I just watched the first two episodes of the limited event series Kenobi, which has been much anticipated even before it was officially announced. As many may remember, when Disney took over Lucasfilm and announced a whole slew of Star Wars projects, it was anticipated that there would be an Obi-Wan-focused Star Wars Story movie set between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope. After Disney ditched the idea of non-storyline movies after Solo tanked (which I believe was because it was released too close in time to The Last Jedi, which left a bad taste in many fan's mouths, and Solo, a good movie, got the backlash), its fate was left in Limbo. The project was resurrected as a mini-series to get a six-episode run on Disney +.
The plot has been a tight secret, but it has been known for a long time that Hayden Christensen would reprise his role as Darth Vader, and the trailers revealed the involvement of the Inquisitors, who are former Jedi that turned to the dark side but are not full Sith, who helped hunt down the rogue Jedi. If you watched the animated series Rebels, you are familiar with them. This series shows an inquisitor not seen in Rebels, Reva, played very well so far by Moses Ingram.
The series starts out with Obi-Wan on Tatooine living under the name Ben, working a menial job to make ends meet, and cutting himself off from the force (which is a factor in episode 2). He watches Luke from afar (mainly because Owen wants nothing to do with him and wants him to stay away from Luke and let them live their lives) and goes out of his way to avoid being noticed by anyone. A trap is sprung that takes him reluctantly off of Tatooine and puts him on a collision course with the Inquisitors.
+++Spoilers Here +++
The surprise inclusion in the show is young Leia. Reva has discovered that Obi-Wan helped Bail Organa during the Clone Wars and engineered Leia's kidnapping to draw Obi-Wan out, having no idea that she was actually the daughter of Anakin. Of course, Bail, knowing where Obi-Wan is, seeks out his help and Obi-Wan very reluctantly agrees to leave Tatooine to find Leia and bring her back to Alderaan. In a confrontation with Reva at the very end of the second episode, Obi-Wan learns that Anakin is alive. It is interesting that Reva (who was likely one of the younglings seen in the opening shot of the first episode recreating the attack on the Jedi temple) knows that Vader is Anakin, which is something that to this point in the canon (assuming you have read the novels) only Palpatine knows for sure, Thrawn figured out but did not accuse or point-blank ask Vader if it was true, and Tarkin suspected. So, it will be interesting to see if all the Inquisitors are aware of the fact that Vader is Anakin and if not, how Reva found out.
The two big bright spots in the first couple of episodes are Obi-Wan's torment and young Leia. Ewan McGregor plays a broken Obi-Wan, who still has nightmares of his failure, very well. You can see the battle between wanting to help and wanting to remain anonymous and obscure, so much so that he buried his and Anakin's lightsabers in the middle of the desert and has not used the force in a decade. He finally uses the Force to save Leia when she falls off a building. Vivien Lyra Blair plays young Leia perfectly. She definitely channels Carrie Fisher's sass and spunk (especially as we see her in A New Hope), and she injected what little humor there was in the first two episodes and stole pretty much every scene she was in. The writers gave her way better material than Jake Lloyd ever got to work with in The Phantom Menace, and she is definitely the highlight of the series so far.
Of course, we know that at some point in the series, there is going to be the inevitable rematch between Vader and Obi-Wan, most likely providing context to Vader's "Obi-Wan once thought as you did" line in Return of the Jedi. My guess is that this time it is going to be Vader who thinks Obi-Wan is dead to also provide context for his being taken aback at feeling Obi-Wan's presence on the Death Star in A New Hope. But, we will have to see how that plays out. But, the first two episodes have been great so far, and it will be interesting to see where it goes from here.
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