Thoughts on Obi-Wan Kenobi

 “When a deadman rises he becomes his failures”

I think that quote is from Psalms or Dark Souls 3 I can’t remember. 

I love Star Wars. I have a stupid Mythosaur tattoo on my wrist and I know far too many names of the podracers for my own good. 

All of this to say that I know this stuff is kind of dumb but… it’s Star Wars! It’s different

My thoughts are sort of all over the place so I hope you don’t mind too much. 

I thought the first episode was really good. Kenobi tells a runaway Padawan that “they lost”, and I really love this line. They lost the war but Kenobi also found out that the ideals he was fighting for were actually just a façade put on by a power hungry fascist. He killed his best friend and watched all the people he ever loved either die or get sent to a swamp world. 

There’s no more fighting just surviving, and the Jedi can’t even do that right. 

I like the move to an urban cyberpunk setting in the second episode. I think that’s very fertile ground for Star Wars and I would love to see more of this, and it looks like Andor will be taking me up on that. I didn’t care for Kumail’s character all that much. I think he gets given the duty to be the quippy one which is a writing phase I’m hoping we evolve past fairly quickly. We also get a little more of one of our main antagonists this season with Reva. Who I think is pretty well performed by Moses Ingram, but as the season went on I found her character to be a little underwritten. Which is a damn shame because there’s lots to explore with her and I hope if there is a second season she has some more time to blossom. 

The third and fourth episodes kind of melted together in my head but I do remember liking the idea of a secret network to get people to the rebels as well as weapons. I like when a piece of science fiction takes an effort to explain some of the infrastructure of the main organizations. It’s why I love Dune so much! 

This of course has the first showdown between Kenobi and Darth Vader. I really like how quickly and violently it occurs. This show took a couple of rather brutal turns that I didn’t quite expect. This leads to a breakout sequence in the Inquisitors base which is fine for the most part, maybe a little boring and safe for my taste, but leads to the complaint I already had with Reva. Her character is whatever her motivation at that very moment is. Kenobi
tells us that she’s really doing this so she can take down Vader for trying to kill her as a child but we don’t ever see her planning any of this. 

Like I said I’m hoping the writers give her the next step that I’m hoping for. 

The “final” showdown between Vader and Kenobi is really what sells it for me. Which if the show was to get one thing right it really should be this. It’s very well choreographed and I think it looks great! Kenobi breaks through the mask and sees the husk of a man that used to be his best friend, or more aptly his brother. 

He tears up and just starts apologizing. 

These are both two people that are just manifestations of their own failures. Anakin couldn’t protect the one person he gave everything up for and Obi-Wan couldn’t see the rot just beneath his feet. One man embraced his failures and became a machine of ambition and anger. While the other thinks about his failures and tries to carve a new path of mercy through a world where kindness and forgiveness is actively dissuaded. I mean we’re not reinventing the wheel here but we don’t need to! 

Star Wars is a lot of fun isn’t it folks. Thanks for reading.