**Beware SPOILERS** Obi-Wan Kenobi Series on Disney+ **Beware SPOILERS**

[Khev]

 

[Prime Clone]

As many have said, Lucas is a good ideas guy and has his moments with creating spectacle, but he can't write worth a damn and his direction is questionable at best.

It's obvious what he *wanted* to show, but he didn't hand it off to someone who could actually execute that vision.

I've personally worked with directors very similar to Lucas in that sense: great vision, decent ideas, no concept of human depth or how to direct actors.

Lucas tried to offload directorial duties but no-one wanted them because he was a notorious control freak.

He also had help with the Episodes II and III scripts (but again, how many edits actually made the finished product, who knows).

 

[LoveMinusZero]

Forgetting all that came before (for the sake of brevity) if I had my way for that final confrontation between Anakin and Obi Wan, it may have played out as follows:

1. A bitter reckoning in the initial confrontation, accusations and blame being hurled on both sides, intimations of jealousy regarding power, position and even Padme ... ending in stalemate and rage.

2. Stalemate and rage resulting in armed conflict: angry, swift, brutal and to the point. No words left, just rage-fueled warriors at the top of their game given they're veterans of a brutal war and know each other's training and styles inside-out. When fighters at this level go at it outside of a ring, the deciding factors are emotion, luck and terrain (yes, high ground lol). Sometimes it's whoever wants it more, just as often it's a question of who makes the mistake in that one decisive second.

3. The duel would have been quick. I've always respected the treatment Beatrix's final duel with Carradine's character got in Kill Bill Vol. 2. While I understand we need more of a payoff between Anakin and Obi Wan, the nature of their training and their weapons demand a swift and unforgiving resolution.

We saw something similar in the final (animated) reckoning between Obi Wan and Maul.

I agree with what you're saying, certainly that warriors of this calibre would most likely have a fight that ended quickly. But the thing about storytelling is, the sword fighting is window dressing for the emotional conflict between characters. Even in Kill Bill, you have an entire sequence before the fight, where Bill and Beatrix essentially spar emotionally and the short bit of violence at the end was only the end of the conversation and conclusion to Beatrix's emotional journey. ROTS did none of this. 8min or so of flippy flashing swords between two men, who apparently loved each other and both felt betrayed, and then goofy lava surfing and one leaving the other to burn to death. I do remember sitting in the theatre thinking, really, that's it?

 

[JAWS]

I'm sure I'll repeat what a number of others have already said but here goes.

Watching Ewan McGregor reprise his role as Obi-Wan is like comfort food, it just feels good. So that element right there puts a level of rose-tinted glasses over everything.

That said as usual I thought it was a typical mixed bag.

A quick summary would be that I loved Obi-Wan, Owen, Bail and young Leia. The fact that the story is centered around Leia at all was a Grogu level twist for me, which only worked because of how fantastically cast that actress was. I can't believe how well she looks and acts like how I would picture a young Carrie Fisher Leia to be in my mind.

I thought the Inquisitors were quite lame and just as I feared from the trailers Reva is quite possibly the worst villain in the history of Star Wars. She could singlehandedly destroy this entire show depending on how prominent they make her in future episodes.

I did like the overall vibe and aesthetic and changing locations and I thought that the expanded look at Alderaan was great.

The music was very mediocre despite JW's involvement.

I loved that Obi-Wan didn't come to Owen's aid. That was very "Jedi-like" and set the stage so nicely for Owen's attitude toward Obi-Wan and Luke following in his father's footsteps in ANH. That one scene was a perfect example of why he would have no love for the Jedi (they don't save you and only cause problems) and why he'd want Obi-Wan in particular to stay far away from his family (since Beru almost became a widow and Luke became fatherless right then and there.)

Unfortunately the flipside of that is the entire logic behind the Inquisitors' tactics. "The Jedi can't resist being who they are. They'll hunt themselves, expose themselves if you just give them a reason." Huh? Since when? Jedi were always capable of being aloof and detached when the greater mission called for it. We saw countless examples of that in both the PT and TCW. Opportunities where they could free slaves, come to a certain planet's military aid, even help clones that they had become friends with, only to refuse to give aid because doing so would create a greater problem. Hell as far back as ESB Yoda was urging Luke to not even help his best friends.

