idir_hh

My thoughts while watching this series:

“Kenobiiiiiiiiiiii…”

Some very interesting tidbits about Darth Vader’s Original Role in Obi-Wan Kenobi

https://thedirect.com/article/obi-wan-kenobi-darth-vader-final-battle-exclusive

I am intrigued by the idea of intercutting the Anakin and Obi wan flashback with the climactic duel, especially if one removes or diminishes the Reva/Luke subplot…

This rescore is so wizard https://youtu.be/OrMnD2uYw0I

I think a big part of what makes the duels look « fan filmy » is the excessive lighting from the fx sabers, if there was a way to diminish how they glow it would be a big improvement.

For the love of God can we get rid of that epilepsy inducing Storm trooper battle in the fifth episode.

Well that was a shit show of an episode. Where did the budget for this series go, swept up under a carpet somewhere?
The production value is just atrocious.

It would be awesome if we could key in Mustafar into the background of fortress inquisitorius, it would emphasise Vader’s presence without having him be present.

Another Redditor has an interesting theory on what happened behind of the scenes in relation to the underwhelming soundtrack.

Brer_Raptor
The music by Natalie Holt is very underwhelming, to put it mildly. If any Disney+ show deserved to be scored in the classic John Williams Star Wars style, it was this one. This show’s importance to the overall saga story, its place in the timeline (sandwiched halfway between ROTS and ANH), the long-awaited return of multiple legacy character actors (Hayden, Ewan, Jimmy Smitts, Joel Edgerton, etc.), means that this show is essentially Star Wars Episode 3.5, and deserved to be treated as such.

The absence so far of any legacy themes (Imperial March, Force theme, Leia’s theme, Qui-Gon’s theme, Mustafar theme, Battle of the Heroes) is pretty unforgivable.

And I say all this not as some sort of John Williams purist (though I am a big fan), but as someone who greatly enjoys Ludwig Goransson’s & Joseph Shirley’s work on Mando and BOBF; the Kiner family’s work on TCW, Rebels, Bad Batch (and I’m excited for Tales of the Jedi!); the various composers’ work on Star Wars Visions; etc. And I am also very much looking forward to Nicholas Britell’s Andor. So it’s not like I have a problem with other styles and sounds in Star Wars music, in general.

It’s worth noting though that even those other shows, which obviously do not strictly adhere to the John Williams style, still manage to reference the classic themes when appropriate. It blows my mind that such a major project as this has been released with such a lackluster and disjointed score.

It’s also just sad when you consider that Gordy Haab’s upcoming Jedi Survivor score is inevitably going to sound more “Star-Wars-y” than the score for what is basically Episode 3.5. What a massive missed opportunity this show has been, musically.

EDIT: It’s also worth mentioning that it appears there might have been some major behind-the-scenes drama with this score:

For those who didn’t notice/weren’t aware, they waited far longer than usual to announce Natalie Holt as the composer for this show. (They even announced Britell for Andor, before her.) Also, Holt has stated that she originally wrote a theme for Obi-Wan. At the last minute, John Williams was brought on board to write a theme in just two weeks, and her theme was replaced.

Not only that, but as the end credits have revealed, John Williams’ longtime arranger/orchestrator/collaborator William Ross (one of the guys that many fans thought would be perfect to score this show; he adapted and conducted the entire Harry Potter 2 score because JW was too busy, and he also conducted Williams’ Galaxy’s Edge theme and arranged the other music for the park) was brought on board to adapt JW’s new theme. So every time you hear the new Obi-Wan theme in the show and it sounds “Star-Wars-y,” that’s not Natalie Holt; that’s actually Williams’ guy Bill Ross.

Holt apparently hardly got to touch the new Williams theme, and she also confirmed that she in fact did not collaborate with him at all. Contrary to the media spin, this was not like the Solo situation with Williams and Powell. Furthermore, Bill Ross evidently did so much last-minute work on the show that he didn’t simply get credited along with the “additional music” guys later on in the credits; he got his own standalone listing right after Holt’s name. The credits make it seem like all he did was adapt the Obi-Wan theme, but this is likely just the “official” story, considering the fact that he evidently also scored the Obi-Wan/Vader duel in the third episode (again, one of the only “Star-Wars-y” moments). Think about it: why wouldn’t Holt, the main composer of the show, get to score such a major scene?

