Obi-Wan Kenobi triumphs.
Sophisticated storytelling by Deborah Chow and a stunning performance by Ewan McGregor make this the Disney+ series you're looking for.
The Short Take:
Obi-Wan Kenobi is a triumph in Star Wars storytelling. I’m not saying wait and see; the first two episodes that dropped on Disney+ are amazing on their own.
Image Credit: StarWars.com
The Long Take:
I’m going to be up front about my hype bias here. I’m at Star Wars Celebration, the biggest global event for Star Wars fans, and seeing the first two episodes of the new Obi-Wan Kenobi series marked the end of a surreal day of pure joy.
On Thursday morning, I had the privilege to attend the Lucasfilm Showcase panel, which brought members of the cast and crew, including stars Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen, on stage to talk about their work on the project and express gratitude for the incredible warmth they have felt from fans of the prequel films. In honor of John Williams’ 90th birthday, the maestro himself led the Pacific Symphony Orchestra in the world premiere of the special theme he wrote for Obi-Wan (or “Benny,” as Williams has endearingly called him in interviews). Obi-Wan Kenobi himself, Ewan McGregor and Host Yvette Nicole Brown (who absolutely nailed it) invited all attendees to return that evening for a special preview screening of Obi-Wan Kenobi, complete with a red carpet, popcorn, and an appearance by the cast and crew at the very end. Suffice it to say this was a very special night, and I want to acknowledge that this may unduly boost my estimation of what I saw.
But, honestly, I don’t think it does. I’ve now rewatched the episodes on my small screen and I am still astounded but what Director Deborah Chow, Ewan McGregor, and the rest of the cast and crew have accomplished here. It’s epic and cinematic in all the ways we’d want Star Wars to be, but at its core it is a character-focused story about love, guilt, and reckoning with the past. About finding a way to move forward in dark times. I don’t need to explain how that may be particularly useful for audiences right now.
We find Obi-Wan in the midst of a quiet life, surviving in a remote desert cave on Tatooine, going to work as an assembly line butcher (or sashimi slicer? I want to know more about whatever creature they’re cutting up for market there). He has completely given up the Jedi way, calling himself “Ben” as he does in A New Hope. Meanwhile, a team of Inquisitors — non-Sith dark side force users whose job it is to locate and exterminate all the remaining Jedi in the galaxy — arrive on Tatooine. The Grand Inquisitor is in hot pursuit of another fugitive Jedi, but Reva, his ambitious subordinate, says they need “bigger prey” like the elusive Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Image Credit: Screen Rant
Some may recognize Director Deborah Chow’s name from The Mandalorian, as she directed two episodes from Season 1 — “Chapter 3: The Sin” and “Chapter 7: The Reckoning.” Other critics and podcasters have noted this in the past, so it’s not an original idea by any means, but her episodes significantly contribute to the heart that makes The Mandalorian so magical, especially through the relationship between Din Djarin and Grogu. She can brilliantly choreograph an action sequence AND she’s always thinking about how to build meaningful relationships between characters. Small details, like Grogu trying to play with a knob from Din’s ship, which then leads to Din gifting that “ball” to Grogu, makes a huge difference in terms of getting us to care about these characters and fall in love with how they interact with one another. I had that same experience in this series premiere.
I mention this at the top of my review because, to me, this thoughtfulness and attention to character details is the glue that holds Obi-Wan Kenobi together. Are the Inquisitors terrifying and their hunting down Obi-Wan down thrilling? Of course. But the series as a whole would not work if we did not also take the time to examine Obi-Wan’s psychological state in the aftermath of Order 66 and his complicity in Anakin Skywalker’s turn to the Dark Side. Of how those events have broken him. How they have shaken his confidence.
[If you have not yet seen the first two episodes of Obi-Wan Kenobi, I am now going down a path you cannot follow. SPOILERS abound.]
We learn, through snippets of dialogue and Kenobi’s actions throughout the episodes, that he not only has to give up the Jedi way to survive, but he has also buried his lightsaber in the sand and has not used the Force in ten years because he believes he no longer deserves to be a Jedi. That since he failed Anakin and Padme, he thinks he must become a recluse and completely deny his former life. When the Organas ask him to come out of hiding for “one last fight” — to save Leia — he says that he isn’t the man he was ten years ago and that Leia would be better off if they found someone else. Bail Organa has to risk going to Tatooine to confront Obi-Wan in person, essentially telling him to get over it and move on from his past failures.
Later, a young Leia (YES, a YOUNG LEIA! I’ll get to that in a minute.) calls him out by asking if he won’t use The Force or if he just can’t use the force. This made me wonder to what degree Obi-Wan would use hiding from the Inquisitors and “not drawing attention” to himself as an excuse for a self-consciousness about his use of The Force? The layering of factors that contribute to who Kenobi is at this moment in time adds a richness to the story that, for me, elevated it above expectations.
Image Credit: Forbes
The only thing pulling Obi-Wan back to the light is his love for Luke and Leia. And here’s where I really see Deborah Chow’s hand steering the ship with those little details. In a hilarious exchange with a Jawa who steals parts from Obi-Wan only to sell them back to him, Obi-Wan buys a toy for Luke and drops it off at the Lars’ doorstep in the night. When he’s buying a cloak to disguise Leia, she expresses interest in a pair of gloves she doesn’t need and — in a way that really resonated with me as a parent, as I have many a time resigned to purchase items we don’t need, out of love — he quietly says to the clerk, “and the gloves.” This is such a small moment, but one that says so much about how Obi-Wan feels about Leia. They are not just obligations from a promise made to his old friends; they are his only remaining family.
