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Author Topic: Obi-Wan Kenobi (Disney+)  (Read 11818 times)
Velorath
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Reply #140 on: June 23, 2022, 01:36:45 PM

This even makes Leia's excited "Ben Kenobi? Where?" response to Luke on the Death Star make so much more sense.

Not to pick on you or single this out, but this line of thinking always drives me nuts. Nobody when watching ANH was wondering why she'd be excited that the person she had sent a message to asking for help was there attempting to help. Nobody was wondering why she'd send a message to Obi-Wan in the first place (she states exactly why in the message). Nobody watched ANH thinking "ok, all of this would make sense, but like... how did they get the Death Star plans in the first place?" and then almost 40 years later Rogue One comes out and finally the series makes sense to them. I think the one bit of backstory people wanted filled in when watching the OT was finding out about the Clone Wars and Anakin's turn to evil, and that turned out to be a massive disappointment. Every other prequel-related thing they've put out hasn't been to explain stuff that needs explaining, it's because a lot of the people working on SW completely lack imagination and hey, here's an increasingly small period of time between the prequels and the OT that hasn't been fleshed out yet.

Can't wait to see the vital lines of dialogue the upcoming Andor series explains.
HaemishM
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Reply #141 on: June 23, 2022, 02:08:15 PM

The continuity in this one was just about as interesting as explaining how Han Solo got his name in Solo. I think a number of the writers think this is fan service when it's just needless wankery about nitpicked details.

This show's biggest problem wasn't continuity issues (though holy shit, did it seem to have way too many). It's that it went absolutely nowhere but took 6 hours to do it and they were super boring hours. The only new character had her story arc just end so abruptly that her very existence introduces huge glaring errors in the rest of the series. Vader and the Inquisitor just leaving Reva to die without, I don't know, dropping a tracker on her in case she somehow survives and finds Kenobi? The whole ridiculous "I'll sacrifice myself so this ship can get away" trope was also infuriating. Was someone on that ship supposed to be important later? *shrugs*

Disney seems to want to treat Star Wars like the MCU, in that it will reference little things on other shows/properties and expect that everyone watching will know who that is (like the bounty hunter that killed Tim Olyphant's character in Book of Boba Fett). The problem is there is so much Star Wars content, much of which is bad (or animated) that these crossovers just lack context for people who aren't painfully aware of them.

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Reply #142 on: June 23, 2022, 02:32:43 PM

It's even possible that it will get intercepted, though if that happens she's fucked and so is the Rebellion

yes, that is indeed why her being coy makes less than zero sense compared to the simpler explanation of "the writers made a fucky wucky"

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Reply #143 on: June 23, 2022, 02:35:47 PM

Yeah yeah jedi and swords but you can't tell me he is that terrible of a shot.

Dude, it's literally canon.

Perhaps but didn't stop him from 1-shotting Grievous, so the man knows how to use it and guess just got a lucky shot off in Revenge?

And I don't put a lot of stock in Star Wars canon considering how it has evolved.

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Khaldun
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Reply #144 on: June 23, 2022, 03:02:32 PM

This even makes Leia's excited "Ben Kenobi? Where?" response to Luke on the Death Star make so much more sense.

Not to pick on you or single this out, but this line of thinking always drives me nuts. Nobody when watching ANH was wondering why she'd be excited that the person she had sent a message to asking for help was there attempting to help. Nobody was wondering why she'd send a message to Obi-Wan in the first place (she states exactly why in the message). Nobody watched ANH thinking "ok, all of this would make sense, but like... how did they get the Death Star plans in the first place?" and then almost 40 years later Rogue One comes out and finally the series makes sense to them. I think the one bit of backstory people wanted filled in when watching the OT was finding out about the Clone Wars and Anakin's turn to evil, and that turned out to be a massive disappointment. Every other prequel-related thing they've put out hasn't been to explain stuff that needs explaining, it's because a lot of the people working on SW completely lack imagination and hey, here's an increasingly small period of time between the prequels and the OT that hasn't been fleshed out yet.

Can't wait to see the vital lines of dialogue the upcoming Andor series explains.

