Disney+ Obi-Wan Kenobi (2022) (1 Viewer)

[Josh Steinberg]

I wonder if we’ll get a Liam Neeson cameo.

(Watching the last few episodes of Season 6/Lost Episodes of Clone Wars and man that show is great.)

 

[Sean Bryan]

My hope is that for any future movie trilogy, whether set after the sequel trilogy or far before the prequel trilogy, they have the sense to let one creative person map out the entire story and don’t just have random voices making shit up as they go.

And please let Filoni and Faverau (or similar actual fans of the material, like Feige) be involved.

 

[Sean Bryan]

I wonder if we’ll get a Liam Neeson cameo.

(Watching the last few episodes of Season 6/Lost Episodes of Clone Wars and man that show is great.)

Was just thinking about that today. This is the perfect place to have Qui-Gon appear again.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

TROS is in a unique position where it’s shortcomings amplify the shortcomings of the other sequel trilogy films and, for me at least, make the whole three film arc feel less satisfying and consequential.

This.

The prequel trilogy had serious problems in the execution, in terms of bad dialogue and bad acting, and even some characters' personal arcs that felt unsatisfying. But the worldbuilding was sound, the overarching narrative was sound.

People shit on The Last Jedi for taking a dump on everything that The Force Awakens set up, but I just don't see that at all. It didn't take it in the direction that Abrams would have had he made the middle picture, but it built on what was setup in organic and interesting ways.

If the third picture had just focused on resolving the issues and quandaries raised in TFA and TLJ, it could have been a very satisfying picture. But Abrams got too ambitious, and wanted to provide a conclusion to all nine films. The problem is that the first six movies had already resolved. So that means some major retcons that rob all of the earlier pictures of their power. And a lot of epic scope without weight. There's a lot of stuff in there that is thrilling in the moment but feels empty upon reflection. Too many major additions to the canon with too little thought put into them.

Which is to say: I hope this series doesn't take it upon itself to rewrite everything we know about this moment in Obi-Wan's journey. Tell a grounded story about Obi-Wan keeping Luke safe.

 

[TravisR]

This.

The prequel trilogy had serious problems in the execution, in terms of bad dialogue and bad acting, and even some characters' personal arcs that felt unsatisfying. But the worldbuilding was sound, the overarching narrative was sound.

People shit on The Last Jedi for taking a dump on everything that The Force Awakens set up, but I just don't see that at all. It didn't take it in the direction that Abrams would have had he made the middle picture, but it built on what was setup in organic and interesting ways.

If the third picture had just focused on resolving the issues and quandaries raised in TFA and TLJ, it could have been a very satisfying picture. But Abrams got too ambitious, and wanted to provide a conclusion to all nine films. The problem is that the first six movies had already resolved. So that means some major retcons that rob all of the earlier pictures of their power. And a lot of epic scope without weight. There's a lot of stuff in there that is thrilling in the moment but feels empty upon reflection. Too many major additions to the canon with too little thought put into them.

When criticizing The Rise Of Skywalker, I feel it should always be noted that Disney created some of the problems (in my opinion, the biggest problems) by catering to the people who went insane over The Last Jedi and trying to change or avoid as much of that movie as they could in TROS. You can never listen to the most vocal fans because they are generally crazy and they are never going to be pleased but Disney went on the fool's errand of trying to make them happy. And before someone says something, of course, that's not to say that every SW fan that didn't like TLJ falls into that category but some people just like complaining about Star Wars more than they like Star Wars.

I think The Last Jedi is the best Star Wars movie since The Empire Strikes Back but by killing Snoke and deciding to have Kylo Ren turn back to the light side of The Force, it created a massive problem of needing a villain for the third movie. Personally, I think Abrams made the right call in making Kylo Ren become a good guy at the end. It's what Luke and certainly Han and Leia would have wanted (Han's dying action was to still be tender to the son that just killed him) but in doing that, they needed a villain so Palpatine was their only choice. It's far from perfect but it's also better than "There was also Snoke's heretofore unseen boss that was an even scarier baddie!"

 

[Robert Crawford]

I guess I'm one of the few around here that loved the last Star Wars trilogy.

 

[TravisR]

I guess I'm one of the few around here that loved the last Star Wars trilogy.

I absolutely loved it overall but I do think The Rise Of Skywalker was the weakest of the three (which is kind of a bummer to go out on) BUT I also think it had some of the finest moments of all of the SW movies.

