Watching the Obi-Wan Kenobi Show on Disney+

Parts I & II (5/27)

* Obi-Wan Kenobi series premiered today, watching the first episode now and the opening scene is literally a school shooting.

* Timing!

* Little kids doing tai chi in a classroom in the Jedi Temple and then clonetroopers burst into the room and start shooting everyone.

* I know they probably filmed it a year ago or whatever and we have a new school shooting like every day

* But still.

* The rest of the episode was okay, some good parts and a few cringey parts, about what I expected and apparently the best Disney is capable of anymore.

* Ten years after Anakin Columbines the Jedi Temple, Obi-Wan is working at like an outdoor meat packing plant on Tatooine?

* He and his co-workers have to take a sand bus out to this place in the middle of the desert every day and stand at these outdoor tables in the shadow of a krayt dragon skeleton or something, I think?

* On the tables are long strips of meat and their job is to cut it into smaller pieces of meat

* Which is mundane enough that you’d think they could just have droids do it? And why is this operation taking place in the middle of the desert with no shelter from the sun or sand?
 

* They only spend like three minutes of screentime on Obi-Wan’s job but it seems like a weird setup.

* Obi-Wan lives in a cave with no furniture except a little table.

* He’s been here for ten years and is still just camping out in a cave?

* I assume they’ll eventually show how he moves into his little hut from the movie but it’s weird that he waited so long.

* After his job at the meat packing plant Obi-Wan spends the rest of his day spying on the Lars farm to watch over little kid Luke.

* A new Jedi character on the run from Imperial Inquisitors tracks down Obi-Wan and asks for his help. Obi-Wan tells him to fuck off because the Inquisitors are on Tatooine hunting him and he could draw attention to Luke. The Jedi is like “What happened to you, Obi-Wan? You used to be a great Jedi.”

* “You want my help?” asks Obi-Wan, snatching the guy’s lightsaber. I thought he was going to kill him with it and leave his body in the desert lol but that would have been too hardcore so Obi just tells him to bury his saber and live a normal life.

* Meanwhile on Alderaan little kid Leia is kidnapped by Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

* This turns out to be part of a scheme by Lady Inquisitor to lure Obi-Wan out of hiding.

* Not because she knows Leia’s true parentage but because of that line in ANH about Obi-Wan and Bail Organa being old war buddies which George Lucas completely forgot about when making the prequels.

* I’m guessing  Lady Inquisitor was one of the Jedi kids who escaped the temple in the opening school shooting scene and she wants revenge on Obi-Wan or else why would that scene be there.

* Bail Organa calls Obi-Wan for help. Obi-Wan insists he has to stay and protect Luke. “She’s just as important as he is!” Bail says, which makes sense for him to say as a character but I couldn’t help reading a political statement into it lol.

* Eventually Obi-Wan is convinced and travels into the featureless desert to dig up the box in which he buried his lightsaber ten years ago.

* Apparently he buried it under about six inches of sand so you’d think the wind would have uncovered it a long time ago but whatever.

* Oh they also give the origin of Luke’s toy T-16 Skyhopper that he plays with in one scene of ANH.

* Obi-Wan bought it from a Jawa and left it at the Lars farm one night like Santa Claus.
 

* Uncle Owen brings it back to him though so there’s more story to be told.

 

* Get a load of that smoke CGI coming out of the sand bus.

* Three separate chase scenes in the first two episodes and they’re all hilarious.

Part III (6/2)

* Today on Obi-Wan Kenobi, Hayden Christensen returns as Darth Vader, beats the shit out of Obi-Wan in a lightsaber fight, and sets him on fire for the sake of karmic irony.

* “When last we met I was but the learner, now I am the master.”

* That’s okay though because Revenge of the Sith already contradicted Vader telling Luke that Obi-Wan thought there was still good in him.

* Continuity is fucked no matter what so why not lol.

Part V (6/15)

* Today’s episode of Kenobi features a flashback to Attack of the Clones-era Anakin and Obi-Wan, but with no de-aging VFX besides copious makeup so the actors are wearing their costumes from AOTC but look 20 years older.

* They have a practice duel where Obi-Wan’s lightsaber is clearly just a hilt prop because there isn’t even an emitter on the end the blade is supposed to come out of, just flat featureless plastic.

* They cut away and when they cut back to Obi-Wan his lightsaber has conveniently moved out of frame so the VFX artists can just animate the blade coming up into the shot instead of showing it come out of the hilt.

* I laughed out loud.

But then this brought him to mind of the way he used to look—striking, and grand, with a wry tilt to his brow that hinted of invincibility and took in all of life with a wink. Yes, that was how he’d looked once.

* I read somewhere that this show cost $25 million per episode.

* All that money must have gone straight into someone’s pockets because none of it has shown up on screen.

 

* The show isn’t good but it’s still mostly enjoyable because it doesn’t feel like it’s made by people who hate me.

Part VI (6/22)

 

 

* I cried butterfly tears!

 

Conclusion

* The Obi-Wan show was not that great overall but in light of the absolute travesty live-action Star Wars media has been for the last 25 years, it's a complete triumph!

 

More emotionally evocative than the actual show.