So here’s my best guess at what happened: Holt gets hired, writes and records much if not all of her score. Either test audiences or someone high up is not happy, and realizes they’ve got a problem on their hands. They don’t want to announce her and then have to later announce that she’s been replaced (partly because of the optics in 2022 of potentially replacing the first female Star Wars composer with an old white male), so they hold off and see what can be done about it.

Kathleen Kennedy reaches out to John Williams and asks if he can do it, but he responds “I only want to write a theme for Benny” (lol, part of me really does wonder if that was the context of that quote, but they spun it for their own PR purposes), but he suggests William Ross to help “fix” the score. JW writes his Obi-Wan theme in two weeks, effectively replacing Holt’s Obi-Wan theme. Ross takes JW’s theme and starts arranging and adapting it for various scenes in the show. He also tackles bigger moments like the Vader/Obi-Wan duel (and likely, more scenes in future episodes), that the higher ups feel absolutely do not work with Holt’s score.

Eventually, they do decide to announce Holt as the composer (likely because there’s simply not enough time for Ross to replace virtually everything), but Ross still gets a high-level listing in the end credits, purportedly just for adapting the Obi-Wan theme… even though in truth he obviously did much more than just that, and ended up replacing multiple other big cues that were originally written by Holt/her team.

What do you think? I don’t think it’s an unreasonable theory, given what we know.

I thought this was an interesting take:

every episode mirrors an Episode of the Skywalker saga (I-VI)
https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsKenobi/comments/vacere/fan_theory_every_episode_mirrors_an_episode_of/

This entire episode could be skipped and the story wouldn’t be hindered in the slightest, rather it would be improved as it would imply that Vader allowed Kenobi to escape so as to lead him to their base.

Feels like a few scenes were cut from the first act of the episode. We go from burned Bacta Obi to fully healed Jedi robes Obi in the span of a few seconds, Ice cube jr goes from “I’m not gonna help you” to “I’m all in” at a blink of an eye, and I have a feeling Wade and the girl were meant to have more of a presence earlier on to set up that ending…

It looked kinda off to me how the smoke didn’t move when Vader started breathing like it did in ROTS. Budget simitations I guess…

According to a very reliable leaker a second season of Kenobi is in the works…

It would be more dramatic to physically introduce Vader in the village rather than on Mustafar, besides it would spare us from looking at that terrible throne room “set”.

I have to say that apart from the cheap fanfilm looking throne room scene I thoroughly enjoyed this episode.
The scenes this time with Ben and leia were endearing and added a surprising amount of depth to both their characters and to the broader lore in general.
Vader in the village was absolute nightmare fuel, bringing a trail of death in his wake as if to taunt his former master, this is what I am now, this is all your fault and now come and face for yourself your failure.
I don’t think this is «the fight» of the series and I don’t think it was filmed to reflect that, I think it was more intended to feel like a fever dream, Kenobi’s failure falling down on him crushing him all at once, completely overwhelmed, barely able to stand to withhold it all…
It seems to me that they harkened back to the style of the duel in A New Hope, with a few horrorisms added to the mix. All in all this episode definitely gave me more to chew on and I hope the next 3 episodes deliver just as well or better.

Production quality wise I put the blame squarely on Bob Cheapek and the higher-ups at Disney.
This series is their flagship and it deserved a flagship budget and production, anything less is an insult to the fans and a lack of respect to the property in my opinion.

For those interested, here’s the leaked plot of the first 2 episodes of Kenobi. The order of scenes is a little different which is interesting and could inform future edits

Chapter 1
The opening chapter will begin ten years before our story takes place. Two Padwan learners flee the Jedi Temple on Coruscant as Clone Troopers murder the Jedi inside. The two kids, a girl and a boy, appear to make it out of the temple. Most likely these are younger versions of two characters we will meet as adults as the story progresses.

The logo for Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi then appears on screen.

We pick up ten years later. Obi-Wan Kenobi rides his Eopie in the deserts of Tatooine. He approaches Anchorhead and ties up his mount where it will wait for him while he does his day’s work.

Kenobi sits in silence on his transport to the Dune Sea to work where he does some form of “sand whaling” with a crew of other “sand whalers.” They work for a tyrant of a boss who bullies and takes advantage of the crew. Kenobi wants to set the boss straight with some “aggressive negotiations” but resigns himself to obedient silence, determined not to make any waves.

