Latest / Aggressive Negotiations: A Star Wars Podcast / Issue 328: Obi-Wan Kenobi: Part VI

Transcript

Issue 328: Obi-Wan Kenobi: Part VI · Aggressive Negotiations: A Star Wars Podcast

0:03
Welcome to the nerd polity. Hi, this is Nick Nastasu, story editor
0:09
on Star Wars, the Clone Wars and Star Wars bad Batch, and you
0:14
are listening to Aggressive Negotiations. Thank you for joining Aggressive Negotiations the Star Wars
0:43
podcast here on the nerd Party network that is dedicated to exploring all of the
0:49
unknown and unknowable regions of the Star Wars galaxy. And back with me as
0:55
always from his goodwill tour to spread the music of Taylor Swift to the Chiss
0:59
people is Jedi Master Matthew Rushing. Matt how did it go? Were they
1:03
able to shake it off? You know? It went all too well and
1:11
they really liked it. And a fact so strangely enough, some Grand Admiral
1:17
named Thrown was really big fan of the song Fearless, because well that's who
1:23
he is. So and Matt has now named more Taylor Swift songs than I've
1:27
ever known, and I like to thank him for that. Those sorts of
1:32
things keeping me hip on modern culture. And you can stay hip with podcasting
1:36
culture by going over to the nerdparty dot com dropping a line to us at
1:41
the Nerdparty dot com slash contact going over to Apple Podcasts, giving us a
1:46
review, or joining us. Over on social media on Twitter, we're at
1:49
the Jedi Masters and the network is available as the nerd Party over on Facebook
1:57
and Instagram, and then doubling back to Twitter, it is at joy Nerd
2:00
Party. Those are the best places to reach out to everyone. And maybe
2:04
someday we'll be on Blue Sky and Threads and TikTok and everything else under the
2:08
sun, because Heaven knows, you can't have too many social networks. There's
2:14
never enough. And what you could never have enough of, at least in
2:19
Matt's estimation, is obi Wan Kenobi. There could ever be too much obi
2:23
Wan Kenobi. And so we close out our anniversary rewatch of the Obi Wan
2:29
Kenobi series with this episode where we have both revisited the sixth episode of what
2:36
is termed season one, implying a potential season two who knows, and Matt,
2:43
let's just get it out of the way. We know where we were
2:46
at the end of episode five. We're coming into episode six with a big
2:50
question mark of how are we going to resolve this? Because of course Obi
2:53
Wan's on the run. There's a start destroyer after him. Rokan has indicated
2:59
there's problems with the ship. There's a whole bunch of people trapped. Coming
3:04
into the sixth episode, where's your head? And does it start off on
3:08
the right foot? Well, I think the strange thing about this episode is
3:15
that we basically are doing the chase sequence from the last Jedi, which is
3:25
an interesting choice. Um. And then we proceed to spend copious amounts of
3:36
time trying to u you know, maybe get get off this ride. Um
3:46
and uh I rewatching this one was was fascinating, um, because this beginning
3:58
it's so poorly constructed. The editing of it makes no sense for the situation
4:09
that we're in, where it's so dire, the fact that you know,
4:14
tie fighters aren't sent out to like really knock this ship down or I just
4:19
and I know anybody's listening, you know, forever and always. As Taylor
4:26
Swift would say, Anakin is overconfident and he's over confidence is coming out now.