This is geek hermeneutics. It's what people used to get a No-Prize for in Marvel Comics letter columns: you found an elegant way to explain why something that not only looked like a ridiculous goof-up but WAS a ridiculous goof-up still somehow could be made to make sense. "Tony Stark redesigned the Iron Man helmet with a nose early on because, um, he was warned about his heart by Don Blake and other doctors and decided that he needed a secure respiratory system that would provide him with sufficient air even if there was a malfunction of the armor. Yeah, that's it, it's not George Tuska just going weirdly off-model and suddenly drawing a nose for a while."

In geek hermeneutics, the bad thing is when writers or editors so thoroughly fuck up that someone in charge just has to plain old disavow an old story and say it never happened. Read the old Marvel Universe entries and every once in a while you'd see an editor saying "that story where X does Y? It didn't happen, because it can't". Like "Hey that story where the Angel flew around the world in six hours way back in the early X-Men or whatever? actually he just attached himself to a plane with a cable and took a nap, sorry for the confusion".

So you're really happy when a line of dialogue or a situation that was in NO WAY INTENDED to reference a later story turns out to be perfectly compatible with it. That's candy! It's fun! Yay! Nobody is stupid enough to think that was part of the plan. I mean, fucking Star Wars, I don't even remotely believe that George Lucas ever ever ever thought Darth Vader was Luke's father or that Leia was Luke's sister when he was making the first movie. Any time he claims it, I know he's just stroking his fake Joseph Campbell peen. The idea was entirely post-the first movie. But it's still fun to go back to the first movie and think well, that's interesting, Darth Vader is torturing someone who turns out to be his DAUGHTER. That's not one of those "editor's notes: it never happened" things but it does change the meaning of what you're seeing a bit. Which is fine.

It's just that sometimes shit simply doesn't add up no matter how hard you try, and I honestly believe the job of franchise management is to avoid that to the extent possible, because it is suspension-of-disbelief breaking when it's especially bad.
Velorath
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Reply #145 on: June 23, 2022, 03:14:35 PM

This is geek hermeneutics. It's what people used to get a No-Prize for in Marvel Comics letter columns: you found an elegant way to explain why something that not only looked like a ridiculous goof-up but WAS a ridiculous goof-up still somehow could be made to make sense.

But it's not that. Nobody thought that Leia being excited by Obi-Wan being on the Death Star was a goof-up or something needing to be explained. It's already explained in that very movie. This is an example of trying to explain something that already made sense with something that makes a little less sense.
Riggswolfe
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Reply #146 on: June 23, 2022, 03:58:56 PM

Vader and the Inquisitor just leaving Reva to die without, I don't know, dropping a tracker on her in case she somehow survives and finds Kenobi? The whole ridiculous "I'll sacrifice myself so this ship can get away" trope was also infuriating. Was someone on that ship supposed to be important later? *shrugs*


I didn't have a problem with them leaving Reva. I got the feeling it was Vader and the Inquisitor basically enjoying that she'd live in misery and failure. It just seemed like a final "fuck you" from both of them and made total sense to me. As for the ship at the end, the dialogue on the bridge when Darth Vader wants to break off and go after Obi-Wan strongly implies, to me at least, that those people were intended to be some of the earliest members of the rebellion. There's a strong hint from the Inquisitor that if they ignore Obi-wan they'll squash it right there and then. In fact, I actually thought the person on the ship on Alderaan in the end was going to be Mon Mothma to tie all that together and not Obi-wan.

Perhaps but didn't stop him from 1-shotting Grievous, so the man knows how to use it and guess just got a lucky shot off in Revenge?


Dude, Grevious was like 5 feet away, standing still and raised both arms to hit him with that staff thingy. I've never been on a firing range in my life but even I could probably make that shot.

"We live in a country, where John Lennon takes six bullets in the chest, Yoko Ono was standing right next to him and not one fucking bullet! Explain that to me! Explain that to me, God! Explain it to me, God!" - Denis Leary summing up my feelings about the nature of the universe.
Khaldun
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Reply #147 on: June 23, 2022, 05:31:37 PM

This is geek hermeneutics. It's what people used to get a No-Prize for in Marvel Comics letter columns: you found an elegant way to explain why something that not only looked like a ridiculous goof-up but WAS a ridiculous goof-up still somehow could be made to make sense.

But it's not that. Nobody thought that Leia being excited by Obi-Wan being on the Death Star was a goof-up or something needing to be explained. It's already explained in that very movie. This is an example of trying to explain something that already made sense with something that makes a little less sense.

