Obi Wan Kenobi

Hello there

And at last, my consistent daily greeting takes on some gravitas and relevance, because today I would like to talk to you about Obi Wan Kenobi.

The television series, not the bloke.

I’m not planning on this being spoiler heavy, but it’s also not going to be technically spoiler free, so you can make your own call on it.  I know that folk often say “Well if you cared that much, you’d have seen it by now” but I also know, from my own experience, that sometimes we have to deny ourselves the things we want.  Other things take priority.  Then we may start really resenting the other things for ruining our fun and be quite pouty and complaining. Am I going too far into my own experiences? Let’s pull back a bit…

I wanted to do a written post today, for a couple of reasons.  Firstly, I’ve been doing lots of things this week on the work front that have involved me having to be tethered.  By which I mean, at my computer, headphones on, and unable to have music on in the background because I’m having to concentrate on audio.  Which is all allowed and fine, but some days I just want to be able to do nothing but think and type.  That way I can have music on the turntable quite happily in accompaniment.  If you’re interested, the present LP is the soundtrack to Close Encounters Of The Third Kind.

Secondly, more relevantly, I really wanted to express my feelings on the Obi Wan Kenobi series.  I mean, I even did a tweet with an opinion yesterday, which I don’t do any more.  I also don’t, and if you actually think about this, you’ll see it’s weirdly true, talk about Star Wars very much.  Stop shouting, let me explain.  Whilst I may mention Star Wars, when referring to a collectable or merchandise, or be drawing stuff from it, I don’t talk about the details of Star Wars.  The stories or the philosophies or technicalities or any of that.  It’s usually just about me, and my experiences and psychologies with toys and aesthetics.  See?  Now you’ve realised that I am telling the truth.  But for one semi-regrettable, apologetic post about The Last Jedi, I’m unlikely to go publicly geeky on stuff.

Not just publicly, this applies to private as well.  I don’t generally have those nerd conversations or push my glasses up my nose whilst speaking about plot-holes or my childhood being ruined by whatever new thing has come out.  I watch some of them, shrug a bit, say it was alright or say I didn’t like it, get pouty at the cynical marketing thrusts that can all be traced back to ghastly Pop vinyl figures, think that it’s not for me anymore, and go about my day. It basically all boils down to me not really being fussed about it in the first place. My stock seems to be nostalgia based.  Nostalgia for the films that were out when I was little, and the characters from them, ideally moulded in some sort of high-end figure. I don’t lose my mind over trailers and can’t remember coming out of a recent Star Wars movie or TV series feeling ecstatic.

By recent, I mean anything beyond the Original Trilogy.  I thought the prequels were “fine”.  I even went to the first ever showing of Attack Of The Clones, an invitation only press screening by Lucasfilm and Twentieth Century Fox, and still came out of the Leicester Square Odeon with indifference.  Not furious, just…whatever.

I’m saying I have no serious investment in modern-day Star Wars really, and the only forced investment (pardon the pun) is when they incorporate characters from the Original Trilogy, which almost always still ends in a shrug. I did not cry when Luke Skywalker turned up in The Mandalorian, yet - according to YouTube -  I was the only Star Wars fan in the world who didn’t.

I had no issue with Disney buying Lucasfilm.  Lucas named his price, they paid it, end of.  No matter how many topical comedy shows at the time shouted “It will be like this!” whilst showing a lazy photoshopped picture of Yoda with Mickey Mouse ears on, I had no concerns or head-shaking.  Muppets aside, Disney have a very good history of artistically utilising their acquired properties, rather than flat out exploiting them. No matter what anyone’s emotional response to modern day Star Wars productions, the argument that any of it is half-arsed or lazy simply won’t stand up. Even the dismissive (yet credible) argument that the second and third episodes of the sequel trilogy undid the path of the previous movie, doesn’t consider how structurally difficult it is to execute such a thing.  None of it has been phoned in.

So that’s where we are at, as far as my take on the subject of modern-day Star Wars.  Mostly not fussed either way.  What I do enjoy analysing though, and get impressed by, is the integration of existing plots.  When a production falls between a certain time period, filling a gap in a story we already know, I like to look at how that is achieved. I very much loved Rogue One, but a lot of that was to do with me being impressed with how seamless the join was.  It fit perfectly in its time period, and I tend to nod a bit and say, “that’s really smart”.

