Obi-Wan Mostly Lost
A few thoughts on the Obi-Wan Kenobi series…
Hello there, spoilers.... OBVIOUSLY. Watch 'Obi-Wan Kenobi' first.With each passing episode of the Disney+ series Obi-Wan Kenobi I was tempted to write something. And to be clear, not a particularly happy something. But I opted to wait for the finale. And I’m glad I did because I both thought the last episode was decent enough but also in some ways even more infuriating.
As a whole, Obi-Wan Kenobi was just not very good. There are some fine moments, sure. As you would hope in 6+ hours of content. But whereas I started off thinking the dialogue was stilted on purpose as a call back to the (truly awful) dialogue of the prequels, as time went on, it just felt more like bad writing (again).
But again, the actual finale is surprisingly satisfying given what came before. And so now I’m left thinking that mainly what went wrong is that this shouldn’t have actually been a mini-series but instead a single film.¹
To put a finer point on it: the Princess Leia stuff largely doesn’t work. It’s sort of a call back to all the Episode I little kid stuff that doesn’t work. But here it’s clear what they were trying to do, which is set up a single moment in the original film “Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope.” Her entire plotline exists to give us that backstory. But it’s also sort of a stretch in that in the original film, Leia’s holographic message gives a preamble about how Obi-Wan helped her father in the Clone Wars. But she wouldn’t have had to give such context if he also saved her life as he did in this series. It’s set up as if the two had never met…
I probably would have just had Obi-Wan come across Leia in passing. But, of course, he needed a reason to come out of hiding. That probably could have simply been done under the notion that he was being hunted and wanted to get far away from Luke, so he didn’t get ensnared in the hunt too.
Regardless, I feel like all of this could have been done in a single film. Ideally one without Kumail Nanjiani, who is normally great but was horribly miscast here.
The broader thing they were trying to do, of course, was pit Obi-Wan Kenobi against Darth Vader. We slightly see it in A New Hope, but it ends almost as quickly as it begins. And in Revenge of the Sith, it’s Obi-Wan vs. Anakin. This ends up being sort of a hybrid, which feels right in the end.² And again, I wish they would have waited until that end. One last battle, not the few weaker ones to set it up.
Obi-Wan as Space Jesus is great — He Is Risen! Anakin absolving Obi-Wan is also nice and well played. My only real complaint is when he says “Goodbye Darth”, it should obviously be “Goodbye Vader”. There are many Darths. It is not his first name or even a name at all. It’s a title. He was saying goodbye to Anakin. He should have called him Vader.³
It was a bit strange for both of them to set it up that it would be the end of one of them one way or another and then for it to be the end of neither. But again, maybe it’s fitting in a way. Still, Obi-Wan could have stopped a lot of pain and suffering just by killing Vader then and there. As he could have in Episode III! But there at least he assumed he would die. And, of course, we as the audience knew neither would die here! So the stakes were muted at best.
Vader subsequently telling Palpatine that he’s back on the case to hunt down Kenobi feels off. In part because he comes off it so quickly when Palpatine pushes just a bit. Palpatine should want Vader to kill Kenobi — one of the last hated Master Jedis — but Vader should have been the one to say it’s over. The end until Episode IV. They have bigger fish to fry.
Thankfully those bigger fish don’t include Reva the Inquisitor, who starts out compelling enough and then absolutely falls apart. She’s terrifying at first and then slowly becomes a shadow boxer. Her real intentions make sense — revenge! — but then the whole final episode of chasing down Luke only to save him makes no sense. They should have just let her die in Vader’s arms. Another life wasted.
How great that Joel Edgerton grew up from the prequels into his own as an actor (and writer/producer/director) and agreed to do this again? Same with Liam Neeson. I can’t believe it’s been 23 years since we saw him in this role. Still not sure why he didn’t disappear… which is sort of the joke I guess?
At least “hello there” is perfect.
¹ Yes, yes, Solo, the Han Solo prequel largely didn’t work as a film, but that had more to do with a backstory no one really needed while trying to re-cast an iconic character. Obi-Wan Kenobi is similar in that this backstory is nearly pointless, but they had already done the work of getting people to buy into Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan — as they should, he’s great! — so why not bring back one of the few things that worked in the prequels?
² And a nice nod to Vader’s fucked up head when his helmet is removed in Return of the Jedi.
³ As a couple readers nicely point out in the comment here, the “Darth” reference was likely a call back to the first film, in which Alec Guinness’ Obi-Wan called Vader “Darth”. Still sounds funny to me, but I get it.
