Tetsujin
he/they
- AKA
- Tets
Obi-Wan Disney+ Series
- Thread starter Tetsujin
- Start date
Lulcielid
Eyes of the Lord
- AKA
- Lulcy
Last edited:
The Twilight Mexican
Ex-SeeD-ingly good
- AKA
- TresDias
Threads merged. 
But yeah, fuckin' awesome!
But yeah, fuckin' awesome!
X-SOLDIER
Harbinger O Great Justice
- AKA
- X
Lulcielid
Eyes of the Lord
- AKA
- Lulcy
Clement Rage
Pro Adventurer
trash panda
---m(O.O)gle---
- AKA
- Howl
I'm not so bummed about this. I mean, I'd rather them get it right.
Short series' or seasons don't bother me either, so long as the content is quality/wholesome/satisfactory stuff. Filler actually bugs me a lot, so if this story (or first season) can be told in just a few episodes, that'd be great.
Short series' or seasons don't bother me either, so long as the content is quality/wholesome/satisfactory stuff. Filler actually bugs me a lot, so if this story (or first season) can be told in just a few episodes, that'd be great.
The Twilight Mexican
Ex-SeeD-ingly good
- AKA
- TresDias
Over the past several years, I've not been one of those "the sky is falling" folks about this franchise. Quite the opposite in fact. Until TRoS came out, I was very pleased with its direction.
That being said, if Kathleen Kennedy is the primary individual putting the brakes on this show's writing at the moment -- after she approved what J.J. Abrams and Chris Terrio turned in for TRoS, despite them coming onto the project with a far superior script already done -- then, well ... start looking skyward, people.
That being said, if Kathleen Kennedy is the primary individual putting the brakes on this show's writing at the moment -- after she approved what J.J. Abrams and Chris Terrio turned in for TRoS, despite them coming onto the project with a far superior script already done -- then, well ... start looking skyward, people.
The Twilight Mexican
Ex-SeeD-ingly good
- AKA
- TresDias
Of course she did, and I'm not suggesting otherwise. I'm simply saying that it seems we have to put our trust in her rubber stamp and luck rather than a discerning eye.
X-SOLDIER
Harbinger O Great Justice
- AKA
- X
This feels like it's probably closer to what happened. They were scaling up for production, and those things got shut down (indefinitely) since it's not precisely clear when it'd be good to get that spun up since there aren't initial episode scripts anymore. Also, while the idea is solid you definitely don't want your shows to feel like they're too one-note, and give each one more space to do their own sort of thing. Especially with that being the primary new source of Star Wars content, as well as a BIG source of Disney+ original content, they probably want to make sure that they're not overlapping things too much.
X
X-SOLDIER
Harbinger O Great Justice
- AKA
- X
Clement Rage
Pro Adventurer
Huh.
Kind of depends on what's happening behind the scenes... What will we find out when the tell all memoirs are published in fifteen years? Dunno if KK is making these decisions alone, I imagine there's a board or committee of some kind. The internet just hates her for some reason (you're not doing that, by the way, I've just seen a lot of people clamouring for her head for no reason)
The weird thing about this is that there doesn't seem to be a vision behind the stories.
"Solo" "The Mandalorian" "Kenobi", these projects are being sold on their names alone. Even the two trilogies were sold as 'game of thrones guys' and 'Rian Johnson"
"Rogue One" on the other hand, was sold on 'how the rebels got the plans to the death star' ie. a story, not a name.
What's raising my eyebrows here a bit is the idea that the scripts can be completely rewritten at this stage. What that's telling me (and I have been known on occasion to be wrong) is that there's nobody with a vision for the story they're burning to share, that it's 'we need to tell a story about Kenobi, find someone to write one' as opposed to 'I have this cool story I want to tell about Obi's years on Tattooine, will you sign off on it?'
It's not the end of the world, but I'm de-hyped a bit.
Kind of depends on what's happening behind the scenes... What will we find out when the tell all memoirs are published in fifteen years? Dunno if KK is making these decisions alone, I imagine there's a board or committee of some kind. The internet just hates her for some reason (you're not doing that, by the way, I've just seen a lot of people clamouring for her head for no reason)
The weird thing about this is that there doesn't seem to be a vision behind the stories.
"Solo" "The Mandalorian" "Kenobi", these projects are being sold on their names alone. Even the two trilogies were sold as 'game of thrones guys' and 'Rian Johnson"
"Rogue One" on the other hand, was sold on 'how the rebels got the plans to the death star' ie. a story, not a name.
What's raising my eyebrows here a bit is the idea that the scripts can be completely rewritten at this stage. What that's telling me (and I have been known on occasion to be wrong) is that there's nobody with a vision for the story they're burning to share, that it's 'we need to tell a story about Kenobi, find someone to write one' as opposed to 'I have this cool story I want to tell about Obi's years on Tattooine, will you sign off on it?'
It's not the end of the world, but I'm de-hyped a bit.
The Twilight Mexican
Ex-SeeD-ingly good
- AKA
- TresDias
@Clement Rage
You and I have been agreeing about "Star Wars" too much lately. It feels so wrong.
You and I have been agreeing about "Star Wars" too much lately. It feels so wrong.
Clement Rage
Pro Adventurer
*pat pat*
There there, it's ok. I'm still sceptical of TCW, all is not gone wrong with the world just yet.
There there, it's ok. I'm still sceptical of TCW, all is not gone wrong with the world just yet.
