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

[Hando]

Im here to read the discussion but to also say this show is very bad and disappointing

 

[TaliBane]

Leia, no emotion when Obi-Wan is cutdown by Darth Vader on the Death Star after the "adventure" they went on?

Yeah, ok....

This show is just lazy, stupid trash.

Would have been nice to see more of the interaction when Kenobi met Luke, but no. I guess there wasn't enough time.

Yup, gotta spend all that time on Reva carrying Luke a mile with a towel shoved right through her mid-section.

At least they had her be slightly weak. As you would be with 3-4" hole burned clean through your torso from a couple of days ago.

 

[Johnny Utah]

I can't wait for Critical Drinker's take. He nailed Book of Boba Fatt.

 

[ScoutingForToys]

Watched it.
Yes, it's one of the better episodes. Maybe the best one, but it suffers from the same issues as the rest of the show.
A few good moments and a pile of bad ones that tip the scales too far the wrong way.
Obi-Wan and Vader interacting was good. Enjoyed the dialogue at the end of the duel.
The duel itself was lackluster though. Seriously, this director just can't direct action.
I'm really starting to hate the new lightsabers. The LED ones.
The way they light up, the too thick blades. They look like the light up toys you can buy.
Owen and Beru were good.
I liked the dialogue between Obi-Wan and Leia.
Qui-Gon was good. Happy to see him. Wish we'd got more of him.
I liked Obi-Wan's final "mythos" style outfit. I'd buy a figure of that if Hot Toys made it.
The GI was utterly pointless. Why was he in this show? Starting to wonder if Jason Isaacs turned it down or something and why we got the new guy. Certainly wouldn't blame him if he did.
Reva sucks. Just plain sucks. Was so annoyed they kept cutting to her when I wanted to see Obi-Wan and Vader. They'd be totally mad to give her a series of her own.
Where the hell are the TIE fighters?! How many TIEs are on a Star Destroyer? More than enough to take down the transport and the dropship.
When Obi-Wan was leaving after the duel, where the hell was the Star Destroyer? It just vanished.
Again, horrible directing and horrible sets.
Why the shakey cam? Hated that.
There's things to like in this series but far too many negatives. It could have been a much better series. Such a shame.

 

[Sassafras]

To be fair, Ewan was part of that negative reception 20 years ago.

Maybe he was just falling in line with the negative tidal wave on TPM, but him giggling hysterically with Nicole Kidman on the red carpet as he's told the AOTC title was not exactly standing up for the PT. And his disdain for the PT was evident in multiple interviews I saw back then.

My feeling on Kenobi was the reverse - that Ewan's reaction at the time was genuine, but upon reflection he's realized the PT was possibly the biggest career high watermark for him (not to mention acknowledging two decades of PT fan adoration) so has "learned to love it."

And combined with Disney needing him to promote connections to the PT in a major series (with many millions at stake for him, with S2 or other series) he's the lead of, he had no choice but to love the PT and blame "critics" for its reputation.

Everything's relative tho. I developed a new appreciation for the PT later - whatever the flaws Lucas made a sprawling set of worlds with characters we still remember and there were actual motivations and character arcs. Now I've got a new appreciation for TBOBF.

 

[Hando]

What was the point of qui gon showing up and saying the stupidest lines ever?? Should have had him show up earlier where he could have been useful in the story

 

[TaliBane]

What was the point of qui gon showing up and saying the stupidest lines ever?? Should have had him show up earlier where he could have been useful in the story

Yeah, I thought the same thing. Seemed like it was just quick fan service and they couldn't figure out how to incorporate him into the wider story.

He could have been more like ghost Ben in ESB and ROTJ, appearing subtly at certain pivotal moments.

 

[Mandible]

What was the point of qui gon showing up and saying the stupidest lines ever?? Should have had him show up earlier where he could have been useful in the story

Could have shown up when Obi was struggling, when he needed him most (like Obi did for Luke on Hoth) to push and guide him in the right direction.

As with everything in this dumpster fire, you wonder how they came to this story when there was a million different (and most likely better) ways they could have gone.

 

[TaliBane]

Watched it.
Yes, it's one of the better episodes. Maybe the best one, but it suffers from the same issues as the rest of the show.
A few good moments and a pile of bad ones that tip the scales too far the wrong way.
Obi-Wan and Vader interacting was good. Enjoyed the dialogue at the end of the duel.
The duel itself was lackluster though. Seriously, this director just can't direct action.
I'm really starting to hate the new lightsabers. The LED ones.
The way they light up, the too thick blades. They look like the light up toys you can buy.
Owen and Beru were good.
I liked the dialogue between Obi-Wan and Leia.
Qui-Gon was good. Happy to see him. Wish we'd got more of him.
I liked Obi-Wan's final "mythos" style outfit. I'd buy a figure of that if Hot Toys made it.
The GI was utterly pointless. Why was he in this show? Starting to wonder if Jason Isaacs turned it down or something and why we got the new guy. Certainly wouldn't blame him if he did.
Reva sucks. Just plain sucks. Was so annoyed they kept cutting to her when I wanted to see Obi-Wan and Vader. They'd be totally mad to give her a series of her own.
Where the hell are the TIE fighters?! How many TIEs are on a Star Destroyer? More than enough to take down the transport and the dropship.
When Obi-Wan was leaving after the duel, where the hell was the Star Destroyer? It just vanished.
Again, horrible directing and horrible sets.
Why the shakey cam? Hated that.
There's things to like in this series but far too many negatives. It could have been a much better series. Such a shame.

