Obi Wan Kenobi - Disney+ (may contain spoilers)

greenspurs

Its brutal...

Just watch it with my son (hes in 6th class) , just to see how bad it gets each week.

It hasnt dissappointed me yet!

_CreeD_

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119182719#Comment_119182719

Actually The Orville is a much better produced show, and better still it's intentionally comedic rather than just tragically.

Brock Turnpike

The only positives of the show has been Obi-Wan reconnecting with the force and his face off with Vader.

Some of the stuff that happened in the last episode was just ridiculous (all been mentioned already so won't repeat)

Overheal

Well... this is going to be ironic for some people, if true...

This made the prospect of season 2 look extremely unlikely but now, new rumours have surfaced suggesting that Ewan McGregor could return as Obi-Wan for a second instalment in some form.

The rumours come from MakingStarWars.net which states that after the show’s record-breaking debut as Disney+’s most-watched premiere sources inside Disney have revised the ending of the series to allow an open-ended conclusion so that certain characters may return.

According to the rumours, Moses Ingram’s Reva was originally supposed to die at the hands of Darth Vader in the finale but this may have been changed in order for her character to return in a second instalment.

https://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2022/06/09/obi-wan-kenobi-season-2-rumours-limited-series-ewan-mcgregor/

When the internet backfires...

Homelander

I thought Ep4 was better than Ep3, particularly in how it was shot - it does look the part. But it's still full of ridiculously lazy absurdities - there's just no excuse for it, it's plain bad writing and I struggle to think that this is the best they could come up with.

The officer whispering into her mic right in front of everyone in a blatantly obvious way, Obi-Wan scampering into a duct in literal full view of two lads 10 feet away, Leia hiding a bulky drone in her back pocket despite being a prisoner for an entire day, and don't get me started on that Austin Powers like "disguise", and so on.

The whole thing is just incredibly lazy, like they weren't bothered to put any effort in and just wanted to get from point A to B as quickly as possible. We can all make peace with some plot conveniences and they're in every Star Wars production but this is taking it to the next level on a constant basis, not just this episode but every episode.

As I said previous, something being aimed at kids doesn't absolve it from having awful plotting and scripting - and I don't at all agree that this is aimed exclusively at kids on that note. Obi-Wan is certainly watchable but it's inexplicably missing the mark big time and it's frustrating because it'd be so easy for it to be excellent.

In my opinion I'd rather they left Obi-Wan alone and did something new rather than give us this half-baked ensemble production.

I genuinely never thought I'd say this but Star Wars would have been better off with Lucas, at least under his supervision. He may be a terrible play-by-play writer but the man has amazing vision and was never afraid to thread new ground in visually compelling ways. I will be the first to admit the prequels frustrate me in the same way Obi-Wan does because they so, so easily could've been so much better and should've been but they've got imagination and vision in spades.

pjcb

its for kids...?

Homelander

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119189784#Comment_119189784

No, Peppa Pig is for kids. Star Wars is for everyone with kids obviously in mind, and always has been, the adult fanbase is enormous. It's a significant difference and it's also true of plenty of classics down through the ages, Jurassic Park, ET, whatever. "It's for kids" is an incredibly lazy cop-out for bad writing.

ixoy

It's grand and I did get a kick out of Fortress Inquisitorius after having played 'Star Wars: Fallen Order'. I've never associated 'Star Wars', for the large part, with smart plotting so it's not hugely bothered me in that sense. It's always been more about the world building and set pieces and it's all a little.. dull here from some of the planet stuff to having a sabre battle in a quarry. Hopefully, it'll take it up a notch as otherwise this is more a shrug-of-the-shoulders experience, like a chunk of the last films were.

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119189990#Comment_119189990

Dave Filoni is not a bad writer?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=R-aIzCHKIRY

pixelburp

Episode 3 and that was the strongest episode yet. I liked that, it had a proper sense of momentum, a tangible degree of threat to our protagonists, and really showed us just how far Obi-Wan had fallen. A man reduced to cowering, running away - and utterly incapable of facing that which he created. Jesus he could barely hold that lightsaber, while bring adept at a blaster. I do hope they remember to eventually bring him around to the New Hope version, waxing lyrical about the sword while scoffing at the gun.