In loving Luke and Leia, Obi-Wan can channel all of his grief for Anakin and Padme. The scene in the escape hangar was perhaps the most emotionally impactful for me because it gave the clearest window into not Obi-Wan’s guilt and shame, but grief. Leia takes charge and Obi-Wan reacts by saying she reminds him of someone else who was fearless and stubborn — her biological mother, Padme. The way Ewan McGregor stops in his tracks and looks at Leia simultaneously filled my heart and broke it.
Image Credit: Games Radar
Since I may not get another opportunity to specifically praise Ewan McGregor for the rest of the review, I must do so here because he is absolutely phenomenal in every single frame of these episodes. He frequently has very little dialogue, especially in episode one, and yet communicates so much with his face and body. Even when he says nothing, I can still sense his pain, his lack of confidence, and the strain of having to return to his former self after so many years. And yet the Obi-Wan we’ve always known still comes through so that when we see a flash of his lightsaber hilt on his belt at the end of episode one, we can cheer him on. Through all the pain, he can still warmly (and adorably!) play off young Leia (I loved watching the two of them on screen together) or crack jokes at the expense of Kumail Nanjiani’s huckster character. (Nanjiani was also great — bring Haja back in other Star Wars stories, please.)
Image Credit: Screen Rant
The actress who plays young Leia nearly stole the show here, though. I never would have said that I needed to see Leia at that age, but the brilliant casting of Vivian Lyra Blair combined with Joby Harold’s pitch perfect writing genuinely evoked the Leia I know and love. Her dialogue captured a bit of Carrie Fischer’s rendition of Leia as well as the character’s rebel spirit, and yet still made her believable as a child. One minute she would be saying something sassy or wise beyond her years, and the next minute she would do something absurd like ask Obi-Wan to make her float in the middle of a chase scene. Meanwhile, Blair was spunky and precocious in her delivery. With a lesser actress, this could have fallen apart very quickly.
Young Leia’s role in this series has been the best surprise thus far. I want to applaud the teaser and official trailer for this series because the misdirection, implying that Luke would be the focus of this series and that we would spend a lot more time on Tatooine, paved the way for surprise and delight when we see that first exterior of Alderan. There’s also a notable meta-text at play here, commenting on the original trilogy or, more accurately, the fan expectations that have evolved out of a love for the original trilogy. Fans — myself included — often presume Luke to be the protagonist of the entire Skywalker saga (or at least the original trilogy films), but this series reminds us that they were born as a pair, as equals thrust into very different circumstances by tragedy.
So when Bail Organa says to Obi-Wan that “She is as important as he is,” he’s reminding both Obi-Wan and the audience that we must not let gender color our perception of these two characters. They are both strong in the Force in their own ways and are both equally important to the upcoming Rebellion and the Star Wars franchise. This may be reading too much into the scripts, but there are two scenes in which Leia dresses down a character with her words, but specifically by way of psychologically profiling them. She says that her haughty cousin is actually afraid and she tells Obi-Wan that he gives away more by trying to hide himself from others. I saw this as an early sign of Force sensitivity from Leia, because she so intuitively can read people in a frighteningly accurate way.
I do have a few nitpicks about the episode, though they do not ultimately undermine my appreciation of the series to date. The kidnapping scene seemed a little clunky and awkward, like the actors playing the kidnappers didn’t want to actually hurt Blair. I think the intention here was to show how scrappy and tough Leia is — even at the age of ten — by having her put up a good fight first. It might have been better, however, to cut to the next scene sooner, immediately after Reva’s hired mercenaries surround her. She’s pretty outnumbered, and Leia has plenty of other opportunities to demonstrate grit on Daiyu. In other words, I appreciate the intention, but don’t think the execution actually works in this instance.
Similarly, I really like the tension between Reva and the Grand Inquisitor, but some of the rationale for that tension expressed throughout the episodes didn’t quite add up for me. It makes sense to pit them against one another, especially to give a rusty Kenobi a believable opportunity to escape them. It’s the classic the villains are too busy squabbling and since they can’t work together and don’t care about others, the heroes can win.
There are several reasons for why they do not get along that do make sense (or probably will make sense later on). The Grand Inquisitor says that Reva is the “least of them,” which indicates that there’s some kind of discrimination against her within the Inquisitorius. She has climbed the ranks because of her abilities but, in a manner similar to Leia’s cousin saying she’s not a “real” Organa, the Grand Inquisitor says that no amount of talent can cover the “stench” of who she is. It’s a little unclear what he’s actually referring to here, and hopefully we learn more about Reva’s past in future episodes. Her obsession with Obi-Wan Kenobi, which distracts from their assignments, also displeases the Grand Inquisitor. And, perhaps most of all, the Grand Inquisitor feels threatened by Reva, so anything she does that makes herself look good to Vader is going to upset him.
But what I don’t understand is why the Grand Inquisitor and the Fifth Brother seem to disapprove of Reva being ruthless. If their mission is to exterminate all Jedi, why does it matter that Reva uses her lightsaber to cut Benny Sadie’s arm? Why do they have a problem with her cutting off someone’s hand or kidnapping Leia? This “don’t go too far” attitude doesn’t match up with my memory of the Inquisitorius from the animated series, Rebels. I understand why having the tension is productive for the story, and I like that it exists, but this particular motivation behind it doesn’t quite add up. If you have thoughts on why this makes sense, please share them!
I feel incredibly lucky to have this series, and to have it be as good as it is. To me, this doesn’t feel like dredging up an old character to exploit fan nostalgia. It feels like the right time to tell this story, with these actors and creators. The story itself has so much momentum and yet maintains so much emotional depth and complexity. Part of me cannot wait to watch the rest and part of me is already dreading that it will be over soon.