[TV] Disney+ Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi

[Biomega]

I hope they have better location scouting for their next encounter, that quarry gave off “college film project” vibes.

Something's gotta offset the high budget backgrounds on Tattooine *cough*

[babalou1]

AND IMO - she knows who Vadar is because Vadar told her, to use it, to get to Obi-Wan. I think she's in play, directly, by Vadar assistance/guidance in a way the other Inquisitors aren't. Why - no idea and no idea if we're ever going to be told that. But that's why *I* think she knows that. That or the "She was a Youngling and saw it go down" sort of way. But that's just my thoughts on what I think is going on - with 2/6 episodes watched.

I think she IS one of the younglings. Specifically one of the 5 in the opening scene of episode one. A couple of the kids look like they are 10-12 years old, including the one I think is Reva. This is 10 years after the prequel? So she would appear to be the right age.

[Biomega]

I think she IS one of the younglings. Specifically one of the 5 in the opening scene of episode one. A couple of the kids look like they are 10-12 years old, including the one I think is Reva. This is 10 years after the prequel? So she would appear to be the right age.

Seems almost guaranteed at this point.

She got captured by the Sith, had to watch countless friends die. Now she's blaming Obi-Wan, because he was the one who didn't stop it by not killing Anakin. He's responsible for her current life in misery and self-loathing, because she's really a good girl at heart who has to do bad things now because she was seduced by the Dark Side, yada yada yada redemption sacrifice other stuff.

It would be VERY surprising if that isn't her arc.

[Kathranis]

I get the feeling his n the inquisitors armor looks like new...plastic rather than metal, which ruins the look for me..

Your glasses seem to be so rose-tinted that I'm surprised you can see through them at all.

It always looked cheap. It's a cobbled-together costume made out of quilted leather, rubber gloves and boots, and a box on his chest with some kitbashed lights and switches from their fake computer consoles. The armor pieces were made of fiberglass. The cloak was just black wool IIRC.

All the other armor is designed to match the aesthetic, and none of it would look this way if it were designed from scratch, today, by modern character and costume designers.

[Ayirasi]

Yeah, that was hilarious

I had to pause the show and step away for a moment to process what I had just seen. Maybe they're fans of Blazing Saddles or uselessfence.jpg.

[Ragedaug]

Getting ready to watch part 3, and am trying to remain hopeful.

I didn't have too much of a problem with Part 1. It moved kind of slow, but I understand building the story, so I didn't mind it. Part 2 was where I had more of a problem, which I put a lot of the blame on poor writing / creativity. Meaning, the writers weren't creative enough to move the story where they wanted without contrivance. Kind of like where the answer to, "why the did character do that", is, "because I needed the story to happen", type of thing.

Pros

• I like Obi Wan. I think McGregor does a great job as usual.
• I liked the idea of the inquisitors. I didn't mind their 'clean leather'. I would expect them to be immaculate.
• I liked the actress they got to play little Leia. I think she does a great job fitting that role.
• There's more I liked, but to my detriment, I tend to focus more on what I don't like.

Cons

• Reva never felt right with me. She sounded too 'American' is all I can think. It just didn't feel like she fit in. It's just not what my brain expects when I hear an imperial talk.
  
  • Reva also felt too angry/impulsive/out of control. That may fit in with the book lore, I don't know, it's just not what I would expect from someone who is part of Vader or the Emperor's inquisition. I expect them to receive a very high level of training and conditioning that makes them cold & calculating, not a hot head.
• Leia is a super genius and also an undisciplined brat. The 'undisciplined brat' trope seems to be common these days in story telling, but just something that rubs me wrong. You can't portray her as someone who is wise, well beyond her years, then turn around and have her act like an impulsive disobedient bratty child.
  
  • Both Leia chase scenes looked completely contrived and nonsensical. "oh no, foiled again! a branch is in the way!!" Like a typical 9-10 year old, she doesn't run very fast, but somehow outpaces the adults. /shrug. The contrivance of the first chase being she's going to directly disobey her parents so we can set her up to be kidnapped in the woods, and apparently she does this regularly as the kidnappers were able to quickly notice a trend so they were ready to nab her. The 2nd that she's going to freak out about the guy rescuing her from the prison she was trapped in, and start randomly running...then run to where? Again, this flies in the face of the scenes showing she's wise beyond her years.
• I don't like what they did to the Grand Inquisitor. I think it's inconsistent to lore that a Sith'ish type is going to let their guard down with an open weapon near by. Doesn't make sense. this is another one of those, "we wrote that scene so the story could happen", because the writing staff isn't creative enough to figure a way to progress the story while believably portraying their characters.