No, it's ADDING sense to something that already made sense. Geezus, don't be such a buzzkill.
Velorath
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Reply #148 on: June 23, 2022, 06:51:26 PM

Dude, you're the same guy who partly blamed Rise of Skywalker's failure on fans wanting too much backstory and having everything explained, and now you're going to bat for a 6 episode miniseries explaining Leia's reaction to “I’m here with Ben Kenobi”.

Edit: Also the thing I was responding to, which I quoted and I'll quote again right now for emphasis was: "explain why something that not only looked like a ridiculous goof-up but WAS a ridiculous goof-up still somehow could be made to make sense."

So you tell me, what was the the ridiculous goof-up being explained here?
« Last Edit: June 23, 2022, 06:54:56 PM by Velorath »
Khaldun
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Reply #149 on: June 23, 2022, 07:27:29 PM

Why does Leia's message act like she's never heard of the dude she's contacting?

Surlyboi
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Reply #150 on: June 23, 2022, 07:39:26 PM

And then when Luke said, "I'm here with Ben Kenobi" during her Death Star rescue, she sounded like she knew him. my head canon on that was that her message was formal in case someone else found R2 and got him to play the whole thing.

edit: Bleh, skipped half a page.
« Last Edit: June 23, 2022, 07:41:35 PM by Surlyboi »

Tuned in, immediately get to watch cringey Ubisoft talking head offering her deepest sympathies to the families impacted by the Orlando shooting while flanked by a man in a giraffe suit and some sort of "horrifically garish neon costumes through the ages" exhibit or something.  We need to stop this fucking planet right now and sort some shit out. -Kail
Velorath
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Reply #151 on: June 23, 2022, 07:51:47 PM

Why does Leia's message act like she's never heard of the dude she's contacting?

She explained in the message exactly how she had heard of Kenobi:

"General Kenobi: Years ago, you served my father in the Clone Wars; now he begs you to help him in his struggle against the Empire. I regret that I am unable to present my father's request to you in person; but my ship has fallen under attack and I'm afraid my mission to Alderaan has failed. I've placed information vital to the survival of the rebellion into the memory systems of this R2 unit. My father will know how to retrieve it. You must see this droid safely delivered to him on Alderaan. This is our most desperate hour. Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi; you're my only hope."

There's nothing in the movie that gives any indication that they have any shared history beyond being someone that her dad was entrusting to help them. When Obi-Wan dies she doesn't have any real reaction to it other than telling Luke that there wasn't anything he could have done. There's no "yeah I feel bad too, we saved each other's lives a few times back when I was 9". Any surprise in her voice at hearing the Kenobi is on the Death Star is likely due to the fact that there was no expectation that the person she asked to deliver droids to her dad was going end up on the planet destroying battle station aiding in her rescue. Hell, up until the point that she hears Kenobi is there, she can't even be sure the droids that escaped podded out of the ship onto some backwater planet while carrying vital information the Empire is desperate to retrieve ever even made it to Kenobi.
Khaldun
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Reply #152 on: June 23, 2022, 08:40:24 PM

You're basically agreeing with me? E.g., this is a problem if you are troubled by such things, after the events of this miniseries. But the "Ben Kenobi? Where is he?" is a lifeline: her message was formal and third-personish for some reason, but her reaction to Luke indicates that no, she knows Ben Kenobi quite well and is very excited that this stupid goober who has arrived to rescue her is working with him. Further evidence? Who else knows that Obi-Wan is called Ben? Well, after this miniseries, Leia does. She doesn't look puzzled at the mention of a "Ben", she recognizes the name instantly--and we've already heard Owen and Beru acting as if Ben and "Obi-Wan", are very different people. (And for that matter Obi-Wan acting like that name is something he's not heard in a long time, etc.)

You can either go "wtf, this series is violating all of this continuity" or you can go "hey wait how cool that's why Leia says 'Ben Kenobi?' with such excitement". Not because you're stupid enough to think Lucas somehow meant that back then but because you're grasping at interpretative straws to make something old take on a new meaning. That's what people DO with culture. It's not even geeky per se. All those phrases that people think are Shakespeare being so fucking amazingly elegant and imaginative with his English? Some are, sure. Some are just typical Elizabethean street argot or common turns of phrase that just happen to survive primarily in Shakespeare, so we give him the credit for them as if he thought them up on his own. This is what interpretation does--it finds new meanings in old things that are not really meanings that could have been there in the first place.
Velorath
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Reply #153 on: June 23, 2022, 10:31:03 PM

You're basically agreeing with me? E.g., this is a problem if you are troubled by such things, after the events of this miniseries.

