By George & Josh Bate
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for The End of Oak Street
The End of Oak Street storms into theaters this weekend, bringing audiences an Amblin-inspired sci-fi survival movie featuring dinosaurs wreaking havoc on peaceful suburbia.
The new film from It Follows director David Robert Mitchell has plenty going for it (as you can read about in our review here), but Star Wars fans will be particularly excited to know that The End of Oak Street features some special treats for admirers of a galaxy far, far away.
The End of Oak Street stars Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor as Denise and Greg Platt, a married couple whose family is uprooted when a cosmic event transports their suburban neighborhood into an unrecognizable realm filled with dinosaurs.
Much of the film follows McGregor’s Greg, Hathaway’s Denise, and their two children as they seek shelter and try to survive from a range of dinosaurs terrorizing their previously peaceful neighborhood. Around the beginning of the third act, Denise finds herself cornered by a massive t-rex, who is trying to eat her yet struggling to do so as its head is too large to fit through the entryway to a home’s porch.
Just as Denise seems to have ran out of hope, her husband Greg comes to the rescue, wielding a massive sledgehammer. In one of the film’s coolest and most applause-worthy moments, Greg swings the sledgehammer into the skull of the t-rex and miraculously kills it in one blow.
It may have been over four years since we’ve seen Ewan McGregor wield a lightsaber in a Star Wars project, but, in The End of Oak Street, we get to see the Obi-Wan Kenobi actor use similar moves to take down a dinosaur. The way McGregor holds and swings the sledgehammer evokes some of his moves as the Jedi Master and, during the film’s promotional campaign, McGregor spoke about how his extensive lightsaber training came in handy while making his new film.
The End of Oak Street will further delight Star Wars fans due to the similarities it shares to the films of J.J. Abrams. The director of The Force Awakens and The Rise of Skywalker produced The End of Oak Street, which is clearly inspired by the same kind of Amblin and Spielberg films that shaped Abrams’ directorial vision. Despite Abrams’ Star Wars movies and The End of Oak Street having markedly different stories, there is a shared breeziness, levity, and childlike sense of wonder inherent to both projects.
During the promotional campaign for The End of Oak Street, McGregor jokingly suggested Anne Hathaway could join the Star Wars universe as a secret sister to Leia and Luke. Humorously leaning into the bit, Hathaway asked if that would make her Anakin’s evil daughter, before saying that she wanted to join McGregor’s “quest for Yoda” in an Obi-Wan Kenobi Season 2.
Speaking of Obi-Wan Kenobi Season 2, McGregor has been repeatedly asked questions about the future of the Disney+ series while promoting The End of Oak Street. McGregor has remained consistent in expressing that he wishes to make a Season 2 and sees the years between the end of Obi-Wan Kenobi Season 1 and the beginning of A New Hope as ample room to tell more Obi-Wan stories and transition more seamlessly into the character played by Sir Alec Guinness. Unfortunately, McGregor has repeatedly said that there has been no news from Lucasfilm’s side about the development of a sophomore season.