Kaweebo

Editing is much tighter on the Inquisitor scene, though I do think there should be an establishing shot of them exiting the ship before we just cut to them in the bar. Especially when Reva comes into play a bit more later in the show. I get why you edited them walking out because it just highlights how ridiculous they look, but it did feel a bit rushed, almost like they teleported to the cantina.

The editing on Nari and him getting strung up is good, as is the last time Kenobi goes to the Lars homestead. Very impactful. I’m enjoying this so far very much.

Just watched the first twenty minutes. As you said, there are a few spots to clean, the most notable one to me being when Obi-Wan is confronted by the bounty hunters. For the most part, I have only small things to say. The biggest one I feel would make sense is to keep some of Leia’s lines during Kenobi’s Force vision, specifically the “My father will rescue me! He’ll send a whole army!” part, since you’ve kept her lines about the army later.

Another scene Id suggest keeping is Obi-Wan getting the toy from the Jawa. I think it’d slot nicely on the last day before Owen throws it back at him, like in the original show. As is, the toy feels kind of random.

Apart from that, other than some choppy editing here and there (the Inquisitors scene, some transitions), it mostly works and it’s far better than the actual show Disney gave us. Definitely looking forward to more.

This sounds absolutely genius. It’s not quite the direction I wished this show would have gone (in my opinion, baby Leia should never have met Obi-Wan) but the way you’ve trimmed the fat and worst of the excess in establishing why Ben leaves Tatooine is incredibly creative. I can’t wait to see the results in action.

yotsuya said:
To be frank, every time they add to the Star Wars universe (and this is since 1977) there are always some people who hate the new additions and think it changes things the wrong way. That happened to TESB, ROTJ, the PT, the ST, Clone Wars, Rebels, Resistance, Book of Boba Fett, and this series. I think the only one that hasn’t had that reaction was The Mandalorian season 1. It is a tiring pattern. Just let the franchise grow and enjoy what you want of it. If that is just the films, great. If that is just the original 1977 film, great. Some of us are enjoying the expanding Star Wars universe and actually like all the additions.

That only works if it makes sense and doesn’t irreparably make the story worse. There is no justification you can give for the Empire knowing the Organas are Jedi sympathizers and not immediately taking care of them; no, blowing up their planet ten years later is not the same thing. No, there is no reason the Empire wouldn’t immediately take them out or place them on 24/7 surveillance and you can’t just write the script for the writers to make it make sense, anymore than you can do it with Obi-Wan letting Vader live or Leia never mentioning to Luke ever that she knew Kenobi. Just saying “maybe this happened off-screen” or “maybe this character was thinking this” is not a substitute for good storytelling, which is all I care about. Additions that only complicate the narrative rather than creating actual, meaningful context does nothing but dilute the story.

I like to think I’m very forgiving of SW, I like the prequels even though I know they are bad movies, because I appreciate the world they created even if the execution wasn’t very good. Hell, I’m even willing to forgive a lot of the stuff in the sequel trilogy despite it not going anywhere near the direction I wished it would and being terrible in many ways.

But pissing in my ear and calling it good writing is just annoying, especially when I’ve got you on the sidelines cheerleading, “actually, their piss in your ear is actually good because in my headcanon, blah blah blah…”

I will enjoy what I want of the saga. I’m also gonna complain about the stuff I do not like. If you don’t like my opinion, stop replying to me.

cap said:

For me, the PT has aged way better than I expected it to. When I first saw it, the story of how the Republic became the Empire didn’t really work for me. Now that I have the “It could happen here” sense, it’s more compelling.

Same, and The Clone Wars cartoons really helped a lot. The thing about the Prequels is, conceptually, on a general big picture basis, I think the story works. The political conspiracy with Palpatine, the clone army and battle droids, all of it works once you have all the information (which unfortunately comes from supplementary material over the films themselves). The main problem with the prequels is the execution, especially acting.

The reason Episode II is the weakest prequel for me is that the love story between Anakin and Padme is supposed to be half of the focus of that movie and yet it’s almost completely unbelievable. The actors are TRYING their hardest to make the characters sound as good as possible but that damn Lucas directing just renders it impossible, resulting in some very cringe and even creepy scenes. Half the time, Anakin looks like an obsessive stalker rather than a lovestruck yet charming young man. Part of Anakin’s demeanor is intentional but you have to sell to the audience that Padme isn’t out of her mind for falling for this guy and it really failed.