 

[Robert Crawford]

I absolutely loved it overall but I do think The Rise Of Skywalker was the weakest of the three (which is kind of a bummer to go out on) BUT I also think it had some of the finest moments of all of the SW movies.

That don't seem much different than the original trilogy.

 

[joshEH]

As someone who mostly quite likes the Disney SW-films overall, I'm of the opinion that the Disney films have averaged out to be pretty good. There are some weird, lazy creative-decisions in TFA and TROS, but I attribute the goodwill fizzling to (A) emotions around Star Wars being so high that, unless what's being served up is skillfully-made comfort food like The Force Awakens, people will have massively viscerally-strong reactions, and (B) the literal industry of hate-peddling that has existed around Star Wars since 1999.

There's an interesting sociology-paper to be written someday on how a certain particular segment of Star Wars fans spent 15 years piling hate on Lucas and trying to argue that he wasn't truly responsible for his own creation, followed by how so much of TFA's production and reviews represented a passive-aggressive swipe at Lucas, and then how the YouTube SW neckbeard-commentariat moved on to lunatic Rian Johnson conspiracies.

 

[TravisR]

There's an interesting sociology-paper to be written someday on how a certain particular segment of Star Wars fans spent 15 years piling hate on Lucas...

My favorite thing on the internet is how some fans, who have held Lucas as a piece of shit for 20 years, are back to saying he's a genius again. I assume that by the mid-2030's, the sequels will be held up as masterpieces by the fans who will have new SW movies to be freaking out over at that time.

There will also still be You Tube videos of a guy in his car saying that Kathleen Kennedy is going to be fired soon.

 

[joshEH]

My favorite thing on the internet is how some fans, who have held Lucas as a piece of shit for 20 years, are back to saying he's a genius again. I assume that by the mid-2030's, the sequels will be held up as masterpieces by the fans who will have new SW movies to be freaking out over at that time.

There will also still be You Tube videos of a guy in his car saying that Kathleen Kennedy is going to be fired soon.

Agreed. There's long been a massive, weird effort out there to make George Lucas out to be a guy who simply lucked into an idea that other, more talented people were able to keep him away from long enough to make three good films out of, which is utterly, verifiably false.

A good example of this is The Empire Strikes Back-script. Lucas originally had an outline, and he hired Leigh Brackett, whom he was a fan of, to write the first draft. He didn't want to go in the direction she took it, so he rewrote the script from scratch himself, and subsequently refined it with Lawrence Kasdan. When she died, he gave up his own screenplay-credit so that she could be credited as a tribute, despite the fact that she died before she was able to contribute to any subsequent drafts. When it was the 100th anniversary of her birthday a few years back, umpteen websites reported it, nearly all of them attributing the film to Brackett, and slagging Lucas off for getting rich off of other people's work.

Kasdan, Kershner, and Marquand are all on record as speaking glowingly about the guy long after they no longer had to, and Lucas has publicly admitted hiring people, like Kasdan, who were good at the things he wasn't. Early on, he actually asked Kasdan to help him write the prequels, and initially asked his pals to direct Episodes II and III. He didn't fuck off while other people made Empire -- he was directing effects-sequences and managing the company that was making the film, and Kershner recalls him ceding the limelight so that people would understand that it was Kershner who directed it, not him.

At the moment, popular culture holds Lucas as an egotistical figure of fun, and it's all because he directed a few films people without a sense of proportion didn't like. If Lucas died today, there would be newspaper cartoons and memes with Jar Jar sobbing at his grave, or some such shit -- whereas, if J.J. Abrams passed, he'd be drawn holding a lightsaber aloft with X-Wings flying in formation behind him.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Pretty much every year I do a Star Wars revisit and pretty much every time the prequels still come out on top for me. Whatever minor cosmetic issues there might be with dialogue or delivery (which are still parts of the films in the series everyone loves too) are far outweighed by the scope and scale of their world building and storytelling. The fact that we’re still discussing them 20 years after their release, the fact that this universe George created can still gross billions of dollars, the fact that the iconography is recognizable by pretty much anyone anywhere in the world is a stunning achievement. I’ve never seen so many people put so much energy into something that they claim to hate.

 

[Jake Lipson]

I just thought of something about this which hadn't occurred to me yet.

According to Kathleen Kennedy at the investors day last week, Hayden Christensen will be returning as Darth Vader for "the rematch of the century," I think was her term.

