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Star Wars: Obi-Wan – A Complete Waste of Time

The day Lucasfilm announced a live-action Obi-Wan series, I, like many Star Wars fans, were incredibly excited about the possibilities of what they could do with the show. Maybe they’ll pick a time during the Clone Wars when he’s a general and fighting, or training under Qui-Gon, or borrow one of the story arcs from the Clone Wars animated series. 


Instead, the creators specifically pick one of the least interesting times of his life; the period where Obi-Wan is hiding in the sands of Tatooine and keeping an eye on the “boy” in order to protect him.

We more or less knew that going in, especially after the trailer. So, okay, maybe the show will be a character study, with Obi-Wan trying to deal with the aftermath of the war, Anakin’s betrayal, the end of the Jedi, etc.

Maybe it won’t suck.

The first two episodes of the show premiered this week on Disney+, and while I didn’t have high hopes for the show after the trailer appeared, I was pretty bored by the end of the second episode. 

It’s so bad that I half hope/wonder if Lucasfilm will pull a Book of Boba Fett and have a couple of episodes where Kenobi isn’t even in them. 

Instead of crafting a series around one of Star Wars favorite heroes, the current stewards of George Lucas’ legacy are dead set on destroying Lucas’ creation. We waited decades to see a live-action Star Wars television series, and now that it’s here, you find yourself wishing they’d just stuck with the animated shows.

That’s not a knock on Ewan McGregor, who does the best he can with what little he’s given. Although you’d think even he’d have concerns with the approach to the character.

It’s not as bad as Fett, which was a complete mess. The first opening sequence was great, if not unfortunate, due to recent real-world events. We then move onto a second opening that introduces the Inquisitors and Reva, the only bad guy with a name, so she’s clearly going to play a major part in the show. Finally, we move onto the third opening, which takes us to Obi-Wan.

Two episodes in, and the show already feels bloated. There are only six episodes, and it still feels like that the whole thing could have been condensed down to a film. There are a couple of good scenes, but those could have been kept in the film. The inquisitors try to be intimidating, but they can’t come close to Darth Vader, who is one of the best villains in sci-fi.

So far, there’s nothing all that interesting to see in Obi-Wan. While they’ve borrowed some of the elements from the animated shows and Dave Filoni, this series is completely in the hands of Kathleen Kennedy. The show runners can’t seem to make up their mind on what they want Obi-Wan to be, and so far, the main antagonist is as one-dimensional as they get. 

Strangely, Disney is already playing the race card on critics of the show before it even aired. If the rumors are true about the show, and based on the first couple of episodes, it seems like there’s a pretty good chance that they are, then fans will not be happy with how the series ends. Disney knows they have a stinker on their hands, and their already preemptively attacking “toxic” fans and blaming them in case the show bombs. 

I can’t really say much beyond that without getting into spoilers. 

I didn’t enjoy it. I’m not even sure I’ll finish the show. 

Besides McGregor, there’s no real reason to watch Obi-Wan. As much as I despise the prequels, I’d say if you really want an Obi-Wan fix, you’d be better off re-watching those films or watching Clone Wars. 

Okay — Spoilers incoming. Don’t read beyond this point if you don’t want the show spoiled.

You’ve been warned!!!

So, yeah, Obi-Wan is a broken man. 

Obi-Wan is plagued with guilt from both the betrayal  and the death of his “brother”, Anakin Skywalker. As we all know, Anakin succumbed to the Dark Side and betrayed his fellow Jedi by joining up with Chancellor Palplatine (aka Darth Sidious aka the Emperor). Anakin led the attack on the Jedi temple and killed both Jedi AND younglings. With Anakin at his side, Sidious was able to defeat the Jedi and take over as Emperor. 

Part of this feels deliberate; the current stewards of Star Wars (Kathleen Kennedy and her minions) are dead set on destroying any of the heroes from the original films. So, once again, we’re presented with a broken hero (arguably, over anyone, Obi-Wan has more reason to be broken than anyone else in Star Wars at this point in the timeline). 

Not that this is a bad thing; the show could have built an interesting story about Obi-Wan struggling to deal with his anguish of how things turned out and his duty to protect Luke.