After a day on the Dune Sea, Kenobi returns to Anchorhead, where he cleans up, and rides his Eopie home. There is a local Jawa named Tika (Teeka?) who waits for him. In a comedic sequence, we learn that the Jawa steals from Kenobi and he is often forced to buy his own items back.

Kenobi liklely buys some supplies from the Jawa and she pushes a T-16 Skyhopper toy (that she probably stole from someone else) into the transaction and to make her skedaddle he purchases the toy ship from the Jawa and she leaves.

We will experience how Kenobi buries his important possessions in the sand, probably in his cave. Kenobi digs up a few things and has a sort of ceremony, probably for his fallen friends and he buries the items again. It shows he still mourns the galaxy of friends and loved ones he lost after Order 66.

Kenobi readies for bed after a solid day of work. He reaches out with the Force for his old Jedi Master. He calls out to Qui-Gon Jinn. But Qui-Gon does not answer him. So Kenobi sits in silence and then goes to bed. This is probably a ritual of failure he conducts daily.

The next morning, Kenobi watches over the Lars Homestead from the front of his cave which looks down upon the land of Luke Skywalker’s home. When there is no one around, Obi-Wan takes the T-16 Skyhopper toy he bought from Teeka the Jawa to the property and leaves it there for ten-year-old Luke Skywalker to find. However, Uncle Owen finds it and puts it away before heading into “town.”

Meanwhile on Alderaan, Princess Leia lives in a lavish castle with her adoptive parents Bail Organa and her mother Breha. The parents dote on their daughter and adore her spirited personality.

Leia plays with her “Polly Pocket” droid named LOLA. They have a conversation about how while she is adopted, they could not love her any more if she was their biological child. She is their daughter and she is loved.

Breha, Leia’s mother, takes Leia’s droid and places her into her pocket. When she is not looking, Leia takes the droid back from her mother.

Bail and Breha converse that they fear for Leia. We get the sense that while things are right inside the castle, everything is not outside of it.

Meanwhile, back on Tatooine, a young unknown Jedi scrambles through the streets being very secretive and clearly in hiding. He scans the crowd looking for something or someone while trying not to be seen himself.

The Scythe lands in Anchorhead, kicking up dust. Three Inquisitors exit the ship. The Third Sister Reva says she can sense the Jedi and something else, perhaps Kenobi. The Grand Inquisitor says he is a shadow and she will never find him and Reva’s competitor, The Fifth Brother agrees.

Reva wants to draw the young Jedi out but she is ordered to wait. They walk through the town square interviewing and intimidating the locals. A local gives Reva some good old Anchorheadd street sass and she cuts off his hands to the astonishing amusement of The Grand Inquisitor.

Owen sees Reva’s brutality, and being seen as a local community leader he confronts Reva saying these people do not know anything about any Jedi. Owen explains how he hates those guys. Reva is close to attacking Owen when she moves on or is called away.

The Grand Inquisitor takes his pupils to a place for refreshments and explains that Jedi are predictable and easy to draw out. He threatens the bartender, framing an innocent man. The young Jedi in hiding reveals himself to save the bartender and runs.

The Inquisitors wound the young Jedi and he’s allowed to escape. However, this is all part of their plan. The Inquisitors then talk about how their plan on Alderaan was also successful and spice den pirates have the Princess. There is also a conversation at once point between the Inquisitors about how Anakin Skywalker broke free of the chains of the Jedi teachings and became much more unlike these stragglers.

Obi-Wan heads into Anchorhead to meet with Owen. They appear to periodically have these meetings. Obi-Wan wants to begin to train Luke in the ways of the Force and after his failures with the boy’s father, Owen forbids it. He tells Kenobi that he’s brought the Empire to Tatooine and he is making things worse, not better, for young Luke.

As a dejected Kenobi rides home he hears a voice call out to him. The voice is saying “Obi-Wan!” Kenobi pretends he doesn’t hear it and does not answer. The young Jedi explains his name is Nari and he has been searching for Kenobi for years.

Kenobi says he does not know what Nari is talking about; his name is Ben. Nari pleads for help. Nari says he is going to die out here without Obi-Wan’s help.

Obi-Wan tells Nari the war is over, they lost. If he wants to survive, bury his lightsaber in the sand and disappear. The two parts ways.

