Obi-Wan Kenobi (Disney+)

[Threash]

I've liked the series overall.

I mean... same. Because I understood long ago that ALL Star Wars is severely flawed and nitpicking one part of it for things that ALL of it gets wrong is silly. Star Wars is entertaining crap, it's ALWAYS been entertaining crap. I understand people who hate all of it, I am always confused by people who think some of it is great and some of it is trash.

[Riggswolfe]

The last episode was the best of the series but still not as good as the worst episode of the Mandalorian. Even the fight against the stormtroopers felt a bit...off. If I didn't know how excited Ewan McGregor was to be playing Obi-Wan again I'd say he was just going through the motions during the fight but I think instead it comes back to the directing sucking the energy out of these scenes.

[Threash]

I thought Vader was pretty intimidating in Ep 3 while he was going around the village casually slaughtering innocents with hardly any effort. It was his fight with Obi Wan that kinda ruined the effect.

[slog]

I've liked the series overall.

I mean... same. Because I understood long ago that ALL Star Wars is severely flawed and nitpicking one part of it for things that ALL of it gets wrong is silly. Star Wars is entertaining crap, it's ALWAYS been entertaining crap. I understand people who hate all of it, I am always confused by people who think some of it is great and some of it is trash.

There will always be people that just get too far into it and can't have a good time just with it.  Disney is going to Milk the IP for all it's worth, and if you can't enjoy the ride it's probably time to get off.

[Sky]

The only thing that's bugged me outside of the lack of planning for the final Skywalker trilogy was the scooter kids. The other stuff you can nitpick but they just stood out as so completely outside anything Star Wars that it kept breaking the moment for me.

Stupid stuff like Trejo's flowing locks, I love it.

[MediumHigh]

I'm trying to will up the energy to binge it once all the episodes are out but I'm afraid I'm gonna forget this show even existed.

[HaemishM]

It's not good. They get some bonus points for their turn with 3rd Sister in the 5th episode, but at no time during the series have I wanted to immediately watch another episode.

[Surlyboi]

Still liking it.

[Draegan]

Loved the last episode, especially the end with Vader. Pretty good star wars.

[Phildo]

Agreed that episode 5 was pretty good.  I haven't cared for the rest of the show much so far, but this was the standout for the season so far.

[Riggswolfe]

The last two episodes have generally been pretty good. This one was also good though 3rd sister made me roll my eyes a bit. Her revelation was predictable since episode 1 and she went about it in the stupidest way possible. I did however like the powerful Vader we got to see in this episode and the general ESB vibes on a TV budget was pretty good. I pretty much know how the last episode will go already but am curious if they'll surprise me. *shakes 8 ball* Signs point to no.

[Threash]

They really couldn't be bothered with any de-aging bullshit on Christensen I guess.

[HaemishM]

Just about everything to do with the effects on this episode were really bad, which includes the decision not to de-age Christensen.

[Sky]

I don't nit-pick much but the volume needs more nits. It's cropped up in any of the Tatooine-based scenes but it was pretty dramatically demonstrated in the scene with the Inq standing with the troopers outside the rebel hideout. The Volume in the back looked like a 1950s projection screen background, pretty jarring even for someone who has mostly turned off my 'what is real and what is volume' sensor when enjoying these shows.

And yeah, the Anakin thing was weird, mostly because it confused when that duel was supposed to be taking place. He has his padawan hairdo, but yeah....odd choices.

That said, those are not a huge problem for me and I've been enjoying the hell out of this one.

[eldaec]

On the effects, we need to stop expecting the effects in star wars shows to be better than say, Doctor Who.

Because they've been very much TV show quality through out all these shows. The big background screen thing that actors love, it might give better performances, it might be cheaper, but it looks like 20 year old cgi. Tbh I'm fine with this.

Will say the action choreography in this seems less leaden footed than in mando and Boba Fett. It still isn't great. The running and jumping is pretty bad. But the punching and pew pewing is quite a bit better. Probably on account of costumes being less bonkers.

