The Obi-Wan Kenobi finale is overflowing with fan service

After traveling across the galaxy and facing off against the forces of the Empire time and again, the journey of Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) is at an end…for now. The limited series finale of Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi is out now on Disney+. It exemplifies a lot of things that were great about the show, as well as a lot of issues that persisted throughout. Lucasfilm committed hard to the fan service in this final hour of the series, so we have a lot to discuss.

As always, there will be SPOILERS for Obi-Wan Kenobi beyond this point.

Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi Episode 6 review

The series finale of Obi-Wan Kenobi is here, and it’s all about the showdown. After narrowly escaping the Empire’s clutches last week, Obi-Wan and the rest of the Rebels from Jabiim desperately fly across the galaxy in search of a good hiding spot. But their ship is damaged and Vader’s Star Destroyer is in hot pursuit.

Obi-Wan decides he’ll lure Vader (Hayden Christensen) and his forces away from the fleeing refugees by setting off on his own. This feels an awful lot like a plot contrivance, but fortunately the show makes it clear it’s less about saving the Rebels than it is about Obi-Wan having one last face-off with his former padawan. Obi-Wan has a heartfelt goodbye with Leia (Vivien Lyra Blair), and then he’s off to a desolate planet to duke it out with old Ani.

On Vader’s end, the Grand Inquisitor (Rupert Friend) protests abandoning the chase for the entire underground network of Jedi sympathizes in favor of killing Obi-Wan, but he’s overruled. And that’s all we get of the Inquisitor this episode. What was the point of bringing him back? Literally just to appear in two scenes and serve no purpose? I understand it was necessary for the sake of preserving the Star Wars Rebels canon; I just wish it also served a purpose for this show as well.

Really, the Grand Inquisitor is a great example of my main issue with Obi-Wan Kenobi, and with this episode in particular. It is far more interested in fan service than it is in telling a compelling story. Not to say it doesn’t have good beats; it absolutely does. But fan service feels like the priority.

Duking it out in the desert

As for the actual battle between Vader and Obi-Wan, it’s pretty good. Obi-Wan Kenobi has generally done a great job with its lightsaber duels, better than anything else Disney has produced, for my money. This final fight is no exception, and it’s laden with extra meaning because of all the history Obi-Wan and Vader share.

The best part is when Obi-Wan slices off part of Vader’s helmet and we get a totally haunting scene where Hayden Christensen’s horribly burned face is half-visible as he rejects Obi-Wan’s apologies for failing him. That scene is the highlight of the episode for me. The visual of Vader’s face being split between the mask and Anakin, the way his voice drifts back and forth between Christensen and James Earl Jones because the suit’s voice module is broken…the dialogue is great here too, as Anakin proclaims that he isn’t Obi-Wan’s failure; that it was he who killed his inner Anakin Skywalker so that he could become Darth Vader, and that Obi-Wan doesn’t deserve the credit for it. If there’s one moment from Obi-Wan Kenobi that may border on iconic, it’s this one.

However, I have major beef with how it all resolves. After this conversation, Obi-Wan acknowledges that Anakin is truly dead, that there is only Darth Vader now. And then he leaves Vader alive. There’s no doubt Obi-Wan could have killed him in this moment; Vader is beaten and can hardly stand. With the narrative the show has been spinning about Obi-Wan dealing with his grief over Anakin, I could totally accept that he refuses to kill his old padawan…if he didn’t literally just acknowledge that Anakin is already gone. So instead, Obi-Wan is now choosing to spare Darth Vader, who will go on to kill how many untold thousands of people throughout his reign of terror?

One of the most difficult things about doing a prequel series like this is that the fate of the major characters is already set in stone. We already knew Vader and Obi-Wan were going to survive their duel. The question was if the show could pull off their survival in a way that felt believable and worked with the story it was telling, rather than because it had to for the sake of the original movies. I don’t think it did.

The fan service is strong with this one

The rest of the episode revolves around Reva (Moses Ingram), who goes on a crusade to murder Luke Skywalker after discovering a broken holo chip revealing he’s Anakin’s son. Kind of. The holo does say some incriminating stuff, but if I’m being honest it felt like Reva made a lot of very convenient assumptions in order to pay it all off.

Her journey to Tatooine didn’t work for me on a few levels. The first is that it just didn’t feel like a logical endcap to her story. Yes, it drives home the difference between her and Vader because she can’t bring herself to kill a child. But it also just doesn’t make sense. Is Reva’s attempt to kill Luke meant to hurt her old master? If so, it’s a pretty poor way of doing it, considering that Vader doesn’t even know Luke exists. Her motives just aren’t explained well enough.

That’s not to say it’s all bad. Owen (Joel Edgerton) and Beru (Bonnie Piesse) have a few solid scenes as they prepare to fight back against Reva. We finally get a little bit of screentime with young Luke (Grant Feely), who does a good job at running away from Reva, although he barely has any lines.

How Obi-Wan manages to speed halfway across the galaxy to get there in time for Reva’s turn to the good side is baffling. This show plays so fast and loose with its writing that it’s just better not to dwell on it.

Instead, Reva abandons her lightsaber (right outside Luke’s house!) and decides to turn over a new leaf. It works for her character I guess, but this whole sequence felt really forced. Again, the fan service was the priority, from bringing back Beru to letting us get in one more flash of the younglings while Reva grapples with her murderous urges.