I'm trying to remain hopeful. I'll be watching the next episode tonight. If it's the same writing staff, I think it's going to go downhill fast, but we'll see how it goes. *crosses fingers*

[Theangryone]

I have little faith in this series pulling out a decent ending and Disney Star Wars going forward. Just do not understand the storytelling choices at all.

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Seems almost guaranteed at this point.

She got captured by the Sith, had to watch countless friends die. Now she's blaming Obi-Wan, because he was the one who didn't stop it by not killing Anakin. He's responsible for her current life in misery and self-loathing, because she's really a good girl at heart who has to do bad things now because she was seduced by the Dark Side, yada yada yada redemption sacrifice other stuff.

It would be VERY surprising if that isn't her arc.

Most assuredly she is one of the younglings, but as to what happened after the attack on the temple there is no reason she should would have any knowledge of what happened on Mustafar. I doubt the inquisitors got story time with Vader while being trained.

[Biomega]

[*]Leia is a super genius

Is she, though? She screws up all the time. She certainly isn't a mechanical genius, she can't even fix her toy.

All she can do is have flashes of insight about people, and blab it out at them with little regard to the situation. That's latent Force powers at work, nothing more. The rest is just her background: she's from a rich family with excellent education and a cultural history of intrigue and political maneuvering. That's all.

She's definitely one of the more believable kids in SW. Nothing like Anakin who just built his own protocol droid and competes as a pro rocket racer (when he's not single-handedly winning galactic battles in a starship he's never seen before, of course). And even THAT can just be handwaved away with "Force did it."

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Most assuredly she is one of the younglings, but as to what happened after the attack on the temple there is no reason she should would have any knowledge of what happened on Mustafar. I doubt the inquisitors got story time with Vader while being trained.

Why does Mustafar matter?

The Jedi Temple massacre was before that. You know, when Anakin went and personally slaughtered the younglings? She witnessed that, and she likely knew who Anakin's master was considering they were both on the Council. So she could well be blaming him for not stopping his apprentice from killing all her friends.

That Anakin is Vader is a separate thing, possibly one that she didn't learn until years after.

[druchii5]

After watching the third episode...

That was probably one of the most awkward and unsatisfying lightsaber battle scenes, especially comparing to the epic dual those two experinced in RotS. Like, I know Obi Wan is supposed to be "rusty", but still...

[Ragedaug]

Is she, though? She screws up all the time. She certainly isn't a mechanical genius, she can't even fix her toy.

All she can do is have flashes of insight about people, and blab it out at them with little regard to the situation. That's latent Force powers at work, nothing more. The rest is just her background: she's from a rich family with excellent education and a cultural history of intrigue and political maneuvering. That's all.

She's definitely one of the more believable kids in SW. Nothing like Anakin who just built his own protocol droid and competes as a pro rocket racer (when he's not single-handedly winning galactic battles in a starship he's never seen before, of course). And even THAT can just be handwaved away with "Force did it."

I don't mind if you want to take exception to my use of the phrasing "super genius". I'm guessing you didn't understand what I meant when I said they were portraying her as "wise beyond her years". I used super genius as another way to express that, but like I said, if you don't think it fits, I get that and say 'you are right" and I'll take that back.

If you wanted to understand what I was trying to say, my point is that they sometimes show her as 'wise beyond her years" and even have the other characters make note of that. But then they have her do childish impulsive dumb stuff, which is contradictory. You can't have her be both a beacon of wisdom and a regular kid who does dumb stuff pretty regularly. You have to pick one.

[Biomega]

they sometimes show her as 'wise beyond her years" and even have the other characters make note of that. But then they have her do childish impulsive dumb stuff, which is contradictory. You can't have her be both a beacon of wisdom and a regular kid who does dumb stuff pretty regularly. You have to pick one.

That's not true at all.

As I already said, all she has is the occasional flash of insight, which is her Force powers at work. In between she's completely in line with what you'd expect an Alderaanian princess to be capable of.

If she was really "wise beyond her years" she'd be like that all the time. She's not. It's happened like three times or whatever. The rest of the time she's a smart kid but still a kid. Nothing any well-educated kid raised in a privileged household couldn't do.

[Ragedaug]

After watching the third episode...

That was probably one of the most awkward and unsatisfying lightsaber battle scenes, especially comparing to the epic dual those two experinced in RotS. Like, I know Obi Wan is supposed to be "rusty", but still...

I tend to agree.

I was expecting Ben to be a mix of Ep3 and Ep4 Obi-Wan, since this takes place nearly in the middle, but seems they figured it would be better to portray him as Ep8 Luke. I don't get it.

I get that the events of Ep3 would be devastating to Obi, but you can see him portrayed as a much stronger individual immediately after the events, at the end of Ep3, then we are to expected to believe he just moped around for next 10 years, forgetting nearly all of his Jedi training?

