Obi-Wan Kenobi

[Haijinx]

There is far too much Fannon, and Fannon Adjacent (Expanded U) stuff in Star Wars ADDED to Official Cannon Dues Ex MAchina Powers, there is no way to really predict why any Character has any ability nor why. 

 

Its appropriate its all owned by Disney at this point.  Since its basically a theme park situation. 

[Mr. Vee]

I worry if you're Fannon Adjacent it becomes too easy to get lost but never found and downright impossible to turn around. It's also possible I have Fannon/Fannin confooz.

[Techwright]

  On 6/15/2022 at 5:12 PM, Mr. Vee said:

5 seemed like a step up from the others despite 

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actually giving Christianson some dialogue. Also weird they didn't do any de-aging on him. Seems like it'd be easier to do given he's only 40ish. Unless they did it and just did a lousy job of it.  Agree that it is weird.  It looks more like they asked the makeup department to work on deaging him.  Perhaps they'd already gone over budget and couldn't use the de-aging tech.   And I'm glad for that training dual, not only did it give Hayden some dialog, it gave him much needed face time.  Glad he's in the cape and mask, but there've been times when others nondescript can do a good job, too.  Playing Anakin again solidifies his spot in the role.

 

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  On 6/15/2022 at 8:07 PM, ThaOGDreamWeaver said:

Thoughts on Ep5:

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• Siege episode was pretty standard and quite predictable stuff, TBH, other than the flashbacks and the extra-sneaky use of L0LA.
• Tala gets 'fridged. Could see it coming, still not happy about it.  Agreed. I understand the reasons, I'm just greatly saddened.  It was an impressive character, possibly the best one of the new characters, and I wanted to see her last to Yavin and beyond.
• Reva was trying to get close to Anakin, but not for the reasons we thought...
• ...and Obi-Wan using her as a catspaw is, well, a little bit Sithy on his part.
• Sure, the kid wanted a shot at the title, but nowhere near ready to take on the champ. That was just mocking and brutal.  It was also weirdly mistimed. I'd have expected her to attack earlier when Vader didn't have the luxury of sensing his surroundings.
• Angry Vader is the best Vader, buuuut...
• ...I'm not quite sure how that backup-transport gag worked - was the one Vader downed illusory, was the second one hidden using Force Invisibility...? Feels like a bit of a hole.  Again, another mistiming.  I'd have launched at some moment his vision was obscured, such as the final moment of dropping the ship.  I suppose the real escape ship was safe because it managed to get over the point where he grabbed the other ship.  Such power probably greatly shortens range.  And then there's the whole matter of Vader's cruiser not blasting the fleeing ship out of the sky, though that could be more towards Vader keeping Kenobi alive for a personal retribution.
• Speaking of holes: Reva's Force power seems to be blind luck. Not just that she's left with a survivable gut-shot, but found a handy-dandy reveal of where to go next. Yeah, that one is really weird, and a little off-putting for a series written pretty well up until this point.  Knowing Vader dispatched Second Sister for failing him, leaving Reva with a gut shot seems very atypical of his character.  Several points of the Evil Overlord's List were violated in the process:
  • # 4 Shooting is not too good for my enemies.
  • # 6 I will not gloat over my enemies' predicament before killing them.
  • # 11 I will be secure in my superiority. Therefore, I will feel no need to prove it by ... leaving my weaker enemies alive to show they pose no threat.
  • # 13 All slain enemies will be cremated, or at least have several rounds of ammunition emptied into them, not left for dead at the bottom of the cliff. The announcement of their deaths, as well as any accompanying celebration, will be deferred until after the aforementioned disposal.
• We have the EpVIII cliffhangers back again, just in reverse order: trapped in a base, then trying to outrun Imperial cruisers. 

This means we probably know where Ep6 is going, and it's where it was always going to go: back to the Twin Suns for a final showdown.

Maybe the "Reva leak" is real: maybe it's fake or they reshot it.

