Obi-Wan Kenobi (Disney+)

[Samwise]

Really would have worked better if the Jedi had already largely faded into obscurity by the time of the prequels. 

They hinted that they were "losing their ability to use the Force", but we never actually saw that, other than their total inability to sense Palpatine's plan.  Move that "the Force is fading" plotline back in time about a hundred years, and by the time of the prequels the Jedi Order maybe stiill exists but mostly doesn't have any powers, doesn't operate as a black ops government agency, and is just considered a weird religion.  The few Jedi that do have notable Force abilities (like Obi-Wan and Yoda) don't make a habit of showing them off in public, so people have heard of Jedi and many people believe in the Force but the majority of people don't believe that Force powers are a real thing because they've never seen them. 

Anakin would therefore naturally be a really big deal (without any need for vague "prophecies") because he's obviously very strong with the Force in a time where almost nobody else is, so of course Obi-Wan and Yoda are eager to train him up even if there are a bunch of red flags.  Now the stage is set for that to backfire spectacularly, and now it's plausible that when Anakin and the Emperor come after the Jedi, they're able to purge them to the extent that after a couple of decades almost nobody believes that force-wielding Jedi were ever a real thing.

But if they'd done that, we wouldn't have gotten nearly as many scenes with dozens of people waving lightsabers in the air at once, so their way was probably better.   

[Threash]

I don't really see a problem with the way the Jedi where viewed. There are what, thousands of planets in the galaxy? trillions of people? there were a few thousand Jedi. For the overwhelming majority of people and aliens they would be a myth even at their absolute peak.

[MediumHigh]

I don't really see a problem with the way the Jedi where viewed. There are what, thousands of planets in the galaxy? trillions of people? there were a few thousand Jedi. For the overwhelming majority of people and aliens they would be a myth even at their absolute peak.

I always hand waved the Jedi as a weird religious order that everyone heard of but since there's like 10 force sensitive people per planet and most of the time someone as strong as Anakin wouldn't manifest any real psychic abilities without training, it was easy for people to forget, about them.... though I have to question the prevelance of public education in the galaxy because the Jedi fought several wars on behalf of the republic for like thousands of years 

[Tebonas]

Yeah, the two things don't work together. They basically were both the historic military commanders in multiple wars and the FBI/diplomatic corps  of the Republic, that is not something you forget existed 20 years later.

[Khaldun]

Man, I like Samwise's version a ton. There's a Jedi Temple and a Jedi Academy and it really is mostly religious. (Kind of like the guy in Rogue One). People who believe in the Living Force as a concept, some people who are vaguely Force-sensitive at the level of "I have a vague bad feeling about this" (two minutes later falling down the stairs and breaking their leg). People who train in martial arts and believe in the ideas of Jedi non-attachment, who are trusted as military and security advisors in the Republic because they're relatively apolitical and know quite a lot about fighting. But yeah, the Force is fading--the Jedi have records of the Old Republic that make it clear that once upon a time there were thousands and thousands of very strong Force-wielders, both Sith and Jedi. Yoda, Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon, Mace Windu and maybe ten or fifteen other Jedi actually have enough affinity for the Force to use it powerfully and to wield lightsabers.

Then there's a prophecy of the Chosen One who will restore not *balance* to the Force but who will "awaken" it. The leaders of the Jedi Order schism over whether to trust the prophecy and what to do about it; Qui-Gon is one of the "searcher" Jedi, whereas the others favor remaining on Coruscant and using the vast resources of the Temple to sift for information and to trust in the Force to provide guidance. So QG and Obi-Wan end up at Naboo because QG has an intuition that Naboo is important. In the meantime Palpatine is also searching because he's heard the same prophecy and wants to control the Chosen One; he's sent Maul to follow QG and OW at a safe distance.

Totally works. Ah well.

[MediumHigh]

Man, I like Samwise's version a ton. There's a Jedi Temple and a Jedi Academy and it really is mostly religious. (Kind of like the guy in Rogue One). People who believe in the Living Force as a concept, some people who are vaguely Force-sensitive at the level of "I have a vague bad feeling about this" (two minutes later falling down the stairs and breaking their leg). People who train in martial arts and believe in the ideas of Jedi non-attachment, who are trusted as military and security advisors in the Republic because they're relatively apolitical and know quite a lot about fighting. But yeah, the Force is fading--the Jedi have records of the Old Republic that make it clear that once upon a time there were thousands and thousands of very strong Force-wielders, both Sith and Jedi. Yoda, Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon, Mace Windu and maybe ten or fifteen other Jedi actually have enough affinity for the Force to use it powerfully and to wield lightsabers.

