Obi-Wan Kenobi
- DB
- 1 hour ago
- 4 min read
The Force is... okay with this one.
Here's what I've been watching and playing over the last seven days...
MOVIES
No movies watched thanks to another trip through the lengthy and brilliant behind the scenes stuff for Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Honestly, I think I may actually prefer watching this stuff to the movies, not because I think the movies are bad (they're fucking excellent, in fact), but because I love seeing the creativity of everyone involved in making them.
I guess I have such a massive appreciation for the levels of effort and dedication in creating something so brilliant, which is an appreciation that obviously extends to Tolkien as well, considering how much I also enjoy the books.
In fact, the best moments for me were when people working on the film revealed how much detail they added to sets and props and costumes that were either too small to be seen on-screen, or weren't even seen at all and were just to make those things feel more authentic in their roles.
It's not afraid to show the darker side of things either, with how massive the workload was across making the trilogy.
I wonder if game developers watching this would sympathise with having to 'crunch' for months on end to get the last film, Return of the King, finished for its release date.
We get to hear about relationships and marriages suffering, if not outright ending, or people admitting how upset they were to miss their children growing up because of the demands of their jobs.
Watching it again, I have to admit that I could never have worked as part of the crew on this film because that level of sacrifice may have resulted in three brilliant movies, but I'm not sure I would've enjoyed giving up years of my life in exchange.
Still, the overall series of features and the level of detail they go into is incredible and definitely a worthwhile watch if you enjoy the films or the books.
GAMES
I've finished my playthrough and enjoyed what was ultimately a quite happy ending considering the often bizarre behaviour I encouraged Harry Du Bois to engage in.
I'm not going to repeat the gushing praise of last week as that would be too much, so I'll just say that Disco Elysium was a 10/10 in 2019 and is still a 10/10 in 2025.
TV
Obi-Wan Kenobi
Series summary: Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi must save young Leia after she is kidnapped, all the while being pursued by Imperial Inquisitors and his former Padawan now known as Darth Vader. (IMDb)
Hey look, it's yet another thing that got a sizeable portion of the audience who watched it hating on it for no reason that I can tell - I'm starting to think that the internet might just be toxic in general, you know?
Anyway, Obi-Wan Kenobi is good.
It's not great, but it is good - at the very least, it kept me interested enough to binge all six episodes in a single session over the long Easter weekend here in the UK.
I liked how, having become detached from the Force while in hiding, Obi-Wan had to slowly build up his skills again until he was finally back to full strength in time for the brilliant duel that took place in the finale.
That felt very 'videogamey' to me, with a main character losing all the skills they previously had and needing to regain them all again - it weirdly allowed me to feel like I had a shared life experience with a fictional character!
I'll admit that the story is pretty simple, with Kenobi being enlisted by Bail Organa (Jimmy Smits returning) to rescue a kidnapped young Leia (Vivien Lyra Blair), but it never felt like it had to be padded out to last the full season.
It helps that simply becoming involved in such an adventure automatically draws the attention of Darth Vader (Hayden Christensen and James Earl Jones), who becomes almost a deuteragonist for the second half of the season.
Thanks to The Clone Wars, I've really come to love the relationship between Obi-Wan and Anakin and, helped by pre-Attack of the Clones flashbacks, this series simply added to that to give that friendly rivalry turned genuine enmity even greater depth and meaning.
That slow re-discovery of his strength - not just in power, but of himself - is really well done by Ewan McGregor and provides a neat contrast to seeing Darth Vader at the peak of his powers from start to finish.
The biggest disappointment I had with the show is that it played things very safe when I really would've loved to see the tension and level of threat ratcheted up a notch to really sell the audience on the level of danger.
We all know that Obi-Wan, Leia, Darth Vader and others are going to be safe as they have to show up in A New Hope, but it would've been interesting to make getting there seem like it took a lot more effort.
Take Reva (Moses Ingram) as an example, as a character with an arc I really enjoyed that can re-appear in the future or be left with her fate unknown following the events of the series, proving to be the single biggest addition to the franchise made by the show.
Saying that, I will not that following The Acolyte, this makes for a second black female villain in Star Wars shows and I think it's due for a heroic variation for once.
Obi-Wan Kenobi is enjoyable enough to watch, even if it does play things relatively safe for the most part, with a simple story elevated by some great performances and Obi-Wan proving to Anakin just who the master and learner are in their relationship. [7/10]
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