Obi-Wan Kenobi series: speculation

You're right on both accounts. There is something about a location that can't be captured otherwise just as there are locations that can't be realized without visual effects and Lucas was actually very good at finding a balance between location shooting when it was beneficial while not limiting himself to the locations of the world we live in. I'm actually being extra critical concerning the Disney productions on purpose, because of their dirty "real desert" anti-PT marketing ploy when TFA was made and released. Lucas actually went to a desert and now their marketing machine suddenly treats "The Volume" as the second coming, although it's got nothing to do with a "real desert". 

I think what The Mandalorian does really well is that it feels like just an ordinary day in the GFFA. It's a simple man making his way in the universe and on that path, he gets to meet some key players from the Saga and Lucasverse. In that sense, being just that (a simple man, an ordinary day), it does kind of work pretty well and the desert focus isn't a big problem. Not yet, at least.

I know and I've always loved the romantic view that Padmé passed on a bit of herself to each of her children. Leia memorized images and feelings of her dying mother, Luke inherited his mother's last thoughts and convictions ("There is good in him."). It's not spelled out on screen, though, and people being as stupid and literal as they are have whined about that "plot hole" for years, so I could see them giving it a try to "explain" it in whatever way.


I just don't get it. Why does Padmé get such kind of a treatment? Just because she hasn't been perfect as a human being? I always thought she was a great character - actually one of the best - and I liked how Lucas didn't write her as a carbon-copy of Leia while still giving them similarities. 

I agree that there is a tendency these days to take an easier path with making tv series' instead of movies, which is not always a good thing (especially when the show is serialized). The Mandalorian has a fairly procedural approach and that works quite well as a series, but there many shows that simply drag a thin story to length and it doesn't do the storytelling any favour. I think many filmmakers delude themselves by saying a tv series offers more time to tell a story (which is technically right, if done right) when they are probably more afraid of being tasked to tell the same story and character arc with less time. Of course, studios are also more inclined to go for a series nowadays because there's a lot less risk involved. But yes, there is definitely something about a well-made movie with good editing and pacing.

That's my approach too.

Arch Duke -- I don't wanna leave you out here, so here's my commentary on some of your notes pertaining to the first two episodes:


Alderaan, my dear fellow! And yes, as I've said in a few replies already, it's a beautifully realised location. Probably the most Narnia-esque planet in Star Wars. Well, now we've seen it in its full glory, at least. 

Did you get a PT-OT vibe going on in the first episode in the "tussle" between Alderaan and Tatooine? I sure did. The lush romanticism of forests, mountains, and palaces where everyone dresses perfectly and everything sparkles... meets the sparse, arid world that time forgot: a rugged frontier full of lumbering aliens, chugging transports, and gloomy, bearded men. 


I want to process Tatooine more fully on a second viewing. It came off well, just not especially varied or eye-catching compared to the Saga films. But it was good to see it again after the insipid substitute used in the Sequel Trilogy. You can't beat seeing the homestead again or those twin suns. Alien diversity remains an issue under Disney, but didn't seem especially blighting here. The interplay between Tatooine and the other planets just reminds me how much I love Star Wars. I'm still quite the Trek addict, but other franchises just don't do it for me like Star Wars does. 


You pretty much summed it up here. The one bit of shakycam that annoyed me was when that Jedi finds Obi-Wan on Tatooine and Obi-Wan tells him to go and lead a normal life. The cameraman seemed to be having an epileptic seizure in that scene. Otherwise, I didn't notice it too much. I just accept that this is the "style" now.


I think I'm going to agree with you. Look at us lot. We're not up in arms about it. We're not saying the series is terrible and beyond all hope. We're not complaining about retcons, Mary Sues, token gestures, broken promises, and empty plot gestures that go nowhere. It feels like something has changed here. The prequels are suddenly respected and there's at least the semblance of a story being told that honours them. Y'know: Something moderately Star Warsian and engaging. Quite amazing, really.



You make an excellent point here. I knew there was something that I liked about this that I couldn't put into words. You just did. Kids don't appear in the OT and only fleetingly in the ST. Just something else that sets the prequels apart and now "Obi-Wan Kenobi".


Interesting. What's funny is: Ewan McGregor is 51 years old. Jimmy Smits is 66. Execute Order Jimmy Smits. Anyway, that's a fifteen-year age gap! I guess Ewan was okay with that scene. Maybe it was explained to him along the lines you just suggested and they're poking some fun or setting something up. 



Not sure how they're going to tackle this. Maybe that's all we're getting. Mind you, that horrible cousin tells Leia she isn't a "real Organa", which obviously shakes her up. Perhaps there will be some follow-up.