Then there's a prophecy of the Chosen One who will restore not *balance* to the Force but who will "awaken" it. The leaders of the Jedi Order schism over whether to trust the prophecy and what to do about it; Qui-Gon is one of the "searcher" Jedi, whereas the others favor remaining on Coruscant and using the vast resources of the Temple to sift for information and to trust in the Force to provide guidance. So QG and Obi-Wan end up at Naboo because QG has an intuition that Naboo is important. In the meantime Palpatine is also searching because he's heard the same prophecy and wants to control the Chosen One; he's sent Maul to follow QG and OW at a safe distance.

Totally works. Ah well.

The problem with this, its kinda the exact of the popular lore going all the back to the old republic to the new republic. Where the explanation for the Jedi seeming more powerful in the old days versus the new days is that Jedi were actively fighting a war with the sith, and the new republic hasn't seen large scale war with other force users in a hundreds of years. The lack of competition with the sith made the jedi default to be more diplomats and occassional peacekeepers than force empowered soldiers. Granted the Jedi did fight in "other" wars after the sith stopped showing up but the those wars were... skirmishes in comparison.

In movie (prequels) the issue the Jedi were having with the force has more to do with their inability to see the future, which was kinda important due to fact that they used that power to advise the senate. Which is where Palpatine comes into play because he was supposedly so power that his very presence caused a shadow in the force~~ As much as that makes sense.  So its not that they couldn't use their powers, its just that the one power very useful in times of peace and even more important now with a brewing galactic war was useless.

[Riggswolfe]

I continue to be unimpressed with Deborah Chow's action directing. Big duel in this last episode and it just felt flat to me. I'm not even sure what it is about her directing that makes it not work for me. (It could be something in the editing as well but it feels more like directing choices.) Something about how she shoots action just sucks all of the energy out of it.

[Velorath]

In this instance it was more of a horror setup as opposed to an action one.

[Miguel]

I always thought the KOTOR games did a good idea of fleshing out the alternate timelines and side stories, and exploring how the Force was powerful, yet also had a big downside in that it made users susceptible to influence.  It brought in the 'Grey Jedi' line where there are force users who 'balance' the force by adopting both the light and dark sides, much like a 'True Neutral' Druid in DnD who strives to keep balance between good and evil, even if it means doing evil deeds on the side when following with a 'good' party.

[Khaldun]

It feels like a lot of Chow's action is continuous with the non-action--it doesn't have its own rhythm or look. So everything is sort of flat--the shot selection is the same, mostly medium-distance and shots of around the same length. I'd have to rewatch to be sure I'm right about this but that's how it feels. Most good action directors change the pacing, shot selection and shot type as they move into an action scene.

Think about in terms of contrast the scene in ESB when Luke is starting to run out of steam against Vader and is realizing that he's in way over his head. The mix of shots there--the jump scare unheralded by music where Vader leaps out at Luke, the fast cuts and changes in shot distance and camera location as they duel, the tension generated as Vader slows down and gets ready to start flinging shit at Luke (backed up by the music), the mix of close-ups and medium shots.

You could feel Obi-Wan's dread and helplessness well enough, and in terms of images, being dragged helplessly into the fire was properly terrifying, but none of it felt as taut or tense as it should have been, I think.

[Threash]

It can't feel taut or tense, we know nothing is going to happen to him. That's an impossible task, if they wanted it to feel scary it should have been the Indira Varma character.

[Khaldun]

You didn't think Luke was going to die in ESB either, did you? But that scene sure felt taut and tense.

You never think James Bond is going to die but there's quite a few Bond action scenes that are great and full of tension.

Did you think Captain America was going to die in the elevator fight?

If you'd read Lord of the Rings, you knew Theoden was going to die in the Battle of the Pelennor and not at Helm's Deep. Were you thinking ho-hum, there's no tension here when he rides out at Helm's Deep?

You know they get the plans for the Death Star somehow in Rogue One, so you can just fast-forward through the action, it can't possibly be interesting.

[Riggswolfe]

It feels like a lot of Chow's action is continuous with the non-action--it doesn't have its own rhythm or look. So everything is sort of flat--the shot selection is the same, mostly medium-distance and shots of around the same length. I'd have to rewatch to be sure I'm right about this but that's how it feels. Most good action directors change the pacing, shot selection and shot type as they move into an action scene.

