Opining On OBI-WAN - FINALE (Patreon)

When I'm watching something that's even a little bit dramatically engaging I'm often rapt with attention, sitting forward with my jaw agape. I don’t even realize I’m doing it. There’s just, like, this complete stillness and feeling of awe. But when I'm watching something that's not working? It’s hard for me to just kick back and let it wash over me. I start feeling anxious and jittery. My thoughts fire rapidly and out of respect for the material, I often have to pause to settle my nerves, then restart.

Anyway, it took me 1 hr 56 minutes to watch the Obi-Wan Finale.

It’s not even because the episode is *particularly* bad. I’d argue it’s on par with the first four episodes and even has one part that’s a little better. But after last week’s sudden functionality in Part V? I was hoping for some kind of miracle save for the finale. But instead, it fizzles out and the existential question of “why?” with this damn series hits all the more hard.

As always, let’s go subject by subject.

* * *

Even Now, Why Star Wars? - I think about A New Hope a lot. Probably much more than the average fan does at least. While people tend to get lost in the lore, the sequels, or the totality of it all, I think about A New Hope because it the last time that Star Wars was just a movie. A movie that could be or do anything, because it only had to deliver on the needs of its story in and of itself. It could do so many things casually! Just because it needed to. But even Empire Strikes Back is a product of the Star Wars phenomenon. And as great as it is, it’s the film whose twist ends up miring the show in the past and a tied genealogy. While a powerful moment, I can’t help, bu think that it perhaps gives rise to the ouroborotical thinking that tends to plague subsequent Star Wars efforts. But the thing that gets lost is that A New Hope is still the entry point for so many fans. But it’s not just because it is the start. It’s the story that creates that very flame of fandom. Because it’s a great movie, dammit. Forget Joseph Campbell, it’s an incredible piece of economical dramatic storytelling and I made a whole video essay about its merits. But it gets there precisely because it is trying to be a movie and not because it was trying to be more Star Wars. Which is why all the best moments of every piece of media that came after comes out of that instinct to tell a story in and of itself…

And all the worst comes out of the instinct to be more Star Wars. Especially when they just try to limply connect to some part of the thing that already exists. It not only makes the infinite galaxy of Star Wars feel smaller instead of larger, it is an affront to dramatic catharsis. And thus it is often behind everything dysfunctional. For comparison, last week we finally had a little contained point A point B story that operated with a flashback parable and it was the high point of this very low series. And now with the finale? Well, it’s the height of “more Star Wars” and needless connection.

A Warning? - The beginning came with a “there are certain scenes viewers may find upsetting” and I’m like, well, that’s vague enough? I genuinely don’t get what they’re talking about here so does that warning simply account for not liking it?

The Action Blame Game - So I want to tackle all the action stuff up front with this series because I’ve seen people lambasting the show for skimping on the budget and hoo boy, y’all don’t seem to be aware that this show costs 150 million dollars, if not more. Now, to be fair, while that’s the same as a high budget movie that looks really good there’s a few added factors. They’re getting about five hours of stuff versus the standard two or two and a half. Then there’s above the line costs (which is more than you’d think for key players). But really there’s the volume industrial complex which may eat these Disney+ Star Wars shows alive. Still, there’s certainly enough money to “make it work,” especially given other shows that handled it better, so what we’re seeing here is a failure of execution. Plain and simple.

Because of that, I’m seeing people throw criticism directly at director Deborah Chow and that is not the thing to do. Not only has she done good work in the past, we’ve seen top-tier directors get eaten alive in this Star Wars system. Moreover, you have to understand why I’m much more willing to throw specific criticism at a figure like JJ Abrams who are financial titans of the industry and whose storytelling missteps stretch on for decades now. And here, you’re talking about smaller, great talents operating in a show with too many structural cooks, two second unit directors, and a whole host of other moving parts. The blame touches a little bit of everyone. But if she becomes the scapegoat, we will learn nothing. This is a systemic failure. And from our perspective? The only thing I want to use these scenes for is to teach what not to do.