A few things:

i) I think that scene is a little busy, but it gives Reva some believable character: an edge. That is, she kills her boss and then immediately tells Obi-Wan about Anakin/Vader, like she is letting out some of her rage and adrenaline over the murder she just committed. This has all been a bold gambit on her part. Even if she fails to capture Obi-Wan, she knows for sure now he also lives and she wants to leave him changed by their encounter.

ii) Reva just seems to have done her homework on Obi-Wan and his past. Maybe not many people are privy to the knowledge that Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader, but I think there can be exceptions. Dare I bring up the sequels? How did Rey know? Yeah, I know: Mary Sue information kiosk. How hidden that knowledge is within the galaxy hasn't been well-established thus far. 

iii) You might argue that Obi-Wan has sensed it in the Force and that's what the nightmare scene is about. He's just been suppressing it. Like Padme, he will take flight somewhere and try and confirm it. It might be that then he truly senses it in the Force -- maybe when Vader is near. Vader could even sneak up beside him. I think Ewan has already hinted at something like that in some interviews.


The makeup here was pretty impressive, but it's a bit of an exaggeration: a real horror-movie vibe. Even when Vader was being assembled at the end of ROTS, Anakin's face looked... normal. All scarred and burned, of course, but you could tell it was Hayden. This image of Vader was more brutal-looking. I guess there is no one exact "look" he should have and different directors will do it different ways.

Nice. Star Wars seems so flexible in what it is able to draw upon for inspiration. It's good that it is able to borrow from present-day big boys while retaining its own look and feel. You never know what could influence it next.


I'm encouraged you're finding it more rewatchable. They only had six episodes to play with, so I guess they've given this series their all. I think it's a stroke of genius to set it right in the middle of two giants (the PT and the OT). That genius has now revealed itself in the subplot -- main plot device? -- involving Obi-Wan and Leia. Any earlier and Leia is too close to the baby or toddler phase. Any later and she would be in her teens. This exact time setting enables her to echo Anakin in Episode I (ditto Luke). It even leaves some mystery surrounding what happens before this little period and after. Just feels like the perfect choice. 


I love how they've given the whole series (it is, of course, a "mini") to one director. Perhaps in picking Chow, they are fulfilling a diversity quota. I mean, for God's sake, that can't be the only reason, of course! But since she is female and Asian-American, and clearly very competent and passionate for the material, she just became exactly the right choice. Bravo. This is what should have happened on the Sequel Trilogy. The white men fucked it up. We need more ethnically-diverse women helming Star Wars, clearly, if this series is anything to go by. I'd like to know what Chow's personal angle is. What drew her to the project? She deserves credit for being the first person at Disney/LFL to helm a pro-prequel live-action project. It's a pretty big job (or a gamble as you said) to be steering something of this magnitude. Disney need to win fans back round to the idea that they can handle Star Wars and bring compelling stories to the screen. Messing up Kenobi, one of the most beloved and rock-steady characters in the whole franchise, will come with a price.


Wow! Solid reasoning. I'm kind of embarrassed I didn't think of that. You're right: People don't care, or they assume he's dangerous and might have killed a Jedi and wears the saber as a trophy, or he got it via scavenging (or from a scavenger like Teeka), or that it's some imitation-thing, or just a fancy flashlight. I suppose being a Jedi, or implying you are one, is all about the theatricality. The meta moments with Haja perhaps highlight this later on. Hiding in plain sight seems to be something characters do in Star Wars a lot.


I'm liking it here. It works for television. It's hard to fault the visual style, other than noting it isn't all that Lucasian. It might not be super-exciting, but it works. In fact, a bit less flash and sizzle, with more emphasis on character emotion and storytelling, is welcome after a somewhat desperate bells-and-whistles approach in the ST. 


It's early days, but perhaps the liveliness of this thread is already bearing that statement out?


I love the YouTube upload. Always a delight to read the positive comments. And they've actually gone with an artistic animation for the video graphic, should you desire to gaze at it while listening (a bit surplus-to-requirements when it's John Williams, mind you), which I like (I actually find it quite hypnotic):




They're just hunkering down with the storytelling, I would guess. There isn't time to waste with only six episodes and that's your lot. It is hard for me to comment on the tone of this show compared to the others. I imagine it's kind of "the same, but different". But, even with all my present ignorance about the other shows, I get the impression this one is more focused. I think that maybe they were trying to flesh out thin concepts and create meme-moments in the other shows to fill up all the blank spaces, while the Kenobi series is demonstrating more discipline. It also has a lot more weighty material to work with, since it is splitting the difference between the PT and the OT and constantly busy at creating connections. I have the sense that this show is "happy" in its work. Like Jar Jar, it is honoured to accept dissa heavy burden. 


I had a strange thought that Vader is putting these images in Obi-Wan's head. I mean, Palpatine might have done it to him, and Anakin spends a lot of time in his healing chamber -- i.e., plenty of time to meditate and "focus" his Force powers in a psychic/telekinetic sense? Obi-Wan just doesn't know it yet. Besides the stylistic effect, it's really interesting to think about where these images/montages may be coming from. Probably nowhere, maybe somewhere.


