Yes, I forgot to write about Kumail, but I don’t have much to say? I like the bit of world building about a fake Jedi, but I have many questions (it FEELS like that’s way too risky in this environment to justify it for the credits), and the show isn’t really interested in exploring any of them, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
Very much into these first two episodes. Obi-Wan: Private Investigator was one of the more successful parts of the prequels, and seeing it make a return was a surprise, but a welcome one. And using "what if Baby Yoda could sass The Mandalorian?" as a guidepost for the Obi-Wan/Leia scenes gives them some real crackle, especially given the misdirect of this being a Tatooine-centric adventure.
The acting is very much; McGregor is as natural a fit in the role as ever, the actress playing Leia is doing an astonishingly good job of channeling what I imagine a young Carrie Fisher must have been like, Rupert Friend's unblinking, unsettling, overenunciating menace fits right in with the Empire and Kumail straddled the line between "too big" and "just big enough" perfectly (although I'll admit when he first threw back his hood I thought "he put a little too much paprika on that sandwich" and was delighted when that was quickly revealed to be the entire point).
If I may cross the streams here for a second, the scenes of Obi-Wan going about his sad little day and trying his hardest to not get involved reminded me of the episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine that follows Kira around the station after it has been taken by the Dominion. Both episodes follow the mundane day-to-day that we wouldn't expect of our heroes, both characters are just trying to get by without getting noticed and to keep their head down until things change, both of them demonstrate how doing so wears them down despite their best intentions, and both of them are spurred into action when someone who came to them for help ends up hanging from a railing. I can't imagine that particular parallel was intentional, but I just finished a DS9 rewatch and that's a plotline from its strongest stretch of episodes so I couldn't help but notice.
Making it about Leia rather than Luke is a good idea, considering how little we know of her life pre-Trilogy. The kid's annoying, but in an endearing enough way.
The Tatooine scenes were a bit samey, but I liked the city stuff and all the alien creatures.
I like Moses Ingram's villain character even if she's a bit one-note so far; hopefully we get some backstory on her later on.
Not sure if there's enough here for six episodes, but I'm enjoying it infinitely more than Boba Fett.
It had flaws (yeah, the chases were dumb), but this is what I want Star Wars to be in the 21st century. I'm afraid I can't verbalize exactly what worked so well for me, other than I thought they nailed the tone (not too dark, not too light) and found a nice balance between good old fashioned space opera and a more modern "Golden Age of TV" approach to storytelling.
I want to call out the Kumail scene in particular. The beats in that scene were so well paced: Kumail's a Jedi! Jumail's a Jedi? Jumail's a badly written Jedi. Kumail's a sleazy Jed... oh, I get it.
Myles, I appreciate that you called out how absolutely insane the chase sequences were in this. I’m honestly surprised more people haven’t commented on how bad they were, and yet so much of these two episodes revolved around Leia being chased. You had the initial chase with Flea as the climax in the first part. (Side note: I know he’s done other acting but it was incredibly distracting) Then, the climax for the shorter second part was an extended chase with multiple parties that made little to no spatially sense or logic into how things actually escalated and had poor Ewan McGregor trying to make hopping small gaps look as though they were great feats of strength. These two chase scenes happened so close to each other when watching the episodes back to back that it really seemed to call attention to how bad they were.
In general, while I don’t think these episodes are bad - and I’m still on board for watching the rest of the series - it feels empty. Nothing was grabbing me. I was watching out of curiosity for how they were moving the pieces around the board but not out of actually caring or believing in the motivations of the characters. The music was weirdly muted. The sets felt like sets, not real places. The direction did nothing to help the awkward blocking. It was just kind of there. It had all the engagement of reading a Wikipedia episode summary. Harsh, I know - but all the pieces are here for something good or at least entertaining, and I just didn’t get anything approaching that yet.
