There is an Obi-Wan Kenobi.
I've been waiting for Obi-Wan Kenobi to be announced for a long time. I was hoping that Lucasfilm would make a stand-alone Obi-Wan film set between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope.
We only have the two-part Series premiere to go off of at this point, but judging by the first two episodes, I'm torn. I was in love by the end of the first episode. I was concerned by the end of the first episode.
I was not particularly excited or disappointed after the first two episodes. Maybe it's too early to tell.
There were some pleasant surprises. The trailers made this look like a show that would once again be centered around Tatooine, where Obi-Wan was hidden from the Empire and its Inquisitors. It started that way until the big twist, a ten-year-old princess named Princess Leia.
The baby of this story is Leia. That appears to be how it is shaping up. When Leia is kidnapped from her palatial home on Alderaan, her adoptive parents bail and call Obi-Wan for help.
The Jedi is living a normal life on Tatooine, going about his business with his head down, something he instructs a fugitive Jedi to do.
Obi-Wan doesn't like the idea of tracking down the people who are holding Leia. He told the Jedi that he wasn't the man he used to be, and refused to help her parents.
The timing works out well. Obi-Wan had a close call with the Inquisitors that showed up on Tatooine to track down the Jedi. The Grand Inquisitor, along with the Fifth Brother and Third Sister, have arrived on the desert planet to ferret out the Jedi, but they get away when the Third Sister.
The Third Sister is determined to find Obi-Wan because it will grant her power within the Empire. At one point, the Grand Inquisitor makes very clear that she is little more than a gutter rat with Force powers to them. She goes against his orders time and again.
The Third Sister.
His first brush with Reva was close. When the Fifth Brother and Reva showed up, he was reprimanded by Uncle Owen for dropping off a Star Wars toy for the Jedi. Owen plays it cool and tells Reva that Jedi are vermin and that he kills them on his farm.
Reva is ruthless. She tells the crowd that if they don't tell her where the Jedi is, she will kill the farmer and his family. The Fifth Brother stopped her and told her that she had gone too far. She came up with a new plan and set a trap.
The trap involves sending kidnappers to a place called Alderaan, where they will wait for Leia, who is prone to sneaking out of the palace and into the woods. I think that the plan goes off without a hitch, so they don't worry too much about security.
After clashing with her snooty cousin at a banquet in the palace, she sneaks off instead of apologizing, and the kidnappers swoop her up and take her to the city of Daiyu.
Obi-Wan just encountered the Jedi hanging in the town square. It was implied that he committed suicide. Maybe because he was tired of running, maybe to save the innocents of Tatooine from the Inquisitors, but definitely because Obi-Wan refused to help him and sent him to fend for himself.
Owen and Reva.
When Bail Organa is standing in Obi-Wan's cave, his defenses are already down. Bail convinces him to search for the girl and tell her where the kidnappers are headed. The Jedi Master agreed, taking on a role that was more suited for Beskar Steel.
Obi-Wan goes to Daiyu to look for his friend. The city is very colorful. The streets have Spice dealers. People are told to get out of the way. It is a place where no signals can be traced and where fake Jedi scam people.
I'm referring to Haja Estree, a con- artist who uses magnets and helpers to pull off Force grabs and Jedi Mind tricks. I hope we see more of Haja in this limited series because she is a really great character. Obi-Wan gets the man to help him at the blaster-point because he is not a fan. It seems likely that the girl is being held after Haja sent him to a wretched hive of scum and villainy.
Kenobi sneaks his way in and finds the cell where Leia is being held, but it's an ambus. The whole thing was a trap set by Reva and the kidnappers, led by Vect Nokru (Flea), were able to grab him. The Jedi has a trick up his sleeve. A spice dealer sympathetic to his story about searching for his daughter gave him a little bulb of spice, which he quickly pulled out of his mask. The kidnappers fall to the floor when the spice fills the small chamber.
Daiyu.
The next cell was found by Kenobi. Shewacked him in the stomach when he entered, thinking he was a bad guy. They got out just before Reva showed up, after he convinced her to follow him and make their escape. She is always asking questions and commentary on our hero. She's smart enough to impress him, and a bit funnier than 19-year-oldluke was in A New Hope. When Ben discovered that his twin brother was duller, he must have been disappointed.
It is interesting to think about where this story is going. The six-episode arcs of this limited series will resolve Obi-Wan and Leia's adventure. This means that Obi-Wan will have a better relationship with young Leia than he has with older Luke. This makes A New Hope more sad. She and Obi-Wan never cross paths when they are on the Death Star. He dies fighting Darth Vader and she escapes with Han and Chewie and the other characters. Force Ghost Obi-Wan mentions his sister.
