Star Wars: The Disney+ Empire Strikes Again and Again and...

The comics are kind of a series of "ahh, this is the moment when he really becomes Darth Vader" followed immediately by him getting some ideas and the Emperor swatting him down hard, only to come back even more powerful

Emperor def didn't go through HR-sanctioned sensitivity training

It must be true

Watching Obi-Wan Kenobi and I like to imagine that Flea's eccentric gang of hapless criminals is the same as his eccentric gang of hapless criminals from Back to the Future II, Big Lebowski and Baby Driver and they just travel through different IP universes to do bungled capers. pic.twitter.com/7GRiyhXIz0

— Alex Seitz-Wald (@aseitzwald) May 28, 2022

would watch Flea crew multiverse

Throw in the crew he was part of with Chet Baker in the Baker doc Let’s Get Lost.

Inquisitor: You have failed the Empire once again. Have you anything to say for yourself?

Vect Nokru:

Fuck you asshole
You homophobic, redneck dick
You're big and tough and macho
You can kick my ass

So fucking what
So fucking what

Anyway, episode 3, gotta love a cliffhanger.

is star wars the franchise where being kind to animals marks you as a good guy or am i thinking of some other franchise?

This falls into the category/trope of Saving the Cat, doesn’t it? The protagonist displays how inherently good they are by extending care to an animal in need and thus establishes character without the need for dialogue.

I’m trying to remember what I watched in the last 6 months that literally had the protagonist saving a cat in the opening bits?

the inverse is true too. Kevin Spacey put a suffering dog out of his misery in House of Cards first episode, and boom...pedophile

The comics are kind of a series of "ahh, this is the moment when he really becomes Darth Vader" followed immediately by him getting some ideas and the Emperor swatting him down hard, only to come back even more powerful

― mh, Tuesday, May 31, 2022 3:53 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Vader as someone with a damaged soul who has to be kept broken to maintain him as a junkyard dog was a good artistic choice.

like the Emperor knew there was a potential shelf life before Vader turned back to the light and each time he swatted him back, he was just kicking the can a little further down the road.

the RLM drunks should be pleased with the pace of that battle

xp I think it's more the entire Sith "only two" dynamic where the very nature of the deal is that the acolyte's supposed to overthrow the master, and the master just keeps alternating between pouring gasoline on the fire and hitting their nose with a rolled up newspaper

That was ... better? Though I feel that in this attractive yet kinda inept production McGregor is the only one with real chops. Kinda like Guinness in ANH? Oh -- and Cushing.

when does obi-wan turn into the sleepy-eyed, obdurate, epigrammatic presence we see in ep iv?? kind of hard to see how we get from here to there

McGregor is doing great work. I do love seeing how washed up and rusty he is, guessing we'll see him get his mojo back or something by the end.
I really like Moses Ingram as well - she's got the dial set to "Star Wars" acting just right.

I liked the cutoff dialogue when they were talking about what happened to the Grand Inquisitor, since the other inquisitors seem to think he's dead

I'm pretty sure he ain't dead yet!

btw there's some theorizing that like they did with Mark Hamill the Jones voice is deepfaked, which if true is pretty astounding; thought it sounded perfect

i'm finding this really underwritten (despite four credited screenwriters). every scene between obi-wan and leia just kinda repeats the same beats... he's SO wiped out and washed up and grumpy that he can't even muster interesting tidbits about the Force, or unique ways to establish that she needs to lay low and be quiet again, or clever cover stories when dealing with bad dudes.

idk, i'd just like a little pizzazz, a glint of specialness. the big confrontation this episode should be a HUGE moment but he has nothing to say there either. all the dialogue just feels very plot-functional to me.

Totally disagree! I liked their choice to have Obi-Wan have few lines and mostly physical emotive acting - he just found out a few hours ago that his lifelong surrogate son - who he STILL feels terrible guilt for murdering 20 years ago - survived as a hideous monster far more powerful than when he died and hellbent on revenge. He's utterly shell-shocked and basically gave up his life as a sacrifice play. I wonder how far they'll take Obi-Wan's growth by the end of the series.

The Vader appearance was brutal - neck snaps galore! - and just a notch or two below his Rogue One appearance

Oops, that ending hidden tag should've come after the second line. Or maybe not at all i dunno

The worst bits so far: a chest high tree branch impedes a kidnapper, a laser gate between two small hills must be destroyed for Ben and Leia to pass on foot, a fire between two mounds of rubble impedes a whole garrison that could split to cover each side

That last one made me lol. Again felt very much like a cheesy TV-episode-conclusion --- Wellp, dangit, I guess he made it over the county line. We'll get 'im next time, don't you worry!