Despite this. Show seems good. I've just started binging it. But seems good.

[Threash]

Boba Fett gave us a perfect young Luke though, if going full CGI gets you better results than having the actual actor maybe stick to that.

[Khaldun]

The pacing still seems off to me--characters don't seem to be moving in simultaneous time, the size and feeling of the spaces they are in seems off. Some of that is the bad greenscreening/set designs we've referred to a bit.

I also think the scripts are just not great. There has to have been a better way for Third Sister to have found out Tatooine and all that than Bail Organa transmitting a revealing message that could just be left on the ground somewhere. I mean, we know that at this point the Rebellion already has an intelligence operation that is pretty ruthless when it needs to be (and there's an extremist faction that is even more ruthless) and I have a hard time believing that Bail Organa isn't involved with them somehow. Hell, he has the most to lose on multiple grounds from being stupidly careless.

Also, how much does it cost to hire some basic, decent orchestral composer to do some music to up the intensity. They should have milked Tala dying for every drop of pathos with big music and slo-mo, etc.

The interesting thing about Disney so far is that there is one thing that they handle beautifully in every respect--action, intensity, tautness of situation, etc. and that's Darth Vader--games, movies, animated, TV--they do right by Vader. That's interesting. Best scene in this whole thing so far is Vader fighting the Sister without even using a lightsaber.

If I was going to do a flashback scene with Obi-Wan and Anakin, I think I would have picked something besides the two of them dueling like that, even though it was intended to frame the story-telling in this episode and did a fairly good job of it. Honestly, if I were Hayden I would have asked the showrunners to specifically look at the last two seasons of Clone Wars and say, "Look, ok, Clone Wars did a pretty good job of showing Anakin's turn to the Dark Side in a much deeper and more convincing way than the third prequel film--do you think you could do at least one flashback scene that takes its cues from that?"

[eldaec]

Not one scene has managed to convince me the actors are outside, except for those inexplicably set in California. It quite often looks like stage acting rather than TV/movie acting.

And you are right about the music.

But.

This is a TV show not a movie. I think a huge part of why we notice this is that it is star wars.

And we notice it even more here than in mando because it has Kenobi in it.

I could say all of the above about every star trek, BSG, Orville, Who etc.

I'm not that bothered about visual standards. The writing could use a few more passes, but I'm still enjoying it.

Probably the real mistake made here is having vader and leia too central to the story. Its just too much time the viewer spends mentally compering everything to every prior bit of content.

[eldaec]

Boba Fett gave us a perfect young Luke though, if going full CGI gets you better results than having the actual actor maybe stick to that.

Sure, but perfect luke standing still and almost expressionless in uncomplicated lighting.

[Khaldun]

I dunno, think about:

BSG, "33". That's TV but fuck me if the music isn't perfect and the whole thing is crackling with intensity.

Take maybe the top 5-10 nuWhos and they've all got strong performances, tight scripts, great music, memorable scenes with quotable dialogue.

At least a few of the Trek episodes in recent years stick with you, and the production values have generally been good even on the iffier ones.

Babylon 5 is long in the tooth but it had a good 10-15 episodes that had scope and intensity with memorable dialogue and strong performances.

There's a kind of bigotry of soft expectations here going up against the over-judgmental attitude I'm voicing. Sure, it's TV, but I think they can do better even in that context. I mean, this is a premiere franchise character played by a well-loved actor in a story that people are genuinely curious about. If there was ever a time to really put some money on the table and to demand the best work, this is it. So far there's almost nothing really memorable in this. Nothing as painful as the worst of the prequels or the sequels, but there's just nothing iconic that is going to stick with anybody in a year or two, unlike Mandalorian, which did really pull that off a few times.

