Part VI (Obi-Wan Kenobi - S01E06) - Live Action Series

Discuss the latest Chapter! (Discussion)

"You didn't kill Anakin Skywalker, I did!" SPOILERS.

At least they don't run out of fuel

The Obi-Wan Kenobi mini series comes to a close with part VI. Overall the series has been a rather bumpy ride, not without fun, but many times also outragously stupid and the very mediocre action didn't help either. So is part VI at least a satisfying conclusion? In some ways it is, in many other ways though the final episode further exposes how weak and stupid the script is.

We need an Owen and Beru spin-off about moisture farming

The final episode is light on story. Darth Vader's star destroyer is in pursuit of the not really rebel transport which cannot go into hyperspace because some thingamajib is broken. So Obi-Wan comes up with the idea to lure Vader away by taking the shuttle, which would give the not rebels yet enough time to repair the hyperdrive. Leia is less than pleased, but Obi-Wan eventually takes the shuttle and succeeds in luring Vader's star destroyer away from the transport.

Obi-Wan has fully recharged his midichlorians

Meanwhile on Tatooine Reva inquires after Owen and his whereabouts. Reva is introduced without bothering to explain how she recovered from her major stab wound. Also, Reva managed not only to recover from her stab wound, but also managed to fly to Tatooine while the not really rebel transport is still under pursuit. Star Wars timelines have always been a bit silly at times, but this takes the cake. It's dark science maybe. Why bother with details. It seems only Jedi die from lightsaber wounds and everyone else can just shrug it off as if it were nothing. Anyway, Owen eventually gets a warning from one of the people Reva questioned and he and Beru prepare for Reva's attack back at the homestead.

Owen can't hit the broadside of a barn either

Reva eventually arrives at the homestead with Owen and Beru in hiding, armed with blasters. Owen takes a shot at Reva from a short distance... and misses. Reva then fights Owen for a bit and incapacitates him while Luke manages to escape into the desert. Reva no longer bothers with Owen and Beru (A New Hope gives them infinite plot armor of course) and goes after Luke.

Obi-Wan is all the Jedi too, maybe even more Jedi than Rey Palpatine

Parallel to Reva's adventures on Tatooine Darth Vader and Obi-Wan have the "rematch of the century" on some unnamed planet covered in darkness. They duel for a bit until Vader gets the upper hand by opening up the ground beneath Obi-Wan and then burying him under tons of rocks. In time-honored Bond villain tradition Vader does not check up on Obi-Wan to see if he's truly dead and returns to his shuttle. But surprise! Obi-Wan is not dead, he's keeping the rubble afloat with the Force and manages to free himself. So he goes after Vader and attacks him again. Since lightsabers prove to be ineffective Obi-Wan lifts tons of rocks up in the air and pommels Vader with them. This finally staggers him and Kenobi lunges at him, manages to damage his chestbox and finally cuts his helmet open, and thereby incapacitating Vader.

Hayden has almost no scenes in the series, but when he's on screen he's good

Obi-Wan and Vader then have a short, very short chat and Vader merely states that Obi-Wan is not the one who killed Anakin, it was Vader who killed him. And what does Obi-Wan do? He does what A New Hope mandates him to do, he keeps Vader alive and leaves him after saying "Goodbye Darth". Ok.

All is forgiven

Back on Tatooine Reva tracks down Luke and is about to kill him for no apparent reason (what does she hope to accomplish?), but of course Luke's plot armor is also infinite and so Reva has a change of heart and instead returns Luke to the homestead where Obi-Wan has arrived in the meantime. Obi-Wan of course forgives Reva for being a psychopathic bitch who removes limbs of innocent people for no reason and who has most likely killed quite a few people in her illustrious career as an inquisitor. What follows next are more endings than The Lord of the Rings ever had.

Long distance call for Vader, Darth

Vader is back on Mustafar and receives a phone call from Papa Palpatine and Vader once more pledges his allegiance to him, but Palpatine is maybe not entirely convinced Vader is over Obi-Wan.

PTSD has been successfully cured after less than a week.

Obi-Wan visits Leia on Alderaan and says his goodbyes to her. He also chats a bit about Leia's real parents and then the writers include a line that is meant to explain the rather impersonal plea for help from Leia to Kenobi in A New Hope.

Luke receives his skyhopper toy from Obi-Wan

Once more back on Tatooine Obi-Wan visits the Lars homestead again and has a short chat with Owen who is still not too fond of the Jedi but seems at least ok with him. Obi-Wan concedes that Luke needs to be just a child for now and that everything else will come in time. Owen then lets Obi-Wan meet Luke for the first time which gives him the chance to give Luke his skyhopper toy and to finally say "Hello there!".