Did the writers of this show learn nothing of the whole concept of "attachment is forbidden?" It's one of the primary criticisms against the Jedi and would be the opposite of a major weakness that enemies could potentially exploit.

Sure I could see Jedi helping people incognito but not out in the open like that one guy in the cantina at the beginning. Then the moron immediately flees and heads straight to Obi-Wan! How the Inquisitors didn't think to just track him to Obi-Wan's lair I really don't know.

Which leads me to the Inquisitors themselves. Such wishy-washy third rate bad guys. The two male inquisitors were borderline good guys with the way they never wanted to shed innocent blood?? WTF? lol. Grand Inquisitor is always reprimanding Reva for basically acting like an evil murderer? Hello does he know what side he's on, lol. And then he lets the first Jedi flee and does not tail him? That was it? Expose the guy and then let him go on his merry way, the end?

Yeah I know the guy later died and got strung up but I can't help but wonder if he simply got depressed that Obi-Wan wouldn't be his friend and just hanged himself, lol.

Death of Grand Inquisitor was very strange, did they just downgrade the entirety of Rebels to Legends status, lol.

Expanded Order 66 was super cool though I must say it felt weird watching a show open with gunmen charging into a children's classroom with a female teacher this week of all weeks.

At first I was totally distracted by the casting of Kumail Nanjiani but ended up finding his obvious improvs to be really entertaining. But the writing made very little sense. He went from swindler to full blown sacrificial hero in the span of 20 minutes? To the point where he was literally impersonating a Jedi face to face with a freaking Inquisitor?? And then not only does his character seem to do an immediate 180 Reva's persona also does an immediate 180 by just roughing him up a bit and letting him live? What??? This was a character who sliced off a woman's hand for talking back to her just a few scenes earlier and was constantly wanting to kill any and everybody who got in her way but now is apparently cool with a guy being bold/stupid enough to impersonate her arch-enemy, lie to her face, and he just gets a light shove into a wall? The whiplash over who did and didn't have plot armor from one moment to the next was making me sore, lol.

Also going back to Leia that light jog she did in the forest to evade the briskly walking bounty hunters was downright hilarious, lol. I love that they're setting the stage for how well TLJ Leia is able to slowly evade any and all pursuers, lol.

I thought that bit with Obi-Wan having compassion on the clone beggar was a nice little moment. I also really liked witnessing the moment that Obi-Wan realized that Anakin is still alive.

Like most I just want to see how things play out with the two of them. Continuing to focus on Reva will pretty much kill the show which would be one of the stupidest things that Disney has done with SW yet. Unfortunately I'm fully braced for that to occur.

That being said I'm still pretty pumped to see how things continue to unfold.

Hmmmmmm I don’t hate Reva like you do.. Not sure if the killing of the main inquisitor has not sunk in yet and forced me to realize that she is the main baddie now… but I think I’m ok with that. She does not bug me at all.

Having said that…. Lucas film has already told the actress that she will probably receive lots of hate and racist comments from fans which is Disney code for “Oh oh we have seen the final product and this character and story arch is going to piss off a lot of people. Better get ahead of this and play the race card now”

Anyways, I think she is fine so far… The only one of the bad guys willing to do what needs to be done to hunt down and kill the Jedi.

 

[JAWS]

Yep.

And I thought the "gutter" comment was a reference to her assumedly being the only member of their team who was previously a Jedi.

I think that is what it is. Now that I know she was at the Jedi school in the beginning.

Kind of goes with the social class thing I said earlier

 

[LoveMinusZero]

Lucas tried to offload directorial duties but no-one wanted them because he was a notorious control freak.

He also had help with the Episodes II and III scripts (but again, how many edits actually made the finished product, who knows).

Well, the problem was Lucas was looking for the kind of help that would just do what they were told. What he needed was the Irvin Kershner kind of help.

 

[Khev]

I watched both episodes again. Apart from Reva I find that there's a lot to like.

I love that they put Leia in a little green poncho reminiscent of her Endor gear, lol.

