Channel72

But when people say TCW Anakin is a completely different character or that Filoni fixed him, it isn’t really correct. He’s the same as ROTS Anakin, we just got to see more of him.

Meh… I don’t know. Maybe it’s just the way Lucas directed Hayden Christensen, or perhaps Christensen’s own creative choices, but his portrayal of Anakin often bordered on eerily unstable or psychotic, like he’s channeling Malcolm McDowell in a Clockwork Orange. Even during the opening sequence of ROTS, where Anakin is arguably the most level-headed and closest to what I would have imagined him to be, Christensen still occasionally injects this underlying element of borderline personality disorder that comes out sometimes in a facial expression or line delivery.

In contrast, Clone Wars Anakin is a lot closer to something like a Han Solo/Luke Skywalker hybrid. Basically a typical “hot shot” hero character who sometimes also functions as an anti-hero when he wants to be expedient. This portrayal is definitely closer to how I imagined Anakin to be prior to the Prequels, but I also think it loses a lot of the vulnerability that Christensen’s portrayal offered.

Regardless, it’s hard to reconcile the two portrayals as representing the same character. I think a perfect Anakin portrayal would combine elements of the Filoni incarnation with some elements of Christensen’s portrayal, like the occasional vulnerability. I also think Anakin should be a bit less brash/Han Solo-esque, and more of a “by the book” guy that values courage, loyalty and stability. (These are the kind of traits that need to be exploited for him to become Vader.)

In general, a story like the Prequels is very hard to write. A “good guy turns evil” script is not easy to pull off in a believable way, especially in only 3 movies. Yeah, the Godfather pulled it off, but that’s why its revered as a classic. Also, Michael Corleone went from a normal every-man to a very unforgiving mafia boss. Anakin has to go from an honorable, likable hero, to a genocidal fascist cyborg in only 3 films. This kind of story is hard to pull off, and I almost wonder if The Phantom Menace was Lucas’ way of unconsciously procrastinating on all that difficult dramatic writing.

Anyway, I think the best way to implement Anakin’s fall is to tie it in with his experiences in the Clone Wars. Anakin constantly sees his fellow soldiers die as the Republic takes losses, but the Republic and the Jedi insist on maintaining high moral standards during warfare. Meanwhile, the other side regularly commits war crimes. At some point, in desperation, Anakin begins indulging the Dark Side by doing something like force choking a prisoner during an interrogation. Things just escalate from there. A turning point could be when Anakin defeats a major antagonist in a lightsaber battle by fully embracing the Dark Side in a moment of rage/desperation (like when Luke flips out at Vader), except Anakin just kills his opponent in cold blood after they surrender. Anakin begins to rely on the Dark Side more and more, realizing how powerful a thing anger can be. Obviously, Palpatine takes notice and begins to encourage this. By Episode 3, Anakin is regularly running clandestine missions for Palpatine where he often assassinates people. But at this point we can still consider Anakin more of an “anti-hero” than an actual villain, since he’s mostly only killing bad guys… for now.

I think it would be cool if Episode 3 opened up with a sequence that sort of contrasts with the beginning of Episode 6. In Episode 6, Luke does everything he can to try and peacefully resolve the situation with Jabba, turning to violence only when Jabba leaves him absolutely no other choice. In Episode 3 we could have a contrast, where Anakin has to resolve a problem with some third-tier villain. But instead of attempting to bargain and resolve things peacefully like Luke, Anakin just shows up and murders everyone.

Episode 3 needs some climactic event that really pushes Anakin over the edge. I think it would need to be something like Padme dying - perhaps in a way that causes Anakin to blame the Jedi for her death. (Maybe she dies during an attack on Coruscant, and Anakin resents that the Jedi were too devoted to their peaceful philosophy to effectively protect the populace.) Anakin starts to believe the Jedi don’t really understand the Force, and sees their fear of the Dark Side as foolish and narrow-minded. Eventually, the Jedi realize Palpatine is a secret Sith, and they attempt a coup, which Anakin thwarts. We can then have Anakin lead the assault on the Jedi temple, and eventually, confront Obi Wan (who really needs to be setup as Anakin’s closest friend/mentor early on in Episode 1).

