John Williams versus Bon Jovi

So finally, in the last episode, Obi-Wan Kenobi got on its feet. The show and the character. Credit, I think, really needs to go to John Williams, Andrew Stanton, and the actors. Prominent problems still exist in the teleplay and definitely in Deborah Chow's directing. But on the whole, it was a win. Meanwhile, like a seesaw of quality, when Obi-Wan improves, the normally delightful Ms. Marvel diminishes. I'd hardly call Ms. Marvel episode three a total disaster but it was definitely outshone by the Star Wars series this time.

We finally got a good rematch between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader. Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christenson have spoken in the past about how much work they put into their sabre duel in Revenge of the Sith and here McGregor clearly aimed to get back in that action. It was just terrific watching them go at it, and in an appropriately fantastic location this time. The dialogue helped, too, and I suspect this scene was written by Andrew Stanton. The lines about how Vader killed Anakin perfectly flow with the dialogue in the original trilogy, buttressing what some might consider slightly weak retconning Lucas did after A New Hope. The dialogue in last night's duel was clearly written by someone who'd watched those movies a million times and really thought about them. The writing for the rest of the episode, as for most of the series, felt like it was written by people who aren't particularly interested in Star Wars.

The episode opens with Vader's Star Destroyer pursuing the passenger ship with Obi-Wan and the Path refugees. The first bit of old John Williams music is introduced to give a sense of tension and hurry but then Chow cuts to the refugee ship interior and the tone goes completely wrong. Suddenly the life or death chase turns into a funeral atmosphere. Everyone's whispering and even little Leia doesn't seem unnerved by the turbolaser explosions outside the window. There should have been screaming and running and sparks and shaking.

Then, when Obi-Wan heroically takes off on his own to divert Vader's attention, everyone on board the Star Destroyer figures they can only go after one ship or the other. What the hell? Why not launch TIE Fighters? Doesn't the Grand Inquisitor have a ship in the hanger? That was some incredibly lazy writing.

The resolution of Reva's plot was even lazier. So she's been run through with a lightsabre and . . . in her last desperate gasp . . . she somehow finds a ship, pilots it to Tatooine, and tracks down Luke Skywalker based on the hologram message from Bail Organa. Why? She'd just tried to kill Vader and he'd tried to kill her. She's not doing it to please Vader. Is it to get revenge on him, by killing the child he doesn't even know he has? And when it's all said and done, Obi-Wan doesn't even offer her assistance in finding a doctor or a first aid kit. Lightsabres just aren't what they used to be, I guess.

A lot of the episode worked because they finally got some John Williams music back into it. What a difference just a little bit of the Force theme and "The Imperial March" can make. It's not just nostalgia. Williams just makes better music than Natalie Holt. Which is hardly a knock against Holt, Williams is a legend for a reason.

Although it completely runs against the canon, I kind of liked Obi-Wan kneeling down and worshiping Leia at the end. But him giving her a blaster holster was too stupid. Obviously Disney couldn't have known there'd be a particularly horrific school shooting when the show was in production (though, sadly, it wouldn't have been too hard to guess). But even aside from that, it's well established that Obi-Wan considers blasters to be "uncivilised" and "clumsy and random". I feel like he'd be more likely to give her a book or something.

Ms. Marvel is still cute, meanwhile.

I liked the use of Bon Jovi in the kitchen fight scene although the wedding dance sequences were a bit cringe. The main problem with the episode, though, is it felt like a huge chunk of story was missing from the middle. These Djinn turn up and take so much time talking to Kamala nice and quiet and friendly. Then suddenly they want to kill her because . . . She isn't getting Bruno to open up an interdimensional portal as fast as they'd like? Nothing about that made any sense. But Kamala's still cute so it wasn't all bad.

Obi-Wan Kenobi and Ms. Marvel are available on Disney+.

Jedi v Djinn

Last night's Obi-Wan Kenobi was an improvement over previous episodes but still quite a few problems linger and a few more are introduced. Meanwhile, it was once again outshone by Ms. Marvel and the radiant Iman Vellani.

Famed Pixar director Andrew Stanton was a co-writer on last night's Obi-Wan and will be on next week's, and I suspect he's responsible for the parts I liked. The best part was the conversation between Reva and Obi-Wan and it was a moment when Reva finally became interesting for me. I'd seen a lot of people predict exactly what was revealed in the dialogue, that Reva had been a youngling and wasn't completely evil. I'd seen these predictions before I'd had time to think about it myself. In any case, it makes the character much better suited for Moses Ingram, who's just too gosh darn cute to be a great Star Wars villain. It's too bad she doesn't know how to pick her moments.