[HaemishM]

This is Disney. They literally have infinity bucks if they really felt it necessary to put money into a streaming TV show. They have no excuse for how shitty some of the CGI in this looks, nor how bad the direction and writing is.

[Khaldun]

I literally have to think hard to remember anything in this except the scene with Vader easily owning the Third Sister. There hasn't been a quotable line or a memorable scene. Maybe Obi-Wan wrapping up the meat at his horrible Tatooine job, that had a pretty strong emotional feel to it. There isn't a single line of dialogue or a single scene that really sticks with me otherwise, compared to The Mandalorian giving me a good 4-5 episodes I can remember strongly, a good 6-8 iconically memorable bits, some genuine curiosity about where some plots are going, etc.

It's like watching two top soccer teams play in a match where nobody wants to win, they already know they're going for the draw.

[eldaec]

Show should not have been dragged out as long as it was.

Watched it all this week and I enjoyed it, but I think much better as a binge. It is longer than it needed to be. Very obviously this is a film treatment that they just didn't bother to edit down.

Reva was great. Obiwan's re-emergence was great. The Ben/Owen relationship was great.

I was surprised they leaned so heavily into what is one of worst executed moments in episode 3, and even more surprised they made it work for them.

The action was far better than mandolorian.

Leia was a huge risk that they got away with. Vader was fine. But the show would have been better if Reva and Indira Varma weren't the only new characters in the whole show. Their fate kind of underlines why you need more characters like them.

The effects were bad. But 'star wars uses practical effects' is their brand now. And guess what CGI is going to be better on average and certainly on TV budget. I think it added something once you get adjusted to it.

[eldaec]

This is Disney. They literally have infinity bucks if they really felt it necessary to put money into a streaming TV show. They have no excuse for how shitty some of the CGI in this looks, nor how bad the direction and writing is.

Despite enjoying the show, I do agree on the writing.

I think the reason we notice the production compromises is that the writing isn't tight enough to hold attention.

[Riggswolfe]

The action was far better than mandolorian.

I can't even. The action directing in this show is for the most part awful. Everytime a fight scene happens it feels listless and uninspired. Well, almost every time. The fight with Vader vs the 3rd sister was pretty cool. And the 2nd half of the Obi-wan and Vader duel in the finale was pretty good too.

[01101010]

I haven't watched every episode, but I did watch the first two and was raging at the TV when Obiwan was on the roof getting shot at by the bounty hunters. They were literally standing in the complete open and "general" Kenobi couldn't shoot a laser gun and hit either one from behind cover? That really put me off.

Yeah yeah jedi and swords but you can't tell me he is that terrible of a shot. The one with the chaingun was literally just standing full frontal. Irked the shit out of me.

[HaemishM]

I can't even remember the episode you are talking about - the whole show just dissolves into a boring blur. Absolutely unnecessary on every level. None of the fight scenes were any good. I literally fell asleep during both the Vader/Obi-Won duel in the finale, and Reva's final scene. I'm not even sure what the point of her character was, unless it was to build a spinoff.

[eldaec]

The only problem I would accept with Reva is how much she stands out because she is the only new character in the show afforded her own story. I guess you could also say they back loaded too much of her story, if we knew more earlier it might have made the earlier scenes more interesting.

She and 2nd sister from Fallen order are a vast improvement on the concept Filoni created.

[slog]

I can't even remember the episode you are talking about - the whole show just dissolves into a boring blur. Absolutely unnecessary on every level. None of the fight scenes were any good. I literally fell asleep during both the Vader/Obi-Won duel in the finale, and Reva's final scene. I'm not even sure what the point of her character was, unless it was to build a spinoff.

Saw this elsewhere and it pretty much describes my feelings on it.

"It just feels passionless. It lacks the epic feel that made the original films so unique. As great as Ewan McGregor is as Obi-Wan, he can't save a story that features genuinely uninspired direction."