The closing montage of scenes is mostly good, although it’s still marred by sloppy writing. Leia totally ignores Obi-Wan when they’re reunited in favor of doting on her droid, in what is clearly an attempt to make a joke about her childlike nature. It’d be fine if she wasn’t heartbroken about parting ways with Obi-Wan earlier in this very same episode.

Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) crops up in hologram form near the end, and after a very short conversation sets Vader back on the path to putting the Empire’s priorities over his own personal vendetta against Obi-Wan. On the surface, this scene works well; McDiarmid puts on the role of Emperor Palpatine like the rest of us put on our pants in the morning, the man just is the Emperor. I wish the show had allowed the scene a little more breathing room so that Vader’s recommitment to the Empire didn’t feel so rushed.

Then we get the final fan service-y treat of the episode, the one this series has been setting up since the premiere. After Obi-Wan finally reconciles with Owen and starts to build a relationship with young Luke (dropping his meme-able “Hello there” line, of course), the old hermit sets back out into the desert to find himself a new cave to squat in. But a mysterious Force ghost is waiting for him…it’s Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson)!

I will not badmouth Qui-Gon Jinn. Like McDiarmid with Palpatine, Neeson is so perfect in this role, and getting our only glimpse of him in it since The Phantom Menace feels like the ultimate nod to the fans. Whatever other issues Obi-Wan Kenobi had, that final scene with Qui-Gon was fantastic, and a perfect way to end the series.

Bullet Points Kenobi

• The parallel between Vader and Obi-Wan each being visited by their respective masters and being encouraged back toward their course with the dark/light side was a really nice note to end the series on.
• Vader’s labored breathing sound effect from Return of the Jedi popped up during the duel when he started losing, which was a nice touch as well.
• When Obi-Wan got buried under the rubble, I half-expected Vader to shout, “Who’s got the high ground now, Obi-Wan?” I’m so glad the show didn’t go that hard on the fan service, but man was I scared they were going to for a hot second.
• From the finish line, it still feels really unbelievable that Leia and Obi-Wan had this crazy adventure together when she was a child considering how they act in Star Wars: A New Hope. Obi-Wan tells her they’ll have to keep it a secret, but it still feels like a stretch.
• Part of me wonders if this story might have worked better as a movie. Obi-Wan Kenobi is just under six hours total; that’s almost the equivalent of the entire original Star Wars trilogy. That’s a lot of time to spend with a story that still has the same narrative beats as one film.
• What was the point of Reva’s plotline? It’s cool that she’s redeemed, but unless Lucasfilm is planning on including her in other properties in the future (which might be cool), it feels like an awful lot of time spent on a side plot that basically went nowhere, in terms of the larger tale.
• Despite being a show laden with cameos from legacy Star Wars properties and clearly having a ton of resources behind it, I can’t shake the feeling that there’s something about this show that looks surprisingly cheap for a Disney production. This is the only time in a Star Wars production where the 3D soundstage called the Volume has felt noticeable to me; those deserts just don’t look very real. There’s also a noticeable lack of trademark Star Wars land vehicles like landspeeders, a staple on Tatooine.
• Despite any qualms I have about this show, it is very clear that there was a lot of passion behind it. In some ways, it almost feels like a worthy successor to the prequels in that it’s a flawed yet solid story.
• An obvious shoutout needs to be given to the actors; they really carried a whole lot of weight on this show, from McGregor and Christensen to Indira Varma, Rupert Friend, Vivien Lyra Blair, Joel Edgerton, Moses Ingram, and the slew of cameos we got in the finale like Liam Neeson, Ian McDiarmid, Bonnie Piesse, and Jimmy Smits. The cast of Obi-Wan Kenobi was top notch.

Verdict

At the end of the day, Obi-Wan Kenobi’s finale had the same virtues and issues as the rest of the series. It had a ton of heart, fantastic acting, the best lightsaber duels of any Disney Star Wars project, great music, and cameos enough to please even the most hardcore fan. Unfortunately, the series (and finale) were weighed down by weird writing decisions that felt like they were cutting narrative corners. The show often seemed more concerned with fan service than it did with its own narrative, and while that’s sure to please many people, it sapped some of the power out of it for me.

Episode Grade: B

What’s next for Obi-Wan Kenobi?

With the premiere of “Part VI,” the Obi-Wan Kenobi limited series is at an end. Or is it?

It’s no secret that this show has been well-received by an awful lot of fans, which has led to questions of whether we’ll ever see more of these characters in the future. As of now, there is no second season announced for Obi-Wan Kenobi…but showrunner Deborah Chow, Ewan McGregor, and Hayden Christensen sound like they’re keeping an open mind about the idea.

“I mean, there are of course more stories that you could tell,” Chow told the Radio Times. “There’s obviously another 10 years before we get to A New Hope and with a character like Obi-Wan Kenobi, I think even just watching him ride across the sand sometimes is interesting. So, who knows? It’s hard to say right now, but it was not the intention.”

“I would love to continue with this character,” added Christensen. “You know, I think there’s certainly more there to explore and I would be so excited to get to do so.”

Then there’s McGregor, Obi-Wan Kenobi himself. “I hope it’s not the last time I play him,” he said. “I had such a great time doing this, I’m sure we can think of a few more stories before I turn into Alec Guinness, don’t you think?”

I imagine you’re right, Master Kenobi, I imagine you’re right.

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