Anyway, I think that’s the best way to write this. No need for weird prophecies or fun with Darth Plagueis or whatever. Just a slowly escalating addiction to power and control, that begins with desperation and fear brought out through war, and culminates in total megalomania.

Finally binge-watched this.

This felt like some old EU story written in 1993, with concepts like the “Imperial Security Bureau”, etc. It was awesome. I hate saying cliché crap like “It’s the best thing since Empire Strikes Back!™”, but it actually might literally be the case this time around.

The sci-fi prison scenario was probably the centerpiece, and the best sequence. Although, I originally thought that Andor would be freed from the prison by the ISB in order to interrogate him, and he would escape during the transfer or something. I didn’t expect a full prison-break scenario. That whole sequence was awesome, and Andy Sirkis was incredible, but I felt it was a bit unrealistic after two episodes setting up this impossibly hopeless dystopian sci-fi nightmare prison. In real life, prisoner uprisings in concentration camps almost never succeeded.

I felt this show was particularly political as well, in the modern sense of the word. The season finale was NOT your typical Rebel assault on Imperial Base #55423 featuring Gold Leader Standing By™, occurring concurrently with a ground battle to Disable the Shield Generator™. Instead, it was like a street battle in Portland with the cops. I’m actually surprised the Imperials were initially just beating people with space-batons instead of immediately shooting everyone. (Side note: did everyone in the Galaxy collectively forget that blasters have a stun setting? Seems like stun beams would be the Star Wars equivalent of tear gas or other forms of crowd control.)

Anyway, this show was really well done. This is the kind of material I was hoping for in a live-action Star Wars series. It finally provided a horrifying depiction of the Empire as the truly oppressive dystopia we imagined. My only complaint was that the series was probably a bit too long, with some sequences dragging on a bit (like the heist sequence to steal the payroll), but that’s the case nowadays with almost every streaming series.

Unless I’m misremembering, A New Hope kind of glosses over how exactly Luke, Han and the others manage to get from inside the Falcon in the Deathstar hangar bay over to the adjoining hallway in order to enter that small console room. Luke and Han were disguised as Stormtroopers, but how did they get Obi-Wan, the two droids, and a giant Wookie, out of the Falcon and through the open hangar bay in full view of any number of cameras or nearby guards?

Oh crap, did I just nitpick the Original Trilogy? That’s at least seven lashes.

Great video. This show was really one of the most baffling series I’ve ever seen. Having two out of seven episodes be Mandalorian episodes (one of which essentially negates the entire previous season) is so weird I can only imagine something very chaotic was going on behind the scenes at Disney. The whole show feels very first-drafty, with many plot points that seem arbitrary or half-baked. I mean, Boba Fett is all alone in Jabba’s enormous palace with a crew of like 3 people (Fennec and two useless Gamorreans). We never see how he manages to run Jabba’s criminal Empire with so little manpower. As far as I can tell his only source of income is that one nightclub. Yet he tries to take on a Galaxy-spanning crime syndicate. Why didn’t the Pykes just get one starship and blow up Jabba’s palace from orbit?

I think Disney’s basic original plan was fine. They just botched the execution. If I was in charge in 2012, I’d probably try to pull off the same plan, i.e. Episodes 7, 8, and 9, with stand-alone stories in-between. (An episodic streaming series wasn’t really an option back in 2012.)

I’d definitely try to execute the Sequel Trilogy a lot better and with significantly more planning, along with longer periods between movie releases.

I’d also tweak the overall plot of the Sequels significantly. I think the actual Sequel Trilogy had precisely 3 interesting concepts, all of which were mostly squandered. These are: (1) a Storm Trooper main character, (2) a female Jedi main character from a junkyard planet, and (3) the Knights of Ren as some kind of cool new order of non-Sith Dark Side users led by Han/Leia’s son.

My ideal Sequel Trilogy would incorporate these concepts, and scrap mostly everything else. I’d replace Rey with her earlier incarnation named “Kira”, who had a much rougher, street-smart personality, which I think better fits someone who grew up on a junkyard planet. I’d also start off the first movie showing a “day in the life” of both Kira AND Finn, unlike the actual Episode 7 which only showed us Rey’s daily routine. I would want to see Finn going through a day in his life as a Stormtrooper, eating in the mess hall of a Star Destroyer, going to his quarters, etc.

