‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’ could be the last hope for Star Wars under Disney


In the first Star Wars movie, Luke Skywalker is cleaning his newly acquired R2-D2 droid. In the process, he accidentally activates a secret message sent by Princess Leia aboard the ship Tantive IV. A message that kicks off the second act of the film and, in many ways, the Star Wars franchise as a whole:

“Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You are my only hope.”

It is a classic line. Perhaps the defining line of a series full of them. But in 2022, on May 4 of all days, it is a line that strikes differently.

In May 2022, weeks before Obi Wan Kenobipremiere of disney morecould be I delivering that line. Me: a bruised and battered Star Wars fan, watching in horror as Disney dumped scrap after scrap into canon.

As I press play on the new trailer for the seriesit could be me in hologram form: “Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You are my only hope.”

And from a weird meta perspective, it could be Disney itself. After a mixed trilogy of big budget and Largely unsuccessful spin-off filmshaunted by mediocre shows like boba fett book, Obi-Wan Kenobi feels like a great bet for Disney. A moment of life or death for a series that languishes in stagnation. One last hope.

Page turners, they weren’t

Make no mistake: Star Wars, at least for the last decade, has sucked. During that period, Star Wars took me on a wild ride that started with anger, then acceptance, but finally ended in complete indifference.

I just don’t care about Star Wars anymore, and I don’t think I’m alone. I’m not interested in its universe, its characters or its success. Star Wars, that legendary story that takes place a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, has lost its mystique.

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The Last Jedi ruled when it was released, and it only got better with age.

Disney

It hurts more because Disney got it initially. straight. After a well-made (if safe) homage film in The Force Awakens, Star Wars broke the mold with The Last Jedi; a movie that challenged not only assumptions about Jedi lore and other cheesy nonsense, but also notions of nostalgia and fandom itself. In short, he absolutely ruled.

In perhaps the best Star Wars scene ever filmed, Yoda stands in front of a blazing fire that he started. “The holy texts,” Luke screams, in agony.

“Pages past, they weren’t,” Yoda replies.

This was a movie that told us “let the past die, kill it if you have to”. It was everything the Star Wars series needed, and it was amazing.

Of course, everyone got angry. Disney panicked. Rise of Skywalker, a makeshift spreadsheet from a movie, was the result. It looked, felt and played like a movie written by a toxic Reddit thread gone sentient, undoing all the bold decisions made in The Last Jedi. It was the first nail in the coffin for my own Star Wars fandom, but it wouldn’t be the last.

In the wake of Rise of Skywalker, we’ve seen Star Wars do little more than pander to an audience desperate for nostalgia. To be clear: we all need to take our share of the blame for this. We’ve become a cursed collective that judges the quality of shows like The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett based on the quality of their cameos. Did a grotesquely CGI Luke Skywalker appear? Good. Is there no Ahsoka Tano or Baby Yoda in this episode? Evil.

It is completely deformed.

That’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time.

Given the lackluster quality of Disney’s recent Star Wars output, it’s unreasonable to expect Obi-Wan Kenobi to signal a sea change, but I do retain a small, smoldering ember of hope. For some reasons.

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We now have a different generation of fans who are nostalgic for a different kind of Star Wars.

Merrick Morton

Reason 1: The stakes are high. Obi-Wan Kenobi is a central character in the Star Wars universe, and is played by one of Hollywood’s biggest stars. Of all the shows released on Disney Plus, do you feel it’s important that they get this straight. Those bets might make Disney play it safe, but hopefully it will result in a higher quality production across the board.

Reason 2: We have a generation of Star Wars fans who yearn for a different kind of nostalgic. The most recent Star Wars trilogy spent six hours straight playing with or against the original trilogy. In 2022 we have a group of 30-somethings who grew up alongside the prequel trilogy.

I’m a nostalgia-bait hater in just about every medium I consume, but I suspect it might be fun to go back to the aesthetic prequel with a new set of eyeballs that age collectively. Prequel-land feels like a different Star Wars universe that’s less rigid and lived-in. There is potential for something unique there.

In that sense, Obi-Wan could also act as a bridge of sorts. It’s not a bridge in the style of Rogue One, a boring movie that strives to plug holes that never needed to be plugged, but something more expansive and imaginative. Within the narrow confines of the Star Wars universe, there’s room in Obi-Wan’s timeline for something different: new characters, new enemies, new planets. There’s also room to create connective tissue between the trilogies that feels less complicated. Recent movies and shows have made Star Wars feel ramshackle and small, held together with super glue and duct tape. Maybe I’m guilty of projecting my own hopes and dreams here, but maybe Obi-Wan Kenobi can make Star Wars feel vast and unknowable again. I don’t know. Maybe.

I will be very disappointed if you continue painting by numbers. Obi-Wan Kenobi could yet become another Star Wars bleh show, stumbling from one fanservice cameo to the next like a decaying zombie in search of brains. That’s almost certainly the most likely outcome here, but we can dare to dream.

Help us, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You are our only hope.



Reference-www.cnet.com

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