4:30
But just none of this makes sense because we spend so much time lollygagging
4:40
around until Obi Wan finally gets on this ship. It's like you've cut all
4:44
of the tension out that you're really in danger here, because why does the
4:48
we would need to leave, couldn't they? You just keep dodging blaster bolts
4:53
for ad nauseum and finally get away once your hyperdrive is fixed. The instruction,
5:00
I agree, is a challenge. I would say that the biggest part
5:02
of the construction of this episode, throughout the entire thing, is this is
5:06
the point where it becomes extremely apparent that Reva's story is tacked onto what the
5:12
original Obi Wan movie was going to be because where we're going with the chase
5:17
and him separating and all of that type of stuff, And this is apparent
5:20
to me from the very beginning. The way it intercuts those storylines also undercuts
5:27
tension. It's tough enough because we know Obi Wan's going to live. We
5:31
know he's going to live, We just don't know is he going to sneak
5:34
away? Is he going to pull a trick? What does him surviving look
5:40
like? That's the intrigue. And will anybody die? Well, Leia's on
5:43
the ship, so we know Leia's not going to die. So the question
5:46
is immediately we know in the back of our brains, no matter what,
5:50
that ship is not going to get destroyed. It can't any ship where Obi
5:57
Wan and or Leia is that's just out of play. And I think that
6:03
underscores why it's so important to use quick cuts and fast storytelling to get me
6:12
into it, to allow me to lie to myself, because keep me off
6:15
balance, and I can start to have those questions of, oh, well
6:19
wait, I don't know the shape of it. I don't know how it's
6:21
going to happen, but it does take too long. And additionally, as
6:28
we progress through it and we cut with Reva and her pursuit on tatoween,
6:33
the first time through was enough of a challenge for me. This time through
6:41
was very discordant because these two things don't seem terribly well related to each other.
6:51
And I think, from the outset, and let me throw it out
6:55
here, I think from the outset, it would have been better for Riva
7:00
to have seen a bit of that recording and have her disappear and have us
7:05
and have her not in this episode and have us all saying, well,
7:11
wait a minute, where is she? How is she going to play this?
7:15
Is she gonna stay evil? Is she gonna turn? Is she gonna
7:16
go into hiding? There's your tease for season two? I mean, I
7:21
know I agree with that. UM could have kept her dead. You know,
7:30
there's a whole lot of things I feel like you could have done with
7:32
the character Riva, But it feels like at this point her storyline should be
7:38
over, and I think I want to dig into it now, I just
7:43
I don't. I think it's interesting this idea that she chooses not to turn
7:49
into Anakin Skywalker, but I find it distracting from the rest of the story.
7:55
Like you said, so, yes, this seems like what you should
7:58
have done. You should have had the resolution in this episode with Anakin and
8:03
Obi Wan and have a final episode that actually dealt with Riva threat. Don't
8:11
have it in or cutting at all, so you can really create the tension
8:16
here where it needs to be. You can still have the end of the
8:22
episode where you could have the end episode end on the cliffhanger of Luke Got
8:28
the Black, you know. But I think that the other problem here is
8:33
is that it doesn't really service either story very well because it Riva storyline is
8:43
not given the full follow through that you would want, you know, and
8:48
you know, it's also still very hard for me to swallow here that you
8:54
have somebody other than Obi one and bail Or gonna his wife maybe not even
9:01
his wife really, and Yoda that knows that Luke exists, right, And
9:11
that's still a major sticking point. So not only do I not think that
9:15
its service as the story very well for her or for what you know you're
9:20
going through with Obi Wan and Anakin, I just don't. I don't think
9:28
that what they end up doing with the character in the end really does a
9:33
great job of servicing the entire hole of the saga of allowing again, this
9:43
secret is the biggest secret in all of Star Wars, right, and to
9:48
just so Willy and Nilly allow somebody else to know it seems very strange to
9:52
me, especially since we'll probably at this point never see this character again.
9:58
So I don't know. I everything in the finale here just feels so much
10:03
messier than it needs to be. I would offer that there was a way
10:09
for them to tie things together, but I also know that sometimes people get
10:11
annoyed when we go into these sort of writing, you know, rewriting story
10:18
room scenes. But I'll just say that I think you can still get her
10:22
to Tatterwheen and have her surprise obi Wan. And when she surprises obi Wan,
10:26
she sees a young boy with him and she says what and you get
10:33
a bigger conflagration, and obi Wan before she even goes after, like either
10:39
obi Wan, even before she goes after Luke says, you don't have to
10:41
do this, you don't have to be like Anakin, and then she gets
10:43
her flash and she's like, oh my gosh, you're right. Or let's
10:48
even have Luke demonstrate some sort of ability and or let's at least make him
10:54
on the same level as Leia in terms of his interaction with people and being
11:01
able to get empathy from them, and have him actually talk to her and
11:05
say, I don't even know who my dad is. What are you talking
11:09
about, and have Reva have a moment where she's like, I can't punish
11:13
him for what his dad did. He doesn't even know his dad. Like
11:18
that just seems like that would have been a cleaner way to resolve that.