In terms of the larger story, there would be no attempt to “soft reboot” Episode IV, i.e. no political reset back to the Rebels vs. Empire status quo of A New Hope. The story would take place approx. 30 years after ROTJ, like in the real Sequel Trilogy, but the Galaxy would be divided between a dominant New Republic and various Imperial factions, like in the old EU. I’d use the original Thrawn trilogy as a general plot template, but change many details to incorporate the new characters. The basic outline would be Thrawn going from an underdog fighting the New Republic in Episode 7, then shifting the balance of power by the end of Episode 8 (maybe by acquiring something like the Katana fleet), and finally have Episode 9 revolve around the New Republic’s attempt to retake Coruscant. Kira would train with Luke to become a Jedi, Kylo and the Knights of Ren would replace the role of Joorus C’boath, and Finn would have a much more prominent arc, culminating in some incarnation of the Stormtrooper rebellion idea from the Duel of the Fates script. Han would die in Episode 8, but I’d keep Luke alive and end Episode 9 with Leia becoming Chancellor of the New Republic.*

* Since it’s all hypothetical, I’ll just assume Carrie Fisher is still with us in this alternate reality. And now I’m sad…

NeverarGreat said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5S9Vx3-QM0

New clip.

This series looks surprisingly good.

But wait, is this scene supposed to justify why Imperial security is always so crappy? Cassian Andor tells Baron Harkonnen that he just walked onto an Imperial naval base and stole some equipment, and was able to get away with it because he just “acts like he belongs there”. Now, while I’ve personally never tried, I would be pretty surprised if it was actually fairly easy to just put on a naval uniform, stroll on to a docked US aircraft carrier, and walk off with equipment. Maybe you could get away with like, stealing a sandwich from the cafeteria though.

It’s exceedingly rare for remakes to ever be worthwhile. Just iterating over some recent-ish remakes in my head (Robocop, Total Recall) I struggle to find anything of quality. Every now and then something like Dune 2021 comes along, but (A) this is very rare, and (B) it wasn’t a remake of something known primarily as an earlier movie, but rather a new adaptation of literary source material, which is arguably something entirely different. Granted, this is a fuzzy distinction, because something like Total Recall also has literary origins, but very few people are aware of that, so the 80s Schwarzenegger flick is considered the “original” material. At some point in the future, we may start to consider classic movies the equivalent of literary source material like Shakespeare, Tolkien, Frank Herbert, whatever. But as of now, most people don’t view classic movies like that because a lot of our emotional investment in these movies is attached to the specific implementation of the original, i.e. the original cast, performances, etc. I mean it’s really hard to just “remake” Harrison Ford’s Han Solo. (Or maybe it’s not… ?)

Anyway, they already remade A New Hope back in 2015. It was called Episode VII: The Force Awakens.

I really never liked the idea of Palpatine manipulating both sides like a puppet master. I would have preferred a more straightforward plot to the Prequels, rather than the “mystery” plot framework we got. The fundamental problem is that so many of the plot details and on-screen actions revolve around Palpatine’s behind-the-scenes machinations, but we never explicitly see how Palpatine does any of this, so everything is presented in very broad strokes and the outcomes often seem arbitrary.

I think The Phantom Menace is probably the worst in this regard. The entire plot is about an evil mega-corporation (the Trade Federation) invading a defenseless planet. This is a pretty straightforward sci-fi plot setup, but we never really know how individual plot developments map to goals/motivations of the Trade Federation beyond extremely fuzzy, broad strokes. They want lower taxes, so they blockade a planet, then invade the planet, then deny they invaded the planet, then try to force the local monarch to sign a treaty to legalize their invasion. At no point does any of this cleanly map to some clear goal like getting lower taxes. And it’s not clear to me if any of these actions make sense from the perspective of the Trade Federation as logical steps towards achieving their goals, or if they have no clue why they’re doing any of this and just blindly trust the mysterious shadowy hologram that tells them to do crazy things like invade planets.

