With the Star Wars Celebration going on in Anaheim, California, there’s no better time for the first two episodes of the new Obi-Wan Kenobi series to premiere on Disney+. Set 10 years after the end of Revenge of the Sith, it sees Ewan McGregor reprise his role as the titular Jedi Master from the Star Wars prequel trilogy as he tries to stay under the Empire’s radar and live his best life as a hermit in the deserts of Tatooine. But of course things won’t be that simple; the Empire is hunting Jedi, and Kenobi is high on their most wanted list.
Given the returns of McGregor and his prequel costar Hayden Christensen (Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader), expectations were sky-high for this show. Unfortunately, Obi-Wan Kenobi gets off to a shaky start.
Obligatory warning that this review contains SPOILERS for the first two episodes of Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi: “Part 1”
Lucasfilm tries really hard to ground us in the prequel trilogy right out of the gate by beginning with an opening refresher on the events of Star Wars Episodes I-III. The nostalgia hits hard, but it does feel a little weird to see those films treated like they were television episodes that proceeded Obi-Wan Kenobi. It sets a good tone though, especially when it ends with Yoda’s cryptic line at the end of Revenge of the Sith about contacting the Force ghost of Obi-Wan’s former master Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson)
Neeson doesn’t appear in these episodes, but that is totally fine. Instead, Obi-Wan tries to talk to him a few times throughout and never gets a reply. But fear not, that nod to Obi-Wan’s former master is far from the only tie to the prequel films we get in these opening episodes.
The story begins with…younglings being attacked during Order 66, when Emperor Palpatine’s coup against the Jedi kicked off. It’s a bold choice to start off this show with one of the most brutal scenes from the prequels. We see a different group of younglings here as they try to escape the Jedi temple. The acrobatic fight sequence between their Jedi teacher and the clone troopers successfully evokes the feel of the prequels, which is nice. But the scene quickly cuts out without giving us much information about these younglings and what happens to them. Perhaps we’ll see more of them eventually.
From there, we’re on to the meat of the first episode. A team of Jedi-hunters sent by the Empire — The Grand Inquisitor (Rupert Friend), Reva (Moses Ingram), and Fifth Brother (Sung Kang) — arrive in what I assume is Mos Eisley and immediately start questioning people at a bar to find a Jedi. They flush him out, but he gets away after the Grand Inquisitor stops Reva from killing him. And we’re off.
Don’t interrupt Obi-Wan’s alone time
The vast bulk of this episode revolves around the Inquisitor’s hunt for this Jedi, whose name is Nari (Benny Safdie), and Obi-Wan Kenobi’s hermit life. The show takes its time reintroducing us to the Jedi master, giving him around five minutes of screentime before he even has a line. He watches small injustices happen at the meat-packing plant where he works while not raising his voice in protest.
The show takes care to paint a vivid picture of how much Obi-Wan has changed, but it still can’t help making the subtext text. Obi-Wan asserts that he’s “not the man he was” at least three or four times to different people, and while that gets the point across, the show could have done it in a more nuanced way.
That Jedi on the run I mentioned a moment ago tracks Obi-Wan down while he’s on his way home from checking in on young Luke Skywalker. He begs for Obi-Wan’s help and gets that cryptic line about how much he’s changed, etc. The main reason I bring up this scene at all is that the shaky camerawork was really distracting in an unnecessary way. It’s a weird choice, and far from the only one Obi-Wan Kenobi makes.
Since we’re talking about production stuff, this is as good a time as any to bring up the fact that there’s something off about the sets, at least to me. Yes, they look cool and do remind me of George Lucas’ films…but there’s also something sterile and fake about them. As with other Star Wars shows on Disney+, Obi-Wan Kenobi filmed primarily in “the Volume,” a revolutionary soundstage developed by Lucasfilm that projects a 3D background onto LED screens around the actors. We’ve seen enough of these shows now to know that the Volume can produce amazing visuals…but these first episodes of Obi-Wan Kenobi start to show the limits of the technology. Seeing Obi-Wan ride across a desert that doesn’t have the wind or the sand or the atmosphere of an actual desert jarred me out of the show in a way I never felt on The Mandalorian.
Joel Edgerton stands out in this episode as Uncle Owen. Edgerton is another prequel veteran, and like McGregor, his performance makes you feel like his character has aged and is somewhere between the version we saw in the prequels and the one we’ll meet in A New Hope, where he was played by Phil Brown. Owen and Obi-Wan argue about Luke but are interrupted by the arrival of Inquisitors. Reva’s still hunting for Nari and brutally reminds the residents of the Outer Rim they’re now under the sway of the Empire by chopping off someone’s hand. This gives us a frightening window into the political situation; a nice touch.
Reva nearly kills Owen before she’s pulled aside by Fifth Brother. The infighting between the Inquisitors intrigued me at first, but the more these episodes go on the more frustrating it is because it just makes them feel incompetent.
The end result of all this is that Nari ends up getting hanged in town, but only kind of because the ropes are…just around his waist? It’s a weird visual.
Obi-Wan, however, has bigger problems. Senator Bail Organa (Jimmy Smits, also reprising his role from the prequels) is in Obi-Wan’s hermit cave and has a mission for him: Princess Leia has been abducted.
Welcome to Alderaan, the newest Disney theme park
We’re already running long here on episode one and we haven’t talked about Alderaan, which features heavily. This is the first time Princess Leia’s homeworld has really been shown in a Star Wars movie or show, and it’s a great addition. The visuals are gorgeous, which is bittersweet since we know the planet will be blown to bits by the Death Star in A New Hope.
There’s a lot that’s great about the Alderaan scenes, especially the actors. Jimmy Smits falls back into the role of Bail like he’s been living it this whole time and Simone Kessell does a solid job as Leia’s mother Breha. But the standout is Vivien Lyra Blair as young Leia, who is absolutely going to become one of the most memorable things about this show. She’s precocious and brings a ton of personality to the part, which is just perfect for a 10-year-old Leia.
That’s not to say that all is totally well on Alderaan. As gorgeous as it is, there’s something about it that gives off Disney princess vibes, especially when Leia’s friend dresses up as her so she can sneak out. Not to say that there’s anything wrong with that per se, but it feels like Disney is leaking into Lucasfilm in a way that it hasn’t since their merger several years back.
As for what happens, Leia gets scooped up by a bounty hunter in the woods while she’s running about. The chase scene is weird and not as tense as you’d expect. Bail seems to know immediately that Leia has skipped out of the tower, but it’s not enough to keep her from getting abducted by three bounty hunters who are so clumsy that they literally trip over themselves while chasing her.
Ultimately, Bail asks Obi-Wan for help, which gives Obi-Wan another chance to say that he “isn’t the same man” before he inevitably agrees to save the princess.
Bullet Points Kenobi
- Leia’s kidnapping is what draws Obi-Wan Kenobi out of retirement. I guess he’s still her only hope.
- The fact that Leia has a friend dress up as her to sneak out of the tower is a nice callback to her mother Padmé, who often employed body doubles.
- Special kudos need to be given for Obi-Wan’s conversation with the Jawa junk dealer. One can never have too many Jawa scenes, and this was a great one.
- Princess Leia’s droid Lola is going to sell a million toys this holiday season.
- The music was pretty great, and absolutely felt like it fit right in with the prequel trilogy.