Obi-Wan Kenobi series: speculation

ArchdukeOfNaboo
HE TALKED TO LEIA  ABOUT HER MOTHER WHO IS PADME ARE FANS THIS DENSE?!

It doesn't seek to be unnecessarily complicated, nor does it do "riddles", per se, and there is beauty in simplicity. Star Wars definitely excels in that regard. I also think fans are being a bit dense here, if what you say is true (I haven't sought out fan reactions very much yet, besides reading and responding to fellow Naberrie Fielders). However, sometimes, people clearly underthink the franchise. Many examples come to mind, like the dogmatic refusal to believe Leia has recollections of Padme through the Force in ROTJ, the obstinacy surrounding major prequel elements like Qui-Gon, Jar Jar, and midi-chlorians, the tedious whining that Anakin turns to the Dark Side because of "a bad dream", or making out that Anakin displays zero traits that Padme would find attractive. 



Some fans are definitely in deep denial here. I tried raising that issue a few years ago on TFN (when I briefly returned under a new account), and I did this in the Sequel Trilogy forum, where raging fanatics obsessed with race and gender congregate (e.g., try saying that Rey friendzones Finn in TFA and see what happens). I pointed out that Han is practically a sugar daddy to Leia. They instantly tried dismissing my wider point on a technicality ("Leia is already rich"). Yet they're the sort that would likely have a bone to pick with the prequels over Anakin's "stalker" behaviour, Padme's tragic death (which is apparently "sexist" and belongs to "19th Century romance fiction"), or the PT's alleged infusion of "racial stereotyping". I said how the real-life situation was no better: Carrie Fisher was still a teenager in ANH, while Harrison Ford was a married man in his thirties with children, who cheated on his wife with Carrie. But forget it. They don't want to know.

Anyway, this sort of negativity is something I think goes against the grain of discussion here. 

So far, it's nice to see a basic sense of unity and interest in Star Wars again, thanks to the new series. 

Okay, to pick up on another point here:


Yeah, the generational, parents-and-kids aspect of Star Wars is so central to the storytelling, it's been really cool to see the Obi-Wan series tapping into it. I honestly didn't think Leia would be in it much. A spoiler I shared in March (Reply #200) mentioned "scenes of Leia's life on Alderaan", implying we'd be seeing Leia in the show but perhaps in a limited capacity; allowing her scenes to be cut if necessary. I'm glad that spoiler was, as it turned out, barely half the story!

I think there's something else going on here with the mentality you describe. I think it goes back to the OT and how Leia is more of a supporting character. She's a strong character, certainly. But the focus is really all on Vader and Luke. Even in the ST, Leia never quite comes forward in the narrative with an arc or a presence to match Luke's in TLJ. She has always been somewhat neglected or sidelined to make way for Skywalker males.

Thus, when you add in Padme's tragic death, there's a sense that the female side of the equation just doesn't matter as much beyond the PT. Maybe this development in the Obi-Wan show comes from the series having a female director and various other women with influential positions within Lucasfilm. If so, great. But whoever is responsible, we're seeing some balance brought to the Force. Leia is deserving of being shown as a young girl and having a bond with Obi-Wan. Why should all the spoils here go to Luke? I hope, wherever Carrie is, she's smiling at the young Leia right now.


That's right. This series seems to really understand the prequels and the importance of Padme through these surrogate, adoptive fathers: people that knew Padme and came to know each other through Padme (excellent point there, AD). My one criticism, which I made earlier, is that it would be nice to see more of Breha. Leia has an adoptive mother, too, and Star Wars could do well to focus a bit more on mother-child relationships. Plus, like Owen and Beru, Bail and Breha seem to have a happy marriage, and there is scope for showing them as a couple. It would certainly make Alderaan's destruction in ANH all the more shocking and senseless. 

Yeah, this series represents the first time a live-action project from Disney/Lucasfim isn't treating the prequels like a scab that should be removed, but is according them due in-universe historical relevance. And it also isn't shy of the meta touches, like the prequel recap at the beginning and Obi-Wan's nightmare montage.


Well, he looks a bit older, his eyes heavier, his face more worn, but yeah, he's right back into character, with all the gentility, concern, quiet disdain, fateful resignation, and do-gooder traits he showed in the PT. Same Obi-Wan, just with a heavy heart.


I'm wondering about that, too. I expect he'll show up at some point, but I'm not making stringent demands about it. They have already set the scene, though, so to speak, by having Obi-Wan call on him in both of the first two episodes.
 

I bet, on Daiyu, Obi-Wan regretted calling Anakin (and indirectly Jar Jar) "[another] pathetic lifeform". Anakin and Jar Jar gave Obi-Wan little trouble compared to Leia's rude and defiant ways, right when their lives are at stake and they're being hunted! I think some annoyingness was the point there. We see that Obi-Wan is more mature now, but even an ex-Jedi Master has difficulty controlling a feisty girl. Regarding Bail: Me, too. Perfect writing and acting. Proof that Lucas got the casting exactly right in both his trilogies. Even with all his wealth and privilege and myriad responsibilities, Bail is a wonderfully relaxed, caring, compassionate man. An ideal believer of democracy and supporter of the Jedi, and the kind of patient, encouraging father that Anakin almost had in Qui-Gon. I've always felt that Qui-Gon and Bail are very alike. 


