The idea isn't totally awful, but the idea sounds unpolished. It would actually be kinda cool if a name was passed along from master to students as a sort of lineage and title for Jedi to connect to their roots. A sort of different spin than the Sith all taking the title Darth after the rule of 2.
More ideally, I'd say the execution should have been Liam Neeson's character was introduced as "Obi Wan Jin" and Ewan McGregor's character was introduced as "Ben Kenobi." Then upon ascending to Jedi Knight and taking on an apprentice of his own, Ben Kenobi becomes known as Obi Wan Kenobi. People who have known him may still call him Ben, and in his exile reverting to his given "non-Jedi" name makes sense.
Of course, Ben learned his Master's given name was Qui Gon, and Dooku still would have referred to his apprentice as Qui Gon.
A somewhat similar fan theory that made the rounds way back before we knew what the Clone Wars actually was, was that Ben Kenobi was a Jedi Knight who was cloned as part of the ongoing war effort and that Obi Wan was one of several clones of the "original" Jedi. So the theory goes, is that he originally had the name of Obi-Wan from his "clone designation" of OB-1 (similar to how some droids in Star Wars get 'named' from their alphanumeric designations) but would later assume the name of 'Ben' Kenobi when the original died in battle or the Jedi Purge. Old Star Wars theories got wild.
Hard to find images of old Kenner packaging, but the idea that OB1 was a clone goes way back, while I never bought it in the late 80s/early 90s - there was always pretty good arguments to be made back in the old bulletin board days
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u/CynicStruggle Oct 31 '24
The idea isn't totally awful, but the idea sounds unpolished. It would actually be kinda cool if a name was passed along from master to students as a sort of lineage and title for Jedi to connect to their roots. A sort of different spin than the Sith all taking the title Darth after the rule of 2.
More ideally, I'd say the execution should have been Liam Neeson's character was introduced as "Obi Wan Jin" and Ewan McGregor's character was introduced as "Ben Kenobi." Then upon ascending to Jedi Knight and taking on an apprentice of his own, Ben Kenobi becomes known as Obi Wan Kenobi. People who have known him may still call him Ben, and in his exile reverting to his given "non-Jedi" name makes sense.
Of course, Ben learned his Master's given name was Qui Gon, and Dooku still would have referred to his apprentice as Qui Gon.