I'm really glad this is turning out to be the Young Leia show, and... I honestly cannot figure why that was kept from the trailers and other publicity. Even before she's kidnapped, her part is informative and engaging while seeing Obi-Wan and Luke on Tatooine feels wholly perfunctory. (What are we really learning about the characters or plot on that desert planet? Nothing that hasn't already been suggested by previous stories, in my opinion.) Bringing Ben into her story is a sound and unexpected choice, although her original holorecording to him in A New Hope -- "General Kenobi: years ago you served my father in the Clone Wars..." -- sure didn't make it seem like they'd ever met personally before. But I'm okay with a little retcon tweaking like that.
I agree that it's very weird to exclude the animated history involving Obi-Wan and Anakin in that recap montage, especially given how the other live-action Star Wars shows have clearly embraced the cartoons as canon. Although I guess by design everything in the Clone Wars series is meant to be less important than the two movies it falls between, and maybe they thought it would be too jarring to mix the visual styles by including it here.
A bit late to the party (or perhaps wake) as I was on a little holiday. I was definitely between hope and dread for this series, but did not imagine it could be this deeply terrible. A lot of issues have been mentioned, foremost by Myles...
Firstly, the monty python-like chase sequences were indeed disturbingly awkward. Like something from a 90s Power Rangers episode.
Secondly, the editing by itself was similarly awkward. At times, it felt like the worst of GoT teleporting, but at least those characters were fleshed out by then. Also, what was the point of the cold opening of episode 1? So many scenes felt like they were shot out of sequence, or made it feel like parts were missing. People do not scream when a hand is cut off? Honestly, the editing felt amateuristic, which is the last thing I expected from a Star Wars series.
Third, the acting was... let us be nice, and just blame the script. Particularly Reza felt like a parody, followed immediately by the other inquisitors...
In the end, I am baffled by what I saw. I expected a lot of fan service, and perhaps a slow start to the story, but not what I consider to be one of the worst pilots (and follow-up episode) I have ever seen. I always imagined Obi Wan's life after Revenge to be like the first 20 minutes: low-key, depressing and boring. I wish they had kept it like that, and not embarass Ewan's legacy as the best part of the prequels.
"Okay, everything about the chase scenes in this show drove me crazy. The simple truth is that Blair is way too tiny to outrun any of those people, and nothing about the spatiality of Obi-Wan chasing her made a lick of sense either."
100% agree on this. On her planet, she took off down an open path before later cutting through the woods. They would have had her in three seconds or less and then they'd pop up and not grab her immediately.
I could see if she took advantage of well-explored local terrain and ran entirely through woods and rough terrain right from the beginning how she could have given them a chase. But it was so unrealistic as was.
Given the way the show opened on a school shooting, it would’ve been consistent storytelling to have the Sith just put on some kind of fake vaccination push on Tatooine to get midichlorian samples from everyone. If only the Empire believed in universal healthcare!
Why threaten to kill Ben in front of a crowd when it was never established that he’s valued by the crowd? Why do they care? Why not just start taking hostages from a cross-section of the community and say they’ll be released when the Jedi is turned in? Or offer a reward? Unless this is the barely competent B team, or even the incompetent D team, sent to a sandy shithole in the Outer Rim. That doesn’t track, unless they don’t know that there’s a Skywalker family here. Which they do know.
The Leia forest chase scene is below par, agreed. Maybe establish that she knows the forest, that she gets into spots accessible only to kids, and make us cheer her as she outwits her pursuers. Include Lola, it’ll be important later. She finds her way into what she and we think is a safe be space, only to be undone by Reva’s magic. Maybe Reva uses the Force to turn friendly forest creatures into a stampede that forces Leia down a tree or something. Show Leia learning that her smarts + machine (Lola) might not be enough against the Force + smarts. It foreshadows Luke turning off the targeting computer.
And it surprised me that the Organas don’t have a family password that caregivers can use when picking up kids? That seems unlikely, especially for royals. Leia should definitely not trust beardo weirdo. Even after the Force reveal. Siths can use the Force. The wonderful Vivien Lyra Blair makes clear something I had long thought: Leia is the smart one. She was raised in palace court intrigue. She’s gonna know that multiple groups would want her, and beardo weirdo might not be her friend. He needs that password.