Darth Vader could have killed him 5 times over but I sensed this was Vader toying with him. Hard to convey emotion or intent behind that mask (hello Mando), but if we could see Anakins face I daresay it would have looked sad, disgusted even at this disheveled, hollow man running away. There was no fight, all he could do was torture his old friend. While Vader's casual viciousness with the townspeople was quite shocking - especially with that random son, his neck snapped for no reason. Didn't check but I wonder did this get a higher rating than prior episodes.

Fair play to this episode though; showing not just the personal cost of the Empire winning, but how easily ordinary folk would buy into this new normal. Shame they undercut that helpful moleman with a last minute heel turn; there's room for grey in this universe if it was willing to stick with it. Clearly some people would buy into the promise of Law & Order.

As to Reva? Ack she's fine, I think the reaction is a smidge overblown here. Her performance is very stilted in places, and I suspect the actor's struggling to find the right point to play the role. This may be a character who'll come good retroactively, once we find the reason for her hang ups.

Tabnabs

Somebody would make a fortune from selling anti-tracking devices for ships in the Star Wars universe...

CastorTroy

Could just use one of those magic fobs from Mando. Or were they not invented yet?

In fairness, the writers gave everyone the perfect chance to bail on this as soon as they decided to bring young Leia into the equation. Anyone watching after that who cares that deeply about Star Wars, well, it's on you:-)

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119195927#Comment_119195927

Chain Codes came online right after Order 66, but how the trackers work I have no clue and I don't recall seeing them chronologically before Mando

TheIrishGrover

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119197026#Comment_119197026

In fairness, only the usual suspects had a problem with Leia. The general opinion is that she's actually one of the best things in it as an actor/character.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119201472#Comment_119201472

Agree; Leia has been a delight. I was deeply sceptical about either Skywalker kid featuring in this, but they nailed the casting. Vivien Lyra Blair really knocked it out of the park each time she was in a scene.

She has felt like a tiny version of that (over)confident woman we know; the one who trash talked Governor Tarkin & Darth Vader - even while at gun-point. Or snarked at Han throughout their courtship.

Agent Coulson

That was the worst de-aging yet it just looked like they were wearing rubber masks.

Sonics2k

That episode was a massive improvement. Agreed that that de-aging on Hayden was a not well done, baffles me that Disney struggle with this when apparent independent creators can do a better job. I dislike that we're basically getting 30 minute episodes for a 6 part show. The intro + recap is 2 minutes, and the end credits are another 6+ minutes.

However, the plus sides were big

Spoiler Warning

Watching Vader toy with Third Sister. Just holding her back using nothing but the force and playing with her, giving her a 'chance' to fight back when he had full control.

Was so obvious that the Grand Inquisitor would return, I wonder will this possibly lead to people maybe chilling out for future shows and just wait for a series to end before jumping to conclusions. Haha of course they won't.

I get they're supposed to be sad moments when characters like Tala die, but I've no connection to them, so we don't care.

Relikk

The erratic running times really do hurt Disney's SW shows, IMO. To me the first episode was the perfect length (around 45 minutes) for any amount of decent build-up and character development. Anything less than 30 minutes usually leaves me wanting more and it shows, because as mentioned above it's impossible to feel anything for most characters because you have no emotional connections with them.

It's also a shame that John Williams only contributed to the main theme because a lot of the soundtracks situational stings and swells are pretty terrible.

Varik

Same as with Superman's mustache a lot of fan or independent stuff is done with AI using an archive of reference images which would raise copyright questions for a commercial project. For Hayden you'd think they'd a decent amount of 100% owned reference material from the prequels at decent enough quality.