Hopefully, Leia can get safely home at this point so ObiWan (and the viewers) can focus wholly on Luke, Reva and...Vader?  I dare to say that unquestionably Reva will go to Tatooine.  However,  it has to end with Vader being none the wiser regarding his children, and Luke being unaware that old Ben is a Jedi, and that he, Luke, is Vader's son.  Plus there's the matter of Ben settling back on Tatooine, so there's got to be something to make Vader uninterested in his homeworld.  For that matter, I'm wondering if Vader is going to be kept away from Bael during Leia's return.  THAT would be an interesting meeting.  The two were once friends and allies.

Overall, other than Vader going full Unleashed and showing off, less visual or plot inventiveness than previous episodes. Still, good series, and looking forward to finale next week.

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A comment or two, especially regarding Anakin/Vader:

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I am very glad they gave us that training fight scene.  Hayden was able to show us what he was really capable of as Anakin, and it much more resembled Matt Lanter's version of Anakin in Clone Wars than it did the emo version Hayden was directed to portray in the Prequel Trilogy.  I always felt the Clone Wars version was vastly superior.  Now we can see that Hayden could have done it if given the chance.

 

That said, I find having 40-year-old Hayden portray the still-padawan Anakin a curious choice.  I felt the scene would work just as well, with a tiny bit of dialog rewrite, with Hayden playing General Skywalker, and he would look more like that role than the padawan.

 

This episode gave us several light sabers in clear view.  I'm wondering if Eric Voss over at New Rockstars will research the designs and tell us if any match to specific Jedi.

 

Notice that Anakin's sword style is very different from Vader's.  Anakin works with both hands in delivering his attacks, however, in his most reckless power moves he favors one-handed attacks, which is essentially a precursor to Vader's major fight style. 

 

Vader's Force Unleashed moment is pretty amazing, even if the effects are a tad off at that point.  But the game isn't canon.  What is canon happened in the last episode of The Clone Wars:  Ahsoka holding back Maul's escape shuttle.  Like master, like apprentice.

 

 

[Mr. Vee]

re Techwright's

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"...there's got to be something to make Vader uninterested in his homeworld."

Sand, sand, sand, sand, sand, sand, baked beans, sand, sand, sand, sand, sand!

 

[ShardWarrior]

While not entirely surprised, I was sadly disappointed with episode 5.  It had some very cool moments, however this is shaping to be yet another disappointing Disney Star Wars story.

[Techwright]

  On 6/16/2022 at 2:07 AM, Mr. Vee said:

re Techwright's

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"...there's got to be something to make Vader uninterested in his homeworld."

Sand, sand, sand, sand, sand, sand, baked beans, sand, sand, sand, sand, sand!

 

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You, ah...forgot a "sand".  Just saying.

 

  On 6/16/2022 at 6:15 PM, ShardWarrior said:

While not entirely surprised, I was sadly disappointed with episode 5.  It had some very cool moments, however this is shaping to be yet another disappointing Disney Star Wars story.

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Would you be willing to quantify that statement?  What specifics contributed to it?

[Frostbiter]

Lightsaber fight was good. Vader fights like someone who is over 6' tall and 300 lbs and uses the Force to back that up like a hammer.  It works really well for him.

[ThaOGDreamWeaver]

  On 6/16/2022 at 11:32 PM, Frostbiter said:

Lightsaber fight was good. Vader fights like someone who is over 6' tall and 300 lbs and uses the Force to back that up like a hammer.  It works really well for him.

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Edited for slightly spoilery stuff:

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As many have said online, pure disrespect. Reva didn't get a fight. That was humiliation. A cat toying with its lunch. It's also probably the subtlest use of Force combat we've seen, like a kung fu master pegging back a pesky student.

 

Small note: as they've been throwing twists at us all through the series, perhaps we shouldn't be surprised they're even messing with the very structure of the show.

Final episode will be feature-length - a full 90 minutes. Buckle up, padawans.

Edited June 17, 2022 by ThaOGDreamWeaver

[Frostbiter]

That's what fighting way outside your weight class looks like. I wouldn't take on Vader without a dozen Jedi's using slash and retreat tactics to wear him down. And I'd still expect 30% or better losses. He was undefeated right until his sacrifice to take down the Emperor. Does that count as a spoiler?

