Too Little, Too Late

A Review of Star Wars: Kenobi

This year for my dad’s birthday, I got him a cowboy hat from Love’s Gas Station in Virginia. Pretty crappy gift right? It’s not unique, flashy or expensive. Some might even consider it tacky. Despite all of that, my dad loved it.

Even though the gift might appear low-effort, the truth is that my family spent a few days debating what to get for him. We asked ourselves important questions like “Will he use this?” or “Would he think this is a waste of money?”. We looked for things that related to him as a person, and finally settled on something that all of us agreed would make him smile as he opened the package.

Content creators and directors must constantly use this kind of thinking when writing for a film or TV franchise. Important questions about the audience and their expectations are needed to create stories that will excite viewers. This is a lesson that LucasFilms and Disney could really take a cue from.

It is an understatement to say that Disney Star Wars has been a disappointment for the fan base. The sequel trilogy is an unmitigated disaster of cinema and, with the exception of The Mandalorian, pretty much every Star Wars story has missed the mark with series fans. It would be easy to brush this off as a money grab on Disney’s part (not unheard of), but the problem here is actually much deeper than that; Disney doesn’t understand their audience.

Which brings us to Kenobi, a prequel mini series following the life of the fan-favorite Jedi, who is in exile 10 years after the events of Revenge of the Sith. When this series was rumored nearly 4 years ago, long-time Star Wars fans saw a glimmer of hope. A story about one of our beloved heroes, showing us what he was up to all those years on Tatooine? Starring Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christansen? For once, it appeared as though Disney actually figured out what the fans wanted and was poised to deliver.

We should have known it was too good to be true.

The face of most fans who watched this series

Kenobi took what would have been an amazing opportunity to revamp a dying franchise and instead decided to showcase a bland, uninteresting, poorly planned and  written story that masquerades as a love letter to the fan base. It is not a disaster like The Last Jedi, but fails to utilize its massive amounts of potential and once again delivers something the fans didn’t ask for, creates even more problems for the established lore, and continues the trend of checking diversity boxes over creating strong new characters.

Failing the Fandom

Most of the excitement that Kenobi generated for the fanbase revolved around two characters: Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader. This series provided an opportunity to see what these two were up to in the 30 year time gap between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope.

So, naturally, this was the perfect opportunity for Disney to deconstruct their characters.

Character deconstruction is an interesting phenomena that has widely swept modern Hollywood (more on that soon to come). For the purposes of this piece, character deconstruction is the art of taking a well-known character trope and deconstructing it to examine the real-world consequences of that character’s ideology and actions.

In the Kenobi series, two major Star Wars principal characters are deconstructed; Obi-Wan himself and Darth Vader. This is important to note because these are two of the characters fans largely associate with the success of the original trilogy, meaning fans are likely to notice character inconsistencies for Obi-Wan and Vader first. 

In other words, the writers would need to delicately handle these characters' backstories, as fans already have an immense attachment to both their individual characters and their relationship to one another.

It should be obvious by now that care was not taken when deconstructing these characters. Both men make illogical and irrational decisions that only exist so that the plot can happen like leaving people alive who they should silence for self-preservation and personal goals.

Even worse is that both men have character arcs that make no sense. The cliff notes version is this; Obi-Wan feels guilty for having failed Anakin, which in turn has cut him off from the force, and Vader feels immense hatred towards his former master, seeking revenge. These could both be interesting character arcs, yet fall flat because the audience already knows where both of these characters end up. 

There are a myriad of plot, script and filming decisions that can be attributed to the failure of both characters, but the overarching reason is that their characters were handled poorly. Rather than create compelling arcs for both characters that show us something new, Disney relies on character deconstruction to tell the story they wanted to tell instead of a story that builds upon well-established characters.

Poking Holes in the Plot

One of the hardest parts of creating prequels in an already established universe is minimizing the number of plot holes created, particularly for widely popular franchises. Fans will deeply scrutinize the prequel series, looking for any unexplained plot holes or inconsistencies that would likely influence the events of the original series.