Later, Kenobi returns home to find Bail Organa at the Kenobi cave. Bail explains Leia has been taken. Kenobi, knowing their secret and the importance of the girl, Kenobi has to save her from the pirates as there appears to be more at play than meets the eye.

Kenobi agrees to head to Daiyu to save Princess Leia.

With the young Jedi likely bringing more heat to Tatooine, Kenobi, leaving for a bit is probably a good idea for Luke’s protection anyways.

Kenobi digs up his lightsaber and heads into Anchorhead. As he heads for the public transport he sees the dead body of Nari strung up in the town square, the poor guy didn’t make it.

A rattled Kenobi leaves Tatooine for the first time in ten years. The Inquisitors still know a powerful force user is on Tatooine as the feeling is still there after Nari’s death. They know the transport to Daiyu is off to rescue Leia and they will finally have the dirt on the Organa family to execute them.

Chapter 2
Following Bai Organa’s directions Kenobi lands on Daiyu and meets with the contact (Kumail Nanjiani) who is the seedy guy on Daiyu that points the “disguised” Kenobi towards the Spice Den where Princess Leia is being held captive.

Kenobi fights his way inside and he takes down the gang members who run the Spice Den, one by one and sometimes a few at a time. At one point he throws spice into the faces of some of the gang, getting them intoxicated and they pass out, high on their own supply.

The kidnappers attempt to take the Princess to a new location and Kenobi chases the kidnappers on the rooftops of Daiyu where Reva meets up with the chase complicating things. Meanwhile the other Inquisitors are trailing behind Kenobi in search of the Jedi.

During the chase, Reva momentarily snatches Leia’s droid LOLA. She loads a tracking device onto the droid and releases the little mechanical critter.

Eventually as the chase continues, Obi-Wan clashes with Reva and her suspicions are verified that it is Kenobi on the case. Realizing she is outclassed but with a tracking device on the droid, she lets them flee.

By the end of the episode, Kenobi has defeated the spice den kidnappers and evaded the Imperials for now. Ten-year-old Princess Leia looks at her rescuer, bloody and battered, and she is not impressed with her knight’s lack of shining armor. They scramble back to the contact (Kumail Nanjiani) to get off world.

Kumail Nanjiani introduces them to Roken and NED-B. They agree to fly them home to Alderaan but they have stops to make first.

We then see a bacta tank. We see a closed eye open. The eye of Anakin Skywalker. Darth Vader. There’s been a disturbance in the Force and he has felt it.

The giant fish in the middle of the desert makes 0 sense to me. If this is a supposed remnant of ancient Tatooine’s oceans it’s absurd that it would remain intact as a skeleton , let alone fresh meat!

Provided the charlatan Jedi doesn’t show up later on in the series I wonder if it could be implied that Reva kills him after invading his mind. Maybe using the sound of her lightsaber screaming through with a flash of Bright crimson lighting up the screen - black out to the next scene. Her letting him go just seems very inconsistent with her character at this point.

For all the “Muh volume” and “prequel green screens baad” in all the press and PR it looks like those films will age far more gracefully than this me thinks.

adywan said:

Hugely disappointed with this show.

Spoilers:

the beginning started out giving me some hope for this series. The “purge” scenes were handled better than in ROTS, however brief they were. Then we got to the inquisitors. Jesus, they looked worse than a cheap cosplay group. The Grand inquisitor was quite intimidating in the animated series, but here he just looked like Mr potato head dressed in ill fitting black costume. We have already seen his race in ROTS, and the animated character is based upon that race, so why does he look so bad in this? Then the acting for the most part is horrendous, the inquisitors being the worse offenders. So many scenes were ridiculous. They catch the jedi in the bar, the sister goes to cut him down with her sabre only to be stopped by the GI’s force use mid swing. But the saber is cutting into his shoulder. So why the hell didn’t he just move out the way? Instead he stands there and gives out this pathetic whimper and only runs off when the GI force pushes her away. And he gets away so easily. The fifth brother just basically stands there doing nothing.