 

It's interesting that they decided to make the rest of it feature length because the first five episodes felt like they could have been a movie if cut together.

Edited June 17, 2022 by Frostbiter

[Mr. Vee]

Whaaaa? Vader dies?!?!

 

Not that, but a few things of recent vintage probably could use a spoiler tag. I don't look at the thread on new episode day until I've seen it but there are folks who peep this who're not caught up.

[AboveTheChemist]

There are folks like myself that use the 'Unread Content' button (top right of forums) as a way to quickly scan topics with unread posts, and the opening few lines of the most recent post in each topic are visible. Spoiler tags help to keep spoilers from being visible in this manner.

 

There's also a pinned topic at the top of this subforum that specifically states that

 

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all posts containing spoilers of any kind must use the spoiler tag

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So yes, please use spoiler tags. Please.

[ThaOGDreamWeaver]

Edited my previous post. ( @Frostbiter, if you wouldn't mind similarly blanking that quoted piece)...

 

Also, excellent taste in musicians there, particularly ones with the correct attitude to drummers.

 

[Frostbiter]

Sure.

Edited June 17, 2022 by Frostbiter

[Techwright]

  On 6/17/2022 at 11:30 AM, Frostbiter said:

That's what fighting way outside your weight class looks like. I wouldn't take on Vader without a dozen Jedi's using slash and retreat tactics to wear him down. And I'd still expect 30% or better losses. He was undefeated right until his sacrifice to take down the Emperor.

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Agreed.  It's one of those annoying things within the story of the Jedi.  They went up against Vader's boss, and only brought 4 Jedi.  Sure they were masters, and the lead was Mace Windu, arguable the third most dangerous Jedi, but still, they got cocky.  

 

Continued in spoiler mode:

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In recent Star Wars productions, Vader is really over-the-top in regards to power.  Sure, I understand:  it is the Rule of Two in effect.  Having only two concentrates the dark side to two outlets instead of an army of them.  But I'm concerned about power creep:  Are we saying the Vader that tore up the Inquisitorius, held back the flood, and pulled down a transport fighting to get free is the same Vader that barely has any force flexing during his final dual with Kenobi?  In trying to maintain consistency in storyline points like the Grand Inquisitor, it appears they forgot to maintain a "realistic" level of power in keeping with Episodes IV, V, and VI.  Another concern with the apparent power creep is that Vader is only half the man he used to be.  Supposedly, that means a reduction of midaclorine, or however they are spelled, and thereby a reduction of power. 

 

[ThaOGDreamWeaver]

  On 6/17/2022 at 6:58 PM, Techwright said:

I wouldn't take on Vader without a dozen Jedi's using slash and retreat tactics to wear him down. And I'd still expect 30% or better losses.

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That's a bold strategy, Cotton, let me know how it works out for ya.

 

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Aside from the Rule Of Two (though the Inquisitors are still tapping a little bit of the nasty stuff, for simple tricks like knife throwing, mind reading, surviving horrific injuries and, of course, parkour!), another aspect to the Dark Side is that Jedi have rules. Limitations. Things they can't afford to be even tempted to feel.

Vader does not.

 

Strong as the Light Side is for Masters, it requires maintaining equilibrium, noble forebearance and inner peace in the face of the deadliest, angriest killing machine the Galaxy's ever seen, who also happens to be one of the finest warriors they've ever trained and knows every trick in the Holocron - plus a few they'd never dare try.

 

Ultimately, the only person who could truly defeat Vader was... Vader himself, finally returning balance to the Force.

 

Edited June 17, 2022 by ThaOGDreamWeaver
accidentally yoda talking like I am. It's late, drunk am I.

[Frostbiter]

  On 6/17/2022 at 6:58 PM, Techwright said:

Agreed.  It's one of those annoying things within the story of the Jedi.  They went up against Vader's boss, and only brought 4 Jedi.  Sure they were masters, and the lead was Mace Windu, arguable the third most dangerous Jedi, but still, they got cocky.  