To understand how much the volume can’t rely on the same big wides that flatten the horizon. To understand how much harder it is to integrate dynamic CGI shots. To understand that environment should play a much more integral role in a way that feels tactile instead of happenstance. And most of all, to understand the power of shot selection and how to emphasize movement. Watch the way the Vader / Obi Wan duel seems to move willy nilly and emphasize nothing for drama. For comparison, go back and watch the lightsaber fight from Phantom Menace. It’s not even a remarkable example of sword fight choreography, it’s just really good at how it cuts between wides, often highlighting the physicality and performance of the actors. And when it gets in close it’s doing so for the emotional beats. But what about something more dynamic? It’s on Disney please so watch the, uh, how to put it… The Wanda beatdown scene in Dr. Strange 2 because it’s so good at using the camera to emphasize action and turn things into character beats, all while hiding certain actors who are less agile than others. It’s textbook action cinematography!

Justice For Han - Once again, another project has cast Sung Kang because he’s so great and they like him and THEN THEY DO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WITH HIM. *throws chair through window* I swear I am going to lose it on this front. But it goes for so many of the supporting actors in this series. Why cast Maya Erskine if she has literally nothing to do? And at the end, Obi-Wan is trying to give some pep talk to the path leader guy (who I finally realized is O’Shea Jackson Jr. aka Ice Cube’s son!), but there’s been no real story or arc here. He’s just confirming what the guy is already good at. The conversation doesn’t operate naturally! I swear, if you actually try to tell stories about your supporting actors it will make the world feel bigger and your main character’s story even better! Kumail is really the only supporting figure who gets to have fun / display a range of emotion / or get any kind of arc here - but he’s not even given a cathartic pay-off with the Leia delivery thing! It’s like, what, you’re going to have six episodes of repetitive nonsense, but no room for a pay-off? No, it’s too busy miring us in…

Vader, Round 2! No wait, 3… of 4? Or is it 4 of 5? - Ostensibly the Vader storyline is why this particular version of the show supposedly exists, no? The thing is I can see this faint glimmer of what they were after. There’s the impactful moment in Part II where he learns that Anakin was still alive. There’s the (completely bungled) scene in Part III of him realizing what he’s become and being terrified. There’s the scene in Part V of him doing the bait and switch to get away (also a little bungled). And then there’s whatever this is. The big problem is that we’ve really watered down the interactions at this point and we’ve had all these rounds and it feels so tired already in this show. Especially when you’re doing lines like “have you come to destroy me obi wan?” / “I will do what I must” / “then you will die!” Like, really? That’s the best we can offer? And if you’re gonna be turning all this old crap at least go for it and have fun with possible lines like “who has the high ground now?” But instead, whatever this storyline was going mostly drowns under the weight of repetition, especially when ALL of it could have played out in a single, powerful sequence while the show concentrated on other more important stuff.

There is, however, a singular moment that stands out…

“... I Did” - Credit where credit is due, there’s a single damn exchange where I actually feel a real sense of purpose, urgency, emotion, and best of all, actual psychological insight into the characters on screen. It’s when Vader’s face is sliced and he’s breathing on the ground. And you see this genuine, tearful apology from Ewan. It really plays. And it highlights a sense of regret. But then comes the retort from Vader that really nails it: “You didn’t kill Anakin Skywalker… I did.” Hayden plays the scene so fucking well. It’s not just the really great way the Vader voice modulator is going in and out, struggling with the voice of the teen he once was and the voice he now “puts on” to intimidate the world. It’s that performance he gives with a single, unblinking eye. Staring intently with hatred, conviction, a most terrifying of all, a sense of joy that Anakin really is dead. The power of this is not just that it ties into the “mere connection” of why Obi-Wan would tell him his father is dead. It’s an actual catharsis for the story that has come before (at least kind of, because it’s really the same exact reason they fight in Episode III). Still, I hoped the whole episode would be as good as this one interaction. And unfortunately, it falls under the weight of what’s come before, along with everything else going on in the episode. But really, the failure here starts with a single issue…

