Obi-Wan Kenobi: 2 Years of Wait Ended with Disappointment(Review of First 2 Episodes)
IMDB Score(For First Two Episodes): 8.3
Tomatometer(For First Two Episodes): 88%
My Score: 0.5/5(I know it is harsh but continue to read it to learn why)
Hey Star Wars and Obi-Wan fans, I hope you are all doing alright. 2–3 years of wait have finally been ended and we could’ve watched the first two episodes of Obi-Wan Kenobi. Although it was nice to see Evan McGregor as Obi-Wan after 17 Years, I haven’t got anything positive to say about the Obi-Wan Kenobi series at all. It was a huge disappointment for me. Personally, I wasn’t expecting the new Star Wars series to be as great as The Mandolarian, however, the Obi-Wan Kenobi series was an exception for this. After 17 years, Hayden Christensen, Ewan McGregor, and the prequel storyline finally reunite, however, the first 2 episodes of the series couldn’t go further than being fan service. Anyway, let’s talk about why the first 2 episodes of the Obi-Wan Kenobi series didn’t satisfy me.
This review is containing spoilers from the first two episodes. Therefore, I suggest you watch the series first and then come back to read it :)
0) Summary of Prequels ?!
We’ve literally watched the summary of prequels for 5–10 minutes in the pilot. Don’t get me wrong, I am okay with watching the summary of the things that happened at the end of Revenge of the Sith. However, I think it is disrespectful for prequel movies to make a summary of them at the beginning of the series. Like, if you even haven’t watched the prequel movies yet, you can watch the Obi-Wan Kenobi series due to the superficial summary of the prequels. I think Disney took this decision in order to increase the watch rates, however, I am definitely not supporting it.
1)Nostalgia
I don’t think I have to mention nearly everybody loves the feeling of nostalgia. Especially when it is about the good old times, there are very few things that make us feel better than nostalgia. Although I am a person who loves prequels, even though there were numerous flaws in them, I am extremely disturbed by the numerous nostalgia scenes and dialogues imposed in the Obi-Wan Kenobi series. Don’t get me wrong, I know there must be nostalgic features in a series that tells us more about a universe that we know its past. The dialogues of Princess Leia and Obi-Wan were mostly cringing and just focused on feeling you nostalgic.
I placed an image from The Mandalorian because it is a perfect scene to feel you nostalgic. As we can see, there is only a speeder and Mandalorian in the scene. However, as people who watched Clone Wars can remember, these kinds of speeders were heavily used in the Clone Wars and the republic era. Although there is nostalgy in the scene, the nostalgic features are not occupying and invade the storyline and scene too much.
Not all the nostalgic features were bad and misplaced in the Obi-Wan series. I know it is nothing to do with the storyline of the series, however, if you want to create a nostalgic reference it should be at most as big as this. In one scene in the Obi-Wan series, we saw that Obi-Wan noticed young Luke pretending to be he is a pilot. Then Obi-Wan bought an Imperial Shuttle toy for Luke and placed it in front of Luke’s house. We’ve also seen this Imperial Shuttle toy in A New Hope(1977) when Luke was playing with it. As we can see, it is nostalgic, not really crucial, and feels warm.
2)Bad Casting
To be honest, words are literally inadequate to describe these casting selections. So let’s start with child Leia. Of course, I am not expecting a Vivien to act at the same level as Carrie Fisher, however, I can assure you Vivien is not ready for this kind of role. Besides looking similar to Carrie Fisher’s Leia, she has nothing to do with acting. Maybe you can say she is only a 10-year-old child and I shouldn’t expect a high level of acting then you are right. However, there are numerous children actors and actresses out there who can act brilliantly too. Moreover, I am not blaming Vivien for her acting. This is definitely a casting error made by the crew…
I don’t even want to talk about Moses Ingram. Definitely, she is not ready for this kind of a big role. When she was playing a side role in Queen’s Gambit, she wasn’t receiving large attention and it was alright. However, in the Obi-Wan Kenobi series, she has a crucial role and she can’t act. Literally, she is acting without emotion, without gestures, and with bad writing. I don’t even want to talk about other inquisitors…
3)Bad Directing
Before talking about some scenes in the show I want to talk about something. Every director can make bad and unlogical scenes. It is TV and it is part of its nature. However, the unacceptable part is that you are releasing the first two episodes of a long-awaited and hyped series with numerous unlogical scenes. Besides it is a serious mistake, these scenes are literally mocking their audience. Let’s start with Leia’s scene again…
In the pilot, some bounty hunters trapped Leia to kidnap her in order to find where Obi-Wan Kenobi is. Before kidnapping Leia, Leia tries to run away from bounty hunters and everything starts here. Besides Leia running extremely slow, those bounty hunters also intentionally running slow in order to make this scene happen. Moreover, when this scene fuses with the bad acting of the bounty hunters and Leia, it makes it extremely difficult to watch.
I am literally tired from talking about the scenes of Moses Ingram, however, this time I think the director is the guilty one. In the second episode, Reva(Moses Ingram) was waiting and checking the area on a roof to find Obi-Wan Kenobi faster than other inquisitors. When she saw a fight occurring in few blocks away from her location, she literally starts acting like she is playing an Assassin’s Creed game and doing lots of unnecessary moves. We’re watching this run scene maybe for 30–45 seconds and it is unbelievably cringing.
4) Numerous Logical Errors
As I said before, there are literally countless logical errors but I’ll only mention 2 of them.
a)After 10 Years, Obi-Wan Kenobi Still Don’t Know Darth Vader is Alive
In the last scenes of the second episode, Reva explains to Obi-Wan that Vader is still alive and Obi-Wan is literally shocked after hearing that. Guys, in this phase I can’t find words to describe my feelings. Literally, 10 years passed after Order 66, Empire is extremely powerful and ruling the galaxy, Stormtroopers and inquisitors keep coming to Tatooine to hunt Jedis, and Obi-Wan is still working and communicating with people, such as Owen, and our main character Obi-Wan literally unaware that Vader is alive. Moreover, Jedis are finding Obi-Wan to create a resistance against the empire too. I am just wondering, what did those Jedis talk with Obi-Wan besides Darth Vader…
b)Reva vs Inquisitors
I don’t want to talk long about this, just imagine you are searching for an extremely dangerous Jedi for 10 years, you finally trapped him, and instead of busting him, you are deciding to fight with each other. Dude, what kind of a hunter are you. Unbelievable…
5)Maybe the Only Positive Thing
Actually, there is literally no positive thing to talk about in the Obi-Wan Kenobi series, for now. However, if I have to be extremely optimistic, after 17 years, we can finally watch Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan and Hayden Christensen as Darth Vader(for the first time). Right now, Ewan McGregor is rocking the Obi-Wan Kenobi character and we hope Hayden Christensen will play Darth Vader great too…
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