I would agree with you that I don't think the problem with this series was that it somehow fucked up continuity more. Aside from the sequel trilogy and Mandalorian, the franchise has been non-stop retcon since Episode 1 came out and Obi-Wan isn't any more egregious in that respect than anything else has been. I just find it odd when people pull out the "but this explains [insert thing that didn't need explaining]" stuff. My main issue with the series is that it was largely forgettable, and I don't know that it ultimately added much to any of the characters involved. Getting Ewan back to play Obi-Wan again is a fair enough idea but I don't think the writers were able to crack what to do with him.
Tebonas
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Reply #154 on: June 23, 2022, 11:33:03 PM

Well, this was supposed to be a movie, I guess thats why it has about enough material for a good movie and the rest is padding. Once you have that in mind it cleary shows.
eldaec
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Reply #155 on: June 24, 2022, 04:59:56 AM

To me, this story fits the 3 times leia refers to Kenobi much better than the continuity does without it.

She leaves a fairly formal message that you can interpret any way you like.

She reacts to Luke being here with 'Ben Kenobi' clearly having confidence he's a useful person to have when being rescued from an imperial fortress. Ben Kenobi is of course a name that Bail did not know obi wan by in the prequels.

She names her first born child after him, and specifically the 'Ben' persona.

I also think this story is only time I've ever seen star wars media even try to deal with the Vader/Anakin identity.

And Reva does a good job of making the inquisitor concept less of a pantomime, I really liked the idea of her hunting vader using the idea that jedi hunt themselves. Just a shame it lasted for less than an hour of screen time.

Nothing here felt like the retcon I feared it would be when I heard leia and vader were in it. The concepts here are fine and a good addition to the canon.


That said, I'd accept the writing is patchy, and it does suffer from too much of this story being reflections on other parts of the IP.

But this is much more ambitious than Mandalorian, and I enjoyed it more. Mandalorian tails off after exploring the premise. This wobbles at the start and gets its shit together by the end.

« Last Edit: June 24, 2022, 05:07:39 AM by eldaec »

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eldaec
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Reply #156 on: June 24, 2022, 05:15:26 AM

This even makes Leia's excited "Ben Kenobi? Where?" response to Luke on the Death Star make so much more sense.

Not to pick on you or single this out, but this line of thinking always drives me nuts. Nobody when watching ANH was wondering why she'd be excited that the person she had sent a message to asking for help was there attempting to help.

Sure, obviously no one was thinking this.

Mostly because for the purpose of ANH it doesn't matter how well leia knew kenobi.

And also because star wars is full of moments where it appears characters must have been reading the script but the story carries you past it, so it is fine.

But that doesn't mean anything in ANH supports the assumption than Leia and Ben had definitely never met.

Ben and Leia having had an adventure together 10 years ago seems fine tbh.

Would I have tried to do to write this show without Leia? Yep. But not because of what the existing canon says. Just because the show would have more room to breathe without her.

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Khaldun
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Reply #157 on: June 24, 2022, 07:10:55 AM

Pretty much. I'd rather that Kenobi had been called off-world for something else urgent. Maybe Bail Organa sends him a genuinely secure, secret message that he's worried that one of the Inquisitors is asking questions that imply a knowledge of Anakin's children. After all, it's not just Yoda and Obi-Wan who were in that room where the twins were born, and at least a few other people saw Padme come onto the medical ship still alive. So maybe it's a doctor or a medical droid or something that made the mistake of partially spilling the beans to someone and Third Sister has picked up on it; since she knows Vader is Anakin, she's thinking this is leverage that she can use to set him up for a kill. So then you get something that's a bit more tense--Obi-Wan is racing to find the doctor/droid before the Inquisitor while trying not to get killed himself. Maybe he does and the doctor/droid gets killed or destroyed in the process of the chase or some kind of fight, and now Obi-Wan himself is desperately on the run as per the series. Then you can do a lot of the same story beats without the cute-kid elements. The only scene where I thought Leia really worked was the one where Obi-Wan comes close to telling her about her real mom, in the Seth Molerogan's truck.
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Reply #158 on: June 24, 2022, 07:47:59 AM

