So, the finale of Disney Plus’ Obi-Wan Kenobi has dropped. Here’s the quick and dirty: It’s a good show, but it’s not great and it should’ve been. How do you take one of the most beloved characters in Star Wars lore and not hit it out of the park? By being Disney, that’s how. Look, there’s a lot to like about Obi-Wan. There really is. But as a life-long Star Wars fan, there are expectations that I have that Disney has not been meeting. Even though I loved The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, and Rogue One, everything about Disney’s take on Star Wars feels very…corporate. It feels like a blatant cash-grab that was designed to play on people’s nostalgia. Obi-Wan is no different. Normally, I wouldn’t have an issue with them playing on my nostalgia, if these things were done well, but they’re not. It’s like Disney doesn’t actually care about the property.
Obi Wan Kenobi picks up ten years after Order 66, when the Clone Army turned against their Jedi leaders and slaughtered most of them, obliterating the entire Jedi Order. That made way for the rise of Darth Sidious/Palpatine as the Emperor of the newly formed Galactic Empire. After losing so much in the Clone Wars and seeing his own apprentice, Anakin Skywalker fall to the Dark Side, we see Obi-Wan Kenobi as a broken man on Tatooine, trying to look after Anakin’s son, Luke. At the same time, Darth Vader’s Imperial Inquisitors show up hunting surviving Jedi. One of the Inquisitors, Reva eventually hatches a plan to draw Kenobi out by kidnapping Leia, the adopted daughter of Senator Bail Organa. This leads to Bail asking Obi-Wan for help. Reluctantly, Kenobi agrees and sets out to find Leia. The first episode was fantastic, setting up a world where the Empire is becoming more powerful and deadly, and where Obi-Wan has lost everything. He lost his apprentice to the Dark Side, the Jedi Order is gone, and the Sith are in complete control of the galaxy. Dark times. As the show progresses, however, I get the distinct impression that everything that happened in this show was simply to get Obi-Wan to point where he was going to fight Darth Vader…which he does. The first time the two fight was in Episode 3 and it was a very one-sided battle. Kenobi had been out of practice as a Jedi for ten years, so he’s going to be a little…rusty. While episode 2 had a Taken-vibe about it, where Obi-Wan was trying to rescue Leia, it didn’t quite work, because the villains in the show were mostly a joke. Reva is an interesting character, considering her background, but the way she was written didn’t do her any favors, and she didn’t really have a lot to do outside of being angry all the time. That comes to a head in Episode 5 where her true motivations are revealed.
Episode 3 is where we really saw Vader being Vader, and it was terrifying. This character is a monster. What he does to the townspeople is brutal, and what he does to Kenobi is horrific. I’m surprised that this show goes to some really dark places, especially in Episode 5. But the problem is that the focus is all over the place. This should’ve been Obi-Wans journey to redemption as a Jedi Knight, and while that does happen, certain events and characters don’t feel right. Now, I’m not against Disney breaking Star Wars canon, if it’s done well, but there needs to be a good reason for it. The writing feels very pedestrian, and I think that because this was a 6-episode show, there was no room to let any of these characters or events breathe and play out. It all feels very rushed. From a visual standpoint, this is not a good-looking Star Wars show. A lot of the CGI and effects are incredibly under-cooked and underdeveloped. They feel like PlayStation 2-era effects, and that’s not a good thing. There are different locations including the Fortress Inquisitorius, which was awesome, but again, not well-made.
As far as acting goes, we’ve got some really good performances here. Obviously, the star of the show is Ewan McGregor as Kenobi, and he knocks it out of the park. He should, he loves the character, so of course he was going to give a 110 percent. Seeing Hayden Christensen as Darth Vader was outstanding. The way he moves just makes that character even more intimidating. James Earl Jones returns as the voice of Darth Vader, and it sounds like he didn’t age at all. That’s because of some AI thing that helped with his voice, but still: This IS Darth Vader as he should be: Powerful, hateful, and terrifying. We do get to see Hayden as Anakin in a flashback before the Clone Wars when he was training with Obi-Wan, and that was pretty cool. But you could definitely tell that Hayden wasn’t as young as he used to be. That said, he can still carry himself in an action sequence. A lot of hate was thrown at Moses Ingram. Most of that was racist garbage. I thought that Moses did the best she could with what she was given, which wasn’t a whole lot, unfortunately. I think the character is interesting for a different show, and I hope we get to explore that character later on. The other real standout of the show is Vivian Lyra Blair as young Leia. I’m not a huge fan of child actors. It’s through no fault of their own, they generally just don’t work for me. Vivian was amazing. Honestly, I think that Carrie Fisher would’ve loved this little girl. Vivian channels Carrie’s performance as Leia. She’s great.
I’ve always believed that Star Wars was meant for the big screen. Obi-Wan Kenobi just proved that. This needed to be a two and a half hour movie with a real budget. The action in this show is very mixed. There’s some good stuff in Episode 3, but episode 4 was ridiculously bad. Not only did we have the worst-aiming stormtroopers in Star Wars history here, but they could be knocked with a slap to the helmet. It was bad…and Leia needed to be rescued AGAIN. The way episode 4 plays out is…just plain bad. I’ve seen fanfiction that was better. Episode 5 was better in terms of action. It was a lot of fun to watch and seeing Reva take on Vader was actually really cool, but that’s not what people wanted to see. People wanted to see Obi-Wan against Vader. Well, with the final episode, that is EXACTLY what we get…and it’s glorious. It was one of the best Star Wars moments put on screen. In fact, I would say the final duel between Kenobi and Vader is my personal favorite lightsaber duel alongside Luke and Vader from Return of the Jedi. From a choreography standpoint, it hearkens back to Revenge of the Sith in terms of epic-ness, but as far as emotional pay-off is concerned, it’s the second best duel in Star Wars. They delivered. Reva’s arc has been pretty predictable from the get-go, but I actually liked how it turned out. But again, that character needed more time to breathe and develop. 6 half-hour episodes are not enough to tell stories like this. I don’t care what Disney says, Obi-Wan should’ve been a theatrically released movie. People would have flocked in droves to see it. It would’ve made ALL the money.
Now, is Obi-Wan Kenobi a bad show? No, not in the slightest. There’s more here that I actually like than dislike, but the stuff that doesn’t work really sticks out like a sore thumb. I would argue that this is definitely better than The Book of Boba Fett. But the show does suffer from being a prequel series. We know where these characters eventually end up, so the tension isn’t there as much. I’ve always thought that it was always about the journey, not the destination, but in this case, the journey had a few missteps along the way. I love Obi-Wan Kenobi as a character. He’s been one of the cornerstones of the franchise for 45 years, as was Darth Vader, Luke, Leia, and Han. Ultimately, I really do like the show, but it could’ve been so much more. It needed to be longer than 6 episodes, and those episodes needed to be about 1 hour to an hour and a half each. As it stands, I’ll probably watch through it again. I’ll definitely be watching the finale again, that’s for sure. That is how you stick a landing. While the show isn’t perfect, it’s definitely worth taking a look at. But I would be just fine if they don’t do another season.