Tag: star wars

Obi Wan Kenobi Eps 5-6

The long awaited finale to my review trilogy!

The fifth episode sees a wonderful development in Reva’s journey; after being thwarted in her attempt to catch Leia, Obi-Wan Kenobi is able to set her sights on her true enemy – Darth Vader. However, it turns out that sneaky Darth has always been aware of her tendency towards betrayal – I called this – and thus he puts her down like a right punk, not even drawing his own lightsabre to make an even greater mockery of her. If ever there was an example of Disney’s Star Wars giving us exactly what we wanted (and getting it RIGHT), then this surely is one of those – Darth Vader being frighteningly badass. We’re talking a rival to the end of Rogue One here. People were afraid of him for a reason, not just because he could pinch your vocal chords and “accept your apology”, but because he could defeat vicious malevolent Inquisitor-level Darksiders with his hands tied behind his back. Almost literally.

Oh and that moment when he catches the escaping transporter… OH I was loving it.

OH and that wonderful flashback with Anakin and Obi Wan, with both actors truth to reality and not uncanny CGI-valley.

I’ll get onto Part Six – arguably the best episode of the lot – once I get some quibbles out the way.

The show has in no way been perfect. The Mandalorian struck gold and will always be the superior star wars spin-off, mainly because its new story, new characters and new things to love. Don’t get me wrong, but having classic characters become the centrepiece is likely flying into an asteroid field. Sure, Luke’s appearance in mando was mind-blowing, and not toooooo bad in Boba Fett, but the Boba Fett show itself fell into Mando 2.5 (as it is now widely known in the fan community and media). Boba Fett’s legendary status was butchered – he wasn’t a kickass bounty hunter anymore, he was a fallible man who gets Daniel-craig’d through every fight – exactly the same niche which Mando himself inhabits, but he’s allowed to. He wasn’t a cult icon in much of my childhood.

So with Obi Wan we are constantly worried that some writer will misfire into discontinuity – Leia should never have met him, or at least spent that much time with him – agreed, she says nothing of this and only hints he was a ‘friend of her father’. With all that she goes through with him here, it makes her look a bit cold when he dies in A New Hope. (spoilers). Worse – are they going to Luke Skywalker / Last Jedi-swerve into making Obi-Wan, hero of the prequels, a weary traveller with no desire to kick ass? (fortunately they tread a thin line between weary and wary… for the most part.)

BUT.

With all its problems like the above, it delivers some things which it gets just right. And for me, anyway, these moments iron out the rest. Again, its not perfect. But let me now ditch the critical – trying – to – be – observational – part. Unleash the fanboy.

Darth Vader pulling the transporter out of the sky??

The actually tense-as-fuck fight between Obi Wan and vader on that rock field? Yeah I’ll take all that cheers. And then the double emotional swells when not one but two of the classic music cues boil over?? Yup, there was Palpy too. Awesomeness. It wasn’t Luke taking on Dark Troopers but it was awesome.

Not so much the finale with Luke – could have done without all that nonsense, but I guess we had to give Reva her final little bit of screentime. Somebody on twitter gave a shout out for a spin-off. No, not necessary, please don’t.

Nicely done was the little connection with Luke that we probably did know – after all Mark Hamill’s teenage Luke DID know of Obi-Wan and was playing with his childhood toy T-16. So, “Hello there!” brought a smile to my face.

Then of course, that final scene. Perhaps not handled as the cinematic reveal I would have given it, but downplayed just a little… but I care not. I called it at the start of the show when the actor started denying it – it’s the way things are now. This particular character was the first real Cosplay i ever did (i mean in a massively public event), and i’ll own it. Seeing him back on screen was a nice, if not unsurprisingly, touch.

This should be the end of the show, however. Obi-Wan disappears into the desert and learns the way of force ghosting. We won’t see him again till he waves his arm about and screams and scares off the Sandpeople. (at least this is what I want. But we’ll probably get an ill-fated season 2).

A Vader show though? As he hunts down some more Jedi? Him and his cool Inquisitor henchman?

I know! A comedy! Darth Dastardly and his dog … um… Stormzy … try to outwit and hunt down remaining Jedi, but keep on getting themselves run over by their own TIE fighter! HAHAHAHAHAHAH.

Pause.

No. Please don’t, actually.