Yeah someone said this was a replay of the slow-mo TLJ space pursuit. You watch what Han has to do in ESB to avoid fighters and destroyers yet in this, it's this ship that's just weaving back and forth endlessly right in front of the star destroyer with no TIEs available apparently (for the first time ever.)

Then Ben takes a shuttle craft.... that is lightspeed capable? Um, dude - you could have saved peeps packed into that little ship instead of going to the duel planet.

It's also weird how it seems nowhere is particularly far in Disney SW - "oops, Luke's in trouble.... I'll be there in 15 mins." (passage of time has been poorly handled in this series generally.)

 

[a-dev]

I don't know if it's just lowered expectations from episodes 2-5 (which I thought were varying levels of awful), but a lot about this finale actually worked for me.

The over-the-top Force stuff will always be something that I just cringe at, and I couldn't stand it here either. But whenever the finale took a step back from the spectacle to focus on where the characters had been and would be going, I was surprised by how well some of the bridging of PT to OT actually worked.

This is the only episode that I know I'll be rewatching. Maybe the first one too. The rest are already in my brain's trash bin and not coming back out. The way they handled the Kenobi/Vader dynamic moving forward to ANH was surprisingly effective. As was the Kenobi/Luke dynamic. I can't say the same for Kenobi/Leia, but two out of three ain't bad.

Part of me wants to learn to hate this finale, the other part wants to just leave the good vibes intact. Star Wars is becoming a weird property to be a fan of.

Well damned if I haven't come away from this finale having much the same thoughts as you.

Positives

- it's always cool to see a Star Destroyer
- enjoyed the Vader/Obi-Wan battle, I think I even liked the dialogue
- Battle-damaged Vader looked terrifying
- Owen & Beru
- lovely scenes with Leia and her parents again
- Hello there
- ending cameos

Hmmms

- the bond between Obi-Wan and little Leia - personally I thought the scenes were played wonderfully, emotions were triggered. And I've said before the child actress is excellent IMO. If we only had to consider this show then I'd be listing this with the positives. But, when you have to factor in ANH, it causes problems. There's just nothing in ANH suggestive of any prior interaction between Obi-Wan and Leia, certainly not of this kind and extent. And when you factor in ESB - when Obi-Wan seems to put no stock in Leia at all - Yoda has to remind him that no, Luke is not the only hope - it runs contrary to Obi-Wan's attitude and the things he says to Leia in this show's finale.

Negatives

- having to sit through Episodes 2-5 before anything decent happened again
- Reva - I just was not interested in her storyline, not even sure it makes a whole lot of sense
- ships look underscaled in some shots
- visually too dark for much of the action stuff
- landscapes were boring and/or didn't mesh well with the actors and the ground they were standing on.


This was from a post of mine on page 24 of the thread.

In ANH Ben's seeming total detachment from Anakin - choosing to call him 'Darth' - is it plausible if that's really their first encounter since Mustafar? We know the real reason was because at that point in Lucas's writing Darth Vader was not Anakin and the lines were written and delivered accordingly. But if we forget about that we have to ask - would Old Ben really not make another attempt to access the Anakin he once knew? Well, maybe if there is a further battle between them - after ROTS but prior to ANH - it will establish beyond doubt why he doesn't do so and instead focusses on saving Luke.

I must say, I think they accounted for this^

 

[a-dev]

Then Ben takes a shuttle craft.... that is lightspeed capable? Um, dude - you could have saved peeps packed into that little ship instead of going to the duel planet.

It's also weird how it seems nowhere is particularly far in Disney SW - "oops, Luke's in trouble.... I'll be there in 15 mins." (passage of time has been poorly handled in this series generally.)

Yeah. Those are question marks.

 

[TaliBane]

Could have shown up when Obi was struggling, when he needed him most (like Obi did for Luke on Hoth) to push and guide him in the right direction.

As with everything in this dumpster fire, you wonder how they came to this story when there was a million different (and most likely better) ways they could have gone.

Yeah, there was a lot of directions they could have gone for a Ben adventure ten years before ANH.

People are loving their Ben/Vader interactions (an obvious reason-for-being for any story set in this period,) but what surrounds it is genuinely shocking in how low wattage it all is.

And going against Palps' "Only now, at the end, do you understand" I still have no clue what Reva's plan and motivation was exactly.