Watching the Obi Wan Kenobi series, I felt that.  Super strongly. But I also had the other part of it, a part that I’d not felt since being an infant with the original trilogy.  I felt high on Star Wars.  It properly, unashamedly, excited me.

After the first episode, when I took stock, I realised that I hadn’t a solitary issue with it.  Then again for the second, then I became aware that I was hugely invested and looking forward to the next episode.  Like, I couldn’t wait.  I watched every subsequent episode when it dropped on Disney Plus.  Actually, as it dropped. First thing in the morning. Loved every one of them.

On the nerdy technicality front, there were so many things to be impressed with. So many subtleties that never felt forced or fan service.  As just one example; Darth Vader duelling one-handed.  It’s a subtlety that often goes unremarked upon in the Original Trilogy.  The arrogance it shows, and how in control he is. It’s subconsciously jarring, as though any adversary is not even close to challenging his strength. Then to switch him to two-handed mid-fight, says even more. Such an important decision to include.

My main takeaway from the series though, I almost hesitate to say because I’ve not properly thought it through.  I also don’t want to be perceived as playing to the gallery with it, nor undermining achievement.  My immediate impulsive response as the credits rolled on the finale was that more women should be directing Star Wars.  Now, there are women already directing plenty of Star Wars, but there was a measured emotional layering to the Obi Wan Kenobi series which I – again just as an impulsive reaction – attributed to the fact that it was directed by Deborah Chow.  This may be rather insulting, that I essentially make her a female director, rather than a director, and that I apply potentially stereotypical inferences about sensitivity and depth, but that was my gut feeling.  It may be nonsense, and I’m not naïve enough to think that every creative decision was made by the director, but it would be equally naïve to believe they weren’t the dominant voice in bringing it all together.

I mean, the other gut reaction I had to the series, which I’ve subsequently been regularly thinking “Oh that can’t be right” was that it was the best Star Wars I’d ever seen.  Like, out of all of it. There is the caveat that it’s probably a rather emotive response, and that this story owes huge amounts to the known story around it.  If it were the first Star Wars thing that ever came out, whilst it would still be the best Star Wars by default, it wouldn’t carry the gravitas it does with perspective.

For me personally, it did one remarkable thing. Check that, it did many remarkable things, but one thing particularly stood out. Notwithstanding the fact that – as I said – I don’t think of these things in nerd thought, I’ve always acknowledged that I never saw the Prequels and the Original Trilogy as fitting together.  By which I mean, subsequent to the prequels, when I saw Darth Vader in the Original Trilogy, no part of me made a connection between the Anakin Skywalker of the prequels and the Darth Vader of the OT. Ditto Ben Kenobi. I never actually thought such a thing possible, and yet, now that I have those six episodes under my belt of experience, I very much do see the link. The depth of exploration into the flaws and conflicts of those two characters, that was patiently unravelled in the series, with a lurking insidious growing dread, alongside the unflinching bravery in taking them way, way beyond two dimensional characters, has – I feel – permeated successfully into the existing timeline.  It's contributed positively to what came before, so that now when Kenobi tells Luke that Darth Vader betrayed and murdered his father, it no longer has the slightest feeling of something to be unravelled retrospectively.

Same as with Rogue One, this surely must be the raison d’etre for any prequel story.  To enhance the existing story, and not hurt it by filling in gaps that needn’t be filled (a critique that could potentially be levelled at the Solo movie). I’ve been baffled by the dislike for this series bandied around in certain darker recesses of the internet, seemingly by the type of people who are usually just whining when anything isn’t boys having sword fights.  A lot of this is boys having sword fights, so I wonder what is upsetting them so much about this female-directed, hugely diverse cast ensemble, production?

That’s my twopenneth in praise (and some defence) of a production that – unnervingly – gave me Star Warsfeelings I thought I’d left at ten years old. Impressive.  Most impressive.

Hope you are doing wonderfully and have a lovely weekend ahead of you.  If you’re looking for something to watch on TV, I’ve a pretty hot tip for you…

(Not like that)

Much love your way

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