Do give us a buddy action comedy with Han and Lando, though. #MakeSolo2happen

“You said: Catherine”

I wasn’t sure how to title my blog today – i’m feeling relatively optmistic and my mind, despite being as cluttered as a box of radishes, is leaning on a positive note, having spent the day writing Blakes 7, doodling in my diary, talking to Lauren and chasing plans for the future, as well as re-watching some old doctor who (a review of which might be getting shelved for a future project). In the last few moments tho i have been struck by two incidents of genuine amusement.

The first was referring to my bag of roast potatoes as produced by Granny Basket (instead of Harvest Basket), which made me laugh out loud. More importantly, though, was during an Alexa-enabled knowledge game about Star Wars. I like to think i know a fair bit about Star Wars, so i’d be annoyed if this game truly flunked me.

Question one: how many spires on the tower of the Jedi Council? I MEAN WHAT. ERMMMMM I stammered, six? The answer was five; i can live with being one out. Question 2: how old was Padme when she became queen. I said 13, the answer was 14. Again, i can handle that. Both were, in my defence, guesses, although educated.

But then came this delicious morsel; “on what planet did Darth Vader grow up?” Immediately seeing through the obvious mislead – as Darth Vader was of course Anakin Skywalker – i shouted “Tatooine!” at my Echo, confident to the per cent of 100.

Alexa chose to reply, “You said Catherine. That is incorrect. The answer is Tatooine.”

Staring incredulously at the device i then listened as it informed me i had answered 3 incorrect corrections in a row, scored zero points, and that it was “game over.” I was then treated by an audio putdown, as Sebulba told me i’m bantha poodoo.

Deciding not to take said Dug’s insult to heart, i smashed the Echo dot into small pieces using a cricket bat, told Alexa to go ‘f**k herself’ and made a bacon sandwich, whilst opening my Amazon app to order another Echo. I then sat down and wrote a review of Top Gun: Maverick, which will appear on here fairly soon.

Right now, though, i have important things to do. Like a 4000 word essay on breaking free of self doubt. The importance of which could be astronomical. But i’ll leave that part mysterious for now.

Forth Eorlinghas, readers.

Obi-Wan Kenobi (Eps3-4)

Its finally here. Ever since the famous line “when we last met i was but the learner. now i am the master,” – and now we have an episode-long fight between Obi-Wan Kenobi, hero of the clone wars and one of the greatest Jedi of our time, and Darth Vader, arguably the most famous bad guy in the history of cinema itself. A clash, truly of the titans.

Starting strong; Obi-Wan is still reeling emotionally after discovering that Anakin in fact survived the whole burning shenanigans on Mustafar and so we can expect he won’t be force-running into head on conflict. And Darth is fucking terrifying as he descends from his ship and snaps necks and kills civilians left right and centre. This is an evil man, burned by hatred and pain and out for righteous one-sided violent revenge.

So then we dissolve into a game of Evade the Vader (like i used to play in beggars canyon back home). We’re on some blue-ish sand planet that reminds me of the various generic coal mine sets as seen in Taken / Superman 3 / classic 70s doctor who, and one or two lightsabre clashes followed by…yes, you guessed it, more running. Obi-Wan’s getting his 10,000 in.

And then Vader is finally defeated and we realise Obi-Wan is still the jedi mas…wait what? Obi-wan has been pwned? He’s lying on the ground having the cloak burned off him by a red-misted asthmatic in a cape?

There are two ways to look at the turn of events. A) Be annoyed. God dammit we’ve been thinking Obi-Wan is a god amongst men every since he panned Anakin’s ass on those hovering platforms over the lava river. Why is he being beaten like such a punk here?

or B) i call this the last jedi option. Obi-Wan has become weary. Order 66 wiped out not only half the Jedi but all his friends, near enough. And now the Inquisitors have been hunting down and annihilating all remnants of hope. Thinks are dark and bleak. And in this time he discovers his greatest mistake of all time is still alive – he is not in a good place. So, we’ve been set up.

Set up, that is, for a redemption arc, we are. Obi-Wan is going to have to face his fallacies, and get back in shape if he’s to stop Darth Vader’s bulldoze through the last hope in the galaxy.

Episode 4 is slightly anti-climactic given that we just had Darth Vader burning the shit out of my screaming childhood hero, but its nonetheless an excellent follow-up to the creepy cliffhanger of Inquisitor Riva closing in on the young Leia.