11:22
It feels like this was an attempt to introduce more tension and it just doesn't
11:31
click much the same way that I think the battle between obi Wan and Vader
11:39
doesn't land cleanly, Because the big thing that this show winds up addressing and
11:48
resolving is everybody everybody made the lazy joke for years and years, just left
11:54
Vader lay in there. He didn't kill him, and we find out no
11:56
exactly what we've been saying for years, what many people have been saying for
12:00
years. He thought Anakin was dead, That's why he walked away. But
12:03
then here he knows Vaders alive and he walks away. It makes less sense
12:13
here for him not just to walk up and be like, all right,
12:16
head off, you're done by it, right. It's a very clumsy end
12:22
to their fight. Well, and the biggest part of this is is that,
12:26
you know, rewatching it. There's that moment where Obi one is talking
12:30
to Qui Gon before he leaves the ship, and he says, you know,
12:35
whether my death or his this ends today, and it seems strange that
12:46
he would not, like you said, end it. You know. Oh,
12:52
the most interesting part here is you know you have Anakin saying, you
12:58
know you didn't kill Anna Skywalker. I did. And so you have a
13:03
nice realization as to why this character of Obi Wan Kenobe would think that his
13:09
friend is truly gone. He is more machine now than man, twisted and
13:13
evil. You know, he's told him to his face. But the resolution
13:20
of this fight doesn't leave you in a place where. So now it just
13:28
I don't know. Again, I think when I said that it's just messier
13:33
than it needs to be, we're kind of creating a mess that doesn't need
13:39
to be there because we're not before we film the episode. In the writing
13:48
process, we haven't figured out the best way to make this truly feel seamless
13:56
with Cannon, right, I think there's plenty of ways you can do that.
14:00
I'm not going to stay here and try and rewrite it. You know
14:01
that that's not I don't I'm here to do. I just think that there
14:05
are many ways you could have figured out to do that. And you know
14:11
they didn't hear and it it. I don't mind, you know, them
14:16
fighting again or anything. I don't mind obi Wan even winning. I think
14:20
it's better here if he truly does like it looks like Anakin is dead,
14:24
right, um something. You and I go back and forth. You and
14:30
I go back and forth on this. I think that I think the best
14:31
spot to end it would have had Obi Wan buried in the rocks and Vader
14:37
walk away and be like I did it, He's gone, and then obi
14:41
Wan get out and you know, I don't know, like the Inquisitor see
14:45
the blip go by and like turn off the monitor and be like, yes,
14:48
good job, you know, like you know, the Grand Inquisitor is
14:52
like, uh yeah, he's yeah, yeah, he's dead. Nobody left
14:56
the planet. U I gotta ask because it it really jumped out at me
15:03
here and the thing is before people roll their eyes and there are there are
15:07
aspects of this episode. I do really like that. I think play very
15:11
well. I think that the the effects the Star Destroyer effects. I know
15:18
it seems weird to fixate on this, but it looks beautiful. It looks
15:22
so beautiful, and the recreate, like as it's turning and then it winds
15:28
up in this quasi recreation of the Star Destroyer chasing the falcon in Empire strikes
15:37
back with that head on shot and you look at it and you say,
15:41
oh, that's beautiful. The way that it's done. It's it's a framable
15:43
shot. I enjoy the Grand Inquisitor on the bridge with Vader, I actually
15:50
eat as clunky as it is with Riva. I like the fact that we
15:52
get to see the Lars make a stand, as clunky as that's even put
15:58
together. I like see to make a stand for Luke's sake, and for
16:03
Riva to say, you know you care about him as if he's your own,
16:04
and he says he is, He's you know like that, Owen truly
16:11
does love Luke. He's got a manaze. You are my song. Yeah,
16:18
the music, especially in the Invader and Obi Wan fight, leaves me
16:29
hollow. And it didn't bother me as much the first time I watched it,
16:33
but this time when I was watching it, I just felt the lack
16:38
of strong music cues during that fight. Keep in mind, this is a
16:44
series where I'm used to battle of the heroes. I'm used to duel of
16:49
the fates of that chral swelling. When Luke is kick Invader's butt. In
16:55
Return of the Jedi, the the really creepy cloud of lightsabers music from the
17:00
Empire strikes back really powerful stuff. Am I off base? Did you do?
