Obi-Wan Kenobi Almost Included This Beloved Clone Wars Character

Two years later, “Obi-Wan Kenobi” feels like a strange entry in the larger Disney/Lucasfilm TV library. It’s a show with some very cool moments (like Obi-Wan facing off against Darth Vader) and an incredibly satisfying Leia storyline, but it also meanders quite a bit and has some poor visuals. Well, at least George Lucas seemed to love it.

Part of what makes the show kind of disjointed is that it very much feels like a movie stretched out to be a TV show, with certain ideas scaled down to fit a TV budget and scope, and others stretched to encompass multiple hours of storytelling. After “The Mandalorian” season 2 started the trend, “Kenobi” also cemented the TV arm of Lucasfilm as being driven by cameos. Yet, despite many references and Glup Shitto appearances, we never got the one cameo that would have genuinely mattered to this story (other than at least a single mention of Satine, who Lucasfilm has inexplicably refused to acknowledge in live-action): Commander Cody. 

As it turns out, the beloved “Clone Wars” animated TV show character was originally part of the story back when “Obi-Wan Kenobi” was still a movie. Stuart Beattie, who worked on the project when it was a film and received story credit for several episodes of the show, confirmed this during an interview with The Direct in 2022.

“I love the idea of Obi-Wan having a buddy on Tatooine. Like a secret buddy,” Beattie noted, describing how, in the original version of the scene where Obi-Wan heads into town on Tatooine for the first time, he got chased down the street by an attack who put a knife to Kenobi’s throat, declaring he’s dead. “Then you realize, ‘Oh, no … Cody’s making a point.’ Like, ‘Come on. You got to be more careful,'” Beattie clarified.

According to Beattie, the “Obi-Wan Kenobi” movie would’ve revealed that, after trying to kill Obi-Wan during Order 66, Cody had removed his inhibitor chip and devoted his life to protecting the Jedi instead. “You got these two kind of old warriors bickering like this old married couple about, ‘God, it was so much better when we had an army at our backs,’ you know?'” Beattie explained.

However, rather than accompanying Obi-Wan after he leaves Tatooine for a mission (like he does on the show), Cody would’ve remained behind to keep watch over Luke. This would’ve also given the overarching narrative a B-story to cut away to. When asked why this storyline was scrapped after the movie became a Disney+ show, Beattie speculated that it had to do with the availability of the actor. “Maybe Temuera Morrison was busy on [‘The Book of Boba Fett’] […] It would have been obviously Temuera,” he said. “I just felt Obi-Wan needed someone to talk to, someone who could tell him, you know, ‘You’re in bad shape.'”

Morrison ultimately did show up on “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” but in a small cameo rather than a supporting role. As for Cody appearing in the original version of the story, the appeal is easy to see, of course. The idea of Cody wanting to make up for his sins, and having to race against the clock due to the fact that clones age faster, is compelling, but the idea of the two bickering old friends does feel a little bit out of place. It was Anakin who actually treated his clone squad like friends. Cody and Obi-Wan were friendly enough, sure, but the former devoting his life to protecting the latter feels far-fetched. Now Rex, on the other hand, would’ve been more believable.