Nhex, I do agree that Obi-Wan's characterization makes sense for where he's at. I've just found all the scenes between him and Leia, from the moment of their meeting, oddly inert... idk.

"they're very slowly getting away!"

i wonder if it's implied that vader has some sort of the-Hound-from-GoT aversion to fire now after mustafar

i am enjoying this even though it is very slight & there’s not a whole lot to it

vader’s dialogue felt kinda rehashed? but the ott rage & cruelty was pretty well done. i do like mcgregor a lot, he always has this exhausted look like “god again with all this? i wish i was chopping monster steaks” like he really does feel genuinely shutdown in a way that is quite genuine

the only thing i dont support is the ADULT ditching A CHILD like oh she said she’ll be fine & that i should go help ObiWan SHE IS A CHILD AND HE IS A GROWNASS JEDI ..,I REALLY DO THINK YOU SHOULD HELP HER FFS

I rewatched that bit and Leia seems to be the one telling her to go!

that’s what i mean! she’s a kid! if she insists you go you say “thats nice of you but no i’m not leaving you to navigate a tunnel network alone to meet someone you dont know”

so Leia continues to call him Ben, even though she ostensibly heard Reva call her Obi-Wan. Please tell me she didn't hear that, and like Luke, thinks Ben Kenobi and Obi-Wan Kenobi are two different people like in A New Hope.

"nah, that's my cousin. I'm Mike Kenobi, this is my brother Kyle Kenobi"

(I mean Leia *as an adult* thinks the Ben Kenobi she met years ago was not the same as Obi-Wan Kenobi that her daddy told her about)

Zach Braff is Freck? meh

If you want to do a mind-twisting retcon here, it’d make sense for Leia to act like her father hadn’t been in contact with Obi-Wan since the republic days in case she was captured. She could claim she was part of the rebellion and her senator father had no part in it, and he surely hadn’t talked to any Jedi since those days

They’re definitely taking advantage of the fact Leia and Obi-Wan never spoke on the Death Star

"Hi Ben!"

"Leia, shut up!"

my prediction is a force mind wipe of leia at some point

that's my suspicion too, though it would be incredibly lazy and lame if they went this route

They did do it at the end of Revenge of the Sith, so there’s precedent

...yeah but to a droid.

Just watched this, after not reading anything about it – more out of disinterest, than a desire to avoid spoilers (also haven't been following the thread, apologies).

I think it's even a little worse than I was expecting... and makes me appreciate the heavy fan-service approach of the other series more, in retrospect; at least those had a real "Star Wars" flavor. This just feels like sort of a pedestrian TV show, cheap-looking, acting/directing not particularly good, etc.

The Muppet Baby Leia adventure also doesn't work for me, and not just b/c the kid doesn't seem much like Leia – it just feels like a bad idea. And, yes, it also immediately raises the question I see is discussed above. (The plot also weakens other aspects of ANH – like when Vader says, "I sense a presence I haven't felt since...," he means "...oh, 8 or 9 years ago"?)

I do like a few moments – like Obi-Wan reminiscing about Padme, and Leia asking if he's her real father. I did NOT like when Vader randomly kills a child on the street – is that really his style(?) I haven't read the Vader comics or anything, maybe it is. Honestly, this series feels like it should have just been a comic.

never really knew Vader to be much of a merciful person, regardless of the age of his victims. he would be an HR nightmare, you dont' get fired for failing, you get choked to death.

Yeah, but none of those were civilians? He wasn't fighting anyone in that scene, just terrorizing the populace...

I thought Vader was doing it because he knew Obi-Wan would show himself if he kept killing the villagers?

I mean as Anakin he did also slaughter an entire village of Tusken Raiders.

And yes that was due to hate/vengeance, but I felt like Vader and Reva were pissed that he was hiding and nobody was fessing up as to where he was so he took things to the next level to draw him out

He also killed the younglings in Ep. 3, of course

It all plays into thing of how "questionable" it is that Anakin gets to chill in eternity as a Force Ghost if he's a cold-blooded murderer.

it's the whole Xtian allegory, he 'asked forgiveness' shortly before he died so all is kosher now.

A few other bits I liked were: (a) the Clone Veteran, and (b) Obi-Wan waking up in a cold sweat after suffering thru a nightmare montage of the prequels' shittiest moments (that had to be tongue-in-cheek, right?)

just terrorizing the populace...

this is his job

tis true, that's what the HR posting said.

I don't think you ever see him around civilians in any of the movies? (but again, I haven't read/watched the other stuff)

I thought his basic job was to serve as Palpatine's eyes/ears/muscle in the halls of the Empire itself

in the comics he light sabers a gun in Rineau, just to watch him die