Kumail is great! He reminded me of many of the human smugglers I read about in Varian Fry’s memoir of Vichy Marseille in 1940. I wish his redemption was more of a struggle.
I thought this was THE SHIT. Like baby yoda is cute but this was the first time I’ve felt more than a resigned shrug about Star Wars, my favorite media property since age 5, in so long. Thrilled by the reveal of the Young Leia of it all and was really impressed that the character felt resonant and channeled both her mother and older self that we are familiar with instead of just being annoyingly precocious.
My one worry is that with bringing Anakin/Vader back it might spiral out a little. I found the new villain really compelling and want to hear more about her backstory, and in particular the idea that she is looked down upon by others in the empire despite her skill seemed like it could bear some interesting narrative. And Ewan Mcgregor of course remains such a dynamic actor who is wonderful in the role
As someone who never watched the animated series, I appreciate them sidestepping all that. Too much for my poor brain to take in.
However, I was led to believe the Grand Inquisitor was an imposing force from that series. But he got whacked awfully easily here. Is that supposed to be a bigger plot point, feel more forceful?
Whatever else the show does or doesn’t do, and with all respect to Ewan McGregor whom I’ve loved since Trainspotting, I’m just so disappointed that in 2022 Lucasfilm and Disney are still yellowfacing this character. Lucas wrote the part for Toshirô Mifune (who declined, worried about the English), and the character was based on the rōnin archetype that is such a staple of Japanese cinema. The character’s name is Obi-Wan Kenobi, for Pete’s sake. It’s long past time to put an Asian actor in the role, and Disney (and McGregor, it must be said), could have made that happen.
You know, if I were a Jedi on the run, I'm pretty sure the first thing on my to-do list would be learning how to do Force stuff without using my hands. Just saying.
Yes, I forgot to write about Kumail, but I don’t have much to say? I like the bit of world building about a fake Jedi, but I have many questions (it FEELS like that’s way too risky in this environment to justify it for the credits), and the show isn’t really interested in exploring any of them, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
Very much into these first two episodes. Obi-Wan: Private Investigator was one of the more successful parts of the prequels, and seeing it make a return was a surprise, but a welcome one. And using "what if Baby Yoda could sass The Mandalorian?" as a guidepost for the Obi-Wan/Leia scenes gives them some real crackle, especially given the misdirect of this being a Tatooine-centric adventure.
The acting is very much; McGregor is as natural a fit in the role as ever, the actress playing Leia is doing an astonishingly good job of channeling what I imagine a young Carrie Fisher must have been like, Rupert Friend's unblinking, unsettling, overenunciating menace fits right in with the Empire and Kumail straddled the line between "too big" and "just big enough" perfectly (although I'll admit when he first threw back his hood I thought "he put a little too much paprika on that sandwich" and was delighted when that was quickly revealed to be the entire point).
If I may cross the streams here for a second, the scenes of Obi-Wan going about his sad little day and trying his hardest to not get involved reminded me of the episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine that follows Kira around the station after it has been taken by the Dominion. Both episodes follow the mundane day-to-day that we wouldn't expect of our heroes, both characters are just trying to get by without getting noticed and to keep their head down until things change, both of them demonstrate how doing so wears them down despite their best intentions, and both of them are spurred into action when someone who came to them for help ends up hanging from a railing. I can't imagine that particular parallel was intentional, but I just finished a DS9 rewatch and that's a plotline from its strongest stretch of episodes so I couldn't help but notice.
Better than I expected!
Making it about Leia rather than Luke is a good idea, considering how little we know of her life pre-Trilogy. The kid's annoying, but in an endearing enough way.
The Tatooine scenes were a bit samey, but I liked the city stuff and all the alien creatures.
I like Moses Ingram's villain character even if she's a bit one-note so far; hopefully we get some backstory on her later on.
Not sure if there's enough here for six episodes, but I'm enjoying it infinitely more than Boba Fett.