I found myself seeing callbacks to the detention centre scenes of A New Hope, with Obi-Wan sneaking about between cells hoping to rescue his young companion. My outright favourite moment however, was Obi-Wan revealing he has very faint memories of a lost brother, but they were separated before he entered the way of the Jedi. Its a touching moment reminiscent of a classic scene from old-doctor who, when the Second Doctor comforts Victoria during a siege of cybermen.

There’s a lot of hoo-haa now about what we want to see before the end of the show – but with Season 2 now greenlit, we’ve got a lot more time to play with before…well. Vader needs to have his arse kicked again before the ultimate duel we’ve ever seen – but i reckon Obi Wan needs a bit more guidance before that happens. Guidance, perhaps, from an old master…

Obi-Wan Kenobi (Eps1-2)

There has always been something sitting at the back of my mind, quietly incredibly excited. The advent of the Star Wars live action TV shows started with a bang in The Mandalorian and i truly believed we were about to get the Star Wars i wanted (the cartoons were good and the games excellent, but they didn’t feel real.) The Mandalorian S2 took things to a new level with some needed injection of outright nostalgia. Book of Boba Fett trudged an unsettling line between okayish and unsatisfying, still delivering some excellence but also…well, being a bit boring. Not rubbish, by any standards. Just boring.

Obi Wan Kenobi comes along…what am i to think? Ewan McGregor has always inhabited a special part of my young adulthood for being Obi-Wan, but also because i just like the guy. He’s inspired me in life and in movies – i particularly love Christopher Robin, unashamedly. And Salmon Fishing in the Yemen.

I want to be excited, i want to look forwards to it, but i’m not sure.

“Master Yoda told me to mindful of the future.” – Obi Wan

“But not at the expense of the moment.” – Qui Gon

Damn it Neeson you’re right. I’m damned excited about this show and i’m not afraid to say it. Getting the original cast in to play their characters is spot on, and we get Jimmy Smits, Joel Edgerton and even Hayden fricking Christensen (but the latter not quite yet). Who knows who might turn up. I’ve already seen rumours, so lets just see.

You don’t need to know the plot, do you? Surely you know. I mean, is a non-Star Wars fan going to be watching this? Surely not? Oh, if you insist.

Tasked with ‘keeping an eye’ on Luke, son of Anakin Skywalker, left for dead on Mustafa, Obi Wan has taken on the moniker of Ben and is living a quiet, mundane life on Tatooine, heckled hilariously by this awesome Jawa and stealing food for his ugly anteater-camel. Uncle Owen just wants to raise Luke as his own and believes Ben’s presence is a danger itself. Jedi hunters come to town and all of a sudden things are just as bad as they ever were. Because one of the Inquistors has made her personal mission to take down old Obi-Wan… and there’s not just the one Skywalker child to threaten.

The show takes a turn i did not expect AT ALL by following Leia. Whoever came up with that idea needs a medal, because it caught me off guard. Well done.

There are four main points of note in this opening pair of episodes that has me glued to the rest of the series, hands down. So at this point the conclusion is thus: its brilliant. I loved it. Don’t read on if you haven’t seen it yet…

Point one: the characters. Okay so i didn’t like that guy from the Eternals. He looked too un-Star Warsy (kind of like that guy from Line of Duty turning up in Rogue One). But from the Jawa to the three / four Inquisitors, oh yes. Particularly Moses Ingram’s obviously unstable killer. And Sung Kang harrah! And Rupert Friend’s Grand Inquisitor, what a series villain he’s going to be…WTF???

Point two: She just killed the Grand Inquisitor???

Point three: Needles from Back to the Future 2 / 3. Oh, i hope there is more casting like this. I love this sort of thing.

Point four: that moment, that emotional punch in the gut when Obi-Wan Kenobi is told that Anakin survived. Oh god. It hadn’t even occured to me that he wouldn’t have known. This huge reveal…its massive. We’ve all known, we’ve ALWAYS known, i guess, most of us, that Darth Vader is alive and…well, as well as well can be… but Obi Wan didn’t. Not until THAT moment. My heart stopped. It was phenomenal.

So, its brilliant. I think it is, anyway.

And if they don’t have Qui-Gon’s force ghost turn up before the end i will eat my lightsabre (which happens to be a replica of Obi-Wans, haha).

Oh and did you spot the wee Temeura Morrison cameo? Sweet.