17:11
You think I'm way off base with that? But I just felt I
17:14
didn't get the emotional oops that I was looking for from the music. No,
17:18
it's definitely missing something, and I think that's a big part of the
17:22
episode, especially in that scene. There there are some nice little music cues
17:26
with Leia's theme. Then I think the forced theme mixing with then the OBI
17:32
one theme as he leaves Aldron, which is great. You know. I
17:37
like that scene between him and Leia as he says goodbye to her. I
17:41
think that's all really nice. I really enjoy the scene where he gets to
17:45
meet Luke and he has the conversation with Owen. I think that's a really
17:49
nice scene. Of course. I mean we'll talk about a little bit more,
17:53
the Qui Gon scene. All of that stuff I think is really really
17:57
good. And but yeah, I think the main crux of the episode again,
18:02
you know, could could watch Obi one beat up Vader all day.
18:07
It's great. But the problem is is that the shot selection and composition editing,
18:14
the choreography for the fight, and really it's it's the way it shot
18:22
take all of the umph out of it, right, Which is so sad
18:27
because one of the hallmarks of of course, episode three is the incredible amount
18:34
of work that these two actors put into creating this seamless, incredible fight,
18:41
right, and the way it shot gives you the perfect view of all of
18:47
that work they've put into it. This is completely different. It's shot with
18:52
the shaky cam, then it zooms out really far. You've got overhead shots.
18:56
It's like they can't really they The problem is is that nobody here knows
19:02
how to shoot a lightsaber sequence because they haven't done it. What they needed
19:07
somebody to do was from the animation to come in and basically say, okay,
19:11
this is how you shoot a lightsaber sequence. Because we've done a ton
19:15
of them, we know exactly what they're supposed to look like. And you
19:18
know, it would make sense too when you're using so much of the volume
19:23
those animated people. You know, editors would know exactly, you know,
19:29
where cameras should be and all of that. And so I think that's the
19:33
thing that's just so frustrating here is that, as with the whole series,
19:37
I feel like it has so much potential, but then it just kind of
19:42
squanders a lot of the potential it has with I think fine choices, sometimes
19:52
not so fine choices, but a lot of times it's like, oh,
19:55
it's fine, but you don't want aggressively fine. You want aggressively amazing.
20:02
Right, Yeah, we think this might be aggressive negotiations, but I want
20:07
aggressively fantastic, you know, um with an Obi Wan show, and so
20:14
you know when you're gonna do this this big battle between these two again and
20:18
it comes off is okay, that's not the feeling you want. I think
20:26
the the largest problem there is one you put your finger on it in terms
20:33
of shot selection and everything. Here's where I go into dangerous territory to say
20:40
this. Lucas was a genius. He's a still photographer at heart. He
20:47
knows specifically what and yes, we'll fix it in post mister it's good enough,
20:52
and he gets there. But he's also really meticulous, and I think
20:57
this is a fight where you are adding another chapter to a very storied back
21:07
and forth battle of heroes here, in this case hero and villain. You
21:15
have got to come at it and say, we are going to top what
21:21
Lucas pulled off in episode three, which we all know is an impossibility.