I think the plot would have worked better if it was framed as a simple land-grab: evil mega-corporation invades peaceful planet to strip it of valuable resources, while Senate fails to do anything due to corruption, so Palpatine rides in as the hero standing up for Naboo. We don’t even need the Darth Sidious persona - let the Trade Federation have their own clear motives instead of obeying the whims of some shadowy hologram all the time.

Servii said:

I remember a story I heard about how Richard Marquand wanted the duel in RotJ to be bigger and more elaborate than the one in Empire, but George told him that wasn’t necessary. Ultimately, the actual sword swinging should be secondary to the character interaction.

I finally found that Richard Marquand quote I was thinking of.

"There was a feeling I had that I would like the (Jedi lightsaber duel between Luke and Vader) to be bigger than the fight in Empire. And then George said that it doesn’t have to be bigger, because basically it can’t be. George is very blunt. He said, ‘It’s just a couple of guys banging sticks against each other. Don’t worry about that. It is bigger because of what is going on in their heads. That is what makes it bigger.’

I don’t really know how to reconcile this with George’s “bigger is better” attitude by the time of RotS.

I would say the duel in ROTJ is “bigger” than the one in ESB - for some definition of “bigger” I guess. It’s “bigger” in the sense that it’s a bit more sophisticated, choreography-wise, since Luke is a more advanced lightsaber user than he was in ESB. There’s more going on - he’s now fighting his father while at the same time trying to save his father, while the Emperor manipulates them both. Whereas, in ESB Luke was basically just fighting a bad guy that murdered his father. There’s a lot more going on psychologically AND physically in the ROTJ battle.

The ROTS battle had the potential to be incredible. Two former-friends and brothers in arms fighting each other to the death. The drama practically writes itself. But somehow it STILL didn’t work, mainly because (A) Anakin and Obi-Wan never actually seemed like good friends, apart from the opening sequence in ROTS, and (B) the action was so over the top; suspension of disbelief is broken long before they start hopping on floating platforms above a pit of lava like Mario and Luigi. However, the ending sequence where Anakin is dismembered is very good, in isolation.

George’s “bigger is better” attitude is apparent throughout the Prequels, where we see these huge CGI land/space battles with countless spaceships and vehicles. I think he adopted this attitude when he realized that CGI enabled him to basically do whatever he wanted. Somehow he didn’t see any problem with this, nor did he seem to notice that CGI often looks worse than physical models if not used correctly. I think Lucas always prioritized his reputation and the reputation of Industrial Light & Magic as a visual F/X pioneer. He certainly earned that reputation with the Original trilogy in the 70s and 80s. And Phantom Menace was ground-breaking in terms of VFX in many ways as well. But I think by the time of ROTS, the VFX efforts were producing diminishing returns at the expense of the story and quality of the movies.

4throck said:

Lots of unrealistic expectations here.

It’s a modern TV series. That means generic entertainment/storyline and production values limited by time and cost-cutting. It’s not art, it’s a (more or less rushed) product for binge/consumption.

My expectations for production value were set by Mandalorian. This series didn’t live up to that at all.

To be honest, the various canon problems introduced by this show are the LEAST problematic aspect of the show for me. I’ve had to continuously “readjust” my understanding of Star Wars since 1999.

So now we learn Obi-Wan had this whole adventure with little 10-year-old Leia, which CLEARLY is not what you would infer from Leia’s holographic message in A New Hope. But then, in 1999 I also learned that Darth Vader created C3PO - which… doesn’t exactly contradict anything, but… like, really?

Now we know that when Obi-Wan says “Obi-Wan Kenobi? That’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time… a long time”, he means like 9 years. 9 years ago was 2013. That’s barely even yesterday, especially as you get older and time subjectively seems to move faster.

But on the other hand, after watching the Prequels, I learned that “a long time… a long time” actually just means around 19 years. Kenobi also says he hasn’t heard the name “Obi Wan” since before Luke was born, which is outright contradicted by Revenge of the Sith. Furthermore, 19 years ago was 2003. That’s certainly a “while” ago, I guess. For someone under 30 that might seem like a really long time. But it’s not “a long time… a long time” from the perspective of an old man. I mean I’m not THAT old, but 2003 doesn’t feel so long ago to me. Anyone watching Alec Guinness deliver that line in A New Hope would likely come away thinking he meant “like 40 or more years ago, maybe even centuries ago? (who knows how long these magical Jedi space Wizards can live anyway?)”