Think about in terms of contrast the scene in ESB when Luke is starting to run out of steam against Vader and is realizing that he's in way over his head. The mix of shots there--the jump scare unheralded by music where Vader leaps out at Luke, the fast cuts and changes in shot distance and camera location as they duel, the tension generated as Vader slows down and gets ready to start flinging shit at Luke (backed up by the music), the mix of close-ups and medium shots.

You could feel Obi-Wan's dread and helplessness well enough, and in terms of images, being dragged helplessly into the fire was properly terrifying, but none of it felt as taut or tense as it should have been, I think.

This is actually a pretty good description of it. The shots and editing don't change at all for fight scenes. It's the exact same if two people are walking down a hallway or Obi-Wan is running for his life from Vader. Thank you Khaldun. I could sense it but couldn't quite put my finger on the issue.

[Threash]

Man I was like five when I watched ESB, when that hand went flying I didn't know what was going to happen.

[Comstar]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks the direction is bad. Also the speed of the action feels so *wrong* - people can move to some places like they have a teleport, other times can't catch someone clearly moving SLOWER and places that are supposed to block someone moving past clearly are shot at too wide an angle and you can see how the exit can clearly be walked around with ease.

[Khaldun]

Yeah, that's another issue. Think about how Obi-Wan moved from the building into the street (good) to the edge of the village (good) to wherever it was that the fire scene happened. How far away is that? Does he have any chance of getting away from there or hiding? Hard to say (yeah, we know Vader is sensing him anyway, so that's not really an option, but he's also not going slowly just to make a stand, he honestly wants to get away.) How does Indira Varma's character get up on a high spot for sniping that seems to be on the other side of that clearing from where Obi-Wan entered so quickly without being seen or crossing paths with Stormtroopers? She was halfway down the secret tunnel when she turned around. How does the droid get there without being seen and almost as quickly? How does the Inquisitor discover the secret door, read the Jedi messages and get down the tunnel ahead of Leia without being seen by Leia, all *after* Indira Varma has left the tunnel and building? The sense of time and distance that's really important to staging action is just really out of whack. You can play with that a bit on purpose to create tension and dynamism--speed things up, slow things down, make spaces seem smaller or larger than they are, but it takes good direction and editing to do that well.

[Riggswolfe]

Very good points. I'll continue to watch the show mostly because I like the characters in it but I wish they had chosen a different director. I'm probably going to avoid further work by this woman if at all possible.

[Comstar]

It has George Lucas level direction and it's missing his wife's editing abilities.


How Star Wars of them.

[Khaldun]

Seriously. So many Star Wars fans forget how much difference she made (and with Raiders of the Lost Ark, too) with some basic human-connection stuff.

[HaemishM]

This episode was bad and boring. I'm not really sure what they are trying to achieve with this show. Obi-Wan is mostly useless, he barely uses the Force which I guess they are saying is a result of his guilt? I don't know, not only is it not clear, it's infuriating because the whole time things are happening I'm thinking "He just needs to Jedi his way out of this" and then he pulls out a blaster and punches Stormtroopers. The whole scene with Vader I realize they were trying to kind of ape the cat and mouse part of the Luke/Vader fight in ESB, but I kept thinking "Where the fuck did Vader go? Is he really just toying with him?" If that's what they were going for, it was dumb as hell and didn't work. The fire scene somehow preventing Vader from crossing over and I don't know, force-choking a bitch is bad and somebody should have told them so along the way. The entire staging of the action scenes is either boring or nonsensical.

[Riggswolfe]

It has George Lucas level direction and it's missing his wife's editing abilities.


How Star Wars of them.

Not at all. George Lucas wasn't very good at the "human" stuff in his directing mostly because I don't think he understood how to give actors directions on the emotion of a scene. But he was much much better than this woman at the action directing. His wife's editing helped a lot but even in the prequels his action direction was much better than what we've seen in Obi-wan and she was long gone by that time. Haemish and others are right. The action scenes are poorly staged and lack "energy" because of how they are framed. Say what you will about Lucas but even in the Phantom Menace people were like "That lightsaber duel was awesome!"

[Teleku]

Ok, the third episode was bad.  Pretty much hated everything about it.  The show was already iffy for the reasons outlined in this thread, but this one just doubled down on all of it.  Leans into the laziest forms of script writing with the teleporting characters and other magical conveniences.  The Leia kid is becoming more annoying and stupid as the show goes on. 

