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

Ben introduction at the end seemed tacked on to prove Luke would know who he was when he first sees/talks about him in ANH.

that and so that McGregor can finally say “hello there”, sigh

i know shitty retcons have been part of SW tradition from the very beginning, but I am starting to wonder whether they’re doing it deliberately at this point lol. like I can buy the idea that Leia is pretending not to know him when she sends her message in ANH but… she also has little to no reaction to his death and spends the aftermath comforting Luke instead. It’s just odd to introduce this relationship between two major characters knowing perfectly well that it doesn’t quite fit in with later parts of their story. but you know, whatever.

overall, I quite enjoyed this in the end - mainly because I love mcgregor as kenobi, and also because it kinda felt like a Clone Wars arc (especially the middle eps).

also kind of lol imagining this version of ewan mcgregor aging into alec guinness in just 10-15 years

This is Alec Guinnes in a film 11 years older than Star Wars pic.twitter.com/BaJ9X5tzxF

— Ben Banyas (@benbanyas) June 22, 2022

Actually pretty wild how much they look alike pic.twitter.com/igAd8V20FW

— Ben Banyas (@benbanyas) June 22, 2022

:)

have to admit that refusing to kill Vader after absolutely messing him up and going upside his dome with a lightsaber is a funny power move

might even outrank leaving him on fire by the side of a lava flow

three more seasons of Obi-Wan, and each ends with Vader getting owned in ridiculous ways

i like how Vader’s fighting style in this series has fully devolved into hacking & chopping like a madman as he gets further & further away from his jedi roots.

he learned how to pop and lock from the Emperor and sometimes he gets those trainings confused

one-handed broadsword action

Loved wheezing half masked Vader. Ewan was the best part of this show, and he was the main character so that really works. I like Mando better, but everyone else in my house thought this was the best.

Reva's actions make no sense if she doesn't know Luke is Darth Jr. And that is a pretty good hint that she knows.

This was boring infill despite mcgregor’s ok performance. The inquisitors were meh. In part I didn’t care because I felt I knew how this “needs to work out.”

that might have been a YOU thing

lol u mad

The iquisitors inquire -- "do you even WANT to be happy?"

Anyway, I no doubt received some benefit from seeing this with young and fresh eyes. But for fucks sake McGregor was better than "ok".

no

Despite my fondness for what appears to be McGregor’s irl personality (cf Long Way Down etc.) I find him pretty tedious as an actor post Trainspotting. But I bought his grief in part 6 of this, the fight was the best thing in it (and felt mythical in the way I wanted the whole show to feel).

I guess MacGregor was trying his best to infuse the script with something? But apart from the lack of tension re knowing where everyone ends up - I also feel Obi-Wan, like Boba Fett, is a character that doesn’t really support extended examination? Like, he was a pretty cool kindly space wizard in one film - everything else feels pretty tedious and awkwardly retrofitted.

But maybe people who were the right age for prequels / Clone Wars might have found it easier to lock in to?

These characters were just undeveloped. Boba Fett was originally nothing more than a cool costume. Everything after the first film has been retrofit, so I don't know what makes one case more tedious than another.

McGregor did a good job IMHO... his last scene with Leia worked on me emotionally despite everything being so terribly underwritten and shoehorned in. agreed about no one having real conversations in this. i feel like every time two characters seem poised to have an interaction that would actually be interesting (and difficult) to write, the show cuts away to something else.

my comic book guy moment: what happened to the star destroyer that Vader came down from? it seems like that would pose some small issue for Obi-Wan's getaway. it seems to just be.... not there. if they're so easily evaded, then it kinda deflates his grand self-sacrificing gesture.

also i really wanted jimmy smits to be like "c'mon, we got all dressed up, you could at least stay for lunch!"

mouse ears appear on Smits' head. "C'mon, we're heading to Oga's Cantina for Jabba Juice and Batuu Bits, loser."

Boba Fett was originally nothing more than a cool costume. Everything after the first film has been retrofit, so I don't know what makes one case more tedious than another.

IMO, it’s because it’s not comics, where retconning just happens continuously and it’s accepted as part of how the fictional universe is received. When you have stories that sit on their own for a few decades, then are “retrofitted,”then once again a few decades later… you feel it a different way.