The point is, I’m so used to my natural understanding of the OT being forced to adjust or contort to fit later installments, to the extent that trying to maintain a consistent “canon” seems absurd. The only way is to be selective and maintain a personal head canon.

That said, I’m not trying to defend the Kenobi show. I think it’s tragically mediocre. But the ways it screws up canon is really the LEAST of its problems.

My recollection is that the “intentionally flawed Jedi” idea evolved from fan discussion/debate on the Internet in the early 2000s, stemming from early criticisms of the Prequels. I remember SO many conversations on various old-school web forums that went something like this:

Person A: OMG the Prequels suck so bad, why didn’t the Jedi ever send anyone to rescue Anakin’s mother? It literally would have taken them a few hours to pick her up from Tatooine. I mean Qui-Gon wanted to do it anyway but couldn’t at the time, so why didn’t anyone just come back for her later?

Person B: OMG you’re so stupid you don’t understand George Lucas is a genius. Did you even WATCH the movie? The Jedi are SUPPOSED to be shown as flawed - they didn’t want Anakin to have any attachments so that’s why they never went back to pick up his mom. Idiot.

Bridger12 said:

What exactly constitutes something looking like a fan-film?

Good question… it’s very subjective, I guess. For Star Wars generally I would say:

• Outdoor locations that are way too familiar/Earth-like (like a typical Northeastern forest or Southwestern desert - a very US-centric sentiment for sure) especially with bright lighting

• Live action footage that doesn’t have the same texture as Hollywood 35 mm film (or modern digital filters that emulate this appearance), but instead looks more like digital video, especially with overly bright lighting.

• Amateurish cinematography (repetitive or clumsy framing, shot angles, etc.)

• Bad CGI

• Fantastical looking characters in mundane locations (i.e. Vader in an outdoor quarry at night)

A lot of this is subjective. I mean you could argue Endor looks like a fan-film location. But it’s usually multiple elements that combine to make it look really fan-filmy.

Fan_edit_fan said:

Bridger12 said:

Channel72 said:

There’s so much logistical hand-waving about how characters get from Point A to Point B in this show. How did Reva get to Tatooine?

Easy. She flew there.

But how? With what transport? And how so lightening fast while Vader JUST left her to pursue Kenobi and gang? You could have argued that opening scene of her asking for Owen could have happened weeks or months after her being nearly stabbed to death and needing to recuperate.

I initially thought it WAS like months or weeks later. But then we cut back to Vader pursuing Kenobi, which implies that only a few minutes/hours have passed since the ending of Episode 5. I was so confused - at one point I thought we were seeing two different time periods, e.g. the Kenobi scenes were like a flashback, while the Reva scenes were the present day. But no, they were clearly supposed to be concurrent, which means after Reva got stabbed in the stomach with a lightsaber, she somehow got up, found a ship (wasn’t it a plot point that there were no other ships?), exited the atmosphere without being detected by the nearby Stardestroyer, and then arrived on Tatooine and asked that guy about Owen, all in what must have been less than an hour.

Unless the transport carrying Kenobi and the others was being pursued for days/weeks? They didn’t have hyperdrive working, and they do arrive at a different planet or moon, so I guess it’s possible. The chronology is just so confusing.

MalaStrana#2 said:

How come is she still alive btw ? I haven’t watched yet the finale but I truly wonder how it is possible to shoot a scene of Vader calmly stabbing her and leaving the scene quietly to just leave his prey alive. Is there something explaining that or just fans assuming stuff? (Because it appears SW fans are less lazy than SW writers and try to make sense of everything)

No explanation is provided. She’s just somehow on Tatooine the next time we see her, after being impaled.

I mean, if I were impaled, and miraculously survived, I’d probably first try to get to a hospital with a bacta tank, and save my child-killing revenge plans for later… but that’s just me.

There’s so much logistical hand-waving about how characters get from Point A to Point B in this show. How did Reva get to Tatooine? And then how did she get to the Lars homestead? Did she WALK there? We never see her with a vehicle. How does Obi Wan evade the Star Destroyer in orbit after he defeats Vader? etc. etc.

