Star Wars: The Disney+ Empire Strikes Again and Again and...

-force mind reading had an established precedent in ROTJ, i thought ("sister... so... you have a twin sister..."), maybe this is just like an aggressive version of that.

-i enjoyed the T-16 skyhopper model that obi-wan bought for luke, nice callout ("i used to bullseye womp rats in my T-16 back home")

-sung kang has a nice sansho the bailiff vibe going with that hat

-kumail was not bad for what he was given, his character has this watto vibe going on. i assume he's formerly jedi academy adjacent, maybe even flunked out? hence the motivation to help obi wan.

-when is obi wan going to get confronted about meat-stealing, we keep on getting shots of him wrapping chekhov's hunk of krayt-ribeye in butcher paper. (ok, i know that's not a krayt dragon but i don't know any other tatooine megafauna it could be, maybe a franchise-crossover molduga from zelda?)

-otherwise roz and doctor casino otm, the action sequences feel so lifeless and clunky. it feels as wooden as the pre-mandalorian episodes of boba fett, i wonder if there's some edict from on high at disney to make everything slow and bad. i'm betting these episodes would be a lot better as a director's cut? also annoying how video game-y these episodes feel (go talk to character A to collect plot device B in order to take the offworld transport at location C)? amazing how much better the andor trailer looks, i assume everything is just a lot better when you get to white sheet the story/characters and not feel confined by trying to fit something in on a timeline between the prequels and the original trilogy.

i assumed the meat was a permitted daily ration. it's not really presented that way, but since Obi-Wan's entire status quo is "keep a low profile, don't attract attention, the boy is the only purpose remaining," i couldn't imagine him taking the risk of stealing stuff at work every day. also he's a single man, living way the hell out in the boonies with apparently few expenses - if anybody can possibly survive on the crappy pay of a short-term carcass-slicer, it'd be him.

hmm i thought it was to show how he can't keep his jedi instincts under warps even in exile since he feeds the meat to his tatooine camel - is star wars the franchise where being kind to animals marks you as a good guy or am i thinking of some other franchise?

the Andor trailer does look quite good

i think the relative cheapness of the production is simple economics stemming from the subscription model. really great-looking action takes time and money. not that you need infinite dollars to make a fight scene exciting, but it does take time to put the camera/lights in interesting places, rehearse exciting fights, etc. and maybe they just want a few good-enough Star Wars shows a year, to keep on board the people who only signed up for Mandalorian in the first place. if you've already got McGregor in the title role and are promising fans an exciting and untold chapter in several major chatacters' stories, maybe there's not as much support from above when the creators want to push all these elements to be their best.

-nice touch of bringing in temeura to play the homeless clone trooper

some shots of the seedy space town looked ok, but a lot of them really showed the signs of being a big green screen room with a few extras scrolling about to populate the scene.

yeah this was really bad, feels like there are directorial touches you can do to make a place seem a lot bigger and more lived in than it really is, using tight telephotos and zooms to provide a sense of depth - i suppose you can't do that with a greenscreen, everything is a big wide angle because you don't have a real set to work off of (the obvious call out is blade runner, look how much is done with just panning past the neon sign with a tight telephoto, some real depth to it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcwOApqmJMQ)

-is this our first time on alderaan outside of episode 3? i like how cheesy and 70s all the costumes and buildings were, also how much of a verdant paradise it's supposed to be, something very "inner light" about it, they're going overboard to make sure we understand how much of a loss it was for it to get blown up!

-force mind reading had an established precedent in ROTJ, i thought ("sister... so... you have a twin sister...")

ahh, yes, you are right! completely forgot about that

2 scenes of Vect slappin' the big console button. The child acting is bad. There are fun real life parallels involving child Jedi/actors and revisiting past mistakes going on. Slow start, but I'm into it now!

Ben (Ewan) must protect these force-gifted children (child actors) and get it right this time.

Pleading and persecuted young jedi vs pleading and persecuted young prequel loving fanbase

i'll tell you what, there's a reason most series don't open with a very long "previously on" scene, followed by an action scene, immediately followed by a "10 years later" intertitle and that reason is that you're like.. is the actual story going to start soon? and then you get the actual story and it's got something to do with some extremely boring invigilators or whatever pushing open the imaginary swinging doors of a tavern and expounding ludicrously on jedis while they clomp around like fools

this didn't feel that diff from an episode of Rebels tbh

Like Ewan but this was a bit boring imo

Boba Fett was also boring but I preferred that kind of boring?

NB I always have a nice twenty-minute nap during Star Wars movies so boringness is not a bug

Perhaps -- because I'm not really that into Star Wars -- I'm having the same "there's too much continuity and they all look the same!!!!" reaction people have to Marvel movies.

Baby Leia asks Ben to "make her float", begging Ewan to make this series a success like the one with a floating baby yoda.

I spent the couple episodes thinking how hard Obi-Wan was working at being extremely offline. So many bits where logging on for a moment were so tempting. Almost made it, until finally he had to use the force to catch Leia.

Picturing Anakin meditating in his bacta tube getting the "Obi-Wan is online" ping when that happened

is it possible to use the force to 'make out' remotely

lmao mh

xp

didn't that happen in The Last Jedi?

Seems Ben would have sensed the still living Anakin at some point before logging off.

It had never occurred to me that he didn't know. I guess he really intended him to slowly and painfully die on the side of a volcano. Seems kinda out of character, but what do I know? Odd that he somehow had never heard any mention of "Darth Vader" but I guess I dunno how much his escapades were being publicized by the Empire at that point in time.

he was just "new suit goofin'" for 10 years

I know in Rebels the existence of Darth Vader himself isn't well known in the time after the rise of the Empire, and Ahsohka Tano is devastated when she finds out it's Anakin. amazing moment in that series.

also some neat Darth comics about his early time on the job, where he's somewhat insubordinate and still traumatized by what happened to him on Mustafar.