And doing sad afraid useless old man Kenobi is just boring and pretty annoying to sit through.  This series basically should have been the Star Wars version of the first John Wick movie.  Obi-Wan is pulled out of hiding/retirement to do this critical job.  Breaks out the old gear, and then proceeds to ruthlessly and effectively destroy every obstacle and enemy he comes across with out much trouble.  If you're going to include Vader in this, have him kick the shit out of Vader every single time they meet.  Dog keeps catching the car, but the dog keeps trying because it has so much hate.  Obi-Wan beat Anakin before, and he'll keep doing it, which lines up exactly with their final meeting in the first film.   Instead we have is sad silly boring shit to sit through.

[Samwise]

I'm looking forward to the next Special Edition of ANH where they overdub the "When I left you I was but the learner" conversation between Obi-Wan and Vader so that it references the events of this show instead.

I honestly thought maybe in that twenty year gap Obi-Wan could have some adventures that didn't touch anything in the main movie continuity, but these guys just can't resist fucking things up , can they.  

[Khaldun]

"When I left you, Greedo shot first, but now it is Han who shoots him."

I kind of like Teleku's version: Obi-Wan has been contemplating, hiding, practicing obsessively, feels incredibly limited by his vow to protect Luke when he thinks he could do more, is super-happy to be tempted by Bail Organa to get back in the fight, destroys the fuck out of Stormtroopers and Inquisitors and then is aghast because he realizes he's drawn this new Sith Lord out and discovers he's Anakin--he realizes that he's put Leia AND Luke at risk just so he could do some Jedi Mastering again and then has to come up with a plan that makes Anakin/Vader think he's died and puts him off of thinking about Bail Organa or Tatooine. That would be more fun and more exciting. It's hard to see how this gets in three episodes to Obi-Wan being in the masterful, calm, totally Jedi state of mind we see him in "Rebels" and the original Star Wars.

[HaemishM]

My RL friends who have all watched (and loved) Rebels and the Clone Wars animated series are absolutely pissed about this show, from their killing of the Grand Inquisitor to the bullshit of this past episode. Their attempts to use the unnamed proto-Rebel to show how the Rebellion gets started would be something worth exploring if they had made any attempt at that. However, she was merely a plot device to somehow get Kenobi from one point to the next, regardless of how little sense any of it made. I'm still just floored by the fire scene. Like, we've just seen Vader force choke the shit out of a bunch of villagers, why couldn't he do the same to her? Is fire somehow some magical Force resistant thing? None of that entire fight scene made any fucking sense.

[Khaldun]

Ahhh! The fire has made me unable to see the Rebel sniper who is not very far away AND made me unable to see a huge droid dragging Obi-Wan out of the fire!

I could actually buy it if they'd done a bit of "I'm using fire to kill Obi-Wan but actually now that I'm doing it I'm remembering that I'm actually kind of afraid of fire myself, I'm going to back up a bit".

[HaemishM]

They made it painfully clear he was treating Obi-Wan that way specifically because of what happened on Mustafar. If they were really trying to intimate that Vader was somehow scared of the fire because of that, I don't think they know how to display that subtly.

[Khaldun]

He has made a point of having his personal fortress ON Mustafar after all.

[Samwise]

You know, watching the last episode I was thinking "that guy is just literally a giant mole who sounds like Seth Rogen*, could they get any lazier with their character design", but in thinking back over it I remembered that the ANH cantina clientele included an elephant, a fruit bat, and a guy in a Spirit Halloween devil mask.  So I have to give them points for being consistent with Lucas's original vision.

*spoilers: it was actually Scrubs

[Khaldun]

Yeah, this is something you just have to accept about Star Wars from the first movie onward. There's gonna be cheeseball aliens and there's gonna be characters named Greedo and Sleezebaggano.

I sort of remember seeing somewhere that there was enormous resistance in ESB to Admiral Akbar's character on the grounds that he was too silly, and that just seems completely idiotic--he's one of the few "that kind of makes sense" looking characters (along with the ships) except for the ohmigod name of his species.

[Threash]

So...the tracker is on Leia's droid, which should've gone straight to Alderaan and then fucked off forever, right?

[Surlyboi]

So...the tracker is on Leia's droid, which should've gone straight to Alderaan and then fucked off forever, right?

Yeah. That woulda been my plan. But…plot.

[HaemishM]

This show just cannot rise past the level of dull, drab and boring.

[Surlyboi]

Meh. I'm liking it. Obi-Wan actually starting to get a feel for the badass he once was in this episode wasn't bad. Echoes of him and Qui-Gon vs the battle droids in Ep One. Though, I thought him in the bacta tank was going to be a potential nod to Jedi Survivor.

[Draegan]

I've liked the series overall.