Obi Wan’s Arc - On paper, you get the idea that ultimately this show was supposed to be about regret, failure, and moving on. The finale is certainly aiming for those feelings, but the problem is the six episodes are so outrageously bad at both dramatizing that through-line, or even verbalizing it properly. When Obi-Wan says “your strength has returned” it can’t help but feel like happenstance. Because when Obi-Wan can suddenly push rocks real good, we get all these images of it being Leia motivated, the problem is they didn’t really have an arc, did they? Heck, everything about his psychology is not something articulated in the story, it’s something I have to project. So in the end, it’s something I have to deduce out of moments after forced posturing or lip-service and not something the show dramatically leaned into… And look… If, after all this, you really don’t get what I mean by this stuff I really have to go back to big scale basics. Because I cannot explain how much this show’s approach is not good storytelling as we value it. It’s amorphous, vague, withholding, and ultimately, a regurgitation of empty repetition (we’ll get to that last part soon). But for now, we have something that helps highlight what I’m talking about…

The Runaway Jedi Arc - There’s this line where Obi-Wan says “you spent 10 years protecting the Jedi, it’s my turn to return that favor.” And at that moment I cannot overstate how much I wish this really felt like something that was woven meaningfully into the story. It feels so incidental. So barely aligned. Something that he never even fully learned to invest in. And I think that’s such a critical failure of the show. Because it’s even a failure of connecting to the story being told. We’re supposed to be meditating on what “saving the Jedi” even means and I keep thinking about that Safdie character - but it’s so myopically about Leia / Obi / Ani / Luke that this moment should have weight. Moreover, it’s something that in the end becomes so radically unaddressed the character it should have the MOST to do with…

Inquisitor Reva - I can’t get over this one. Of all the things that were bungled in this show, Reva’s arc is the biggest one. But last week was an attempted reset that I thought would at least push us into functional territory. She’s a person who wants revenge because Vader tried to kill her as a kid, yada yada yada. But with the reveal of the beacon / Luke, I was like “huh, where’s this going?” Given the events that reveal her quasi-goodness, the second she shows up on Tatooine I was thinking “Oh god, they’re going to do the bait and switch where they THINK she’s a threat, but she’s there to do some other character thing.” But then Reva starts attacking and I was like wait wait wait, hold up you’re ACTUALLY going to make me think she’s going after him as revenge on Vader I guess? And 1. you’re not even going to articulate this because you’re doing that thing you’ve done all show where you assume the audience can understand something you talked about in the room even though they so fucking don’t and you’re not going dramatize the sequencing and 2. You actually think we’d buy that at this point?

On a dramatic level I cannot overstate how bonkers this is. Not only is it hidden and vague, we KNOW this is not within her capacity. Like it’s completely antithetical to her core motivation as a child who was left for dead (and you can’t get away with the “hurt people hurt people” articulation of that idea if you are not going to really, really fucking dig into it with nuance and grace). When she holds up the lightsaber and sees herself it’s like “OF COURSE. WE ARE ALREADY SO PAST THIS.” When she finally says “I couldn’t do it,” it’s like WHY THE FUCK DID YOU WANT TO IN THE FIRST PLACE. Nothing about their conversation works because it was just a complete dramatic nonstarter in the first place. The final, ugly insult to this bungled storyline. I don’t want to be hyperbolic, but I’m honestly hard pressed to think of a character / amazing actor so let down by the writing around them. It’s such an immense tragedy of a storyline. And what’s worse is there are details within the sequence that just add to the sunken feeling…

Aunt Beru as Annie Oakley - It seems small, but I can’t get out of my mind how much this one moment symbolizes how Star Wars has lost its way. In the original film, Aunt Beru has one scene, basically. She’s trying to speak to Owen about the need to let Luke grow up. She’s warm. She’s empathetic. The actress plays it with this beautiful, natural lilt. Moreover it makes everything about Luke’s world feel so lived in and domestic. It exists to articulate his trapped psychology. And it humanizes the stern Uncle Owen as someone capable of listening. It works so well because just a few scenes later, you feel so completely awful when they both die. Like so many moments of A New Hope, it seems small, but it’s so critically important to the function of the film.

