Checking in with a review of the six-episode season of Obi-Wan Kenobi on Disney, which I thought was just superb. In fact, I liked it better than any of the Star Wars movies released since the prequel trilogy, 1999-2005 -- which I liked almost as much as the original trilogy, which I flat-out loved.
Ewan McGregor back in the title role, and the super fine job he did with that, is only part of the reason. There was excellent acting and star power in the 2015-2019 releases movies, too. And though I really enjoyed hearing James Earl Jones as Darth, and seeing Hayden Christensen as Anakin, Liam Neeson as Qui-Gon, and Jimmy Smits as Bail Organa, that wasn't the deepest reason I really enjoyed Obi-Wan Kenobi, either.
I think it's that for a story of this scope and importance, a six-episode series is a much better conveyor than a single movie. It's pretty much common knowledge that Obi-Wan Kenobi was originally planned as a movie, too, but the poor box office of The Rise of Skywalker in 2019 got the producers thinking that maybe a TV series would work better. Likely COVID's depression of theatrical attendance played a role as well.
Whatever the reason, I binged Obi-Wan Kenobi in two evenings, which would have been one if I hadn't started watching it so late. To get back to the acting, in addition to the big names who lived up to their big names, I very much liked Vivien Lyra Blair as young Leia, Indira Varma (close already to being a big name) as Tala, and Moses Ingram as Third Sister aka Reva.
[Spoiler ahead ... ]
The only question I have, and maybe I missed something, is why exactly did Obi-Wan not kill Darth when he finally got the better of his once-student? Especially since that happened right after Darth informed Obi-Wan that Darth was no longer Anakin, and in fact had killed him?
But that's ok, I still love this little series, and, right, I'm looking forward to and hoping it will have at least one more season.