If this takes place after Revenge of the Sith, Vader would have to be in the suit and presumably voiced by James Earl Jones. Are they really going to pay Hayden Christensen to return only inside the suit where he can't be seen or heard? Or are they going to come up with some contrivance by which Vader can take off the suit while facing Obi-Wan in order to be physically embodied by Christensen again? If all he is going to do is operate the suit, I doubt that would be worth Christensen's time. But I'm not sure how that makes sense within the timeline that the story is supposed to take place in.

 

[TravisR]

I just thought of something about this which hadn't occurred to me yet.

According to Kathleen Kennedy at the investors day last week, Hayden Christensen will be returning as Darth Vader for "the rematch of the century," I think was her term.

If this takes place after Revenge of the Sith, Vader would have to be in the suit and presumably voiced by James Earl Jones. Are they really going to pay Hayden Christensen to return only inside the suit where he can't be seen or heard? Or are they going to come up with some contrivance by which Vader can take off the suit while facing Obi-Wan in order to be physically embodied by Christensen again? If all he is going to do is operate the suit, I doubt that would be worth Christensen's time. But I'm not sure how that makes sense within the timeline that the story is supposed to take place in.

I said it in some Star Wars thread but I think you're going to mostly see a pre-armor Vader (the face of Anakin means more to Obi-Wan than Vader's mask) and any rematch that there is will be via The Force or a vision so as not to contradict continuity.

 

[Sean Bryan]

I just thought of something about this which hadn't occurred to me yet.

According to Kathleen Kennedy at the investors day last week, Hayden Christensen will be returning as Darth Vader for "the rematch of the century," I think was her term.

If this takes place after Revenge of the Sith, Vader would have to be in the suit and presumably voiced by James Earl Jones. Are they really going to pay Hayden Christensen to return only inside the suit where he can't be seen or heard? Or are they going to come up with some contrivance by which Vader can take off the suit while facing Obi-Wan in order to be physically embodied by Christensen again? If all he is going to do is operate the suit, I doubt that would be worth Christensen's time. But I'm not sure how that makes sense within the timeline that the story is supposed to take place in.

Stories use flashbacks all the time.

Concept art from the Investors meeting reportedly depicted Anakin attacking the Jedi temple after he turned to the dark side but before his battle with Obi-Wan.

I wouldn’t be surprised, and would hope, to see some flashbacks before his turn during the Clone Wars era.

And we’ve seen that he doesn’t wear his suit when he’s in his bacta tank in his castle and that he may have part of his helmet off in private, like in Empire. They always shied away from showing his face in those scenes, but then can if they have Christensen. And as Travis suggested, they can do something with force visions as well.

There’s plenty of opportunity to use Christensen as both Anakin and Vader without any contrivances.

 

[Sam Favate]

I think you can count on seeing Christensen without the suit, probably as a flashback. If we do see Vader with the suit, my guess it will be another, taller actor. (Christensen is 6 feet; I believe Vader is 6'6" - at least that's how tall Dave Prowse was.)

 

[joshEH]

Indira Varma has been cast in the new series:

Obi-Wan Kenobi Disney Plus Series Casts Indira Varma

Indira Varma has joined the upcoming Obi-Wan Kenobi series at Disney Plus, Variety has confirmed.

variety.com

 

[TravisR]

They've announced the rest of the cast for the series. Shooting starts in April.

Joining the cast are Moses Ingram, Joel Edgerton, Bonnie Piesse, Kumail Nanjiani, Indira Varma, Rupert Friend, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Sung Kang, Simone Kessell, and Benny Safdie.

Obi-Wan Kenobi Series to Begin Production in April, Cast Revealed | StarWars.com

Get full details on the cast of Obi-Wan Kenobi, the new Disney+ special event series starring Ewan McGregor as the iconic Jedi Master.

www.starwars.com

I'm glad that they were able to get Edgerton (and Piesse) back. Nice to see Kumail Nanjiani and O'Shea Jackson too. Although with Jackson, he looks so much like his dad that it'll be like I'm seeing Ice Cube in the Star Wars galaxy.

Also, Benny Safdie? That's cool.

 

[joshEH]

I hope these pictures are how they’ll actually be dressed on the show:

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I'm glad that they were able to get Edgerton (and Piesse) back. Nice to see Kumail Nanjiani and O'Shea Jackson too. Although with Jackson, he looks so much like his dad that it'll be like I'm seeing Ice Cube in the Star Wars galaxy.

Agreed. There's a version of this that works without Hayden Christensen, because you can put anybody inside Darth Vader's helmet. But Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru don't have armor to hide in.

And, based on those photos, both Edgerton and Piesse look closer to Phil Brown and Shelagh Fraser, which wasn't necessarily a given since aging is a crap shoot.