I guess some of this is nitpicking, but it adds up. I never felt like there was such constant logistical hand-waving in the OT or PT.

Well, it was better than I expected. Plus finally some John Williams classics.

There’s just SO many problems that make this difficult to enjoy. For the first ten minutes I’m trying to just enjoy the show, but I can’t stop thinking “wait how did Reva get to Tatooine? I thought there were no other ships at that base. How did she even survive? How did she get there so fast when it seems like we picked up minutes after the last episode ended, with Vader’s Star Destroyer chasing Obi-Wan?” So many questions I have to put a lot of effort into ignoring.

I also don’t think they make it clear why exactly Reva wants to kill Luke. I guess it’s supposed to satisfy her need to get revenge on Vader… but at this point Vader doesn’t even know Luke exists. Was Reva going to call up Vader afterwards and be like “hey I’m still alive, also you had a son, but I killed him”? Or did she just want to kill Luke because she was afraid he would grow up to become another Vader? The latter would be a more interesting motivation, but it’s never made clear.

Also isn’t Obi Wan a bit concerned that Reva knows about Luke? I feel like Reva’s whole plot-line is just left hanging with no closure.

Whatever. This wasn’t that bad, just a lot of wasted potential. The only time I really felt something was when Obi Wan apologized to Anakin. But, unfortunately their interaction wasn’t as interesting as I hoped it would be. Since we know they both survive, an extended action-packed lightsaber duel isn’t really the best use of screen time. (They already went overboard with the duel in Revenge of the Sith.) I would have preferred a more dialogue-centered, psychological encounter.

Overall, I still feel like this series hasn’t justified its existence.

Some overall take-aways about Episode 1-5 as far:

1. There is a weird decline in production quality compared to Mandalorian. When watching the Mandalorian I feel like I am watching a movie. Watching Obi-Wan, you definitely feel like it is a TV series.

2. Disney is very committed to keeping Vader as “the ultimate villain”. He is portrayed as extremely menacing and much more powerful than he seems in the OT. I am pretty satisfied with how Vader is handled in this series. However, nothing so far beats the Rogue One hallway massacre for sheer visceral excitement/fear. I also think force-users being able to stop moving starships is a bit over the top, crossing the line into “super-hero” territory.

3. Before this series began, there was a lot of chatter around the Internet about how the new character Reva would turn out to be the star of the show, stealing the spotlight from Kenobi in some way and perhaps being unreasonably powerful (echoing earlier complaints about Rey). But this has not happened at all. Kenobi is clearly the star, and Reva is easily defeated with minimal effort by Vader. Reva is not a bad character either. The actress portrays her commitment and desperation very well when she fights a hopeless battle against Vader. The main problem is that Reva is much more interesting once you know her backstory. But the show doesn’t really go into her backstory until Episode 5 unfortunately, so from Episode 1 through 4 she often just comes off as a generic villain.

4. Anakin (Hayden Christiansen) is really underused. I’m not even a Prequel fan, but I feel bad for the Prequel fans who were expecting more recurring flashbacks showing Anakin/Obi-Wan throughout the series. I was also curious to get a glimpse of Anakin as a young man directed by someone else other than Lucas. But we get barely any footage of this, except for this brief lightsaber sparring in Episode 5. I feel like these flashbacks should have been a recurring thing throughout the series.

I mean… the actual story for Episode 5 was decent enough, probably the best so far. But… oh my god, this budget.

I mean watching this episode really reminded me of an episode of Star Trek: TNG from the 90s. Maybe even Star Trek: TOS from the 1960s. Most if it takes place in a boring cave set. The background extras are all humans. The Empire makes plans to lay siege to a small rebel base, so naturally I’m expecting you know, some AT-ATs and a big spectacle. But no, they just send like a small SWAT team that infiltrates a cave set left over from an episode of 90s Star Trek. There’s not even any establishing shots of the planet surface or anything. It seriously feels like TV from the 90s. What is going on here? Is Ewan McGregor’s paycheck really THAT exorbitant?