[01101010]

I can't even remember the episode you are talking about - the whole show just dissolves into a boring blur. Absolutely unnecessary on every level. None of the fight scenes were any good. I literally fell asleep during both the Vader/Obi-Won duel in the finale, and Reva's final scene. I'm not even sure what the point of her character was, unless it was to build a spinoff.

This is the scene, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Qkoqo80NA0#t=4m50s


starts at 4:50 if the youtube link is borked. Whole fight is stormtrooper level dumb.

[Surlyboi]

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

Dude, it's literally canon.

[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.

There are a couple of other mistakes in ANH they'll need to overdub now, I guess:

 - 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.
   obviously ignores the canonical events of this show, and should be AI-overdubbed with something like: Obi-Wan.  Years ago you rescued me from the Empire...

 - Luke: What is it?  Obi-Wan: Your father's "light saber".
   needs another line from Luke along the lines of oh yeah, I remember being chased around the farm by one of these when I was a kid

(edit) I honestly don't think the writers of this show remember ANH at all.  I only kind of vaguely remembered those scenes, and I went back to find clips so I could get the exact quotes, and hearing the actual lines made the continuity breaks so much more obvious.  There's just no way they'd have written this dumb story if any of that had been in their minds to any degree.

That said, the fight between Obi-Wan and Vader was cool if you just watch it as its own thing -- but boy howdy I'm not even going to go back and rewatch the same duel playing out again nine years later in ANH for comparison.  The gap between III and IV only kind of works if you're very forgiving and you imagine Obi-Wan hasn't picked up a weapon in twenty years.

[Threash]

 - 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.
   obviously ignores the canonical events of this show, and should be AI-overdubbed with something like: Obi-Wan.  Years ago you rescued me from the Empire...

Paraphrased: "will we see each other again" "maybe, but we will need to be very careful". There is also a vast tonal shift between "General Kenobi, years ago you served my father blah blah blah" and "Help me Obi Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope".

- Luke: What is it?  Obi-Wan: Your father's "light saber".
   needs another line from Luke along the lines of oh yeah, I remember being chased around the farm by one of these when I was a kid

He never saw it. She didn't use the lightsaber in front of Luke until he was knocked out.

They actually fixed some of the mistakes they had introduced in the prequels by Obi describing Padme in the exact words Leia uses to describe her to Luke in ROTJ.

[Tebonas]

What Threash said. Some of you are just complaining to complain. It actually seems at least this was planned from the start to be as lore-compatible as possible, with all the faults it has otherwise.

Can I do without most of the non Kenobi/Vader contest of the series? Yes, but the core premise of the series fits very well into the existing canon. They even found a way to make Vader an unparalleled badass in his encounters with everybody but Obi Wan Kenobi, to a point where the Emperor even scolded him for his performance issues.

[Khaldun]

I can make Leia's line recorded on R2 work out fine. She's better at message discipline than her fucking dad is in this miniseries--she's recording a message where she cannot be entirely sure who else will see it before it gets to its intended recipient or who might be in the room when Kenobi does see it. It's even possible that it will get intercepted, though if that happens she's fucked and so is the Rebellion given that the message does disclose that she had the Death Star plans and that she's put them in R2.

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

We've been living with stuff that makes far less sense in continuity terms for a long time when it comes to Star Wars. Far more notable is Obi-Wan saying he can't remember owning a droid before when he's not only owned a droid, he specifically knows these two droids quite intensely. (So does Vader; it's possible that Vader never saw C-3PO on Bespin and it was just Boba Fett that blew him up, but once C-3PO shows up on Chewbacca's back at the end of ESB, Vader should be really interested in how the hell he got there.) Nothing about any of the history of those two droids has ever made sense in this respect.

I just kind of wish the whole thing had stayed away from Tatooine, though, after Obi-Wan leaves in search of Leia. The only way the entire thing works in that sense is that Vader doesn't realize until after ANH that there is any reason whatsoever to pay attention to Tatooine, to Owen and Beru, etc.