And suddenly, the Aunt Beru character shows up in this (after not appearing in the previous five episodes) and the way of “honoring” her character is going the sTrOnG bAdAsS route and saying she prepared for this day, giving her a blaster and having her shoot at a Sith I guess. But I literally said “oh fuck off” out loud. And if you’re not understanding why it makes me so upset, the “badass-ification” of female characters is a whole problem. Because it’s really just a trope that (most often) men write when they want “stronger” female characters, but it’s just making them strong in traditional masculine, surface-level ways while simultaneously making the characters more one-dimensional. It’s achingly hollow. And in the case of Aunt Beru? Given how the emotions of that A New Hope scene operate? It’s all the more reductive. Moreover, the problem of badass-ification is that it often puts the viewer in a double negative bind. Because it makes it easy for someone to respond, “oh, so you’d rather she just be a gentle old “sacred feminine” type matriarch who is there to show love? She can’t fire a gun?” No, it’s not that either. The binary of those options is so stupid. What I’m saying is that characterization should have both humanity and story purpose. And I’m saying this execution represents the most hollow and naked attempt of someone coasting off neither. It’s not about anything. It’s not really about Luke. It’s not even about her. It’s something that creates artificial danger and a need for Obi to return.

It’s all posture… And there’s one thing that proves it more than anything else.

On Walking Away - Count how many times characters have a stand off of some kind in this show and everyone just walks away / leaving them alive or without really settling the conflict at all. This just isn’t about this show, mind you. This is the number one way to look at ANY piece of media and determine whether they’re actually telling a story / creating meaningful changes in conflict / or creating a sense of propulsion. And here, it reveals the staggering degree to which there’s no actual story in Obi-Wan Kenobi. Vader leaves everyone alive constantly. Obi-Wan does it even at the end here. It’s not just like “what the fuck are you doing?” It’s because we *know* the reason why this happens. It’s because we know the surrounding story and where the characters end up. It happens because writing needs it to. We are telling the middle part of a story that really had no right to exist, let alone purpose in coming back to. We’re just playing more “connect the dots” with a picture that’s already been drawn in. Nothing exemplifies this more than…

The Holster Vs The Jacket - Someone had replied with a funny tweet that gets at this idea succinctly: “So you didn’t fancy an episode of DragonBall on the Unreal Engine 5 planet then? At least it learned the imperative lesson from Solo and Black Widow that the key to a successful prequel is explaining where someone got an irrelevant piece of clothing from.”

This really hammers so much of it home, doesn’t it? It’s that word irrelevant that speaks volumes. Heck, even LOST understood the Jack tattoo episode meant it was time to move forward. But I think the Black Widow jacket and the holster speaks to something about approach that is really important. For one, going in I didn’t remember the jacket thing, nor did I know about the whole nerdy brouhaha about it. But when I saw the scene in Black Widow? I thought it was just a fun bit of character development. Yelena’s just so happy about it and uses the “it has pockets!” real life joke in a way that made it all feel human and endearing. I genuinely didn’t know its connection, but it felt incidental and funny and warm. But here? I honestly didn’t remember even thinking about Leia’s holster either. I’ve seen the movies a billion times, but even I was like “oh, yeah, I guess she had one of those?” But where the MCU turned it into a humorous, character-based joke, this treats the holster like it’s a fucking gift of the magi, something instrumental to her characterization that needs to be put it rarefied air! Nothing sort of summarizes the difference between the MCU and Star Wars better than this (sometimes for better or worse). But it’s just a piece of clothing. And sometimes knowing that is the key to actually making it endearing.