This is why continuity writers exist. Their job is focused on examining the source material so that should any potential plot holes arise, the writers can identify it and fix it.

It would appear that Disney either fired their continuity writers or did not hire any in the first place. There are SO many plot holes and continuity breaches in Kenobi that it is frankly impossible to examine them all without writing the equivalent of a master's level thesis. Here are just a few of the most glaring:

Leia Knows Kenobi

Kenobi goes to great lengths to create a solid emotional relationship between Obi-Wan and Leia Organa. They spend the majority of time on screen with each other, and it is made clear by the end of the series that both have an intense attachment to one another. 

This makes long-time fans wonder why Leia has zero emotional reaction whatsoever to Kenobi’s death in A New Hope. These two go on this crazy adventure together, yet Leia is just fine seeing Obi-Wan die? She even goes to comfort Luke shortly after his death, yet seems completely unfazed by the loss of what should be considered one of her greatest allies.

What makes this worse is that Disney managed to recognize this plot hole and wrote a line at the tail end of the series to address it. To paraphrase, Kenobi basically tells Leia “Nobody can know that we’re friends, we must keep it a secret,” which actually comes off as creepy and weird as opposed to clever and sophisticated. It blatantly showcases the fact that Disney was indeed aware of this continuity error, and decided to include a throwaway line rather than consider a smarter story.

Reva Knows…..Basically Everything

The discussion on Reva’s character is firmly rooted in another problem this series has, but this plot hole has to be addressed. Not only does Reva know that Darth Vader is Anakin Skywalker, but she is also acutely aware of the fact that Anakin has at least one child. These are some of the most well kept secrets in the galaxy.

So where is Reva during the events of the original trilogy? Surely this person, who knows vital information that directly influences the fate of a galaxy wide conflict, would have some sort of influence on the plot. Nowhere to be seen or heard from. 

Fans of Disney Star Wars will likely counter this point by saying that the plot holes will be fixed in her standalone series, meaning that Disney has to create a multimillion dollar television series to help explain plot holes created by their other multimillion dollar television series. This is not a solution and is indicative of lazy writing and a poorly planned story. 

Owen and Beru Stay on Tatooine

Over the course of Kenobi, multiple people gain access to vital information relevant in the original trilogy. The most important piece of information this series contains is Luke’s location on Tatooine. The whole reason he is there in the first place is to hide him from Vader and the Empire, given that Vader hates his home and it is one of the most remote systems in the galaxy.

Reva is now aware of Luke's location and his significance to Darth Vader thanks to plot convenience.  She even shows up to Tatooine to kill Luke as some kind of vengeance against Vader. Luke’s hidden location is now compromised, which should mean that Obi-Wan, Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru need to leave the planet and hide elsewhere.

This creates multiple problems for Star Wars. The plot of A New Hope entirely relies on Luke being on Tatooine so that he can meet C3PO and R2D2. It makes no sense for him to still be on that planet if his protectors are acutely aware that a high-up Empire official is aware of Luke’s presence on the planet. 

Additionally, Luke is in awe of his father’s old lightsaber when he activates it in A New Hope, and clearly has never seen a device like this one before. This is despite the fact that he was literally chased through the desert by a lightsaber wielding Reva, then conveniently knocked unconscious so he misses major exposition from Obi-Wan.

Disney deliberately wrote themselves into a corner here, as Luke has to be on Tatooine for the plot of the original trilogy to happen. Better writers would have recognized this and reworked the plot so this glaring hole could have been avoided.

Obi-Wan Doesn’t Kill Vader

This by far is the worst offender. The series finale sees Obi-Wan and Vader duel on an undisclosed planet, concluding with Obi-Wan critically wounding Vader. 

Credit where credit is due. Ewan McGregor does an excellent job here, conveying the loss and guilt that Obi-Wan has been grappling with since the series kicked off. During the course of conversation, Vader makes it clear to Obi-Wan that Anakin is dead and that he cannot be redeemed. He is now lost to the dark side.