It had flaws (yeah, the chases were dumb), but this is what I want Star Wars to be in the 21st century. I'm afraid I can't verbalize exactly what worked so well for me, other than I thought they nailed the tone (not too dark, not too light) and found a nice balance between good old fashioned space opera and a more modern "Golden Age of TV" approach to storytelling.
I want to call out the Kumail scene in particular. The beats in that scene were so well paced: Kumail's a Jedi! Jumail's a Jedi? Jumail's a badly written Jedi. Kumail's a sleazy Jed... oh, I get it.
Myles, I appreciate that you called out how absolutely insane the chase sequences were in this. I’m honestly surprised more people haven’t commented on how bad they were, and yet so much of these two episodes revolved around Leia being chased. You had the initial chase with Flea as the climax in the first part. (Side note: I know he’s done other acting but it was incredibly distracting) Then, the climax for the shorter second part was an extended chase with multiple parties that made little to no spatially sense or logic into how things actually escalated and had poor Ewan McGregor trying to make hopping small gaps look as though they were great feats of strength. These two chase scenes happened so close to each other when watching the episodes back to back that it really seemed to call attention to how bad they were.
In general, while I don’t think these episodes are bad - and I’m still on board for watching the rest of the series - it feels empty. Nothing was grabbing me. I was watching out of curiosity for how they were moving the pieces around the board but not out of actually caring or believing in the motivations of the characters. The music was weirdly muted. The sets felt like sets, not real places. The direction did nothing to help the awkward blocking. It was just kind of there. It had all the engagement of reading a Wikipedia episode summary. Harsh, I know - but all the pieces are here for something good or at least entertaining, and I just didn’t get anything approaching that yet.
Enjoyable so far but my main concern is yet to be answered - what will this series ask of Hayden Christensen, and will he be up to the task?
I'm really glad this is turning out to be the Young Leia show, and... I honestly cannot figure why that was kept from the trailers and other publicity. Even before she's kidnapped, her part is informative and engaging while seeing Obi-Wan and Luke on Tatooine feels wholly perfunctory. (What are we really learning about the characters or plot on that desert planet? Nothing that hasn't already been suggested by previous stories, in my opinion.) Bringing Ben into her story is a sound and unexpected choice, although her original holorecording to him in A New Hope -- "General Kenobi: years ago you served my father in the Clone Wars..." -- sure didn't make it seem like they'd ever met personally before. But I'm okay with a little retcon tweaking like that.
I agree that it's very weird to exclude the animated history involving Obi-Wan and Anakin in that recap montage, especially given how the other live-action Star Wars shows have clearly embraced the cartoons as canon. Although I guess by design everything in the Clone Wars series is meant to be less important than the two movies it falls between, and maybe they thought it would be too jarring to mix the visual styles by including it here.
A bit late to the party (or perhaps wake) as I was on a little holiday. I was definitely between hope and dread for this series, but did not imagine it could be this deeply terrible. A lot of issues have been mentioned, foremost by Myles...
Firstly, the monty python-like chase sequences were indeed disturbingly awkward. Like something from a 90s Power Rangers episode.
Secondly, the editing by itself was similarly awkward. At times, it felt like the worst of GoT teleporting, but at least those characters were fleshed out by then. Also, what was the point of the cold opening of episode 1? So many scenes felt like they were shot out of sequence, or made it feel like parts were missing. People do not scream when a hand is cut off? Honestly, the editing felt amateuristic, which is the last thing I expected from a Star Wars series.
Third, the acting was... let us be nice, and just blame the script. Particularly Reza felt like a parody, followed immediately by the other inquisitors...
In the end, I am baffled by what I saw. I expected a lot of fan service, and perhaps a slow start to the story, but not what I consider to be one of the worst pilots (and follow-up episode) I have ever seen. I always imagined Obi Wan's life after Revenge to be like the first 20 minutes: low-key, depressing and boring. I wish they had kept it like that, and not embarass Ewan's legacy as the best part of the prequels.