I really don't like Lucas directing. I think he's bad at it. And I'm not particularly a fan of his screen writing if I'm being honest. But he was great at creating a narrative, and shows like this make me miss it.

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That's not true at all.

As I already said, all she has is the occasional flash of insight, which is her Force powers at work. In between she's completely in line with what you'd expect an Alderaanian princess to be capable of.

If she was really "wise beyond her years" she'd be like that all the time. She's not. It's happened like three times or whatever. The rest of the time she's a smart kid but still a kid. Nothing any well-educated kid raised in a privileged household couldn't do.

That's my whole point. You are trying to argue with me while backing up what I said. Which is fine. Go ahead and argue with this post as well if you like. It won't bother me.

[Biomega]

That's my whole point. You are trying to argue with me while backing up what I said.

It's not what you said, though:

You can't have her be both a beacon of wisdom and a regular kid who does dumb stuff pretty regularly. You have to pick one.

You can have her be both.

You don't have to pick one.

I explained why.

That's the opposite of what you said, I'm confused why it's suddenly "your whole point". Weird.

[s_bushido]

After watching the third episode...

That was probably one of the most awkward and unsatisfying lightsaber battle scenes, especially comparing to the epic dual those two experinced in RotS. Like, I know Obi Wan is supposed to be "rusty", but still...

lol…. And now go watch their epic duel in episode 4. I swear people put everything before the sequels on some ridiculous pedestal.

[MCMLXXXII]

True. The OT was also bad at some points.

[Ragedaug]

It's not what you said, though:


You can have her be both.

You don't have to pick one.

I explained why.

That's the opposite of what you said, I'm confused why it's suddenly "your whole point". Weird.

You didn't explain why she can be both. You just said she's not wise beyond her years...even though she says stuff that's wise beyond her years...and the other characters remark about how wise she is. "Intermittent Force Wisdom" is not a power.

To my point, you can't have a character be wise in one scene and an idiot in the next. It's contradictory. It doesn't make sense. If you want to give it another shot to explain how a character can be either wise or an idiot from scene to scene, I'll read it and give it another shot to see if I can get it. But if you are sticking to the point that the wisdom is just the force speaking through her, we'll have to agree to disagree.

[Very Tired]

Yeah, the lightsaber duel was just awkward. Obi-Wan and Vader finally come face to face after all those years, both of them pull out their lightsabers and then Obi-Wan just... silently leaves.



Also the series got me thinking why is Obi-Wan not as deadset on training Leia in the ways of the force as he is with Luke? Both kids from the same guy, but he seems to have a better relationship with Leia's fake parents at least.

[Biomega]

"Intermittent Force Wisdom" is not a power.

Says who?

It's literally what she's displaying. You said she's wise beyond her years but also stupid which can't coexist; I explained that they don't, she's a (fairly) regular kid except for a few moments of insight which are easily explained by the Force. Just because she said something smart less than a half dozen times - and it was always the same kind of thing, i.e. something insightful about a person's character - doesn't mean "she's wise beyond her years". It just means she has special powers that come up every now and then. In fact, often it's NOT WISE at all for her to just blurt these things out

To my point, you can't have a character be wise in one scene and an idiot in the next.

Right, so any time any movie where someone has certain powers but doesn't always have access to or conscious control over them 100% of the time is similarly contradictory?

You realize that's an entire trope onto itself, right? It's done in fiction ALL THE TIME.

There's nothing contradictory about it whatsoever.

[PACOX]

Yeah, the lightsaber duel was just awkward. Obi-Wan and Vader finally come face to face after all those years, both of them pull out their lightsabers and then Obi-Wan just... silently leaves.



Also the series got me thinking why is Obi-Wan not as deadset on training Leia in the ways of the force as he is with Luke? Both kids from the same guy, but he seems to have a better relationship with Leia's fake parents at least.

Yeah I was confused as to why Kenobi just silently leaves after getting beat down the entire time with Vader's lightsaber and then getting lit on fire only to narrowly escape round 2 of Vader's torture clinic. Not a single backflip. Boring fight 0/10.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Also the series got me thinking why is Obi-Wan not as deadset on training Leia in the ways of the force as he is with Luke? Both kids from the same guy, but he seems to have a better relationship with Leia's fake parents at least.

You could argue that he’s not really all that set on training luke he brings it up to his uncle a few times but never really pushes the issue beyond “he should be trained” and getting told no.

He more or less just watches over luke to make sure he’s safe as all luke has is his water farming aunt/uncle. Really obiwan should have nothing to do with Leia every one is more at risk when he leaves his post from guarding luke and Leia’s Parents should have just been able to get high class bounty hunters and reached out to the imperium for help which would have been way less risky.