What's up everyone! Dan here! Today I'll be reviewing the limited series, Obi-Wan Kenobi on Disney Plus!
Spoilers ahead! You've been warned!
I want to make it clear, I am a HUGE Star Wars fan and I loved the Original Trilogy as well as the Prequels. Sequels I did not like and I liked all the Star Wars animated series as well as the Mandalorian and even Book of Boba Fett. The idea of a Kenobi anthology movie or series has been an idea I've been curious about for years and would have liked to seen come to fruition. With that said, the series here....doesn't quite deliver.
I went into this series with reasonable expectations thinking that it would mainly be about Obi-Wan and his time spent of Tatooine where he is watching over Luke and learning how to Master the Force even after death in secrecy while hiding under the Empires radar. This series does the complete opposite of everything I was expecting for a Kenobi series.
The cast itself was an interesting cast I'll give it that, lots of diverse talent here. Ewan McGregor reprising his role as Obi-Wan Kenobi was awesome, I love Ewan's performance as Kenobi in the prequels and he did a decent job with it here, Ewan's acting performance is great and despite the material he had to work with, it was still enjoyable watching him as Kenobi again. Hayden Christensen came back to reprise his role as Anakin/Darth Vader alongside James Earl Jones providing the iconic voice which was another treat I appreciated. I always liked Christensen's performance as Anakin/Vader I think he brought it all to life in the Prequels and like McGregor he gave a great performance despite what he had to work with. There was also talent such as Kumail Nanjiani (who starred in the Eternals movie), Moses Ingram who gave a decent performance as the Third Sister, Reva, Vivien Lyra Blair who gave an okay performance as a young Leia and surprisingly, O'Shea Jackson Jr aka Ice Cube's son was in this series as Roken a rebel leader kind of guy and he gave a good performance as well.
Deborah Chow was the Director of the show and she's known for her work on the hit series The Mandalorian. This was her project to do and it was not what I expected. The plot of the series is completely opposite what I think me and other fans were expecting in a Kenobi series. Obi-Wan is sent on this wild cross galaxy adventure to save a kid Leia from criminals in an attempt by Reva to lure him out of hiding and presenting him to Darth Vader. I'm all for adventure series where you go planet to planet each episode and that works for something like The Mandalorian who doesn't have a established setting rather he goes job to job to different places. Here for Kenobi, it doesn't quite work as well. Kenobi's main task after the Jedi Purge and defeating Anakin is to remain on Tatooine and watch over and protect Luke until he's ready for his Jedi training. That has always been established in the films, tv series, and the books. But here in this series, Kenobi briefly leaves his duty to protect Luke to save Leia and this really raises questions now. This means that Leia personally know Kenobi, she personally knows a Jedi and that they exist. The charm that the original series had was that the Jedi were nothing more than a Myth at that point and that the were all wiped out during Order 66 but with this series, Leia now knows that they're very much real which somewhat dilutes the original trilogy and the impact it has when it reveals that the Jedi are still around.
My next complaint is Darth Vader and the Inquisitors, I'll start with the Inquisitors first. The Grand Inquisitor was established in Star Wars: Rebels and his character in that animated series was intimidating and crafty as oppose to here where he's more...how do I put this....comical and stuffy. Here he doesn't have the same intimidation and craftiness but rather he's a stuffy general type who also has an annoying voice compared to his animated counterpart which was frightening and eerie. They also did something to him that almost retconned his character and Rebels but luckily episode 5 of Kenobi fixed that.
Reva's character overall was just too over the top in most of the series and it felt like she was just there for the sake of checking a minority check box. She didn't add a whole lot to the series and she revealed she knew who Darth Vader truly was which again raised so many questions since that is a secret only Vader and Sidious knew up until that point. I will say that episode 5 improved her character. It answered how she knew Anakin was Vader and what her true intentions were, I felt the fifth episode was definitely the best episode for Reva and the best episode of the entire series. The sixth episode was a decent conclusion though I would have preferred if the Character had died and taken Vader's secret to the grave but that's not what happened and now it's up to speculation what happens to Reva after that.