21:26
I don't think that it's possible to do that, and I also know that
21:30
Steven Spielberg helped him a bit with it, you know, in blocking some
21:34
stuff out and everything. So you got basically two incredible people figuring stuff out
21:41
for that episode three battle and cool. You have to come at it and
21:48
say, we've got to make it look like we went for broke and we
21:52
were we did better it's not enough to have them moving through rocks. They
21:57
had to be jumping from spire top. They have to be doing all of
22:02
these sorts of crazy things, not just throwing rocks at each other, which
22:06
is cool and I appreciate it. I thought it was neat, But again
22:12
you're dealing with I'm adding a piece to a tapestry that is so rich and
22:22
amazing to look at that. If I don't come with guns a blazon,
22:26
even if I have to go in and augment everything by using CG characters in
22:33
shots to get them to jump around, that's what I gotta do, because
22:37
there is an inborn expectation, even among non diehard Star Wars fans. I
22:44
remember episode three, show me what you're going to do here might not be
22:48
fair, might undercut what you really want to do with the scene, but
22:53
there is an expectation. And I just rewatch with with my youngest the Rebels
23:04
in season two of Rebels, the fight between Ezra a Canaan invader. There's
23:11
not a lot of acrobatics in that, but to your point, animation knew
23:17
how to cut it. The animation knew how to put it together. Animation
23:19
knew how to have that tension in the scene that you know, I know
23:27
I've rambled it this No, I think what you're saying. And this is
23:32
the thing that and this is the absolute problem with the volume is that it
23:38
limits your choices so badly that you confine yourself and you can't get out of
23:48
it. You know, they only have so much space on the volume,
23:52
and so they can't do what you're asking. Um, that's why George created
23:56
blue screen rooms. Swear he would, you know, have Marx that they
24:00
could hit and then you do the rest of it and post right, And
24:06
so that was the point of that, you know. And I'm not saying
24:12
whether I love one more than the other in the sense of like what's better
24:15
or whatever, because I also really love practicality. It's one of the things
24:19
I love so much about the and Or series is the practicality of it.
24:26
But it feels real and this role, and especially in a moment like this,
24:30
that's exactly what you want. Even though the battle in episode three they
24:37
are surrounded by computer animation right all over the place, it's just VFX on
24:44
top of VFX, the fight is so well shot that I'm focused on them
24:51
and nothing else. And that's the thing that we don't get here. The
24:55
camera work doesn't give that to you, and the cinematography doesn't give that to
25:00
you, and then the choice of how we're shooting it doesn't give that to
25:03
you. So it's just I think it creates a failure to launch on all
25:11
levels. Yes, because I think speaking again, just to wrap it up,
25:18
you're shooting in the volume. You have a floor and you say levels,
25:23
and you don't even have any anything for the higher ground. You don't
25:30
have up and down, like you have no vertic They're not fighting on any
25:34
vertical axis. Whereas you go back to episode three, they're going down,
25:38
they're going up, they're going across, they're leaping, they're jumping, they're
25:41
evading. It's more exciting, and yeah, that's there. And I think
25:49
that it's also undercut by the fact that it cuts to Reva pursuing Luke.
25:57
So any tension you might get built, any excite mean you might get built,
26:03
gets undercut by another chase where I know Owen, Luke and Brew are
26:08
all going to live, so Riva going after them is sort of like,
26:12
well, you know, like you're playing against the assured outcome, and it's
26:18
it just requires a different combination of things that you know, they just don't
26:26
quite quite get to. I can't help but wonder if Riva's pursuit of Luke
26:33
was pulled out, if that fight plays better. And additionally we get right
26:40
back to jj Abram's teleportation hyper space. Well, so I think that the
26:45
thing that as you were talking, I was I was thinking about what we
26:51
were talking about over in the six or two club with the new Indiana Jones
26:53
film and about, Okay, what's the point of this show. It's obi
27:00
Wan Kenobi, right. The whole thing is about getting him from being in
27:04
a place where he feels completely lost and hopeless and done to being where he
27:12
is at the end of this episode. And I think you have to rush
27:21
through all of those moments even as it's shot here, instead of really allowing
27:25
that to be the focus, because this is the episode where obi Wan Kenobi
27:30
becomes the obi Wan Kenobi that you know, and in episode four, you
27:37
know by the end of this episode that's who he is. You know,
27:41
he's going to become that person because he's confident in himself. He's confident and
27:47
Luke with the Larses, and he's confident with the fact that he can go
27:52
live on the other side of the Dune sea and wait for the Force to
27:55
bring Luke to him, and then he's ready to finally meet Qui gon Gin.