The other half is interesting and engaging with Obi-Wan discovering the clone army and everything, yet gets hampered by lack of information, again thanks to bad execution by George. To this day, general audiences have no idea what the hell the deal with Sifo-Dyas was (if they even remember him at all) and it took a cartoon that came out years later to even sort of explain it (as well as the brilliant Darth Plagueis novel).

Of the two, TPM and RotS are the best of the trilogy because they both functionally work even if TPM drags and makes ridiculous comedy at times. RotS is the closest to a good movie the prequels ever come though it falls short a bit with some bad acting takes as well.

Ultimately, I genuinely love the prequels for the world they created to complement the OT and explain the rise of the Empire, but I don’t love them for THEM. I love them for what other people did with that concept in cartoons, videogames and comic books.

The one thing I want out of this show is a continuation and longer episodes. Like the 15 minute thing might work at first idk, but I really want a series of Obi-Wan episodes showing the mission on Mandalore when he met Satine, or an episode dedicated to the backstory of Asajj Ventress. Give us some more time to explore Quinlan Vos. There’s so much potential in going back through certain characters histories and I feel like it’s being wasted focusing on Ahsoka as a 2 year old when we basically already saw her recruitment into the Jedi by Plo Koon in TCW.

If you’re gonna do it, I think it’d be wise to use a deepfake of young Hayden and Ewan. They’re both noticeably older in that scene.

Beyond the inconsistencies and contradictions with what we see later, the thing that kills me most with this series is the over-re-contextualization of the scene in Obi-Wan’s hut in the first movie. We’ve already got Obi-Wan “from a certain point of view”-ing the events of the prequel trilogy that subtext drips out of every word he says. It was perfect the way it was after RotJ and only bolstered by RotS.

But now not only is Obi-Wan lying about Anakin, here comes Leia who is ALSO lying about her experience with Obi-Wan and he also doesn’t tell Luke any of this for some reason, as well as the fact that Leia never brings this up later. So now, nearly every character is a liar in that movie except Luke, who may or may not have knowledge of what happened to him cause hey, guess what, he was attacked by an Inquisitor lady at 10 years old! Doesn’t that add so much??

After 45 years, nearly half a century, it just comes off as too much, too late. We shouldn’t STILL be pretending like there’s hidden secrets in ANH. Its story is complete, and the idea that the Disney writers were “adding context” to George’s work is just insulting.

This is fascinating stuff, NFBisms. Honestly, Bail contacting Obi-Wan and Reva having instigated it was one of my huge problems with the show, because it directly ties Kenobi with the Organas on the Empire’s radar. If you can tweak that, make it so Leia never hears the name “Obi-Wan Kenobi” and remove Reva’s portion post-Jabiim, that would be nearly perfect.

cap said:
The concept may not appear in the OT, but it’s not a contradiction either. Obi-Wan once believed that Anakin was the Chosen One. By the time of the OT, he no longer believes that. Why would he mention that he once did?

Pretty sure it’s brought up in Rebels when Obi-Wan kills Maul, he confirms that he believes Luke is the Chosen One. Now obviously by Word of God, Anakin is really it, but it makes sense why Obi-Wan would think that by the OT since, from his perspective, Anakin betrayed what the prophecy meant.

JEDIT: https://youtu.be/shHkJVHFFAk

The only bit I could see maaaybe improving the last Obi/Vader fight is a hint of Padme saying “there’s good in him still,” before Obi-Wan lets him live again. It’s still incredibly flimsy and still doesn’t really line up with Vader saying Obi-Wan thought there was good in him in RotJ because how the hell could he know what Obi-Wan is thinking, but it’s something.

Anjohan said:

Thank you so much for that. No one should have to fight such a disease.

It was in 2010, treatment ended in 2012. So it’s some time ago now (and thank god - which I do - for that).

I wish your father good health and a speedy recovery. Don’t ever for one second think that cancer = death. That’s not the case at all - no matter the odds, and I bet your father is gonna beat the shit out of that fucker one way or the other. Stay in there, Omni, and don’t let a day pass without love and possibly even a few laughs if possible. And don’t ever forget to talk about the tough feelings.

Life is about family, love and good health - without those we fight an uphill battle for the rest of our life’s.

Stay strong! Lots of love and positive vibes to you and your father!

Pretty sure I read somewhere that if it’s been over ten years since last relapse, the chances of cancer returning drop to like nothing.