Darth Vader is always exciting to have in any Star Wars content whether its brief like Rogue One or he's a main villain in season 2 of Rebels. However, he's not used in the best way possible here. Him and Kenobi fight it out twice in this series and I felt it was unnecessary. The action itself was fun to watch, but I felt this went against the lore of the Star Wars universe. In the films, its established that those two hadn't faced each other since Revenge of the Sith and would not meet again until A New Hope. Here they throw that out the window and adds two duels between the two which dilutes their final meeting in A New Hope, it's not as impactful as it use to be. In Star Wars legend, Obi-Wan discovered Anakin lived via Cantina broadcast showing Vader conquering a planet and him seeing Vader for the first time in his new cybernetic suit. They didn't have to meet face to face to learn this, they should have just let Obi-Wan discover the terrible truth himself like in the comics. The meetings between the two felt over the top and unnecessary and it felt like it went against the source material and everything we knew. I'd also like to point out that they showed a flashback of a Padawan Anakin and a young Master Kenobi dueling it out and they did not look young at all. Everyone's using that De-aging CGI on everything now, why couldn't they do that here? they both look older than they should be. I see what they were going for here but to me it didn't work well and didn't add anything significant to the lore and story. The writing in the last episode was underwhelming with Kenobi saying "Then my friend is truly dead." which is a reference to Return of the Jedi when Luke said to Vader "Then my father is truly dead.". Kenobi also sliced Vader's helmet revealing half of Anakin's face on the left side and this was also meant to reference Star Wars: Rebels where Ashoka sliced Vader's helmet and revealing half his face on the right side which is where his iconic scar is and that was more impactful in Rebels than it was in Kenobi.
The setting as I mentioned is a cross galaxy adventure and I felt that this story should have stayed on Tatooine. I know fans complain about how a lot of Star Wars content is always on Tatooine or some other desert planet to which I agree, but here it would have worked. Kenobi's mission was to stay on Tatooine and protect Luke until he's ready all while Kenobi is learning to master the force through the guidance of his old master, Qui-Gon Jinn and how to become one with the force even after death. That's how this series should have gone, not this John Wick in space wacky adventure. Kenobi is in a rough time in his life where he feels he's no longer the Jedi he once was and I like that aspect, but it's not executed well here. They made him like a retired spy or soldier to carry out a mission one last time and that felt nonsensical for Kenobi. To be fair, the last episode ended with Obi-Wan seeing Qui-Gon's force ghost and him starting his force training and it was a nice touch, but I felt that should have been the series to begin with. Obi-Wan hearing Qui-Gon's voice and training to become one with the force again and by the end, he sees Qui-Gon's ghost and reaches enlightenment. Unfortunately they didn't go for that, instead went for something over the top and lackluster. Some of the settings like in the second episode didn't look like Star Wars settings, looked more like assets from Guardians of the Galaxy. It had some nice Easter eggs like my favorite one is where in episode 2 we see an old Clone Trooper homeless and begging for credits like an old war veteran and that was a nice nod to the Clone Wars and shows the Clones were victims just like the Jedi.
Overall, this series had a lot of promise behind it but fell short in terms of story, significance and adding on to the Star Wars lore. The action scenes are good, the acting is decent, and I enjoyed the Easter eggs. Episode 5 was the best episode and it salvaged and saved the series from completely bombing. I heard they got a different writer for episode 5 and I tip my hat to them for saving this series. But the series as a whole was just lackluster.
Rating this series I'm giving it:
5.5/10
A real shame because I had high hopes for this series and was let down. I personally didn't care for most of it and would not recommend to any Star Wars fan out there. It's serviceable enough for the average person to binge and watch something mindless, but this is definitely one of the weaker Star Wars series I've seen, worse than The Book of Boba Fett.
That's all I have to say, See ya next time!