Then we come to Obi-Wan. His introduction was nothing more than a rip off of Rey in The Force Awakens. She works hard scrubbing scrap she has collected, Ben working as a butcher. Rey goes back to her “home” , rehydrates the food , seeing it inflate, then sits outside and ponders, then is interrupted by the sound of BB-8. Ben goes back to his “home” , rehydrates the food, seeing it inflate and he sits outside and ponders then is interrupted by the sound of a Jawa. Then we get the “oh it was ben who got Luke the skyhopper model” moment. Jesus, not everything we see in the OT has to be bloody explained. When the Jedi asks Ben for help he refuses and it results in his death. Now all those who complain that “that wasn’t Luke in the sequels” dare not think this characterisation of obi-wan is any different. Because it’s not. Both are broken men. Both lost faith in the Jedi. Both refuse to help until persuaded by another party. But i guess they will called it " character building" or some such, for obi-wan because this isn’t the sequels. Yet he took pity and helped out the damn clone trooper later on?

The bickering with the inquisitors gets on your nerves after a while, especially with such bad acting.

Then we get the whole leia bit. These bits were a breath of fresh air after all that. the child who plays Leia was good. But the forest scenes looked like it was dragged from a standard US TV show. Very bad cinematography there.
So Ben is persuaded to go and look for leia, knowing the inquisitors would be after him. So, what does he do? Does he wear the same outfit that he is wearing on Tatooine? No, he decides the best way to not stand out is to dress like a bloody jedi. Really?

The first part of EP 2 is nothing more than fluff. he wasn’t interested in the jedi before yet he is suddenly excited about another jedi being on this planet? Turns out out be a con man. We see this guy happily con a woman and her child out of money. but later he just helps obi-wan? And Ewan keeps slipping into an american accent in places.

Now we get to the rooftop scenes. The worse part of this was the Sisters rooftop jumping. My god, that was laughably badly executed. You’d never guess she was on a wire 😉 And finally we get to the reveal. She tells him that anakin is still alive. But, wait a minute… How does she know that obi-wan thinks anakin is dead? That whole scene just seemed like it was rushed in there just so we could get the anakin reveal in the end, with the super wide head. Obi-Wan’s realisation that Anakin is still alive could have been handled so much better, but they screwed it, just for the Duff Duff moment ending ( UK peeps will probably get the eastenders reference here)

This suffers with the same problems BOBF did. And with them showing obi vs jango in the opening recap montage in ep 1, i’m half expecting Boba Fett to turn up at some point.

Hopefully things will get better. I’m going to stick with it until the end. But, after BOBF, i’m not expecting it to deliver anything more than a nostalgia trip for prequel fans with OT bits thrown in.

Couldn’t agree more.

The leaked plot line gave me the impression that they got everything right from a narrative standpoint but alas watching it now the execution couldn’t have been more wrong.

I hate that I’m saying this but so far the series gives off this very tacky feeling that the cynic in me interprets as a quick, hastily made cash grab (sorry to say). The Andor trailer only makes this more baffling to me (strange how an unknown B list character gets a film level production, but The biggest and most anticipated heavy weight come back gets relegated to a B list backlot gig).

From the set design, Costume design ( Even Vader wasn’t spared) lighting (sometimes SNL skit level flat) , acting (at times even Ewan sounds like he’s putting on an impression, and other times sounding like his character from Halston trying to put on a British accent) and lazy writing sprinkled through (everything so happens at the right place just at the right time.)
Even the music is just the same theme by John Williams played over and over again with some generic synth in between.

I think this series could be saved with fan editing but I just hate that it has to come down to the fans…again🙄

Just watched the premiere and so far very disappointed with the production quality of this series.

Darth Raditz said:
This edit is in desperate need of Cad Bane in it. The series itself treats the showdown between Boba & Bane as the culmination of Boba’s character arc (Fear vs. Respect, self-interest vs. thinking about others, cruelty vs. mercy, etc.) but there’s just a whole lot of nothing because most of their history is told in other media.

I’ve not seen all of Clone Wars, but I think there’s a partial fix for this. You can include some of Bane’s dialogue from Clone Wars in Boba’s early flashbacks, then, when Boba comes to see the Tusken Tribe has been massacred, you could have a hologram of Bane saying “this planet belongs to the Pike Syndicate” as a sort of calling card for Boba to respond to. This also helps to get rid of the utterly useless plot thread of a random speed biker gang being the ones how killed the Tuskens & sooner establishes Bane as the final boss.

Definitely this.

Newly released concept art from The Rise of Skywalker:
https://jonmccoyart.com/blog/starwars-the-rise-of-skywalker-sketchbook

Begun the edit wars have https://youtu.be/hFkqrfhsCCg