"Okay, everything about the chase scenes in this show drove me crazy. The simple truth is that Blair is way too tiny to outrun any of those people, and nothing about the spatiality of Obi-Wan chasing her made a lick of sense either."
100% agree on this. On her planet, she took off down an open path before later cutting through the woods. They would have had her in three seconds or less and then they'd pop up and not grab her immediately.
I could see if she took advantage of well-explored local terrain and ran entirely through woods and rough terrain right from the beginning how she could have given them a chase. But it was so unrealistic as was.
Given the way the show opened on a school shooting, it would’ve been consistent storytelling to have the Sith just put on some kind of fake vaccination push on Tatooine to get midichlorian samples from everyone. If only the Empire believed in universal healthcare!
Why threaten to kill Ben in front of a crowd when it was never established that he’s valued by the crowd? Why do they care? Why not just start taking hostages from a cross-section of the community and say they’ll be released when the Jedi is turned in? Or offer a reward? Unless this is the barely competent B team, or even the incompetent D team, sent to a sandy shithole in the Outer Rim. That doesn’t track, unless they don’t know that there’s a Skywalker family here. Which they do know.
The Leia forest chase scene is below par, agreed. Maybe establish that she knows the forest, that she gets into spots accessible only to kids, and make us cheer her as she outwits her pursuers. Include Lola, it’ll be important later. She finds her way into what she and we think is a safe be space, only to be undone by Reva’s magic. Maybe Reva uses the Force to turn friendly forest creatures into a stampede that forces Leia down a tree or something. Show Leia learning that her smarts + machine (Lola) might not be enough against the Force + smarts. It foreshadows Luke turning off the targeting computer.
And it surprised me that the Organas don’t have a family password that caregivers can use when picking up kids? That seems unlikely, especially for royals. Leia should definitely not trust beardo weirdo. Even after the Force reveal. Siths can use the Force. The wonderful Vivien Lyra Blair makes clear something I had long thought: Leia is the smart one. She was raised in palace court intrigue. She’s gonna know that multiple groups would want her, and beardo weirdo might not be her friend. He needs that password.
Kumail is great! He reminded me of many of the human smugglers I read about in Varian Fry’s memoir of Vichy Marseille in 1940. I wish his redemption was more of a struggle.
Appreciated the review and the other comments!
I have to admit I laughed out loud when Leia was kidnapped and put in a holding cell. Foreshadowing for A New Hope?
I thought this was THE SHIT. Like baby yoda is cute but this was the first time I’ve felt more than a resigned shrug about Star Wars, my favorite media property since age 5, in so long. Thrilled by the reveal of the Young Leia of it all and was really impressed that the character felt resonant and channeled both her mother and older self that we are familiar with instead of just being annoyingly precocious.
My one worry is that with bringing Anakin/Vader back it might spiral out a little. I found the new villain really compelling and want to hear more about her backstory, and in particular the idea that she is looked down upon by others in the empire despite her skill seemed like it could bear some interesting narrative. And Ewan Mcgregor of course remains such a dynamic actor who is wonderful in the role
As someone who never watched the animated series, I appreciate them sidestepping all that. Too much for my poor brain to take in.
However, I was led to believe the Grand Inquisitor was an imposing force from that series. But he got whacked awfully easily here. Is that supposed to be a bigger plot point, feel more forceful?
It seems to me Leia gets at least some of her insight from inherent force abilities, no?
Whatever else the show does or doesn’t do, and with all respect to Ewan McGregor whom I’ve loved since Trainspotting, I’m just so disappointed that in 2022 Lucasfilm and Disney are still yellowfacing this character. Lucas wrote the part for Toshirô Mifune (who declined, worried about the English), and the character was based on the rōnin archetype that is such a staple of Japanese cinema. The character’s name is Obi-Wan Kenobi, for Pete’s sake. It’s long past time to put an Asian actor in the role, and Disney (and McGregor, it must be said), could have made that happen.
You know, if I were a Jedi on the run, I'm pretty sure the first thing on my to-do list would be learning how to do Force stuff without using my hands. Just saying.