Wednesday, August 24, 2022

Obi yawn kenobi

I was excited for the series on Disney+. I have really enjoyed the content thus far, so I was looking forward to seeing how they treated the iconic character. 

I was waiting for my son to come home so we could enjoy it together…I avoided discussions and spoilers over the month or so since it premiered.

6 episodes. Each 45 or so minutes. Can't wait.

And then…disappointment. It sucked. They really missed on the character and storyline. Sure, the concept was okay. But they spent almost the entire first episode setting the tone for the show, as we watched Ben work in a packing plant and take long rides across the desert.

Uhhhhh. Wow. What a waste of an episode. Maybe it gets better in #2?  Not really. Just a snooze fest.

It's not what I expected obi wan to be doing. Or how I thought he'd be acting. Or whatever.

And on top of that, if you're a diehard Star Wars fan, maybe you know about the inquisitors. But if you're a causal fan, probably not.

They spent 5 minutes giving you their back story. And even then it was weak sauce. 

So that part of the story was glossed over, while they bored us with Ben telling everyone he left that life behind. 

The dialog was mostly drivel. There wasn't a purpose, other than meeting Anakin, er, Vader along the way. 

They could have kept the core story points and created a more interesting and richer story. But why bother? It's obi wan. People will love the fan service!

That's not to say there weren't a couple of bright spots. I liked young Leia. She was much as I might expect. And a few of the background characters held a little interest.  The battle between obi wan and Darth Vader was good, but very dark. And intermixed with Luke running away (almost completely in the dark) it lost some of the magic. 

…overall, it was not worth the 6 hours I spent watching it. It just didn't work. 

There was one additional point I wanted to make: I enjoyed the book of boba fett, in spite of it being similar in terms of how they spent a lot of time "doing nothing" in the desert. 

So what's the difference? It's all about perspective. Boba fett takes place *after* episode vi. We don't know what happens to the character, so it was interesting to see where they took the character. He took over Jaba's territory and there could be a richness to the storyline - because it was essentially unknown to the viewer. 

Obi wan takes place between episodes 3&4, and we know what happens in both. So there's no real mystery there. This one has to rely on a good story to make it come together. Having him help Leia was clever, but not enough. All he does is live a solitary life and then get chased across the Galaxy by Vader as he helps her. 

Why not have him "pretending" to live a solitary life while actually out doing something? He could have had a series of adventures that culminated in a battle. 

Anyway, that's my take. 

So I guess the robot chicken joke applies. From a certain point of view this all made sense. 

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