Obi-Wan then calls Vader “Darth” (a nod to A New Hope) and then…walks away? He deliberately leaves the most dangerous Sith in the galaxy alive, which will cause the deaths of millions and the eventual destruction of Alderaan. This decision makes no sense and only exists because Vader must be alive for the original trilogy to work.

Of all the idiotic decisions Obi-Wan makes during this series, this the worst. There is no explanation as to why he leaves Vader alive, and the audience can directly attribute the deaths of countless people to Obi-Wan’s decision. Now his failure truly is complete.

 Diversity over Depth

This section of the analysis must come with a disclaimer. There is absolutely nothing wrong with promoting characters from minority groups. As a society, we absolutely should be asking for more representation in these areas. There should absolutely be more diversity in the media we consume daily.

The issue that many long-time fans take with diversity inclusion is not that it is present in the new material. It is that these inclusions take precedent over creating strong and well-written characters.

Both Leia and Reva exemplify this for Kenobi. Their characters are afterthoughts behind the diversity checkboxes that they tick for the series, which is ironic given that Disney clearly wants fans to like them. What results is a lack of empathy for their characters, given that the audience has no real reason to like them or be invested in them.

Leia is effectively the same character we meet in A New Hope, grafted onto a 10 year old’s body. Her intelligence varies depending on the storyline in any given circumstance. She doesn’t react like a 10 year old to things like being kidnapped, being shot at, nearly being tortured and literally watching people die. She reacts like a woman in her mid-30’s, which means that there is no character growth to speak of.

Reva has a myriad of problems with her character. It was very evident from the first episode that she would be undergoing some kind of redemption arc. Starting as the Third Sister of the Inquisitors, Reva’s ultimate goal is to rise through the ranks so she can get close to Darth Vader and ultimately take revenge on him for his slaughter of the Jedi Temple in Revenge of the Sith.

In order to do this, Reva must hunt down any remaining Jedi, torture them for information, and then kill them. This is why she wants to find Obi-Wan so badly, as this would surely curry favor with Vader and put her in a position to enact her revenge plot. 

Reva’s revenge plot is nonsensical and does nothing to make viewers warm to her as a character. Imagine if a police officer wanted revenge on a local gang for killing his partner, so they started killing cops to get close enough to the gang and then take their revenge. Anyone with a third grade level education could point out the flaws in that plan.

Even Reva is confused by her plan

Disney attempts to “redeem” Reva of these actions by having her not kill Luke Skywalker on Tatooine. Despite their efforts, this scene fails to solidify Reva’s redemption arc for two major reasons. 

First, it is a bit cheap to have a character redeemed by one good action after a lifetime of horrible ones. We can assume, given her rank in the Inquisitors, that Reva has killed a lot of Jedi. Disney expects the viewer to then absolve Reva of all those murders because she spares Luke AFTER making a conscious decision to kill him as an act of revenge.

Second, this scene has no real stakes because the audience knows Luke is alive at the beginning of A New Hope. Since it is impossible for Luke to die in this scene, viewers already know that Reva will either decide against it or be stopped by another character. This breaks all of the tension that theoretically should exist here and makes the conclusion of these events painfully obvious to anyone who has watched the original trilogy.

Apathy for All

The problems outlined here for the Kenobi series are not isolated occurrences. These are problems that have affected nearly every Star Wars story crafted by Disney, creating a noticeable divide in the fanbase. Fans have become angry. They have provided feedback and made long posts and videos explaining to Disney what went wrong. Now, all that seems to be left is apathy.

Most long time fans of Star Wars have given up. They no longer believe that Disney can tell a compelling Star Wars story, and a decent contingent of the fan base simply pretends that Disney Star Wars does not exist.

This is a complete failure. Disney has taken a widely loved franchise and turned it into something real fans of Star Wars outright ignore. There is no more excitement for upcoming Star Wars projects. Nobody cares anymore.

Disney needs to seriously reconsider the direction of their franchise if they hope to save it at all. Far more focus needs to be placed on creating well-written characters than checking diversity boxes and deconstructing character tropes. Well-written characters and stories are the reason people liked Star Wars in the first place. As it stands, Disney’s writing has turned to the Dark Side, and the franchise is sure to follow.