No worries. Honestly, I genuinely want to hear arguments from the camp that likes the show because I want to understand why. Most of the reasons aren’t satisfactory for me, but there are a few I’ve seen that answer a few things for me. At the end of the day, we’re all here because we love Star Wars and these forums were founded on the idea that whatever we may individually feel doesn’t work can usually be solved in the editing room.

The thing with that kind of argument as well as there’s no real good answer for it. To paraphrase Mauler from EFAP, “Vader could cut Obi-Wan’s arms off in their duel and fanboys could say naw it’s fine, he probably had robot hands in ANH.” At a certain point it becomes nonsensical just to excuse the clear contradictions the show provides for the sake of maintaining cohesion in a very superficial way.

Servii said:

There are certain Star Wars stories outside of the movies where I can look at them and say, “Yeah, I can believe that these events happened between this movie and that movie. That’s plausible.” It doesn’t look like this show will be one of those stories. It feels much more like an alternate timeline.

If this had been a smaller-scale story, about Obi-Wan living his life and solving local conflicts on Tatooine, I might have thought differently.

And the thing is, you could still have a character arc about him struggling after the trauma he endured during Order 66, how his guilt has manifested in him becoming unbalanced and unable to connect with Qui-Gon. None of that would have to change! Such a disappointment that they decided to turn this into Episode III.5: The Obi-Wan and Baby Leia Chronicles.

We’re all giving our thoughts on the show. I don’t agree with yotsuya and I think they’re letting their feelings get in the way of thinking critically about it, but I can also relate because I really disliked it and have missed other valid interpretations here and there too because of that. Debate is important and part of that is checking other peoples arguments.

BedeHistory731 said:

NVM, not worth it. Not this shit, ain’t fucking worth it.

Yotsuya, you have my support amidst the chorus of boos.

My point is not that you can’t interpret or headcanon whatever explanation you want and enjoy it to the best of your ability. But don’t come onto a public forum and expect everyone else to agree with you, or accept what you’ve come up with. There’s saying “no you’re wrong,” and then there’s verifiable evidence on screen. And the scene with Reva on Jabiim is an egregious example of the show gaslighting the audience while literally pointing at the plot hole.

yotsuya said:
The angle looks like stomach or spleen to kidney, but not her spine. And they never cover what settings a lightsaber has. Perhaps it has high and low power for different uses. It reportedly had its origins as a cutting tool. And flesh and metal have different heat conductive properties. So I don’t see a problem.

“Perhaps,” “maybe,” “it’s possible.” My guy, every one of your arguments comes down to you writing the script out of the situation the writers put it in. Why would Vader put his saber on low power? Does that saber LOOK low-powered? And the biggest question of all, after all their talk of how anger and revenge can help any dark Jedi or Sith survive excruciating injuries, why in the world would they not do a confirm kill? There’s no logic in that moment whatsoever other than the writers wanted her to have a redemption moment on Tatooine, story and continuity be damned. Especially in canon where we’ve seen Vader cut Inquisitors down for much, MUCH less than actively trying to assassinate him.

It’s like they deliberately shined a light on the issue and told the audience to pretend there’s no problem.

yotsuya said:
And the words of Padme may be ringing in his ears, “there is still good in him.” Kenobi tells Luke that he once thought that as well, and this may be that moment. Even though Vader has just said he killed Anakin, Kenobi may not be ready to accept that yet. There are lots of ways to read this that make sense in light of everything else we have in the main Saga films. We don’t have to assume that Kenobi missed the perfect chance to kill him. Killing a being who is just one of many evils in the galaxy won’t change the evil of the emperor. And we don’t know what images of the future Kenobi might have seen that leaving Vader alive is the best option.

You know, this would be great, fantastic stuff if the series bothered to show us any of that. If we got to see Kenobi try to bring Anakin back only to fail. This never actually happened, though. He beat him, said his friend was truly dead, and walked away. Hell, even Obi-Wan hearing the voice of Padme saying that would have indicated it enough but not even that is expressed. And considering this series is made for casual SW fans as well as diehards, something like that would have been warranted if they were trying to get that idea across.

There’s never an any actual moment that lines up with Vader saying Obi-Wan thought there was good in him. It wasn’t shown in RotS and it wasn’t shown here, despite you filling in the blanks for the writers who should have known better. If they had written it in a way that reflected what you wrote, it would have made more sense. But they didn’t, so unfortunately, all of this? Is you writing the script for them.