But, no, Obi-Wan has abandoned his Jedi training, even hiding and backing down when there’s potentially bad things happening. Yet, he still clings to the duty that he’s to protect Luke and train him when the time comes. He’s treated like he’s a complete amateur when it comes to fighting and using the Force, and  he also seems to keep himself oblivious to the world around him. 

It all feels out of character for Kenobi. Even if he’s torn with guilt, his sense of duty to protect Luke would motivate him to keep up with his Jedi training and to be keenly aware of any threats that may head their way. He would know that he would need to be ready, and even after 10 years, he’s spent a lifetime training and fighting as a Jedi. He might get rusty, but the skills are still going to be there.

There are a couple of scenes that reinforce this idea that Obi-Wan, now Ben, is in hiding and will not risk revealing himself, even if it puts others at risk. A young Jedi is loose on Tatooine,  and he somehow recognizes Obi-Wan and pursues him out into the desert. Ben tells him the Jedi are dead and that the Jedi should bury his lightsaber out in the sand and hide. 

Then, Ben has a confrontation with Owen Lars, Luke’s uncle, and despite his anguish, insists that Luke should be trained (this is the great “like you trained his father” moment from the trailer). Owen is later confronted by Reva and the inquisitors while Ben hides in the shadows and does absolutely nothing while Owen faces off against them. Not only is Obi-Wan broken, but he’s now a coward. He defies the logic of the inquisitors, who tell us that “the Jedi hunt themselves” because they will always help someone in need even if it means putting themselves at risk.

But, the show doesn’t open with Obi-Wan. Instead, it opens back at the Jedi temple. We’re shown a group of younglings training with their master at the moment Order 66 is executed. It’s not clear, but it’s a safe assumption that Reva is one of the younglings. They have to watch as their master tries to save them from the clone troopers and ultimately sacrifices herself to protect them. 

Reva, strangely, seems to be obsessed with capturing Obi-Wan. It’s not clear why, but she’s obsessed to the point of completely ignoring the chain of command. The show could have tried to work this into a subplot, where maybe Vader shows favoritism to the inquisitors in a way to keep them motivated and to create a cutthroat level of competition between them, including the High Inquisitor. But, so far, the show doesn’t explain it. It just sticks with making Reva as unlikeable as possible with no explanation.

Speaking of unlikeable, the show does the same with young Leia. She’s a precocious 10-year-old, and the show tries to make her some kind of child prodigy. She’s taunted by a cousin, but she comes back with a long and bitter retort with a sense of perception and intuition that would make Sherlock Holmes jealous. 

But, even this doesn’t hold up, because when the plot needs her to be, she’s completely clueless, like when she runs right up to the kidnappers.

The entire Leia kidnapping subplot makes no sense. Bail Organa is well aware of Leia’s parentage; he and his wife are very public figures and appear to have Leia in public as well. So, it makes no sense that Organa has done nothing to keep his daughter safe. It seems like Leia would have been taught some awareness that there could be individuals in the galaxy who would do harm to herself and/or her family.

Reva hires thugs kidnap Leia. She somehow knows about the relationship between Organa and Kenobi. Reva also seems to  know that despite Organa’s wealth and resources, he’ll go to Kenobi for help. She expects Kenobi, being the Jedi that he is, to agree and ultimately fall into her trap. She also expects that her thugs will have no problems capturing a Jedi Master and General of the Republic. 

And this is where the show begins to fall apart. There’s an absurd scene where Leia manages to elude the kidnappers for several minutes. Organa, as predicted, reaches out to Kenobi, but he refuses. So, Organa shows up on Tatooine at Kenobi’s cave (if Reva had been so smart, she should have just tailed Organa  and would have been taken right to Kenobi). 

Kenobi initially refuses again, but then, he sees the young Jedi he encountered “hanging” in town (in a totally safe PG-13 way), and he changes his mind.

 Instead of discreetly transporting Kenobi to the planet where Organa has trapped the kidnappers, he lets Kenobi board a public transport ship carrying a lightsaber. Regardless of how clueless Kenobi might be about the Inquisitors, Organa would absolutely be aware of them and that both they and Vader have been searching for Jedi, especially Kenobi. So, it seems pretty dumb that Organa wouldn’t help Kenobi stay undercover because if he’s exposed trying to save Leia, it’s going to put Leia in even greater danger. 