Maybe stabbing Vader in the back would've worked while he was tearing apart that decoy ship but it was pretty silly of her to do it when he was standing there not doing anything amid no distractions. All of her work infiltrating the Empire ruined because, I guess, she suddenly got impatient. I liked Vader's line about how Obi-Wan was wise to use her against him, though. Yeah, how would Obi-Wan know she'd completely whiff? This isn't on him. I also liked how Vader dismantled that stupid helicopter lightsabre.

And, keeping their precious continuity with Rebels, the good old Grand Inquisitor returned, good as new. Getting impaled with a lightsabre through the chest just isn't as deadly as you'd think, I guess. It just happened to Reva and, thanks to a few other ludicrously convenient plot contrivances, it's clear she'll be up to hijinks next week, too. I mean, if it's this easy to survive a lightsabre through the gut, even one from Darth Vader, why don't we just bring everyone back? Why not Qui-Gon?

Please don't let that happen.

Anyway, the main problem, for me, continues to be a lack of Star Wars music and Deborah Chow's inability to create a sense of scale. When Vader was marching through the hidden base, the score seemed to impotently be trying to build into "Imperial March" but Disney just won't let Natalie Holt do it.

A problem having nothing to do with paying John Williams, though, is how dinky everything feels. Maybe they can't afford to show hordes of stormtroopers or the landing of attack ships. Could we not get at least one establishing shot of Vader's Star Destroyer? Last Friday, I wrote about how much better The Orville is at this kind of thing and I can't imagine The Orville's budget is bigger than Obi-Wan's. Seth MacFarlane knows that part of this kind of story is just how cool it is to be in space in these big mechanical behemoths. So he takes the time to give us big, majestic shots of the ships sweeping into view accompanied by a lush score, emphasising that this is pretty damned amazing. That's what Star Wars should be, too. I mean, that's why the opening shot from A New Hope is so effective, of Leia's ship being overwhelmed by the big, angular shape of the Star Destroyer.

Meanwhile, on the second episode of Ms. Marvel, Kamala Khan continues to be adorable. I want to see a team-up with her, Hawkeye 2, and Black Widow 2. I figure they could call themselves the Kitten Avengers. It's absurd Kamala is going to have to share a screen with Captain Marvel and Monica Rambo. That's like teaming Tom Cruise with D.B. Sweeney and Sam Worthington. It's like A+D+D.

I bet a lot of people are staying away from Ms. Marvel because they're expecting obnoxious politics. There are a few awkward lines where one of the characters inorganically brings up her skin colour, as though the writers don't understand why they have to tow this line, but mostly the episode focuses on story. Sure, a lot of that story is inexplicably Turning Red, but it has a few ideas of its own. Maybe Marvel and Pixar writers shouldn't get lunch at the same commissary?

I love the awkward scene where Kamala is distracted by her own showboating so that she almost fails to rescue a kid. That really felt like a fledgling, teenage superhero, and it's a big improvement over the too typical pattern where the new superhero is immediately able to throw down big bosses without breaking a sweat. This is something Hawkeye did well, too, at least as far as Hailee Steinfeld's character.

A lot of the writing feels a bit sitcom-ish, especially around Kamala's family, but it's decent sitcomish. I loved how Kamala told her brother that the guy she was out with was their cousin. That was really funny. Though I would point out that SRK's best movie is actually Daar.

Neither of the boys in her life has much charisma. Kamran is bland and Bruno seems kind of like a villain, despite dressing like Marty McFly.

I keep expecting Kamala and Zoe to get together, actually. People writing about the show call Zoe a bully but what has she done to bully Kamala so far? She just seems a little narcissistic. Anyway, I'm enjoying this show.

Obi-Wan Kenobi and Ms. Marvel are available on Disney+.

From Jedi to Marvel

Last night Disney premiered a new Marvel series and a new episode of a Star Wars series, Ms. Marvel and Obi-Wan Kenobi. Surprisingly, Ms. Marvel turned out to be the much stronger of the two, but maybe that's just because my expectations were so low for it.

But first, I want to talk about Obi-Wan Kenobi. I think the hard truth we have to face is that this series, quality-wise, is about on par with The Star Wars Holiday Special. Think about it. It has the big stars in their famous roles but written by people who don't really seem to understand the characters, being more intent on just hitting the bare minimum necessary dramatic beats to tell something that can be called a story. The hair and makeup look odd, the music's not nearly as good, and there's an overall lack of a sense of grandeur that's one of the cardinal virtues of the Star Wars films.