I found myself mentally adjusting my expectations for what I knew would be possible to show on screen - you know, like we used to do back in 90s/early 2000s when watching TV. And this is a show made by a company that, just recently, actually blew away my expectations regarding what is possible to see on screen when they showed me a pretty convincing CGI Luke Skywalker. And now somehow we’re back to a 1990s-level production with bland, shitty-looking caves and badly lit phaser fights.

Anyway, in order to enjoy this you really need to lower your expectations regarding the budget. Maybe pretend you’re watching it on VHS or something.

RadioShack obviously

The Prequels were written in such a way that I’m often really not sure if certain actions are just the result of George Lucas being weird and out of touch, or the result of Lucas actually trying to send a message to the audience. The behavior of the Jedi is probably the most significant example. Many fans take it for granted that Lucas intended the audience to see the Jedi order as incredibly flawed, particularly in regard to their overly dogmatic fear of attachment. But the movies never really explicitly confirm this. There’s no “reckoning”, no scene where Yoda or Mace Windu says something like “oh my God we were wrong about that attachment thing”, etc. Certainly, you could interpret the fact that Anakin fell to the dark side, in part because the Jedi forbade him to see the people he loved (his mother, Padme, etc.), as evidence that the film is telling us the Jedi are extremely flawed. But you could just as easily interpret the movies to be suggesting a failure on Anakin’s part. That is, if only Anakin had learned to properly forgo attachments, he wouldn’t have fallen to the dark side - thus his fall vindicates the Jedi dogma. I mean you could interpret the whole plot of ROTS as vindication of the no-attachment rule.

If we take Return of the Jedi into account, we remember that Luke’s love/attachment to his father ultimately saved the day. But ROTJ was written before the anti-attachment rule even existed in Lucas’ head, so I’m not really sure if the ending of ROTJ is supposed to (retroactively) condemn the old Jedi order. And then we have ESB where Luke’s attachment to his friends results in a disaster.

Anyway, I’m like 60% certain that Lucas meant to portray the Jedi as highly flawed, but it’s by no means obvious to me by the way the stories are written.

Watching this series is giving me that same familiar feeling I had while watching Book of Boba Fett. There’s only X episodes left and yet very little is really happening… feels like the show is spinning its wheels. (How hilarious would it be if Episode 5 of Obi-Wan is just a Season-3 Mando episode again?)

Also, I feel like a lot of the writing is sort of… ad hoc, or just made up as they went along and not properly planned or structured. For example, in A New Hope, after they escape the Death Star, it’s revealed that the Empire purposely let them go and is now tracking them. And this is in fact hinted at earlier, when we see a squad of Stormtroopers guarding the Millennium Falcon mysteriously just abandon their post moments before Luke and the others come into the hangar bay. There’s even a line (I forget, I think Han says it) like “where’d everyone go?”.

But in Obi-Wan Episode 4, we find out Reva is tracking them - but moments before she nearly prevented them from escaping and almost killed them. So was the tracking thing just a backup plan? I guess… so I guess she knew there were incoming speeders trying to rescue Kenobi/Leia? But it seems nobody else in the Inquisitor base knew about this… like the 5th Brother obviously didn’t know. At the very least, it’s pretty confusing exactly what happened here.

Then again… in A New Hope they did send out those TIE fighters to attack the Falcon - so I guess those TIE fighter pilots were instructed to not actually destroy the Falcon? (Vader must have told them: “Now just kind of fly around menacingly but don’t actually shoot them too much. Yeah… you’ll probably all die.”)

Episode 4 was … new content? It had protagonists that needed to achieve a goal, antagonists with opposing goals, along with a beginning, middle, and end.

Seriously though, it’s really weird how different the experience watching this show is compared to Mandalorian. This show feels aggressively bland. The music is giving me flashbacks to 90s-era Berman Star Trek.

I just don’t get these writers. This show feels like it was constructed by a generic Star Wars content algorithm. I was hoping for some deeper exploration of Obi Wan’s relationship with Anakin - possibly flashbacks to the Clone Wars even. But so far no… just generic Star Wars rescue sequence in generic Imperial facility #45345 featuring inept Stormtroopers and cliched last minute saves.