28:02
And I think one of the biggest issues, and I'm just kind of
28:07
putting it in a really big perspective, is that, you know, that's
28:10
the driving force of the series, at least it's supposed to be. And
28:14
I think that this episode doesn't do a good job of accentuating the very point
28:21
of doing this series and the way that it wants to because of all of
28:26
these issues that we've talked about, and I think you would have ameliorated a
28:30
lot of them by just having one more episode and allowing everything Reva wise to
28:40
be pushed to that episode. And you know, regardless of exactly how the
28:45
fight ends with Vader and all that stuff, I still think it would have
28:49
ended up feeling better because you would have really allowed us to marinate deeply in
29:00
and the change that comes over Obi Wan Kenobi when, like Indiana Jones at
29:07
the end of The Newest Movie, he realizes, no, I am still
29:11
necessary, I am so important and what I'm doing matters to people around me,
29:17
and I can still have a positive impact on the universe, even though
29:19
it seems like all is lost. That's the whole point, right, But
29:25
we really rush through that sequence where you just get the quick flashes and then
29:29
he's good. You know, it's like, but this, I feel like
29:33
we need to marinate in that just a little bit more. And you know,
29:37
the editing doesn't allow us to be able to do that. You know.
29:40
I almost wonder too, going back to the whole intercutting with Riva thing,
29:45
if that also it makes certain things feel stretched out that shouldn't be,
29:51
Like maybe that really is Maybe the solution is as simple as what you're saying,
29:55
is just extricate that whole thing and just treat it on its own instead
29:59
of trying to intercut it with Maybe that is a solution to it. You
30:03
know, I could see that, and I could see that. I still
30:07
you know, I still think you lose focus. Like you're saying, it's
30:12
Obi Wan's show. It's not the Reeva show. It's Obi Wan's show.
30:17
That's what I'm here for. And getting that character to where he needs to
30:19
be that's what I need. Well, And I think the other thing too,
30:26
is that you know, there is such a great end the very end
30:30
where we have him finally meet Qui Gon. You have this wonderful moment that's
30:37
just phenomenal, and in some ways the show ends like you want it to.
30:45
But getting there has just been, I think, such a messy experience,
30:52
and therefore you leave on the high note. But it can aunt retroactively
31:02
change all of the I think frustrations that you still end up feeling. And
31:07
you know, having rewatched the show now, I'm I'm I end on.
31:11
Oh I love this, this is so great. At the same time,
31:15
I'm like, how we got here though, is just oo wufta. Yes,
31:21
I loved what what Quigan said to Obi Wan. I loved what Quigan
31:26
said to Obi Wan about I was always here, just waiting on you to
31:30
see you know, like that is an essentially Qui Gon and forced sort of
31:34
thing to say. You'd be like, oh yeah, no, no,
31:37
no, you just had to get to that point and it you know how
31:41
I feel about Qui Gon, so getting that I still I got giddy the
31:45
first time I saw it. I still got that rush this time. But
31:51
like you said, it can't erase the fact that still in the back of
31:53
my mind is, yeah, I could have gotten here a little close.
31:59
And I love what you just said though, because you know Quigan saying that
32:02
the message is seeing isn't believing something believing is seeing. It's not until Obi
32:08
Wan's really truly ready to believe in himself, in the force and his purpose
32:14
and all of those things, that he can finally actually see what's always been
32:17
in front of him. He just wasn't ready. And I think that's such
32:22
a great Star Wars message, right, you know, you think all the
32:29
way back to Han Solo saying, you know, a bunch of tricks and
32:34
nonsense, isn't you know a substitute for good blasts at your side? You
32:37
know? And but because he refuses to believe, so he won't be able
32:44
to see. And it's only by you know, him kind of being proven
32:47
wrong in the over the time that he kind of comes to that point.