But, nope, it’ll be fine. Kenobi goes to the planet, and despite keeping his cover about half the time, nobody seems to know him. He runs into a fake Jedi, and convinces him to show Kenobi where the kidnappers are. 

The fake Jedi guy is just odd. Sure, maybe this is still in the outer rim, but what idiot would run around pretending to be a Jedi when there are inquisitors, not to mention Vader himself, running around hunting and killing Jedi?

Kenobi finds “Leia” and springs the trap, where Reva’s thugs easily overtake him. But, luckily, Kenobi has an ace up his sleeve and escapes the kidnappers. Then, magically, he finds the real Leia. Does he use the Force? The show needs him to find Leia, so he does.

The writers could have played up that Bail told Leia stories about the Jedi and his friend Obi-Wan. She could have taunted “Ben” with “you don’t look like a Jedi” and be stubbornly unconvinced of his true nature based on her father’s stories. Instead, after seeing his lightsaber, she wants Kenobi to “make me float.”

And then, things get silly. The inquisitors arrive, and while the others are on the ground, Reva takes to the rooftops, for reasons. She also spreads the word to the criminal element of the town that Obi-Wan is there and puts a bounty on him. Kenobi and Leia discover this, and Leia, suddenly decides that the guy who is trying to rescue her must be one of the bad guys and runs off. 

So, once again, we get a ridiculous chase scene where a 10-year-old girl easily outruns an adult, a Jedi no less, and Kenobi runs around without any cover, so anyone can see who he is. Leia tries to jump across a wide gap between buildings and falls. Kenobi has to use the Force to save her, and the show makes it clear he struggles to access his power and barely saves her in time. Again, the show wants Kenobi to have abandoned a lifetime of training and is now, somehow, a complete novice in using the Force.  

Fake Jedi shows up and decides he’s going to help Kenobi and the girl rather than turn them in. He assures Kenobi out there that there are people willing to help the Jedi; he gives them a location to an automated transport that will get them off-world.

But, Reva, using all of her Inquisitor parkour skills, catches up to them. While they hide, she boasts to Kenobi the big, dramatic reveal of the second episode: Your boy Anakin is alive, and he’s Darth Vader. Obi-Wan is shocked, SHOCKED, to learn this.

I call bullshit. Kenobi saw the security footage in Episode III. He knows Anakin turned to the dark side. Even if he thought he’d killed Anakin on Mustafar, Kenobi should be able to sense whether Anakin truly died. Even if he didn’t, it’s hard to imagine Kenobi never heard anything about Darth Vader, the Emperor’s right hand man, and would have been able to put two and two together. 


If Kenobi’s duty is to stay on Tatooine and protect Luke, then you’d think that Kenobi would at least try to keep up with was going on in the galaxy. He’d want to keep himself aware of any pending threats that could come their way rather than just be blissfully ignorant of everything. 

Then again, how does Reva know this? Vader’s true identity is a massive secret, and both Vader and the Emperor have killed to protect that secret. So, why does she know? How is she not dead?

Anyway, the High Inquisitor shows up and challenges Reva. When she reveals that she has Kenobi trapped, he decides he’ll take Kenobi down himself and take all of the credit for finding him. So, Reva kills the High Inquisitor like a chump. 

This gives Kenobi time to hop on board the transport, and he and Leia escape while Reva impotently screams at the parting ship.

While he’s on the ship, Kenobi does something weird. He reaches out with the Force and says “Anakin”, and we cut to Vader opening his eyes in his meditation chamber. 

And… that’s it. 

Obviously, now Kenobi has made Vader aware that he’s very much alive, it seems like the show will likely lead to a confrontation between Vader and Kenobi. 

Will there be a fight? Maybe. If there is, the show is going to make sure Kenobi gets his ass handed to him, but somehow, he’ll be able to get away, and Vader will let him.

Speaking of, it’s hard to say if the show will bother to explain how Reva has all of this hidden knowledge and/or her obsession for Kenobi. Does she blame him for Order 66? Did she encounter him in the temple, and did he leave her? Is there some relationship between her and Vader, and she’s obsessed with Kenobi out of her desire to prove herself to Vader?