Once the Grand Inquisitor discovers what Reva has been up to, he will take her off the hunt. She's not going to quit now, so he should have arrested her on the spot. She put a bounty on Kenobi to confuse the Grand Inquisitor. The shuttering of the port is an obstacle he didn't consider when he was just a small band of kidnappers.
Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.
Ahem. When she learns of the bounty, she assumes the worst. She jumps to the conclusion that he is a bad guy working with the kidnappers despite him clearly saving her. He was forced to chase her through the mean streets of Daiyu and soon we would get the Star Wars version of John Wick, as bounty hunter after bounty hunter takes up the chase.
One of the better action scenes in the two-part premiere is when Leia makes her way to the rooftops. Kenobi chases her but is hit by enemy fire. Reva makes her way across the rooftops. She cannot possibly leap across the rooftop and misses by a long mile and falls down.
There is an Obi-Wan Kenobi.
For the first time, the old Jedi has Force powers. He put up a weak showing. There were no lightsaber duels, mind tricks, or Force karate. He reaches out to the Force and throws Feather Fall on the girl.
He rushed down to her, and she exclaimed, "You really are a Jedi!"
They are not out of the woods yet. They rush to the port but it's closed and Inquisitors are everywhere. The Inquisitors are former Jedi who are now hunting them across the galaxy.
All seems lost when a bounty droid appears behind them and is blasted to smithereens by a con-man with a heart of gold. He gives them a key to a big freight hauler and instructions on how to get out of the port. Obi-Wan has little choice but to trust him.
Haja makes a very big mistake. He tells them he will buy them and then place himself between the fugitives and Reva. It is very brave and stupid. She has finally tracked him down and is playing it off like he is the Jedi she is after. One big question is why she didn't try this on Uncle Owen, she knows better and she can determine where Obi-Wan and Leia are headed.
The Grand Inquisitor is the most powerful inquisitor.
Reva tracked them to the ship before they could board and take off, because Haja doesn't give them up on purpose. The Grand Inquisitor once again tells her to stand aside. She stabs him to death and says that she would let him take all the credit.
This opens the door for Obi-Wan and he and Leia to escape as Reva yells "I'll get you dirty rats!" One of these days! I will get you from below.
This is exciting stuff. It makes sense that Obi-Wan would rescue a ten-year-old Leia, as shown in the movie.
By telling a story that builds a relationship between Kenobi and the young princess, we flesh out some of the background that we never knew we needed, but that will enrich the backdrop to the Skywalker Saga over the course of this series.
There is a part of me that wishes we could tackle other stories instead of focusing on the Skywalker Saga. Why did I like the movies so much? They weren't focused so much on the Skywalkers because of the end of Rogue One that ties directly to A New Hope.
This is the reason I have mixed feelings. There is a part of me that just wants Star Wars to move on, just like I was thrilled to see the character of Skywalker in The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett. This universe has a time line that spans thousands of years. There are more stories to be told. The first trailer for Andor looks great, it looks like they will dodge Skywalker lore rather effectively.
There is an Obi-Wan Kenobi.
I noted at least one plot hole above. Why did Reva not mind-read Owen when she knew the importance of protecting Leia? That seems out of place.
Are they trying too hard to make her smart and clever? I enjoyed child Leia a lot but at times it felt like they were laying it on a little thick. Even as she witnesses her home world destroyed in a single fell swoop and everyone she loved being killed, adult Leia is very fierce and brave and never backs down. You can portray that without taking it all at once. I might be nit-picking at this point.
There was something a little flat about the whole thing. It was an exciting story that felt detached from itself. I'm not sure if it's a problem from the past or not. The writing was fine for the most part, but at times it felt like a show that was missing something. Something that makes us care a little bit more.
Maybe this is a problem from the past. We already know that when she is blasted out into the vacuum of space by her son, she doesn't have a good reason to come back. We know that Obi-Wan dies at the hands of Darth in the last lightsaber battle of the franchise.
What are the stakes in this show?
Maybe filling in some narrative blanks is enough. I will not make a judgement at the moment. I'm happy enough to keep watching, but my skepticism will watch me, the two of us keeping one another company as always.
If I didn't make that clear, there were plenty of things I liked. Darth Vader's return is either epic or promises to be anyways. That is a spine-tingling moment when he opens his eyes after Obi-Wan says his name.
Reva says Darth Vader and Obi-Wan look like they are seeing a ghost when she first mentions them. She says something like "Ah you didn't know...Anakin is alive!", but how does Obi-Wan know that Darth Vader is alive?
Lots to think about and unpack. It depends on next week's episode and the three after that.
What did you think of the first two episodes of Obi-Wan? Let me know on social media. You can follow me on this website for my TV reviews. I will be reviewing The Boys, The Orville, and many more.
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