Obi-One Third

Obi-Wan Kenobi would be an amazing show if it weren't for the writing. As it is, Ewan McGregor's performance is so strong, and John Williams' new music is so good, that the show just about works. Which makes the bad writing all the more frustrating.

The show has a whole mess of writers, with scripts that went through several drafts, reworked from an unproduced screenplay by Hossein Amini and Stuart Beattie. Disney rejected an early version of the series, desiring better writing, which pushed production back, garnering a bit of bad press. They brought on Joby Harold, a writer whose most prominent work, Awake, which starred Hayden Christensen and Jessica Alba, bombed at the box office, and currently has a 24% on Rotten Tomatoes. He also wrote the Guy Ritchie King Arthur movie and Zack Snyder's Army of the Dead. Next year he'll be able to add a Transformers film to his resume.

At this point, maybe you're wondering if the executives at Disney and Lucasfilm have severe brain damage. Well, the thing about writers with undistinguished track records is that they come cheap. On a production likely to be expensive due to effects and to the salaries of the performers, Disney probably tries to cut costs everywhere they can. Even so, they evidently realised their error in this case and Andrew Stanton, the legend from Pixar, was brought on to beef up the scripts to the last two episodes of the series. Which makes me wonder just how bad it's going to get before that. Stanton, who wrote for all the Toy Story movies, the Finding Nemo movies, and wrote and directed WALL-E, would seem a good choice to write and direct a Star Wars project, if he hadn't also wrote and directed John Carter. I haven't seen John Carter because I heard Deejah Thoris isn't naked in it as she is in the original book but I've heard it's a decent movie. But it lost a lot of money for Disney which likely makes them reluctant to put Stanton in charge of live action projects. Maybe he can redeem himself with Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Ewan McGregor almost makes the show work all by himself, though. He invests the role with a truly effective mix of despair, anxiety, resolve, and just a hint of the old twinkle. John Williams' theme is also, of course, good, filled with melancholy and mystery. Credit also has to go to Natalie Holt for doing the actual score, incorporating the theme into her work.

Director Deborah Chow does mostly unobtrusive work, never really bad, but never really interesting, either. I'm not sure if she can be blamed for the fact that Obi-Wan's hair style changes from scene to scene, probably due to reshoots.

I went in with no expectations in particular and was a little excited. I didn't start to have misgivings until the first scene of dialogue, when the group of Inquisitors walk into a tavern. The Grand Inquisitor (Ruper Friend) gives a line that will, unfortunately, be repeated later; "The Jedi hunt themselves." This gave me pause right away. But I waited throughout his exposition dump to see if he could actually make it make sense. He tells the people in the tavern about how he and the other Inquisitors are tasked with finding Jedi but that the Jedi really do their work for them because the do-gooders can't resist revealing themselves by helping people. So, yeah, that's . . . not hunting. Not themselves or anyone else. That's hiding badly.

So there are weird little contortions of the English language like that but the main problem is that this show was written once again by people who lack the imagination to put themselves, mentally, within the world they're writing for. In the second episode, Obi-Wan lands on some sketchy back-alley world and asks a random passerby why he's suddenly unable to track the ship he's been following to this point. He just straight up asks someone. There are so many other ways they could have done this. They could've shown the tracking device with a red blip representing the ship he's following and had the blip vanish when Obi-Wan sets foot on the planet. Of course, then there are questions like, how did Obi-Wan get on the passenger liner with a lightsabre clipped to his belt? I assumed by using Jedi mind tricks. But considering he was reluctant to use the Force at all elsewhere in the story, we needed to have a shot showing him actually doing it. It's too important of a step for the character.

So far, most of the plot revolves around the kidnapping of Leia (Vivien Lyra Blair). The kid's performance isn't very good but the main problem is the logistical gaps in how her character is written. The problems come to a head when she runs away from Obi-Wan upon seeing that his face is on Wanted holograms. She knows the Jedi are being hunted, so why does this make her think he's not a Jedi? A good idea might have been to establish Leia at this point having some faith in the Empire's rule of law. Her father is a senator, after all. Then her story over the course of the series could've been her realising the truth, thus bringing her a step closer to the Rebel we meet in A New Hope.

The primary villain seems to be the Inquisitor Reva, played by Moses Ingram. She gives a good performance but she's so small and cute for a Star Wars villain. She's going to have to work harder to overcome the lack of an intimidating physical presence. Her motivation also seems to be borrowed from Krennic in Rogue One. Like him, she faces professional resistence due to coming from a lower social class, but in this case it's made a little too plain by the Grand Inquisitor shouting this exact exposition at her.

The show is filled with the beginnings of ideas handled by writers who lack the time and/or skill to flesh them out artfully. It's unfortunate, but there are aspects of the show good enough to keep me watching.

Obi-Wan Kenobi is available on Disney+.

Twitter Sonnet #1585

Diverted tourists bought some proper food.
The extra rooms were dropped to make it full.
With stomachs steeled, we sallied past the mood.
A hundred humans rushed the sleepy bull.
The butting teams reduced the grass to mulch.
A spitting clam propelled itself to sea.
A happy mob has claimed the empty gulch.
The day is late and phantoms drank the tea.
A sabre sputters weakly through the dust.
A hasty script was shot behind the snail.
Annoying ransoms do complain of rust.
Perhaps some lines were lost in Jedi mail.
The wrinkles carry eyes across the space.
Entire worlds invest a single face.