge of the Sith, back as Mon Mothma. So it looks like we have our first kind of returning cast member from the prequels now.