For all the stories that populate the Star Wars expanding timeline - all the TV shows, books, comics, graphic novels and video game campaigns that pick up where the movies left off - Star Wars has never explored what Obi-Wan did during his time on Tatooine between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope. Until, that is, they announced the Kenobi series on Disney +. 

 

I thought the show should be set entirely on the sand blown dunes of Tatooine. A slow-burn character study of Obi-Wan as he struggles with the regret and trauma he suffered during the events of Revenge of the Sith. A mythological journey of self realization through the act and overcoming of suffering. A meditation on the very psyche of the human condition. 

 

But alas! There is no Herculean myth of Obi-Wan Kenobi, no critique on the repercussions of the Jedi Code, no interiority, no patience, and certainly no subtlety. Instead it maintains the same formulaic, lightspeed-paced quest-of-the-week plotting found in every other Disney+ Star Wars show, following Obi-Wan as he tries to return a kidnapped Leia back to her adoptive parents on Alderaan. In this plotting the show tumbles, trips and falls, becoming too distracted by Leia and her obstacles to offer any concern for Obi-Wan’s. 

 

Such are the missteps of the show that it becomes too afraid to look upon its titular hero with contempt and slowly submerge the audience in his failures, allowing us to criticize (and mourn) the consequences of his actions. In those briefest of moments when it looks like the show will dive deeper into Obi-Wan’s psyche, it hesitates to step over the line.

 

It is ironic, then, that both posters do more for this exploration of his psyche than any of the episodes: in the first, a lone man wandering the desert in the light of the setting sun, in the other, a murky mirage of Obi Wan with Vader where his heart should be.

 

This isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy the show. Episode 1 had genuine tension between Owen Lars and Obi-Wan and patiently observed the latter's daily life. Episode 3 showcased the raw power of Darth Vader, an immovable object and an unstoppable force. He becomes the glue that holds the show’s crumbling pieces together. And there were a few scenes in the final half of the final episode that became a microcosm of what the show could have been… if only it had.

 

Some claim that each of the show's six episodes thematically parallels an episode from the original six movies. Broadly, I see this connection, but it’s nothing more than a superficial reenactment of what once was, a cheap reliance on the past plagiarized into a flimsy structure that isn’t nearly as complex and revolutionary as the writers probably thought it was. Omitting the ending of the duel in episode six, which becomes a poetic continuation of what it means to remove Vader’s mask.

 

To uphold these "thematic" parallels, the writers forced characters into situations rather than creating situations around characters. This created forced tensions and these forced tensions create forced climaxes. It is a story void of purpose. We already know how these characters' stories end. What's interesting - what should be interesting - is the journey, the how of Obi-Wan’s established journey, not the result of a new one.

 

The show’s execution misses more than the legions of Imperial Stormtroopers. The relentless shaky cam was dizzying and amateurish; the production was lazy and shallow; the overbearing, over-illuminated lightsabers would have felt more at home in a Disney gift shop; and the score lacked the iconic themes of the Original Trilogy. Where were the bombastic baritones of the “Imperial March,” the monastic vocalizations of “Battle of Heroes”? Not here… until they squeeze some in during the last episode in an utterly lazy attempt to strike one more nostalgic chord. 

 

The result is a visually underwhelming and audibly frustrating experience that stunted the efforts of the actors. Ewan McGregor is near-perfect, and balances the title character between his younger self and Alec Guiness’ iteration; Joel Edgerton is severely underused as Owen Lars and yet unsurprisingly sublime; Moses Ingram - despite whatever mind trick social media is trying to use this week - hits the notes required of her; Vivian Lyra Blair is transformative as a younger Leia, although she always has the answers to everything as a ten year old; and Hayden Christensen has returned to his role as Anakin Skywalker while simultaneously matching every precise mannerism of David Prowse’s Darth Vader.

 

Kenobi is too distracted by the past and too afraid of dividing the audience to take advantage of the potential placed before it, joining the endless chain of "new-age" Disney IP that produces quantity over quality in which the quantities are just hollow reflections of each other, creating a suffocating pattern of redundancy and repetition.

 

But Star Wars isn’t redundancy and repetition, it's a shot in the dark; a fantastical swashbuckling space opera released when Hollywood preferred merciless antiheroes; a supposed pre-destined failure that became an international phenomenon; a saga that redefined Hollywood, not one that copied it.

 

Unfortunately, Kenobi copies it, created more as a nostalgia-bait spectacle than as an independent effort to go against the current trend of superficial sequels that rely on shallow satisfaction for financial gain. Thus, the show becomes little more than a forgettable footnote in the history of Star Wars, but I’ll hold out hope for Andor. After all, rebellions are built on hope, even cinematic ones.