But they couldn’t help themselves. Which is  all part of…

The Lack of Restraint - They literally copy the opening shot of the opening of A New Hope, just with a slightly different (and worse) angle. I cannot get over this. Just as I cannot get over Obi-Wan saying “but you won't always be” in relation to her age, as if he already knows the events of A New Hope. I cannot get over the same unblinking lack of irony when he says “this ends today”  and we so radically know it doesn’t. I can’t get over the way it fudges around Luke NOT seeing the lady with a lightsaber and what he must think of this. I can’t get over Luke declaring, “I’m not afraid!” because the show is so obsessed with tough posturing it fails to realize it’s own supposed lesson of what “he’s just a boy” should really mean and that it’s okay for kids to be afraid and my god, how can this show fail to draw a line on any of this stuff? How can it fail to draw a line to Anakin’s lost childhood? How is this the best you can do to invoke the repetition of the line “hello there,” which only has meaning with that which is to come? How can it seemingly go for everything and yet deliver on nothing?

How can you finally bring back fucking ghost Qui-Gon Jinn, who within two seconds reminds you he is one of the most charismatic actors who ever showed up in any of these stories, only  to do nothing. The whole push / pull of “took you long enough” / “you were not ready to see” speaks to absolutely NOTHING about Obi-Wan’s non-existential psychological arc and thus only exists because we are at the end of Part IV. It is everything I hate about posturing, “structural,” meaningless writing. It is a nothing burger.

And it should be so much more…

Disney’s Perpetual Star Wars Crisis - I’ve talked so much about the ouroboros in Star Wars (how it keeps eating its own self-referential tail) and it just keeps moving faster and faster. I keep waiting for some show to come along to stop the trend. To be something that is good in and of itself. And I hoped, given the pedigree of talent that involved that Obi-Wan Kenobi would be that. But it was oddly the most disheartening. And it’s weird to know this show genuinely wouldn’t exist were there not a certain economic need to. While Ewan can sell a scene, whatever producing went on here goes by the wayside. Everything about this show feels like a part of the cyclical trap. So what the heck is going on with this property?

Look, it’s this tricky thing to talk about when you know a lot of people who have worked directly with certain figures, but this is the best I can summarize. Because there’s a lot of talk that goes around when it comes to Kathleen Kennedy running Star Wars and I’ve never seen so much that feels so off the mark. Because there is such an utter misunderstanding of who she “is” from seemingly every side. I’m not just talking about the sexist / alt right fans who admonish “woke” Star Wars and can eat my entire butt (it’s not even doing a good job at that!). It’s even from the long-time collaborators who adore her, because they’re coming at it from the perspective of often being working geniuses and she had a producer skill set that jibed with their needs. To be clear, she is better at parts of her job than most ever will be. She’s a rightful legend. But being a producer can mean a lot of things. And I think there’s a lot of people who expect that skill set to overlap with what, say, Kevin Feige does with the MCU. No two producers are the same. Moreover, those skill sets can clash and jibe with a million different modes of operating and produce more kinds of conflict or grand-scale story problems with what comes in being in charge of a “universe.” And please understand that SO MUCH of this also has to do with Alan Horn, the launch of Disney+, and so many other factors that go beyond the simplicity of the blame game. I am not interested in that.

I am interested in talking about the end result.

Because there is something ESSENTIAL that needs to be addressed here. Because more is not inherently better. The ugliest truth is that Obi-Wan Kenobi was actually a more interesting character before he had all this backstory (this criticism goes back to the prequels) and the more you dig into the backstory nature of things the more you’re going to either 1) repeat surface level shit or 2) actually get into the tough questions. Ewan’s speech to Leia about her parents is full of sentiment, but it gets sticky when you realize he’s basically having to talk around the fact that “your dad is space hitler.” I get what he’s doing in the scene. I really do. But there’s a reason that the original trilogy’s arc with Vader’s space Hitler-ism works so damn cleanly and virtually nothing about what’s trying to in the run-up works by comparison. It is inherently diving into something that cannot rightfully work. And the only reason it “does” is because it knows it can rely on an ending that is already there. In part VI, Obi-Wan basically gives away the whole game with a single line:

“The future will take care of itself.”