I guess it was kind of nice that Obi=Wan (Ewan McGregor) wasn't the only one making stupid mistakes this time. Tala (Indira Varma) accidentally leaves her comm turned on when she was trying to bluff Reva (Moses Ingram) and a sudden call from Obi-Wan spoiled the whole thing. Obi-Wan was having similar trouble trying to hide from Stormtroopers with the thing. Come on, people, even C-3PO knew how to switch off a comm.

Vivien Lyra Blair as Leia came off a little better in this episode, I suspect mainly due to creative editing that made her look appropriately nervous and frightened for her situation. Though Moses Ingram is still only coming across as about as sinister as Harvey Korman on the Holiday Special.

After Obi-Wan Kenobi, I struggled with whether or not I wanted to watch Ms. Marvel. I hated Captain Marvel so why would I want to watch a show about a Captain Marvel fan girl? Well, as it turned out, Iman Vellani as the titular protagonist of the series outshines Brie Larson in every way. She's sassy with the audience and has better access to her own emotions. She has a sense of comedic timing and the ability and courage to seem really wounded.

A lot of people have pointed out the plot of Ms. Marvel is oddly similar to Pixar's Turning Red. That's true but I found the parents on Ms. Marvel to be much more threatening and realistic. My own experience may have prejudiced me. I work at a junior high school in Japan and I hear plenty about how strict the parents are, especially the parents of the kids in the art club where I tend to spend a lot of time. These parents on the show who think their kid obsessing over fantasy are on the path to doom--they're so true to life and I felt all kinds of concern for Kamala Khan.

The show makes some stylistic choices I mainly found more distracting than effective, namely the choice to make all illustrations, everywhere, animated. But mostly I have to say Ms. Marvel gets thumbs up from me. If only Star Wars were willing to experiment like that.

Obi-Wan Kenobi and Ms. Marvel are available on Disney+.

Twitter Sonnet #1589

The sands support a lonely iv'ry tree.
Forgotten elephants remember wars.
The soldiers drew a card that led to sea.
To pass the time, a game consumed the bars.
The hated teeth were hid behind a grin.
A winning stroke was naught but pencil lead.
The cheap erasers filled the garbage bin.
A crowd of spiders broke the rusty bed.
To start a night with hats we end with tights.
Electric storms could break the weakened glass.
Excessive fingers flicked the blinky lights.
A healing water filled the cloudy mass.
The flood was made of light and tiny spots.
The universe contracts to little dots.

Obi-Run

Last night's third episode of Obi-Wan Kenobi persisted in the qualities established in the first two episodes--good performances and bad writing. This week also had some disappointments relating to music and location shots, though. But it was at least heartening that Disney didn't seem to be forcing anyone to hold back in terms of action and violence.

I was happy the hear James Earl Jones voicing Darth Vader. Disney was oddly coy about it, refraining from announcing him in any press leading up to the show. Even stranger is that no-one in the regular entertainment press seemed to be asking, which I guess is kind of a tell for how many of these outlets are in Disney's pocket. But now we have Hayden Christensen in the suit and it does feel different to having a massive body builder like David Prowse in there. Especially when he was sitting on that throne, it kind of seemed more like the suit was wearing him.

The absence of "The Imperial March" was sorely felt in this episode, too. John Williams wrote the new theme for Obi-Wan, is there some reason the show can't use the old theme universally associated with Darth Vader? Is John Williams charging a million dollars a note? Vader lacked a lot of his usual presence and his theme would have certainly helped. But when he was walking down the street, choking civilians, he seemed to have a bit of that magic he had in Rogue One. I think at this point it's just about indisputable that Rogue One is the best thing Disney has made for Star Wars since they bought it. I have high hopes for the Andor series, not the least because it seems to actually have decent writers. I hope Vader makes an appearance or two on that show.

But back to Obi-Wan. I have no problem with the idea of Leia being assertive and intuitive, I don't mind her being more resourceful than a kid her age normally is. But they shouldn't have to make Obi-Wan act like an idiot just to make her look smart. If it weren't for McGregor's performance, Obi-Wan would be, by far, the least impressive thing about this show. I know he's out of practice but a Jedi Master should be able to handle three stormtroopers. Is this the guy who just jumped into the midst of a droid army to say, "Hello there" to General Grievous?

I would have hoped for a more interesting location for Obi-Wan and Vader's reunion, too. It looked like eastern Californian desert or even Albuquerque, reminding me that Deborah Chow worked on Better Call Saul. Too bad she didn't bring any writers from that show.

Obi-Wan Kenobi is available on Disney+.

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.