 

Continued in spoiler mode:

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In recent Star Wars productions, Vader is really over-the-top in regards to power.  Sure, I understand:  it is the Rule of Two in effect.  Having only two concentrates the dark side to two outlets instead of an army of them.  But I'm concerned about power creep:  Are we saying the Vader that tore up the Inquisitorius, held back the flood, and pulled down a transport fighting to get free is the same Vader that barely has any force flexing during his final dual with Kenobi?  In trying to maintain consistency in storyline points like the Grand Inquisitor, it appears they forgot to maintain a "realistic" level of power in keeping with Episodes IV, V, and VI.  Another concern with the apparent power creep is that Vader is only half the man he used to be.  Supposedly, that means a reduction of midaclorine, or however they are spelled, and thereby a reduction of power. 

 

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I just tell myself that everyone got rusty. It's hard to separate the films from the eras they were filmed in. There was a lot of SFX advancements and action movies also got more choreographed and eastern in their fight presentations. Storywise Obi-Wan suppressed his Force connections to hide and Vader just used his to bully his own officers mostly. So yeah, everyone got rusty and Luke was very untrained until the end of Episode V.

 

[WanderingAries]

  On 6/17/2022 at 6:58 PM, Techwright said:

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and pulled down a transport fighting to get free

 

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This bugged the hell outta me because (while someone else has since stated that it Was there the whole time) I for the life of me only saw the one until the very end. I watched the whole sequence, listened to the dialog and in my head said "there's only one"...Until I saw the end and was like WTF?!?

[Mr. Vee]

[DougGraves]

I just cannot fathom why they make a show with the entire plot rendered pointless by us already knowing the future from the movie.

 

The big scenes have no drama because we know how it will end.

 

This feels like fan fiction with really good graphics.

[Darmian]

I'd like to imagine that some things set up in this will pay off in the forthcoming Ahsoka series.

[ThaOGDreamWeaver]

It is a strange pitch because we know more or less what's going to happen, but not necessarily how we get there. Getting people excited about that

And it's already pencilling in some things that tie up...

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For example, Leia being a tiny badass undercover freedom fighter now has a proper backstory. She's not just following in her father's footsteps, or an adoptive aristocrat who's suddenly developed a conscience: she's directly had a taste of the Empire's cruelty, and lit that little firework that will eventually help take out two Death Stars.

 

We also see Obi-Wan in Ep4 discount Anakin the man and deal with Vader the man-machine. That line about "betrayed and murdered your father" may have been a knotty little lie, even for good reasons. But is pretty much how he felt about things, and in Ep5 he describes Vader as beyond redemption: "twisted... and... evil".

 

With that in mind, with a 90+ minute runtime, and with the current writers' habit of pounding characters and audience as low as they can go before raising them up a bit... we are going to get a taste of the merciless comic-book Vader to set that final emotional betrayal up. Something so heinous that Obi-Wan no longer regards his former padawan as his fault or responsibility. To the extent of massacring anyone in his orbit and specifically trying to kill Leia, just because she means something to Obi-Wan. Vader doesn't know or care why, which would blind him to his own blood connection - it would just be to make him feel pain.

 

Whether Reva, Haja or other side characters make it further into Ahsoka etc depends on the writers, and the new guardians of this expanding galaxy. They could have new arcs, or forever remain colourful doodles in the margins. This isn't Filoni's and Favreau's show, but they're part of that brain trust now: they seem to have one of the writer's gifts/curses of loving all their characters, and never throwing a good one away unless it's going to mean something. (cf Kanan Jarrus: and the successful overhaul of Maul from a colourful but disposable mid-level boss in Ep1).

 

One side note:

 

Edited June 19, 2022 by ThaOGDreamWeaver

[Haijinx]

  On 6/19/2022 at 4:48 PM, DougGraves said:

This feels like fan fiction with really good graphics.

