'Obi-Wan Kenobi' series review: A disjointed take on the Jedi's adventures

Obi-Wan Kenobi

Cast: Ewan McGregor, Hayden Christensen, Moses Ingram

Score: 3 stars

Obi-Wan Kenobi's friendship with Anankin Skywalker was considered a thing of legend in the Old Republic, at least until Anakin fell to the Dark Side and became Darth Vader in Revenge of the Sith. 10 years later, in Obi-Wan Kenobi, little is left of it to speak of as the former Jedi Master is broken from his loss.

On the whole, a broken Obi-Wan does kind of work as it allows him to grow into Ben Kenobi from A New Hope -- a wisened old man who realises his friend is lost and works accordingly to train Luke to be the successor of the Jedi instead, but it feels rather disjointed and tacked on instead of being an "organic" development.

Perhaps the key reason for this rather sinking feeling is that the series treats Obi-Wan as a point of obsession rather than just a character, particularly for two others whom it mistreats at the expense of said obsession -- The Third Sister, Reva of the Inquisitors, and Darth Vader himself. It's a bit comical that the Grand Inquisitor, the head of the order led by Vader for hunting Jedi, is the level-headed one in this collection of Imperial Force users, but that's just how the star destroyer floats in this case.

For Reva, her obsession with Obi-Wan is left unexplored for a majority of the show, finally revealing itself just before the end. The cost it pays is that it cheapens Reva as a character, making her feel like a one-trick pony, before giving her a suddenly wider range of emotions to contend with. Moses Ingram plays the role well, but feels rather shafted in the unfortunate tunnel vision of her character.

Vader, on the other hand, has several years of history with Obi-Wan and his obsession with his former master makes a lot more sense. He is angry, he is in pain and he is out for retribution, and it shows in the few short encounters the two characters have, as Vader dishes out a new brand of brutality that he had not shown in the Original Trilogy (but did in the comics and games). Their ultimate confrontation also rounds out both their arcs until that point, clearly defining what lines they operate under. The series also manages to redeem Hayden Christensen, who in this reviewer's opinion, was given undue bad attention for his acting and remains the highlight of the prequels along with Ewan McGregor.

On a whole, Obi-Wan Kenobi suffers from a case of identity issue. It's supposed to be a tale of showing what Obi-Wan was up to during his 20-odd-year exile on Tatooine as he watched over Luke in relative obscurity and hidden from the Empire, but the series veers from one direction to another, going for a slow-burning thriller to a high-octane action show even within the same episode, as Obi-Wan is compelled to deal not with Luke, but his sister Leia, as she becomes a driver of a plot to draw him out of hiding in a blatant repeat of what happens in The New Hope with her being held hostage on the Death Star. It helps that Leia's actor, Vivien Lyra Blair, acts more than maturely for her young age, but the script itself is weak and stumbles all over the place.

The show also suffers from a "fanboy syndrome" in that it executes key story points as if it were a fanfiction and not a piece of story canon. Even if said pieces fit together as a whole, they still feel disjointed when seen by themselves, particularly the first fight between Obi-Wan and Vader, where Obi-Wan basically only runs away like a scared guy. It doesn't help that nearly all of of the show's lightsaber fights are given wobbly camerawork, creating almost a nauseous atmosphere and damaging its overall presentation.