Yeah, Star Wars always frames nasty villains as just that: nasty. They can still be relatable or sympathetic, but there's never much mincing around about their evil ways. From her first scene, Reva leaves a strong impression. 


He did? Huh. I guess he's not the bald, black-suited, pasty-skinned, Force-powered, British-accented foe Obi-Wan should be worried about. Maybe the subtext here is that doing things by-the-book tends to produce mediocre results. Obi-Wan was very by-the-book in TPM and, as Qui-Gon said, he still had "much to learn of the Living Force". 


I think the basic idea behind bringing in the Empire and Vader and the Inquisitors is to give this thing maximum stakes. They could have done a much more low-key take on Obi-Wan's life in the desert and it would have worked well. But it wouldn't have drawn the same level of attention or interest. It's actually a bit audacious because it raises expectations and it could all come crashing down. I really hope not. At least there's not the same level of viewer tension that there would be with an ongoing series. The whole series is already one and done. They can't screw it up or overreach later down the line nor try and retcon their earlier decisions. It's a tight, complete thing, with a beginning, a middle, and an end. I don't know about other fans, but I'm quite relieved about that. If I have any sadness, then I wish we could maybe have had 8-10 episodes. Never mind. Six is probably enough if they've done it right.

Well, yeah -- they tried to give her an arc. And it's an arc that works reasonably well, but wants for a certain depth and comes off as weirdly truncated. It didn't help matters that Carrie died before the ST had been seen to completion. The doctored footage can come off as a bit awkward. Abrams said they would never recast the part and I can understand his tremendous reluctance. But maybe they could have. I don't know. I prefer what they did to CG Leia and CG Tarkin in "Rogue One". Too much Uncanny Valley for me there. Leia was meant to emerge as a tremendous force in her own right in the Sequel Trilogy. Lucas himself planned it that way. Of course, the end result from Disney/LFL can be debated, but I was honestly trying to avoid raising too much of an ST debate. 

what I loved is that Leia's little moment there immediately reminded me of Padme, and then Obi-Wan immediately said what we were all thinking.

Notes on Episode II the second episode

It wasn't bad either. The Leia actress has a little bit of Anakin in her, doesn't she? Very good casting like Jake Llyod, I must say. As I said on my comments on the first episode, it's good to see child actors returning to Star Wars, it makes thing feel that much more Phantom Menacey. A youthful vibrancy is with us once more.

Obi-Wan tells little Leia to pretend to be his daughter, then she responds by saying she'd be more like a granddaughter. McGregor is old enough to be a grandfather, sure, but this must also be an in-joke about the speculation during the ST, right? Some fans thought, even demanded, Rey be Kenobi's granddaughter, as preposterous an idea it was (I would not have mind niece or grandniece etc). Interestingly, Kathleen Kennedy spoke about the subject in the week before the premiere, debunking it as going against Lucas' wishes for the character and the vows of the Jedi Order, and that can't be a coincidence? For once, Kennedy was speaking some sense.

I thought the chase sequence between Leia and Obi-Wan was executed terrifically, reminding us all of its Episode II namesake. I liked seeing the different alien species here, there was a bit of Lucasian goofyness to be sure. And it was very touching when Obi-Wan used the Force to save Leia's life from a catastrophic fall. While I can see why some people might say meh to this episode (the people who never enjoyed Home Alone), there's no denying that the director handled that part effectively The chemistry between McGregor and the actress playing little Leia was very powerful.

Forget the Inquisitor show, we have the Leia show, and I can't say I'm complaining. I love the Obi-Wan - little Leia dynamic. And why wouldn't I? I love all the Home Alones, I loved young Anakin in Episode I. I was dreading that Reva would get more screentime than Obi-Wan.

And my highlight? It has to be Obi-Wan reminiscing to Leia about her real mother - that definitely got me. I suppose he can't exactly tell her the full truth, can he? She only finds out she shares the same mother with Luke in ROTJ, right?

I guess we have had the dialogue reference to Padmé, and the visual callback in the first episode, but her name still hasn't been said aloud, correct? We've had "Anakin" name-checked in both episodes, by multiple characters. We need Padmé invoked to clear up the unnecessary fanboy confusion.

Now I'm not fully convinced its dawned on Obi-Wan that Anakin survived at the end of this episode, because if that's it then, well, it is a lot more clumsy than I would have preferred it to be. Why did the Grand Inquisitor have to die at the exact same time? It draws attention away. The Inquisitor woman seems to shout out Vader and then Anakin haphazardly, like throwing names out there, and it doesn't make sense that she would know his true identity. I was hoping the revelation would come to Obi-Wan in a face-to-face with his former apprentice, whereby Vader would mention it and/or Obi-Wan would sense it in the force (as Luke soon did after Vader told him in TESB). Hopefully we see the true realisation is all its glory in the third episode. We sure will learn all the juicy details about Reva's past, anyway. Did you notice the visual reference of Trinity in the rooftop chase in The Matrix?

McGregor's accent appears more familiar in this episode. I really don't want him steering off into a pale imitation, he just has to be who he is, even the bashers loved him in the prequels, for crying out loud.

The shot of unsuited Vader in the bacta tank, or Anakin with all his Mustafar burns, really got me excited for the next one. Do you think they put too much prosthetics on Christensen's face, or is it reasonable? It's not as elegant as the shots we got in Rogue One, though that wasn't a close-up, to be fair. A tad too cauliflower for my tastes, but we'll see how it goes out, we've only had a few seconds.