So what we’re left with is an Obi-Wan who seemed to have every intention to kill Vader, to the point of even landing a blow to his face, internalizing and vocally emphasizing that his friend is gone forever, DEAD, and then deciding to let him live anyway with zero indications of any potential thought to there being good in him still. Not even an attempt to convince him. The writing and directing do not reflect it, so there is zero reason to believe it.

JEDIT: And even then, I still think the confrontation should have ended with Vader escaping rather than Obi-Wan sparing him. It would have absolved Obi-Wan of the responsibility, even if he didn’t intend to kill him. Really, this whole show dropped the ball on that idea in general, tbh.

Ice said:
This would of course means losing the “battle” of the Lars homestead entirely, but if Reva dies by Vader’s hand (as some suggest doing) it’s ok anyway

That is honestly how this show should have gone anyway. I don’t care how interesting you think Reva’s character is, everything that happened with her on Tatooine should never have been written.

RogueLeader said:

Oh don’t get me wrong, I also feel like just having Obi-Wan walk away is a weird choice that I don’t agree with. Especially when Obi-Wan, earlier in the same episode, said, “It ends today.”

Just to have him walk away again, it basically puts us back at the end of ROTS, except Obi-Wan is less guilty now I guess.

And that alternative isn’t bad, but you still end up with Obi-Wan leaving Vader for dead, and not actually making sure he is dead.

I say it’s bad only because it makes Obi-Wan look immensely irresponsible for the sake of keeping the status quo (not that continuity errors seem to bother these writers anyway but killing Vader is a pretty big one). We know the circumstances around why he left Anakin in RotS and it’s much more understandable why he couldn’t bring himself to do it then. It wouldn’t have even seemed likely Anakin could have survived. Now we know that not only did he, but he’s been killing people, Jedi and otherwise, for a decade.

I wouldn’t have as much of a problem with it if it didn’t fundamentally damage Obi-Wan’s character. Worse, it makes everything Luke goes through in the OT feel even more pointless.

I guess that’s the thing I’m still struggling with. Even if that’s the case that Kenobi and Yoda aren’t telling Luke explicitly to kill Vader in RotJ, I still have a hard time believing that Obi-Wan wouldn’t still end Vader in this show. He KNOWS what Vader has done and is capable of, he can see how much he’s suffering and he has to know that it’s his fault for leaving him alive on Mustafar. Especially after internalizing that his friend is truly dead and consumed by Darth Vader, Obi-Wan has every reason to mercy kill him. They could have easily written it in a way where the two get separated in their duel and make it impossible to finish it so Obi-Wan flees back to Tatooine, but no he intentionally lets Vader live. It doesn’t work for me.

Obi-Wan would especially see Vader as his responsibility to finish. Letting him live makes him look extremely irresponsible and foolish, to a point that I feel os incongruent with his character.

BedeHistory731 said:

I’d say we had it right in the post-PT years with the discrediting and any attempts at revisionism have been straight-up apologia.

Plinkett was right and continues to be more and more right (minus the cringey sketch bits and “dark humor” in the videos).

Well, except the part where he vouched for JJ Abrams to direct the Star Wars sequel trilogy :p

Fan_edit_fan said:
And pointing fingers at how things needed extra help for sharpening in the past just disapproves your point further. Because OBVIOUSLY this script wasn’t gone over with a fine comb to flesh out the logistical details.

This especially bugs me because this is the excuse I most see coming from the writers about how the things they did actually added needed context or explained things better, when none of what they did in this show accomplished that? We didn’t need an entire series to explain how Leia knew Obi-Wan, the implication that she learned of him through her father was enough without adding a confusing side story in the mix. We didn’t need Obi-Wan and Vader to fight in between Episode III and IV just to justify where he started calling him “Darth,” it wasn’t necessary.

And the thing is I’m not even saying it’s impossible to do a show like this and make it work; they COULD HAVE still done these things if they were much more careful with how they wrote this show, but they weren’t. For being LucasFilm’s crown jewel this year, this show was extremely sloppy in basically every area.

NFBisms said:

snooker said:

leftshoe18 said:

RogueLeader said:

Hal 9000 said:

poppasketti said:

hey thanks guys ^^

Idk, I might just do a whole edit with this approach now actually. I don’t know how far I could take it given what the show becomes, but if I can make some progress that works for me past the first episode this week, you might see a thread pop up here. 👀

I’d watch it. I’d watch any attempt to salvage this show tbf because there’s so much potential wasted.