Maybe someone else in this thread already pointed it out and I missed it, but I just now realized that Vader's "I killed him" line was there solely to satisfy people who are mad that Obi-Wan lied to Luke ("from a certain point of view") about Vader having killed Anakin.  I guess Vader feeding the line to him ten years previously makes it better.

 swamp poop

Really the best way to make this show would be to have not made it.  I tried to think of "what would I have had Obi-Wan doing on a show set during this time period" and the answer is "nothing".  Nothing you could have him do makes for a good show while also adding to the overall canon instead of making it stupider.  So I have a little more sympathy for the writers, because they were given an impossible task by people who wanted to sell more toys.

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eldaec
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Reply #159 on: June 24, 2022, 09:36:22 AM

In leia's defence, once you get past the decision to use her at all, the actor was good and they used her pretty well.

There were a bunch of times I felt they were writing her as a seven year old not a ten year old. But whether this is set seven or ten years after the prequels makes no real difference.

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eldaec
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Reply #160 on: June 24, 2022, 09:45:48 AM

Maybe someone else in this thread already pointed it out and I missed it, but I just now realized that Vader's "I killed him" line was there solely to satisfy people who are mad that Obi-Wan lied to Luke ("from a certain point of view") about Vader having killed Anakin.  I guess Vader feeding the line to him ten years previously makes it better.

I mean, sure, it isn't a co-incidence.

But that scene was pretty good. They managed to present a character that was 100% Anakin and 100% vader, which they haven't achieved before.

"People will not assume that what they read on the internet is trustworthy or that it carries any particular ­assurance or accuracy" - Lord Leveson
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Samwise
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Reply #161 on: June 24, 2022, 11:17:36 AM

But that scene was pretty good. They managed to present a character that was 100% Anakin and 100% vader, which they haven't achieved before.

I will give them that, yeah.  It was kind of amazing how badly Ep 3 botched the task of bridging the Anakin and Vader characters, given that "show how Anakin becomes Vader" was literally the entire reason to make that movie at all.  If they'd just done their job maybe this show wouldn't have had to exist.

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Khaldun
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Reply #162 on: June 24, 2022, 11:27:36 AM

Yeah. When you think about it, the major reason for the prequels to exist at all, besides making money, was:

a) the tragedy of the fall of the Republic and the Jedi and the audience's curiosity about how that came to pass
b) the parallel fall of Anakin Skywalker from being a "cunning warrior and a good friend" into being the most sinister and dangerous person in the galaxy--and yet still being redeemable.

I'm not even sure Lucas realized (or realizes even now) that the story he managed to tell about 1) was that the Jedi Order had become too complacent and static, too far from the Force, to realize the danger they were in--and were thus corrupted into becoming weapons in a murky, incoherent war plotted by a Sith and 2) that the Republic had become too bureaucratic, bloated and unresponsive to command the loyalty of its members. And nobody after him really wanted to sharpen or clarify that this was the story they'd actually told.

On b), we all know Lucas screwed the pooch, both with the midichlorians/young Anakin stuff in the first movie and then with the undermotivated, underimagined turn to the Dark Side in the second and third movies.

This probably contributed to the sequels being as bad overall as they were--if the story of the fall of the Jedi and the Republic had been told more sharply, then the story of the rise of something else could have been matched to that more coherently, with the middle movies basically serving as the climax point of the whole saga.

So yes, anything that gets shoehorned into the already fucked-up narrative and thematic structure of the whole thing is going to struggle for coherence and relevance. But even given that, I think this is was a lot weaker than it could have been.
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Reply #163 on: June 25, 2022, 06:12:23 PM

I just assumed this show was made because so many people simp Ewan McGregor's Obi Wan. But maybe I spend too much time on reddit.

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Reply #164 on: June 25, 2022, 06:44:19 PM

I kept thinking about the final episode, which was really pretty decent, and it felt to me like it did to some of you--the second half of a 2-hour movie that was left pretty intact while the first act was blown up into a bunch of Scooby-Doo antics.
TheWalrus
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Reply #165 on: July 08, 2022, 10:40:06 PM

I liked the whole thing start to finish. It was great.

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