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This describes basically all recent Star Wars efforts with the posible exception "The Mandalorian"

Edited June 19, 2022 by Haijinx

[DougGraves]

  On 6/19/2022 at 11:28 PM, Haijinx said:

 

This describes basically all recent Star Wars efforts with the posible exception "The Mandalorian"

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Rebels did not have that problem as it was new characters.

 

And Clone Wars did not really have this problem because the emphasis was on the plot for the episode and not whether or not Obi Wan or Anakin survived.

[Techwright]

  On 6/19/2022 at 7:46 PM, ThaOGDreamWeaver said:

It is a strange pitch because we know more or less what's going to happen, but not necessarily how we get there.

But it is not too strange.  Stories in all formats have been filling in the backstory or the middle story for eons, and often in one sitting. Take The Princess Bride for example.  We all know there's going to be a happily ever after.  It's just a question of what steps are taken to achieve it.  Why watch Lincoln?  We all know he's going to be shot after the death blow to the Confederacy is struck.  It is the journey to that point, filling in the details, that is interesting.

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  On 6/19/2022 at 7:46 PM, ThaOGDreamWeaver said:

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With that in mind, with a 90+ minute runtime, and with the current writers' habit of pounding characters and audience as low as they can go before raising them up a bit... That's actually following the formula in the Original Trilogy.  By the end of The Empire Strikes Back, Luke is badly wounded physically and emotionally, Han's in carbonite, and the Rebels are almost on the ropes.  Then comes Return of the Jedi.

 

Whether Reva, Haja or other side characters make it further into Ahsoka etc depends on the writers, and the new guardians of this expanding galaxy. They could have new arcs, or forever remain colourful doodles in the margins.   Haja seems like he's just starting a journey of re-discovery of himself, so I could expect to see him in other works set after this, including possibly a season 2.  As to "other side characters" I've said it before, they really need to do something with Fourth Sister. She's been window dressing the full mini-series to date.  It would be a shame to red-shirt her in the last episode.  I'd prefer she be moved to a more prominent and speaking role (more than the couple of lines she's had) in a season 2 or other work set in the first 19 years of the Empire.

 

 

 

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[ThaOGDreamWeaver]

Yup. There are plenty of side trips any character can take. This one we specifically know Luke, Leia, Obi and Vader all survive it - Luke being basically unpeturbed, but all three of the others forever changed by it. Death isn't the only risk a character can take.

 

Hell, death isn't fatal either, and not just for evil Emperor types. I'm guessing I don't need spoiler warnings for Princess Bride by this point, though it's not inconceivable... but Bill Goldman does first (mostly) kill, then rez, then perma-doom the hero (nobody quite knows how long a miracle pill lasts for... but then again, what does?)

 

(Side note: I love Miracle Max, steal from him endlessly at work, when writing and even playing CoH, and if ever the full demo reels of Crystal are released, I will be buying whichever Ultra Mega Steelbox DVDOUS or whatever I need to to get it.)

 

Oh, and all the Lincoln sequels are just getting derivative now.

 

On with the spoilery(ish) stuff:

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That's actually following the formula in the Original Trilogy.

Honestly? Even EpV didn't go quite this hard. They lost Han (temporarily) and Luke needed a hand up, but they were free and there was clearly A Plan.

Getting big Certain Doom and at least one fake-ending vibes here.

 

  On 6/20/2022 at 3:47 AM, Techwright said:

including possibly a season 2.

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Would like to see it. Moving away from an arc heavily tied to Luke and, sadly, Leia, to doodling in bits around the birth of the Rebellion (and possibly the Rebels crew) would give everybody more room to stretch, while still playing the cat-and-mouse game with Vader.

 

But there are many more stories to tell: if Hayden and Ewan are amenable, guest shots in Andor etc would be possible too.

 

BTW: just going away from this for a minute, how do SW fans feel about a batch of entirely new characters set in the same universe with few or no reference points?

That's what Taika Waititi's planning. Filoni made it work with Rebels but had a whole series to play with - can it be done in a single tentpole flick?

Edited June 24, 2022 by ThaOGDreamWeaver