In the end, though, I suspect that the rumors about the show may be true. Instead of Obi-Wan being able to defend himself against Vader and successfully protecting the lives of Luke and Leia, he’ll fail. Then, for reasons, Reva will have a “moment”, and may discover (or already knows, since she knows everything else) who Luke and/or Leia are, and possibly what their future holds, and it will be her, not Kenobi, that saves the day. 

Reva will get a redemption arc that will end at the end of Vader’s lightsaber.

(Update: I’ve seen the third episode, and well, the episode was pretty trash. Obi-Wan gets to face off with Vader, and he gets his ass handed to him. They’re already dropping hints that Reva is having “doubts” about being an inquisitor but at the same time is sucking up to Vader. There’s no consistency. I’m now betting that Leia will somehow use her 10-year-old genius intellect to convince Reva to switch sides.)

Kenobi will then slink back to his cave on Tatooine, and for “reasons”, Vader will not be able to track him.  He’ll still be broken, and he may even be worse off knowing that when the time came, he failed in protecting those he was supposed to protect. 

And that’s exactly where Kathleen Kennedy wants hm to be.  Once again, the current creators of Star Wars are hellbent on destroying everything came that before because they want people to like their new creations. The problem, though, is that they’re completely unable to develop anything new that generates the same magic that caught the imagination of fans for the last 40ish years. The sequels were a joke. The Book of Boba Fett was a disaster. 

Only the Mandalorian, with Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau, have even remotely come close to creating a true live-action Star Wars series that’s enjoyable to watch. 

Star Wars and Obi-Wan deserve better.

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So angsty…

 I’m apparently on a streak of watching Netflix teen-angsty shows right now. The Society is another one of these shows that asks: What if X happened, but instead of it happening to everyone, it only happened to teenagers? 

In this case, a New England small town’s entire teenage population finds themselves in an “alternate” version of their town in which they are the only people living there, and possibly the only people anywhere. So, it’s up to the teenagers to figure out how to cope with being in a world without parents, or laws, or internet. They have to try to rebuild a society (roll credits!) of their own in order to survive long enough to figure out how they got there and if or how they could get back home. 

Basically, it’s like a lite version of Stephen King’s Under the Dome, but filled with teenage angst instead of adult drama. It doesn’t go as dark as King’s version, and there are certain elements that the kids don’t have to deal with at all, but it’s very similar.

The show takes place late in the school year (likely May), and the town has a strange smell permeating the area. Apparently, it had appeared before recently, and the town leadership hired someone to “clear the air”, but, now, it’s back. 

For reasons, the town decides that they’re going to pack up all of the high school kids and ship them off to a nearby camp for 10 days, while everyone else stays behind (adults, all the little kids, pets, etc) to deal with the smell. I know. I know. 

Anyway, the kids load up on the buses in the evening, and while they’re driving around that night, there’s a big storm. Then, the buses stop, announce that there was a mudslide blocking the road to the camp, so the buses have brought them back home. 

It’s the middle of the night, and nobody is there to greet them. Parents are also not answering their cells. The kids simply shrug this off and head home for the night. When they get home, they can’t find anyone there either. 

The next morning, the kids regroup to try figure out what’s going on. Nobody can find their families, they can’t reach anyone on their cell phones besides each other, and there’s no internet!!! Someone gets smart and hops into a car, figuring they’ll just drive over to the next town and see what’s going on. They get to the town’s border to find that the road is gone and blocked by a massive forest. The check the other end of town and find the same thing. In fact, it appears there’s a forest surrounding the entire town (there’s a dramatic pan out to show a nearby bridge with train tracks crossing underneath, and we’re shown that the tracks now end in forest).

Dun…Dun…DUUNNNNNNN!!!

Oh, man, what on Earth are a bunch of teenagers alone in a town with absolutely no adult supervision going to do???

(Throw a HUGE party, of course)

After a few days of partying, one of the main characters, Cassandra, who is quasi-popular but also the student body president, decides that they should probably start thinking more about how they are going to survive long term. She starts setting up work assignments, consolidating the housing (which the rich kids hate sharing their mansions), etc.  They assign a group of kids to start investigating what happened and why they’re where they are. 