32:52
So I just, you know, it's frustrating because I feel like if there's
33:00
anything I could say about the series overall is that it's just a mixed bag.
33:06
It is it is, and it's a frustrating mixed bag because there are
33:10
things where I think this is what has spurred on those fan edits. I
33:15
haven't watched any of them. But what has spurred on those fan edits is
33:19
I think a lot of people feel the same way that we do. I
33:22
know that there are trolls and and d bags out there. I'm not giving
33:30
the floor to the bad people. I'm not taking anybody's side like that.
33:37
I'm saying that, and maybe I'm completely wrong. Maybe those are the people
33:40
doing it, But like I haven't watched them, so I wonder if these
33:46
are fans who are in a spot where, like us, they so desperately
33:52
want to like what they like about this series that they're trying to find a
33:55
way to distill it, to filter out the the noise, as it were,
34:00
to get the cleanest possible mark, and because there's so much that just
34:09
feels unnecessary that's in it, that feels like padding and just isn't as clean
34:16
as it needs to be. And it's a shame because well, you know,
34:22
as we wrap it up, there's that conversation we called out between Riva
34:29
and Leah where we said, this is the scene that these two actresses were
34:34
cast for the way this scene plays is exactly why they were cast because it
34:38
plays so well, and I think little Leia, she's not ten never in
34:45
a million years is she ten? But she's still cute, and she's still
34:49
a capable actress, and she has some great moments. Euan McGregor is effortless
34:53
as obi Wan. He is obi Wan Kenobi. When you say obi Wan
34:57
Kenobi, I, like so many people in the world, grew up with
35:00
Ale again us, But Euan McGregor is the first person that comes to mind
35:04
for me now as obi Wan Kenobi. I thought having Hayden Christians in back
35:12
was a treat, an absolute joy, and I like the way they portrayed
35:15
Vader. I like a lot of the stuff that Vader had to do,
35:20
But it's just that it's that distilling. It's that distilling that is so but
35:25
we can't you know, like, isn't that the message of it? Sometimes
35:30
we just have to deal with the way that it is and you know,
35:36
just love what we love and acknowledge that maybe it wasn't perfect and carry on,
35:42
not be south park about it. I guess you could say, right,
35:45
let's let's go ahead and see. Yeah. I mean, you know,
35:47
I think that it's one of those things where the series didn't live up
35:53
to what I hoped it would, and that's frustrating. And yet at the
36:00
same time, Yeah, I would say this, you know, if anybody
36:05
had asked me back in the day, right, if I was more excited
36:10
about an and Or series or an Obi one series, everybody knows what my
36:14
answer would be. Right. And the fact that just because of what the
36:20
shows were, one ended up being one of my all time favorite Star Wars
36:28
series and the other one didn't. It just goes to show that it's about
36:32
the content itself, you know, and the content has to speak for itself,
36:38
and so to me, unfortunately, the content did not speak to me
36:43
in this show the way I hoped it would. But I go into every
36:49
show that they put out with the hope that it would. And so,
36:58
you know, regardless of this, if this is a winner for me,
37:00
maybe maybe next time, maybe you know, maybe Skeleton Crew like blows my
37:05
socks off, you know it. So I gotta ask, on a scale
37:07
of one to ten, where are you rating Star Wars Obi Wan Kenobi the
37:14
Disney Plus streaming event series. You mean, I guess as an overall?
37:23
As an overall? Yeah, and and and you can't use halves, all
37:29
right, we both get away with it. Everybody gets away with it.