Ah, Jedi Masters, trolls even after death

Obi-Wan then rides back to his cave but to his great surprise a Force ghost is waiting for him, it's of course Qui-Gon Jinn! When Obi-Wan wonders why Qui-Gon never contacted him before Qui-Gon says he's always been there but that Obi-Wan was not ready yet to see him. Okaaaaaayyyyy. And that concludes the episode and series. Reva's plot remains hanging in the air, it seems the rumors are true that Lucasfilm cut a few scenes from the final episode to keep Reva alive for a potential season 2 or maybe even spin-off (shudder). According to leaks Reva was meant to get killed by Vader, but that never happens.

So what can be said about Obi-Wan Kenobi and the final episode? Part VI was fun. Kind of. But quite honestly, I expected a lot more. The "rematch of the century" was surprisingly short and cannot hold a candle to the epic duel we see in Revenge of the Sith. For some obscure reason Deborah Chow decided to have the duel take place in almost complete darkness. And then she also opted to use shakycam throughout the duel, sometimes mixed with a weird top view and very few wide shots. The duel itself, though short, was ok, both Vader and Obi-Wan use their Force powers, which was nice to see. But the lack of dialogue, other than for a few lines here and there, was somewhat disappointing and the resolution, while mandated by A New Hope, makes no sense at all. Why would Obi-Wan keep Darth Vader alive? Yet again? He's the 2nd most evil person in the galaxy and nowhere does the episode hint at Obi-Wan sensing good in Vader, which might give him a reason to keep Vader alive. Instead Obi-Wan just says "Goodbye Darth", and makes his exit. Who writes this? And why?

Let's not even talk about how Reva can be up and about so shortly after her massive lightsaber wound, Vader completely ran her through and made a nice hole in her torso. Does not matter, she's only a little bit inconvenienced but otherwise ok. How did she heal? When did she heal? Doesn't matter apparently. The next question is.... after being nearly killed and humiliated by Vader and the Grand Inquisitor why is Reva still trying to kill Luke? And her reply to Owen as to why she does it is "For justice"? Really? What does Reva hope to accomplish here? Does she think killing innocent kids will make her feel better about the temple massacre? Does she hope that killing Luke may get her back into the good graces of Vader again? Why would she want that though when we know she hates him and wants to kill him? But of course Reva gets Order 66 flashbacks when she's about to kill Luke and has a change of heart. Reva is easily the weakest link in the entire series, her character is badly written, badly perfomed and the entire character arc makes no sense at all.

Obi-Wan had potential. But the story chosen for the series failed for the basic fact that all essential characters have infinite plot armor killing any suspense. So when Obi-Wan gives himself up in the final episode and lures Vader away from the not really rebels there is zero suspense or any sense of danger. We know that Obi-Wan cannot be killed, we know that Vader cannot be killed. Now Revenge of the Sith had the same issue, but here the duel was at least epic, the duel here is not so impressive, due to the bad camerawork, shakycam and the choice to have everything take place in darkness without proper ambient light, other than from the lightsabers. The use of Force powers was a nice touch though and shows what Jedi (or Sith) can do.

Another weakness of the series is that everything is rushed. The series is much too short and spends not enough time on Obi-Wan's PTSD and eventual recovery, everything happens in a matter of days. You don't come out of a deep depression just like that in a matter of days.

All in all Obi-Wan Kenobi is a prime example of mediocrity. Fun in a stupid way, it will not bore you, but it suffers from what many blockbuster movies these days suffer from... abysmal writing. I had hoped for a lot more. And for once I hope there won't be a season 2. Not if season 2 has the same writing team. Deborah Chow's direction was also not all that impressive, some character scenes work, but the action mostly falls flat. The music was also very lackluster, this series needed a lot more of the original Star Wars score, we hear some of it in the final episode which only highlights the fact how boring the original score is.

I believe it's high time Lucasfilm leaves original Star Wars characters and prequels behind and instead moves on. Prequels usually have zero suspense. And various characters will always have infinite plot armor. I will repeat myself here for the n-th time when I say that something like "The 9th Jedi" from Star Wars Visions would be a perfect starting point for a new Star Wars series or movie trilogy. But of course they will not do that because names like Boba Fett or Obi-Wan are fan favorites, whereas all new characters are tricky, you need to get them right and the sequels utterly failed in that regard, maybe Lucasfilm should just hire more competent writers then. Other current genre shows like Star Trek Strange New Worlds leave Kenobi in the dust and all new genre shows like Severance put even The Mandalorian to shame with originality and smart writing. It's high time that all the fan service we get on Disney+, which is NOT a bad thing, is combined with clever scripts.

Obi-Wan Kenobi added nothing of worth to Star Wars. We learned almost nothing new. It was just "content" to keep the subscribers entertainied. Yes, it was fun here and there, but otherwise very hollow and very stupid. Lucasfilm can and should do a lot better. Again, you do get entertainment here, it's fun once you switch off your frontal lobe or even the entire brain, but Star Wars should be a lot better overall.