Spoiler Warning

The tunnel fight was stupid, the stormtroopers firing into a very confined space and not seeming to do much and same for them firing out and just standing there. Heavy blaster pretty much pointless, Reva just standing around before cutting door open easily with lightsabre and defenders not remotely in a good position for something that should be inevitable.

Next part bad too, Kenobi wandering a bit back and forth. Reva in background strolling when she could easily do more.

After that was good mostly.

Vader seeing through her from the start, but then leaving her alive make little sense and same for grand inquisitor getting stabbed with a lightsabre not seemly as final as it used to be. How hard is stab and swish.

Sonics2k

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119206072#Comment_119206072

Spoiler Warning

To be fair, quite a few Jedi and Sith have been stabbed, or even split in half with a lightsaber and lived, such as Darth Maul being the most famous example. I do hate though when writers do that lame ass "bad guy leaves their victim alive to brag" stuff, it's clearly just to set up another story.

Penn

I thought that was a great episode. I don't mind how Hayden looked. Bar the first few seconds, I just accepted it after that. Whether it's de-aging or lack of de-aging, there's only so much they can do and even then everyone knows anyway.

The only minor niggle I had was how Leia's bot cut the access to the roof hatch. We know Reva put a tracker on it, but also put enough of a sophisticated program on it that it could analyse the escape of a place Reva didn't know they were going and know how best to disable it, and hide after to protect it. But it's Star Wars, and in fairness, bots can do everything anyway.

But Kenobi, Vader and Reva were all great and I think it sets things up well for the finale. The interweaving of showing how Kenobi could still get the better of Vader shows why Vader still referred to him as Master in ANH. Reva's story was fairly obvious but still works well for her character. All good stuff.

The Nal

Enjoyed that one

corkie

Episode breakdown [SPOILERS] posted in this link: -

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Part_V

Okay episode, only 1 left, unless they get another season?

Rumors of a Riva Spinoff as well.

A reviewer Disparu labels it "Obi Wan Kan-blow-me"

Sonics2k

Spoiler Warning

I've seen some talk online of people thinking Reva was "undercover" the whole time. I really, really doubt that's the case. She's dark side for sure, and I doubt there's a real 'redemption' arc as such. Changing from the Dark Side to the Light side is extremely rare.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119207504#Comment_119207504

Spoiler Warning

She wasn't undercover for the light side, she's definitely on the dark side. But her hatred for Anakin for what he did means that she wants to take down Vader regardless, and everything she did was to that end. She wasn't targeting Obi-Wan, but she knew if she found Obi-Wan it would get her closer to Vader and distract him enough that she could kill him.

odyssey06

I thought there was more depth to Reva in this episode both in the character and acting... and then there was one scene where she let out a tennis player type shout when fighting and I shook my head again. I'm thinking though that a better director would have said "Don't do that, let's try something different to express your anger".

TheValeyard

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119189990#Comment_119189990

Peppa Pig is obviously a Sith.

Slydice

5: Well, that sure explained a bunch of stuff I'd been guessing and wondering about.

Spoiler Warning

Not sure what she's gonna do now. I'm half guessing she'll turn someway down a Maul type route.. but maybe a light side version. Imagine if she finds her version of a Savage! 😲😁

Scenes I thought were cool: the into the breach scene was partly cool but had budget savings... for which I assume went into the extra cool pulling down a ship and ripping the side off it!

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119126393#Comment_119126393

Yep! Although a bit of thunder stolen because of the scene it was accompanying.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119146831#Comment_119146831

Called it here but I think I was picking up on it from earlier.

gmisk

Episode 5 was a big improvement over 4 but it wouldn't be hard...

No coincidence there was a lot less Princess Leia in it.

Spoiler Warning

Shame about Indira Varma, she is a really good actress who did the best with what she was given. Seriously any reason why they didn't actually kill Reva?!? Ah naw we will just leave you here wounded...and walk away be grand. The shoot out was also ropey...it felt like they were all literally on top of each other...but the stormtroopers still barely killed anyone lol