37:32
It was like you know, three and a half out of five star stuff
37:35
like that. No, no, no, no, no, gotta be
37:37
whole whole numbers on a scale of one to ten whole numbers. The only
37:42
choice, where are you putting Obi wan Kenobi the series? I think that
37:49
you know, if we're doing this out of five, I think it's legitimately
37:52
a two ouch. So that translates to a four out of ten. That's
38:00
a failing race. To say, if we had done half stars, it
38:02
would have been a two and a half, because that's half good. And
38:06
but I mean, I've got to go on the side of if we're if
38:10
we're forced to have no half stars, I unfortunately have to a side with
38:15
the fact that, um, it's uh, there's there's too much here,
38:22
that's that's not what it should be. I'm nowhere near as harsh, and
38:27
that is specifically because we both know that there are things about this series that
38:31
I liked more than you did, and I you translate on a ten point
38:37
scale to a four out of ten, which is a failing grade. The
38:42
thing that kills me is until this sixth episode, I was at a solid
38:50
seven out of ten this final episode because of how much they stumble. It's
39:00
a six, So there's not a great deal of difference. If I were
39:05
giving myself the luxury of half points on a ten point scale, and in
39:08
which case it might as well be a twenty point scale, it would be
39:12
like a six and a half, I would split the difference because I enjoyed
39:19
a solid portion of this. And if you go back and you listen to
39:22
us talking about it, I'm with you up. You know, through the
39:25
first four episodes, Okay, okay, I'm working with you, all right,
39:29
there are things I'm not crazy about. Helicopter lightsabers should have been in
39:31
there, but whatever, whatever, I'm rolling with it. We get to
39:36
the fifth episode, I'm like, there's some really solid stuff. There's some
39:40
stuff that doesn't work, but there's some really solid stuff in it. And
39:44
then it's just this sixth one. You gotta stick the landing man. And
39:49
that's why so many people wind up, you know, they wound up coming
39:54
out of Phantom Menace as many gripes as they had. Everybody said, yeah,
39:59
but that lightsaber battle at the end, that's what the sixth episode needed
40:06
to be. It needed to be. Yeah, but that lightsaber battle at
40:08
the end, and it wasn't that, And that's that's where it stumbles.
40:15
And I'm sure that the hate mail is being written as we speak. So
40:19
Matt, where can people find you online so that they can direct all of
40:22
their hatred and anger via the Emperor's hologram post office too? Oh, John?
40:27
Of course you can find me all over the Placeline social media under the
40:30
name Matt Rushing zero to Twitter, Instagram, letterbox, vero. I guess
40:35
you know new places that are being announced. You can find me there as
40:38
well. You can also find me here on the network with a completed show
40:43
I did with Dreya Kaufman. It's called Owl Post. We talked about every
40:45
single chapter of the Harry Potter series, one chapter at a time. You
40:51
can also, of course find me over on the TFM network with a bunch
40:55
of shows. One is called the six or two Club. We talk about
40:59
all of the fans we love, not just Star Trek or anything else where.
41:04
We're talking everything. In fact, like I mentioned, John and I
41:07
were just there with Christy Morris talking about the brand new Indiana Jones film,
41:13
so you want to check that out. You can also find me doing literary
41:15
tracks the orb Warp five, the artificial tango and a saddle up all on
41:20
that network. But John, you know people want to send their hate mail
41:25
to you about your dislike of the Obi Wan series. I mean, not
41:30
quite as much as mine, so I'll be getting tons. Where would they
41:32
find you, Well, you can find me at Matt Rushing zero two.
41:36
Send all of your hate mail there. I kid, of course, but
41:38
seriously do you can reach out to me online as kessel Junkie k s s
41:44
Ljunkie. You should know how to spell it by this point. Some of
41:47
you reach out to me on Twitter, and I appreciate you. I love
41:51
interacting with you. Thank you, And of course you could find me here
41:54
on the network co hosting a show called house Lights where we look at the
41:59
works of directors through different blah blah combination blah blah career blah blah blah blah.
42:05
But it's a fun little thing that I co host with Tristan Riddell and
42:07
Darren Moser. But I'll tell you what. We have dug ourselves into a
42:12
deep enough hole, Master Rushing. So I think it's time to close these
42:15
negotiations, John, negotiations are closed. Join the Revolution, Join the nerd Party.