(Also, for all the jokes about “Comic Book Guy”–style complaints, at least comics have No-Prizes and retcon adjustments etc. to clean up the narrative messes they make.)

I think the point is more "these are very slight in terms of retcons and to some aren't really that jarring". it's not like Terminator 3 changing John and Sarah Connor's birthdates randomly due to laziness, or Uncle Jesse on Full House being shown in high school the day before his graduation, then seasons later saying he dropped out of high school early on

just about every epic fantasy movie is filled with unreliable narrators

But no one cares about that stuff in sitcoms, no matter how much they enjoy them – they’re just sitcoms

If the argument is that Luke Skywalker is no different from Andy in Family Ties, then it’s just: “Star Wars has always sucked, what are you complaining about” (which I do see people saying a lot)

Like it’s a weird dichotomy to be invested enough in Star Wars to still be watching spinoffs 40 years later, but also say that it’s all just a silly lark? Idk

Not what *I'm* saying, though. Star Wars has never been tightly plotted or had consistent continuity doesn't mean "lol it always sucked", but "this never bothered me in the past when they did it, why should it now?"

Add a period after "continuity"

Or basically what mh said way upthread

The people who didn't like this show generally don't dislike it on continuity grounds, it's due to many things, like a "lack of stakes"

I guess I get your pov, but I don’t feel like it gets “better” the more it happens and in crappier contexts. The first few movies are great enough that a few little quirks and inconsistencies don’t matter much.

If Obi-Wan were a great show, I likely wouldn’t care too much about the inconsistencies either.

There is story about navigating through trauma that has stakes and fits nicely into the usual jedi vs darkside theme. The stakes around Reva's story were largely open. Not every stake needs to be "will they die?!"

Like it’s a weird dichotomy to be invested enough in Star Wars to still be watching spinoffs 40 years later, but also say that it’s all just a silly lark? Idk

sir do you know what “entertainment” is

I think so

a smash of glass and the rumble of boots
a hovertrain and a ripped-up storm troop

the Star Wars faded into darkness
I was left alone

I was surprised how much I liked this show. McGregor was always one of the better parts of the prequels, and here he has better material to work with. Reva and kid Leia were interesting enough characters. Mandalorian is probably still better overall, but I liked the tight focus and faster pace here

Yeah I liked this a lot too. Thought McGregor was very good (much much better that what I remember of the prequels). Reva was good too up until the last episode, where her actions made very little sense to me, even if she somehow figured out that Luke was Vader's son.

Liked Darth Vader in this, though maybe, because I read some of those Darth Vader comics (which are actually one of the Star Wars things I enjoyed the most), I was reading way more into the character than what was actually on the screen.

For sure a lot of the enjoyment of this show boils down to the Obi-Wan/Darth conflict, culminating in that stunning fight in the finale. Though I did think the line where Darth says he himself killed Anakin was eye-rolling, clearly there to justify the "certain point of view" conversation in Return of the Jedi

Well of course it was eye-rolling, you could see his eye again.

heyo!

You could have also made that a certain point of view joke, Ned

Well you know.

Andor en route soon and this bit directly from Tony Gilroy about how they're structuring the two seasons is of interest. (As it may or may not be spoliery for some, follow the link as you choose.)

“Rogue One is more about an event than the actual journey of (the) characters,” he says. “It’s quite amazing to start a show where it’s not about where we can end – it’s about, how did we end there?”

Cool, but I can’t help feeling this is a case of wishful thinking / doth protesting too much!

Yeah. Mandalorian was exhilarating for me because it was like finally they’re doing a tales of star wars/weird aliens and worlds/characters whose fate is unwritten/stakes may or may not be high type thing which they really should’ve pivoted to 35 years ago! But no.

Better Call Cassian

I didn’t even find that character very likable. Doesn’t he murder a guy in the opening scene of rogue one?

The whole “what even are mandalorians, and are some offshoot cultists?” was like my fave angle of Mandalorian

xp didn't hurt Saul's likability any

I never watched Breaking Bad/Saul, so maybe I’m not the audience