They’re worried about the food supply and kind of worry about the water and electricity. Although they do guard the local grocery store, nobody seems to follow up on how they’re getting water or electricity and what they might need to do to keep all of that running. They pick up trash, but there’s no discussion of where it goes (I figured the town landfill was likely outside the town, and they wouldn’t have access to it)

Two kids do find out that there was a deal between the town and a man who was to be paid $1.5 million to get rid of the smell. For whatever reason, once he did his job, the town leaders (some of the kids parents) decided not to pay the guy. Some other details are revealed, but the show doesn’t follow up on them at all until the last episode. 

To help the kids adjust, Cassandra and her friends, who have basically become the leadership, decide to have prom, and it’s a good night for most of the kids. Then, someone decides to murder their leader, Cassandra. What are they going to do now?

So, yeah, there are some interesting bits to the show, as the kids decide how to try to organize some type of society and a set of rules to live by. Most of the drama, though, spends a lot of time on who’s trying to hook up with whom. Sometimes, the decisions don’t make sense.

For example, for reasons, they decide to put Cassandra’s little sister, Allie, in charge. Why her? Was there not a student-body vice-president or another senior that could have taken over? Or, simply, nobody wanted the responsibility.

So anyway, on top of trying to deal with all of this responsibility dumped on her head, Allie’s also presented with a possible suspect in her sister’s murder. She now has to figure out how to arrest the suspect, detain him, set up a trial for the accused, and then, figure out what the convicted killer’s sentence should be. 

In other places, the situations fall flat. One night, a storm causes a blackout, and suddenly, some of the teenagers decide to loot the local hardware store for all of its flashlights. Other teens show up to stop them, and a major fight breaks out. Only… this is supposed to be kind of a rural small town, so blackouts from thunderstorms, and equally likely, snowstorms, would be a thing. Most homes in the area probably have plenty of flashlights, and lanterns, and a few may even have generators. The point was to illustrate what would happen if chaos took over the town, but it just felt like a really weak example. 

Although Allie has a pretty good character arc, most of the characters are pretty one dimensional, and it’s a shame that they couldn’t have at least played with creating some before and after situations. Like, for instance, one of the guys is revealed to be an actual diagnosed psychopath. Why not give him a redemption arc in this new world? Instead, he’s stays true to type. 

Daybreak, another teenagers in a impossible scenario series, at least manages that. All of the major characters in that show have a pre- and post-apocalypse life, and sometimes, it creates tension between the characters.

The series ends with the town getting ready to have elections for a new mayor and, for the first time, a town council, and looking for some land to farm because they’re realizing they’re going to run out of food. There’s a huge twist though.

There’s also a mysterious ending that will have viewers wondering what is really happening – even possibly wondering if the kids are all dead? We won’t know until season two.

It’s not a bad show. Allie is great to watch, and a few of the other characters are interesting. Campbell, the town psychopath, oozes menace in every scene he’s in, and Elle, who enters into a relationship with Campbell (and everyone forgot to mention to her that he’s crazy), is fascinating to watch as she struggles with being stuck in this situation with Campbell. But, most of the characters are pretty basic. Most of the guys are all brainless or douchebags. Harry is a rich asshole. The football players are all dumb jocks, except for one, who has a BIG secret (and I bet you can’t guess what it is!) Even Will, who is supposed to be the “poor kid with a heart of gold” – the resident “nice guy” – spends a lot of time trying to get laid. 

Most of these characters are what I would consider to be “upper middle class” who have likely never worked a day in their life. So, there’s some fun in watching them trying to figure out how to do certain things, and begin to understand that there’s a lot of stuff that happens that they simply never appreciated. A couple of the characters realize that someone needs to learn to be a doctor/nurse to all of these kids. Next season, they’re going to have to figure out how to farm, and it’s not clear if the town contained a tractor supply or anything that might have farm equipment for them to use. They’ll likely have to go “old school” on farming. 

The only other disappointment about the show is that it really loses focus on anyone looking into where they are and/or why they’re there. They tried to explore the woods in the first episode, but unfortunately, a girl is bitten by a snake and has an allergic reaction to the poison and dies. So, for that reason, they simply abandon investigating their surroundings until the last episodes, when, over five months later, a small team goes looking for farmland outside of the town limits. The mystery of how they got there in the first place doesn’t really come up again until the last couple of episodes.