The comics are kind of a series of "ahh, this is the moment when he really becomes Darth Vader" followed immediately by him getting some ideas and the Emperor swatting him down hard, only to come back even more powerful

Emperor def didn't go through HR-sanctioned sensitivity training

It must be true

Watching Obi-Wan Kenobi and I like to imagine that Flea's eccentric gang of hapless criminals is the same as his eccentric gang of hapless criminals from Back to the Future II, Big Lebowski and Baby Driver and they just travel through different IP universes to do bungled capers. pic.twitter.com/7GRiyhXIz0

— Alex Seitz-Wald (@aseitzwald) May 28, 2022

would watch Flea crew multiverse

Throw in the crew he was part of with Chet Baker in the Baker doc Let’s Get Lost.

Inquisitor: You have failed the Empire once again. Have you anything to say for yourself?

Vect Nokru:

Fuck you asshole
You homophobic, redneck dick
You're big and tough and macho
You can kick my ass

So fucking what
So fucking what

Anyway, episode 3, gotta love a cliffhanger.

is star wars the franchise where being kind to animals marks you as a good guy or am i thinking of some other franchise?

This falls into the category/trope of Saving the Cat, doesn’t it? The protagonist displays how inherently good they are by extending care to an animal in need and thus establishes character without the need for dialogue.

I’m trying to remember what I watched in the last 6 months that literally had the protagonist saving a cat in the opening bits?

the inverse is true too. Kevin Spacey put a suffering dog out of his misery in House of Cards first episode, and boom...pedophile

The comics are kind of a series of "ahh, this is the moment when he really becomes Darth Vader" followed immediately by him getting some ideas and the Emperor swatting him down hard, only to come back even more powerful

― mh, Tuesday, May 31, 2022 3:53 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Vader as someone with a damaged soul who has to be kept broken to maintain him as a junkyard dog was a good artistic choice.

like the Emperor knew there was a potential shelf life before Vader turned back to the light and each time he swatted him back, he was just kicking the can a little further down the road.

the RLM drunks should be pleased with the pace of that battle

xp I think it's more the entire Sith "only two" dynamic where the very nature of the deal is that the acolyte's supposed to overthrow the master, and the master just keeps alternating between pouring gasoline on the fire and hitting their nose with a rolled up newspaper

That was ... better? Though I feel that in this attractive yet kinda inept production McGregor is the only one with real chops. Kinda like Guinness in ANH? Oh -- and Cushing.

when does obi-wan turn into the sleepy-eyed, obdurate, epigrammatic presence we see in ep iv?? kind of hard to see how we get from here to there

McGregor is doing great work. I do love seeing how washed up and rusty he is, guessing we'll see him get his mojo back or something by the end.
I really like Moses Ingram as well - she's got the dial set to "Star Wars" acting just right.

I liked the cutoff dialogue when they were talking about what happened to the Grand Inquisitor, since the other inquisitors seem to think he's dead

I'm pretty sure he ain't dead yet!

btw there's some theorizing that like they did with Mark Hamill the Jones voice is deepfaked, which if true is pretty astounding; thought it sounded perfect

i'm finding this really underwritten (despite four credited screenwriters). every scene between obi-wan and leia just kinda repeats the same beats... he's SO wiped out and washed up and grumpy that he can't even muster interesting tidbits about the Force, or unique ways to establish that she needs to lay low and be quiet again, or clever cover stories when dealing with bad dudes.

idk, i'd just like a little pizzazz, a glint of specialness. the big confrontation this episode should be a HUGE moment but he has nothing to say there either. all the dialogue just feels very plot-functional to me.

Totally disagree! I liked their choice to have Obi-Wan have few lines and mostly physical emotive acting - he just found out a few hours ago that his lifelong surrogate son - who he STILL feels terrible guilt for murdering 20 years ago - survived as a hideous monster far more powerful than when he died and hellbent on revenge. He's utterly shell-shocked and basically gave up his life as a sacrifice play. I wonder how far they'll take Obi-Wan's growth by the end of the series.

The Vader appearance was brutal - neck snaps galore! - and just a notch or two below his Rogue One appearance

Oops, that ending hidden tag should've come after the second line. Or maybe not at all i dunno

The worst bits so far: a chest high tree branch impedes a kidnapper, a laser gate between two small hills must be destroyed for Ben and Leia to pass on foot, a fire between two mounds of rubble impedes a whole garrison that could split to cover each side

That last one made me lol. Again felt very much like a cheesy TV-episode-conclusion --- Wellp, dangit, I guess he made it over the county line. We'll get 'im next time, don't you worry!

Nhex, I do agree that Obi-Wan's characterization makes sense for where he's at. I've just found all the scenes between him and Leia, from the moment of their meeting, oddly inert... idk.

"they're very slowly getting away!"

i wonder if it's implied that vader has some sort of the-Hound-from-GoT aversion to fire now after mustafar

i am enjoying this even though it is very slight & there’s not a whole lot to it

vader’s dialogue felt kinda rehashed? but the ott rage & cruelty was pretty well done. i do like mcgregor a lot, he always has this exhausted look like “god again with all this? i wish i was chopping monster steaks” like he really does feel genuinely shutdown in a way that is quite genuine

the only thing i dont support is the ADULT ditching A CHILD like oh she said she’ll be fine & that i should go help ObiWan SHE IS A CHILD AND HE IS A GROWNASS JEDI ..,I REALLY DO THINK YOU SHOULD HELP HER FFS

I rewatched that bit and Leia seems to be the one telling her to go!