Yeah, I think that's kind of the "method" behind this setting and these storytelling choices. They want to really emphasise how the twins had a very different upbringing, and a better shot of coming out better-adjusted, than their father. That after the Titanic-like tragedy of ROTS, there was still hope to be found in giving Luke and Leia loving families. I like how strongly attached their adoptive parents are. Bad outcomes befell Anakin and Padme, but their kids are (relatively) safe and cared for. And destined for great things, no less. It's an incredibly poignant connection between the trilogies. Sadly, I'm not sure Disney found anything like that to connect the ST with the OT (they probably did a better job connecting it with the PT when they brought back Palpatine and gave him all those prequel lines and gestures). But this: this is really stirring and epic.  


This Vanity Fair article probably describes, in a handful of words, the "high society" aspect of the PT best:

www.vanityfair.com/news/2005/02/star-wars-george-lucas-story


Lucas replaced some of the heroic hijinks and rag-tag goofiness of the OT with a much more opulent and lavish allegory about a good person going bad and a democracy falling into ruin. I think the ambition of the PT confounds people to this very day. A series focusing mainly on Obi-Wan might be more manageable for many people. It appeals to staunch prequel fans like us and hopefully is watchable and liked by more casual or closet prequel fans, too. I hope Disney/LFL realise what a popular character Obi-Wan is and how favourably fans have always treated Ewan in the role.

No, you didn't. I mean, no more weirdly than you word anything else. 

You got a smart mouth, Cryo.

Seriously, you actually put that in a mushy but sincere way. There is something powerful glinting in that response: a hope for something better that won't die.

Anyway, I'm quite tired now and must rest a while (odd work shifts, along with my excitement for this series, have screwed up my waking-sleeping pattern). I'll try not to disappear into the Force like Yoda. If I do, I hope there are some tank-topped babes in the afterlife. Other than that, I'll be back to address a few points later.

Yeah, kid Leia grew on me fast. First I thought "No, they wouldn't do that", but now I see it as a nice echo of kid Anakin, like you say. It's kind of interesting that we all probably expected Obi-Wan to take young Luke under his wing like Qui-Gon did with Anakin, but they switched it with Leia and really pulled the rug from under us. I thought Bail's "She's as important as he is" was a little on the nose and didn't really need to be said, since everyone knows Leia is the other hope, but I dig the direction they've gone.

Chow certainly seems to get Star Wars. I especially appreciate that she championed the inclusion of Vader into the show when Lucasfilm wasn't sure. And she understands that Anakin is a part of Vader. Also from Wikipedia:

All sounds very promising. She clearly has a vision for the series.

I love that YouTube upload also, with the light shining on the logo. It's like "This is it, what we've all been waiting for." Also brings to mind the theme of a glimmer of hope. And I really like the whole brown/sand thing they're going for with the opening title.

You're right that the lack of space travel scenes probably is due to time reasons, but that speaks to a propulsion and immediacy in the story being told. Not ragging on the OT or anything, but some of the longer sections in the Millennium Falcon in TESB feel a bit extraneous in comparison to Luke's side of the story. Only TPM, which might be the most OT-like in some ways of the prequels, has a few longer scenes inside a ship like Padmé comforting Anakin. AotC and RotS have a lot of planet-hopping, where there's important action in different locales, which doesn't leave time for scenes of space travel. I think that is a good sign. You're also right that The Mandalorian doesn't have such a clearly focused story to tell, so there might have been some filler needed.

I had an idea or a wish that the series would include some sort of "meditation battle" between Obi-Wan and Vader, instead of a physical confrontation, just to preserve the continuity of Lucas' films. It looks like they are actually going to meet, but I would still like to see them use their Force powers over great distances to try and influence each other. Your idea that it's Vader sending Obi-Wan these visions is spot on. Something like that does have precedent in Star Wars.

That's a very good quote on the prequels, especially "ambitious characters jostling for space". That's what I tried to say about there being no time for space travel. The characters and their stories take all the space. Especially AotC comes to mind with Obi-Wan going from Coruscant to Kamino to Geonosis, and Anakin/Padmé going from Coruscant to Naboo to Tatooine to Geonosis. I feel there is some of that same urgency in the Obi-Wan show, that maybe the previous shows lacked.

This is just something I noticed now on YouTube, and I don't think it has been posted here yet:



The title of the video is maybe a bit sensationalistic, since the actors don't really say that, but Ewan does go there again about the difficulties of bluescreen and whatnot. He did previously say that the Obi-Wan series will feel more "real" than the prequels. But I have to say that I'm not really seeing that. The effects are good, especially for TV, but the whole thing does feel more constrained than the prequels. Of course the prequels are films with a bigger budget, so a comparison may not be fair, but Ewan made the claim himself. I think he personally had a more "realistic" Star Wars experience on set with the "Volume" technology, but the finished product doesn't quite bear it out.

Yes, like Hitler in The Sound of Music, or God in Jesus Christ Superstar.

Youngling age = 10 years at the very most
Time between Episode III and Obi-Wan series = 10 years
10 + 10 = 20 years old
Reva does not look 20 years on Tatoinne. More like 30 years. Even if we try to be very generous at 25, that means she would be 15 as a youngling. Teenage youngling anyone?!

Her Actress is 27/28