But, overall, it is a pretty decent show. I think the show could have been a lot better if they had focused more on the kids actually dealing with their situation instead of just the usual teenage drama. The five month time jump between episodes six and seven is pretty jarring. The show is certainly setting up that things will be harder for the kids in season two, so maybe the show runners will find more things for the kids to do and and find some personalities for the other characters.

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Daybreak Review

Have you ever wanted a Zombie apocalypse show more in the vein of comedy-horror like Zombieland instead of The Walking Dead?

Have you ever wanted to throw in a whole bunch of teenage angst into said zombie show?

If so, then Netflix’s Daybreak might be for you. 

At some point in the near future, some world leader or leaders decide it was time to start a war, possibly via Tweet, and they nuke California (and presumably, other places). The “nukes” were destructive, but somehow only killed off most of the adult population. The rest roam the streets as “Ghoulies” – basically zombies that mindlessly repeat the last sentence they said before dying. For example, the characters encounter one Ghoulie who was thinking about “10% off yoga pants.” But, basically, the only people who survived the bombs more or less intact are all of the teenagers. 

Oh, and no guns, because California, I guess? And, pets, have mutated. The only real example they show is a pug that has mutated to maybe 10 times his normal size.

Josh, an admitted “C-level” student who moved to Glendale from Canada, has found that he may have been a bit of loner and bullied and had no friends in high school, but he kicks ass in this new post-apocalyptic world. Like Zombieland, Josh and other characters constantly break the fourth wall and converse with the viewer. Like Zombieland, Josh has a list of “rules” for surviving in this new world.

It’s been six months since the attack, and instead of uniting together, the teens have carved out territories that match the same cliques they had in school. The Jocks have taken over the high school campus, and have built a “Mad Max” inspired gang lead by the school’s best football player. The 4-H’ers are off in another part of the city. The cheerleaders have declared themselves “Cheermazons” and took over the country club. One social outcast had the foresight to take over the local mall. There’s also a mysterious boogeyman called Baron Triumph that rides a Triumph, captures kids and eats them.

Josh, though, continues to run around on his own, but he has a mission. The girl he likes, Sam, apparently left him a Post-It Note at his apartment shortly after the attack, and his mission is to find her and save her. Early on, the show is pretty vague about whether or not this is a mutual relationship.

Josh eventually does make a couple of friends. One is Angelica, a 10-year-old super-genius who is a sociopath that Josh used to babysit. The other is Wesley, a black jock who previously bullied Josh, but who left the Bro Jocks and has now declared himself a Ronin on a mission of redemption for his past mistakes. Wesley was inspired by watching “kung-fu” movies, but constantly references Japanese concepts. 

The first couple of episodes mostly establish the world, and most of the other episodes flesh out the back stories of the various characters. There’s definitely plenty of teen drama, but the show doesn’t take itself that seriously. The only “new” aspect I can say about the drama is that Josh is written with the basic premise that all white teenage boys, even the “nice” ones, are jerks. Seriously, the character feels like he’s been pulled out of an 80’s John Hughes movie dropped into a modern teenage drama, like 13 Reasons Why. It really stands out when all of the other major characters feel more “modern” than Josh, especially with regards to his relationship with Sam.

For some extra meta, Matthew Broderick appears as the boring old school principal in flashbacks, which should be amusing for Ferris Bueller fans. He probably has his best moment in episode four, where, in a flashback, he deals with parents and a kid who want to buy his way into better grades in order to maintain his football eligibility. Broderick plays the character so straight it’s hard to tell if he’s enjoying the role.

Overall, though, as long as you can set aside your suspension of disbelief (and the show will stretch it — like when the nuke goes off within visible range of the homecoming game, and everyone just ducks and covers to protect themselves from the blast winds), it is overall pretty entertaining. It has more than enough funny moments to offset the cringe-worthy ones, there are a few decent twists in the overall story, and you may only find yourself yelling at the TV a few times (mostly at Josh). 

The show also leaves itself wide open for a second season, provided Netflix gives them one.

While it doesn’t break any new ground, Daybreak is an uncomplicated comedy-horror show that’s worthy of a weekend of binge-watching. To me, after watching some of the more recent and more serious teenage dramas (13 Reasons Why, Euphoria), that’s not such a bad thing.