Also, why is the Empire keeping dead Jedi in stasis in the basement? What the hell is possibly the point of this? Is it suggesting some kind of evil medical research/medical experiments? This wouldn’t be a Disney+ Star Wars show without a random scene showing weird shifty medical research that foreshadows something ominous having to do with cloning/Snoke/Palpatine/JFK assassination but is probably never followed up because the writers don’t actually know what’s going on.

yotsuya said:

I am still baffled that anyone thinks this show is poorly done. It is a hit with fans in general and the only reason it will never be as popular as The Mandalorian is that it doesn’t have Baby Yoda (possibly the single most popular character in all of Star Wars). But the production quality of all of them are top notch. I can’t see any issue with the set, costumes, acting, anything.

Many of the sets appeared cheap to me. The city on Daiyu looks great in some shots, but other times (particularly scenes where Obi-Wan/Leia are walking down crowded streets) it looks like a cheap set with extras hanging around in the background. The drug-lab and prison cell looked like a sound stage. In many ways, George Lucas’ 2010 test footage of the Coruscant underground looked better - or at least felt more “alive” and atmospheric due to superior lighting, sound effects and background details contributing to the ambiance.

The picture quality in Obi-Wan also appears more like a television show and less like film. The Inquisitors look like cheap rubber Hellraiser knockoffs. I think a lot of this comes down to the lighting. There’s other little things as well. Mandalorian and even Book of Boba Fett had amazing original scores. This show has no particularly memorable original scores (yet), and doesn’t even reuse older themes that could breathe some much-needed life into the series. I mean, would it kill them to throw in some Imperial March here or there?

Vladius said:

Channel72 said:

This show is… okay, I guess. It has moments of greatness (Vader scene, obviously), but it’s just weirdly bland in so many ways. The production is weirdly amateurish compared to Mandalorian: my theory is Disney got lazy with Obi-Wan because they figure they don’t need to try so hard when the plot is literally just what millions of 10-year old Star Wars fans have been acting out on playgrounds since 1977.

But the writing and plot so far is also kind of just… bland. Like, there’s nothing that really departs from the obvious basic plot synopsis required: Obi Wan is on Tatooine looking after Luke, some stuff happens, he’s nearly caught by the Empire, runs into Vader, survives, etc.

There’s no creative spark. How about something more than the most obvious plot-line required of a post-Clone Wars Obi Wan show? The only place I’ve seen real creativity from Star Wars lately is with Visions. I feel like your average random Star Wars fan could vomit out a more creative plot in a YouTube comments section. Here’s an idea from me, a random guy on the Internet: Obi Wan is laying low on Tatooine, but then something like the plot of Seven Samurai (a Lucas inspiration) happens. Some local warlords/bandits attack a moisture farming community. One of the farmers tries to recruit some “Ronin”, and asks Obi Wan for help. At first he refuses but comes around after realizing the Galaxy needs the Jedi again, blah blah, etc, you get the gist. That could be the whole show - you don’t even need Vader (and a Vader-less show is probably better for the overall consistency of the saga).

If you absolutely HAVE to have Vader because Disney execs insist, then maybe Obi Wan’s involvement in the Seven Samurai escapade alerts some local Imperials. Obi-Wan realizes his cover is in danger and has to temporarily flee Tatooine. But if Vader is involved, he should be way more mysterious. Plant some seeds early on by mentioning rumors of a mysterious “Jedi killer” working for the Emperor - nobody is sure what “it” is: a new Sith apprentice? Some kind of droid/Cyborg? Nobody really knows. When Obi-Wan finally encounters Vader, we can get a big emotional pay-off when he realizes it’s Anakin. (They did this better in Rebels with Ahsoka; in the actual Obi-Wan series Obi Wan is basically just told that Anakin is still alive by another character.)

I’m with you but Seven Samurai is also pretty unoriginal for this kind of thing, it’s been done in every Filoni show so far. Sometimes the western and samurai movie references are so blatant that they’re obnoxious. It came full circle in Visions when one of the episodes was a retelling of Hidden Fortress, when that’s literally already what the original Star Wars was.

True - I just think the circumstances surrounding Obi-Wan are a great fit for this kind of story. He’s basically the equivalent of a Ronin - a former Jedi who no longer serves any formal order. He’s stuck on Tatooine, and there’s a large farming community there… I mean, the story just writes itself.