I can't believe they dared cast another 10 year old version of a legacy character after Jake Lloyd but dang if they didn't hit a homerun with her.

 

[JAWS]

Actual footage of @JAWS trying to roll with the punches:

 

[jaztermareal]

Maybe I'm nitpicking here but I was surprised how easy he found his lightsaber. Given it's been buried for years surely the landscape would have changed (more layers of sand). Yes I'm definitely nitpicking here...

Master Cheeks was in the area to help him dig

 

[JAWS]

I watched both episodes again. Apart from Reva I find that there's a lot to like.

I love that they put Leia in a little green poncho reminiscent of her Endor gear, lol.

I can't believe they dared cast another 10 year old version of a legacy character after Jake Lloyd but dang if they didn't hit a homerun with her.

I find some of her delivery to be poor but I agree with ever you have said about her so far.

I gotta go back and see the Reva parts again and see what your dislike is for

 

[ZE_501]

Lucas tried to offload directorial duties but no-one wanted them because he was a notorious control freak.

Not an unusual trait in directors, I've found.

He also had help with the Episodes II and III scripts (but again, how many edits actually made the finished product, who knows).

I once doctored a script for a festival-bound short film. I even had a hand in casting (this is not unusual for tiny, micro-budget indie projects).

We had what I thought was a good concept -- the director's, not mine -- I was brought on after the fact.

The director then spent some weeks workshopping with the actors. The end result was sterile, weird and awkward. None of my involvement showed. The control freak director (who had some good ideas and was actually a gifted DoP) had no idea what to do with the script and the humans who were supposed to bring it to life.

A protagonist who was meant to be charming and quirky came across as creepy and borderline psychotic, a female love interest who was meant to come across as warm, intuitive and empathic read as co-dependent and stupid.

The 'romance' on-screen made no sense and was completely unrelatable. It gave me a great deal of insight into how bad films get made.

 

[JAWS]

You know what would help Reva… A British accent.. Always helps sell an imperial villain

 

[jye4ever]

Yep.

And I thought the "gutter" comment was a reference to her assumedly being the only member of their team who was previously a Jedi.

Wait aren’t all Inquisitors previous Jedi/Padawan in some capacity or another?

 

[Wor-Gar]

Wait aren’t all Inquisitors previous Jedi/Padawan in some capacity or another?

The opening scene would seem to indicate that (Reva I mean, not all). Otherwise, what the hell is it there for?

 

[jye4ever]

You know what would help Reva… A British accent.. Always helps sell an imperial villain

/\YES THIS/\

Instead she sounds like my neighbor yelling about how much she hates her car.

 

[Khev]

Having said that…. Lucas film has already told the actress that she will probably receive lots of hate and racist comments from fans which is Disney code for “Oh oh we have seen the final product and this character and story arch is going to piss off a lot of people. Better get ahead of this and play the race card now”

And then you've got their little followers regurgitating the race card BS online as well.

Never mind that all of us who hate her character loved Rosario, Carl Weathers and Gideon. Obviously if we think this particular character and actress sucks then it can only be due to racism.

 

[JAWS]

/\YES THIS/\

Instead she sounds like my neighbor yelling about how much she hates her car.

I just watched some of her scenes.

She’s just not intimidating. She sounds and looks too young. She sounds More like she is throwing a fit.

She needs that British accent and some facial scars.

Just my luck… Jye and Khev forced me re-examine her and now she will probably drive me nuts for the rest of the series

 

[JAWS]

And then you've got their little followers regurgitating the race card BS online as well.

Never mind that all of us who hate her character loved Rosario, Carl Weathers and Gideon. Obviously if we think this particular character and actress sucks then it can only be due to racism.

So stupid.

 

[Wor-Gar]

Just my luck… Jye and Khev forced me re-examine her and now she will probably drive me nuts for the rest of the series

 

[Khev]

I just watched some of her scenes.

She’s just not intimidating. She sounds and looks too young. She sounds More like she is throwing a fit.

She needs that British accent and some facial scars.

Just my luck… Jye and Khev forced me re-examine her and now she will probably drive me nuts for the rest of the series

Thankfully there were still a lot of scenes that she was not in, lol. We can only hope that once Anakin appears she gets pushed aside.