We're now five episodes into what has been presented to us as a six episodes limited series. The finale drops tomorrow, hence the timing this particular entry. I've very mixed feelings about the show, and some strong opinions about it, as well as the overall direction of the Star Wars franchise in recent years. The end of Obi-Wan's fifth episode left us on a fairly major cliffhanger, with several plot threads dangling. I have doubts as to how well they can wrap it all up, coupled with a theory as to whether or not Episode VI is truly the last one.
Again, spoilers.
Earlier I said that I've mixed feelings about the series. This is because, on a certain level, I think that Obi-Wan Kenobi is a cracking good show. It's well-produced (some people have said that it looks cheap, but I don't see that -- maybe growing-up on classic Doctor Who has set my bar lower when it comes to production values), there's a nice balance of action vs. dialogue-driven scenes, Ewan McGregor is delivering the goods when it comes to acting, and it features some standout scenes of Darth Vader being a badass.
And yet...
The series has felt a bit meandering at times. While I've enjoyed some of the action and dialogue-driven scenes, it also feels like certain elements have been more like side quests. Things begin to crystallize when you learn that Obi-Wan Kenobi was originally meant to be a movie. There's definitely enough here for 2 hours. 5 hours, on the other hand? Eh, not so much.
Characterization has also been something of a mixed bag. McGregor is doing a bang-up job as his character has been written, but we're even closer now than we were in the prequels to the Ben Kenobi we saw in A New Hope, and I'm still not feeling like it's the same character as portrayed by Alec Guinness. The original Ben we were first introduced to in 1977 was pretty chill. He even kept his calm when he sliced that dude's arm off in the cantina. This Ben Kenobi is all angst and frustration. It works for this show, but not when you're trying to connect the dots to events that occur nine years later in the franchise's timeline.
I want to like the Reva character, but can't tell if she's been under-written, or not acted well enough. Maybe both? For an example of a villain that maybe didn't have the best dialogue but featured some great acting that saved it, check out some episodes of Blakes 7 featuring Jacqueline Pearce as Servalan. So, yeah, Reva feels like a missed opportunity. We've also never heard of her before now, which makes me wonder if she'll suffer the same fate as the Rogue One characters we were introduced to before they were summarily killed-off (because we'd never seen them in any of the following timeline events).
Vivien Lyra Blair has been good as the precocious young Leia, though her pairing-up with Ben on his rescue mission does have a slight shade of the Mandalorian and baby Yoda. Also, it's all but guaranteed that she'll have her memory wiped of these events before the series is over. Nothing about her behavior in A New Hope indicates that she went on any adventures with Kenobi, bonding with him along the way. Her message to "General Kenobi" doesn't indicate that, nor does her reaction to his death (which is to comfort Luke). Indira Varma, as an undercover rebel named Tala, is quite good in her role. Shame she was killed in Episode V (again, we never saw or heard of this character during events that happened later, so of course she couldn't make it out of the show -- this is one of the problems with doing prequels).
Aside from the title character not seeming like the person we would later be introduced to less than a decade later in the Star Wars timeline, the very existence of the Obi-Wan Kenobi series is questionable, at least from an artistic point-of-view. When we met Ben in A New Hope, we learned he'd been living a quiet, hermit-like life on Tatooine for decades, watching over Luke from afar. When the young Skywalker finally meets up with him, Kenobi seems amiable enough, fairly relaxed, and is up to the challenge of getting the boy off the planet and beyond. In 2022, we learn Kenobi went off-world for awhile, faced Darth Vader, rescued a young Leia Organa, was feeling angsty about everything, and basically planet-jumping from one harrowing adventure to the next.
And what of Darth Vader? He's featured prominently in a few key scenes, and the fanboy in me has loved it. Hearing James Earl Jones's voice again in the role (even if it's augmented) is nice, and watching him pull down a ship attempting to take off was heart-pounding. And therein lies the problem. Again, this is a prequel series. We've already seen what happens in the Star Wars timeline up to 40-45 years ahead. Darth Vader was almost always calm, cool and collected in the original trilogy, even when he was Force-choking people. In this series, he's like a mad dog. And, while watching him Force-stop a spaceship makes our fanboy hearts flutter, one has to wonder why he didn't use the same power to stop the Millennium Falcon from escaping Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back?
Finally, I guess I'm just tired of feeling like Star Wars is stuck in a rut. So much of it is prequels. The Mandalorian, Book of Boba Fett, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Rogue One, and Solo are all set in the timeline's past. We're also being treated to watching the unfolding stories of a bunch of dead characters. Seriously. We've already witness the deaths of Kenobi, Luke, Leia, Han, Anakin/Vader, and Cassian Andor (from Rogue One), yet these are the people that the Star Wars universe continues to revolve around now, mostly on television. This creates a lack of macro-suspense. Sure, there's suspense on the micro-level: how will Ben and Leia escape the caverns? How does Han pull-off the train heist? Will Reva endanger Luke on Tatooine? Ultimately, we know these characters' stories play out. So, please, Lucasfilm, tell other stories.
With one more episode to go in the Obi-Wan Kenobi series, I'm presuming we've got to witness the following: Leia getting dropped-off safely on Alderaan, with her memory wiped; Reva going to Tatooine; Ben heading back to Tatooine to stop Reva from harming Luke; Vader doing... something? Probably fighting Ben again, somehow, somewhere? I dunno; and then Ben settling-in again in his humble abode to continue watching over Luke, his adventures over, until a droid shows up nine years later with a message from a princess.
If they can wrap all that up in one episode, then cool. But I wouldn't be surprised if they somehow revealed a second season. Or something stupid like that. This is Star Wars, after all.
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