You get revenge on a man by killing a son he has no idea he has? And you hunt Kenobi obsessively (even when no imperials are around to see it) - to try to kill to Vader, when you'd think there would have been dozens of opportunities as she's always around him?

With the Inquisitors they had an opportunity to create them like the Superman II villains - brutal but funny, human-like but eerily alien - yet they come across as shallow idiots. Even their look was goofy.

 

[guyver1]

Forever remembered

 

[Johnny Utah]

Shaky cam worked for Rogue One and Jason Bourne. Not here.

 

[TaliBane]

Surprised they didn't grey Ewan's hair somewhat.

It's like Ben woke up a year before ANH and looked in the mirror and was like wtf?

 

[e30ernest]

This was from a post of mine on page 24 of the thread.

I must say, I think they accounted for this^

I was thinking the same thing while watching that scene here. I think this scene made this series actually necessary. It's just frustrating that the good stuff is buried in a lot of bad stuff too.

 

[Prime Clone]

Well they got one thing right...

 

[ajp4mgs]

Well damned if I haven't come away from this finale having much the same thoughts as you.

Positives

- it's always cool to see a Star Destroyer
- enjoyed the Vader/Obi-Wan battle, I think I even liked the dialogue
- Battle-damaged Vader looked terrifying
- Owen & Beru
- lovely scenes with Leia and her parents again
- Hello there
- ending cameos

Hmmms

- the bond between Obi-Wan and little Leia - personally I thought the scenes were played wonderfully, emotions were triggered. And I've said before the child actress is excellent IMO. If we only had to consider this show then I'd be listing this with the positives. But, when you have to factor in ANH, it causes problems. There's just nothing in ANH suggestive of any prior interaction between Obi-Wan and Leia, certainly not of this kind and extent. And when you factor in ESB - when Obi-Wan seems to put no stock in Leia at all - Yoda has to remind him that no, Luke is not the only hope - it runs contrary to Obi-Wan's attitude and the things he says to Leia in this show's finale.

Negatives

- having to sit through Episodes 2-5 before anything decent happened again
- Reva - I just was not interested in her storyline, not even sure it makes a whole lot of sense
- ships look underscaled in some shots
- visually too dark for much of the action stuff
- landscapes were boring and/or didn't mesh well with the actors and the ground they were standing on.


This was from a post of mine on page 24 of the thread.

I must say, I think they accounted for this^

I agree with nearly every point you make here, and damn near every word. The one area where I think we might have a different point of view is the Vader/Obi-Wan battle. When you say you enjoyed it, I assume that you mean pretty much "in full." I can't go that far because I thought Kenobi's god mode was absurd; and watching Vader withstand boulders crashing into him without being knocked off his feet or having his suit ripped to shreds was preposterous. It's like Force users now have "Force shields" surrounding them. Drives me nuts.

Couldn't agree more about Kenobi/Leia. Great on its own in this episode, but the depth of their bond makes the ANH hologram completely out of touch, and makes Kenobi (in an all-seeing ghost/god form, no less!) in ESB seem even more senile.

In the "negatives" category, yep, Reva's story makes no sense whatsoever. None of it. She's nothing but redundant and/or irrelevant from a narrative perspective. Totally tacked-on, and her surviving with knowledge of Anakin's secret should be a big no-no. And she adds to the ever-expanding list of light-side Force users who curiously become deemed useless by Yoda and Obi-Wan as they wait for Luke to be ready.

And why god mode Kenobi, with all those powers, would ever feel useless enough to consider Luke a "last hope" in helping topple the Empire is beyond me. But an unintended benefit of it for me is this: if this finale and/or series were to be considered true canon, there's no way to believe that Obi-Wan was prepping Luke to kill his father. And that's actually a big key for the SW saga to work for me, and is why I use that Lucas quote as my signature.

I concur that this episode frames Kenobi to have lived up to the "Obi-Wan once thought as you do" line in ROTJ while the "Darth" moniker he used in ANH maintains consistent and valid context. Well done, IMO.

I also like the way they framed Kenobi's mindset about Luke. If Luke decided to stay on Tatooine, Obi-Wan would not push him. That's what we actually saw almost play out in ANH, and this finale again provided good context in that sense.

So much more I want to say about how this episode bridges the PT and OT, and hope to get your take on those, but this post is already TL;DR (as usual) for now.

 

[The Buffinator]

Leia, no emotion when Obi-Wan is cutdown by Darth Vader on the Death Star after the "adventure" they went on?

Yeah, ok....

This show is just lazy, stupid trash.

Would have been nice to see more of the interaction when Kenobi met Luke, but no. I guess there wasn't enough time.

Personally I was fine with this decision - I'm guessing that kid didn't have half the acting ability of the little Leia actress, so no need to risk further* tarnishing Luke's image lol.

* - Added for all the TLJ haters out there.

 

[shadow_wolf]

This scene is so heartbreaking and hard to watch. Kudos to Ewan's and Hayden's stellar performance.