By Luke Durling
I have developed a bit of a tradition, ritual, if you will, with a friend of mine. Every Wednesday, Thursday or whatever day it is released on Disney+, my friend and I discuss the latest episode of the latest Star Wars show. Everything from The Mandalorian to The Book of Boba Fett, we watch, text and wait in anticipation for the other to either watch or respond. We have often had our minor issues, divided opinions, but we mainly come to a general consensus to what we think of the current chapter of “A Galaxy Far, Far Away”.
Perhaps the closest we have came to a consensus was on the first show, The Mandalorian, and the most current entry, Obi-Wan Kenobi. The former was, and still is, a brilliant space western that breathed new life into the dormant universe by doing something entirely new and original, while still being Star Wars at the very core.
The latter attempts the opposite. Kenobi attempts to take what is old and make it new again…
What you wind up with is a mixed bag.
Kenobi brings back all the great characters we know and love; the titular Jedi who has all but given up, Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker in the prime of his reign of terror, a young Leia wonderfully acted and a centerpiece of the show, along with a little Luke on the back burner of a show bursting with nostalgia and lore.
The problem is nostalgia isn’t always enough. Structure has to be had, risks need to be taken and the story has to be taken seriously.
Kenobi is shaky on all these fronts.
Last time I wrote a review, I shed light on Pixar’s Lightyear, what it did right and what it did wrong. Nostalgia was a great factor in the success, but Pixar was carving a whole new trail, not filling in gaps. There were new characters, new perspectives, risks were taken, some more successful than others, but taken nonetheless.
Kenobi has very little originality in the sense of canon or character and what originality it does have seems to be greatly underutilized or flat out twisted by a rudimentary misdirection of what the central story should be. It is an enjoyable romp, but that romp is ruined by what the canonical selling points deem necessary. In Kenobi’s unfortunate case, that means main figures are catapulted without any real reason and nothing truly new comes to light.
In fact, the show arguably has very little to do with its’ main namesake, and is more of a conglomerate of characters who are yet to be, yet somehow fully are. My friend and I once joked that The Book of Boba Fett, another Star Wars series already released, should have been called “Boba Fett and his Amazing Friends” due to its lack of intriguing focus on the iconic bounty hunter on its cover. Kenobi shares the same problem. I found myself watching it purely for Darth Vader and Leia as the disillusioned Jedi Master slowly fades into the sand riddled background.
Disney is wonderful with nostalgia. On its own, however, nostalgia is dangerously unstable, a blast with no heat or a flash without a bang. Kenobi seems to be like that. I have said something similar in the past, but one cannot change their past by what they did in the past. Only the future can change how the past is perceived, and the future requires both balance and bold. Obi-Wan Kenobi is all bold.
I pray this pattern doesn’t persist…
FINAL GRADE: B
Calm and Cultured 