We know this. And it is everything this dang I.P. is relying on instead of pushing anything into the new. So when it comes to this property going forward?

It won’t take care of itself.

The Future of Star Wars With Generous Fandom - I want to be very clear about the needle I am trying to thread here: it is very okay to like this show.

I would never begrudge that enjoyment. But by every conceivable standard we have, this show *IS* that poorly executed. And in the realm of criticism, it is important to look at it and call it what it is. To understand that all the ways it “works” is because it is so adamant on milking the things that we will give them because we, as Star Wars fans, already inherently love it. With that, I also want to echo the idea that you know this. Just as you know what good storytelling is in comparison. You’ve seen things like Spider-Verse, or Fury Road, or any of the amazing films that deal with “established” IP and yet earn everything through the specificity of their own stories. You know that filmmakers can make these amazing, enthralling stories that really know how to be about things. And you know that you don’t have to bend over backwards to justify things in this series that are, quite frankly, professionally inexcusable (I don’t use that phrase lightly). You know this. But what I want you to realize now is that…

You have so much more power than you think.

Because the powers that be pay attention to reactions. They codify it. They measure it. They read criticism. They even read this crap right here. If they are directly involved, the good ones understand how to keep a separation of church and state. But for those not directly involved, I’ll tell you that I have NEVER had a show where more industry professionals were like, “what the fuck is going on with this thing?” But the entire point is that they listen. And they listen to YOU. Because you are part of their audience. And they understand it is their job to evolve and do better and see the entire spectrum of where we are. Sometimes they go the wrong way (like after Last Jedi). Sometimes they listen to the loudest jerks. Sometimes they get scared. Sometimes it all seems precarious. But you are kind and generous and thoughtful.

But if we keep giving the easy way through, they will take the easy way through.

I’m not saying you have to dislike anything. But I’m saying there’s this generous quality to the positive reactions that feel far more like excuse making than celebration. It’s this constant “yeah, but…” or this lowering of the bar where it’s “I just wanted to see X again.” And it’s so understandable given the property we all love and yet, I have to keep talking about this function stuff because it feels like something is always getting lost. Believe me, I don’t want to sound like Brad Bird raving about “we need standards!!! blarugha!!!!!” cause that’s not my vibe, man. But I really don’t want the quality of A New Hope to get lost in an endless series of references to it. Just as I don’t want the “A New Hope fight, but epic!” view of Star Wars to be the thing that takes hold (man, I just rewatched that for the first time since it came out and I can’t believe it’s actually filmed better than this show, but the instinct of both is still a problem).

The point is that as everything gives away, as the ouroboros coils tighter and tighter, as corporate needs spill out with endless demand, as the fans continue to make excuses, the thing I hold onto more and more is that simple, stupid, deluded notion of hope itself. Not because I need Star Wars to be good again (it’s fine if it never is). But because I hold onto the idea that even talking about this stuff around the popular “watercooler" can shed light on the nature of artistic process; on media itself and your own ability to reflect, enjoy, and create something anew. To create something powerful on screen. To take a viewer and suddenly make them transfixed, jaw agape, and not thinking about the time whatsoever. That’s the heart of everything. So as much as Obi-Wan Kenobi falls into that Rise of Skywalker zone where I’m like “I’m just going to do my best to forget it exists.” I’m still not going to be cynical about the process of any of this. Even now, I hope Andor will be good. Not because I need it to rescue a failing intellectual property. But because the process can win out.

And no matter what it is, I love to be in awe.

<3HULK