X-SOLDIER
Harbinger O Great Justice
- AKA
- X
There are two series that I can see being sold on the names alone, and ones that I'm ok with: Obi-Wan & Maul.
Ewan McGregor has been wanting to return to that role for ages, and even the people who disliked the prequel era stuff generally loved him in the role. Anything that can get us storytelling with him playing that character feels like it would be a good bet to make, especially since with Carrie's passing, there's a sense that you want to do these kinds of things while you still can with the actors who represent the character to people.
By the same token, Maul is the thing that almost all people love about The Phantom Menace, because of how he represented the big changes to large-scale lightsaber combat. Ray Park & Sam Witwer are also both spectacular stewards of the character & Star Wars stuff in general, and how they got to work together to bring the character to life in Solo is something that's being echoed again in Clone Wars since Ray Park did mocap for Maul's combat scenes. This one also gets a bunch of the fun technology side of things with ILM, like how The Mandalorian did with shooting shots of the Razor Crest practically.
Additionally, both characters have big chunks of unknown between III & IV in an era of Star Wars where there's some room to play a little bit that gets to be free from the films, but also connect to them, the way that The Mandalorian lives in the unseen post-RotJ era.
I think that what they really WANT to do is start letting Star Wars be a playground where there are exciting stories to tell in that setting, and that's a really tough growth transition to make post-Legends where people want to see versions of their familiar stories, but ALSO have something new at the same time. If you had to make a bet on how to kick-start that, these are the kind of moves I'd expect. Lack of vision is damned frustrating in trilogies where having a cohesive story is paramount, but it's not quite as odd to me when it's trying to feel out where the bulk of your audience most strongly connects with the material that you're looking to explore.
X
Ewan McGregor has been wanting to return to that role for ages, and even the people who disliked the prequel era stuff generally loved him in the role. Anything that can get us storytelling with him playing that character feels like it would be a good bet to make, especially since with Carrie's passing, there's a sense that you want to do these kinds of things while you still can with the actors who represent the character to people.
By the same token, Maul is the thing that almost all people love about The Phantom Menace, because of how he represented the big changes to large-scale lightsaber combat. Ray Park & Sam Witwer are also both spectacular stewards of the character & Star Wars stuff in general, and how they got to work together to bring the character to life in Solo is something that's being echoed again in Clone Wars since Ray Park did mocap for Maul's combat scenes. This one also gets a bunch of the fun technology side of things with ILM, like how The Mandalorian did with shooting shots of the Razor Crest practically.
Additionally, both characters have big chunks of unknown between III & IV in an era of Star Wars where there's some room to play a little bit that gets to be free from the films, but also connect to them, the way that The Mandalorian lives in the unseen post-RotJ era.
I think that what they really WANT to do is start letting Star Wars be a playground where there are exciting stories to tell in that setting, and that's a really tough growth transition to make post-Legends where people want to see versions of their familiar stories, but ALSO have something new at the same time. If you had to make a bet on how to kick-start that, these are the kind of moves I'd expect. Lack of vision is damned frustrating in trilogies where having a cohesive story is paramount, but it's not quite as odd to me when it's trying to feel out where the bulk of your audience most strongly connects with the material that you're looking to explore.
X
Clement Rage
Pro Adventurer
As they're in the shadows, any stories they feature in would have to resist the urge to do random cameos. Can they? Not so far.
For it to work for me, we need a small story about negotiating a peace between two tribes of Tuskens or something. No sabre duels. No cameos. Tell your own story, don't tie into anyone else's. Darth Vader doesn't show up for no reason at the end.
Maul is tricky because he's basically in his own weight class. He can't take any of the true heavy hitters, but is too strong for most of the ground level characters, so it's very hard to have dramatic tension.
In terms of feeling out the audience, "Solo" struggled at the box office, while "Rogue One" didn't. No one needs to wait for permission to do new things. Write that political thriller in the Senate (either one). Write that sitcom about three Duros brothers doing spaceport security. Some of em will fail but that's fine if your metric for success isn't a billion dollar hit.
For it to work for me, we need a small story about negotiating a peace between two tribes of Tuskens or something. No sabre duels. No cameos. Tell your own story, don't tie into anyone else's. Darth Vader doesn't show up for no reason at the end.
Maul is tricky because he's basically in his own weight class. He can't take any of the true heavy hitters, but is too strong for most of the ground level characters, so it's very hard to have dramatic tension.
In terms of feeling out the audience, "Solo" struggled at the box office, while "Rogue One" didn't. No one needs to wait for permission to do new things. Write that political thriller in the Senate (either one). Write that sitcom about three Duros brothers doing spaceport security. Some of em will fail but that's fine if your metric for success isn't a billion dollar hit.
X-SOLDIER
Harbinger O Great Justice
- AKA
- X
I don't think that you have to entirely resist the urge for cameos of sorts. The Mandalorian is a pretty good example of how they're willing to tread the line between connections to the original and showing us something new.
I'm all with you on the Obi-Wan stuff. I'd very much like to see him try to settle in to seeing things from Qui-Gon's point of view, since he was still a padawan back when they were on Tatooine together. There's a lot of interesting stuff to be had just in him trying to learn from his former master. There are lots of interesting stories that they can tell that connect to him learning about The Force outside of the structure of the Jedi Order. Especially after living in the shadow of what his student became, I can very much see his protection of Luke being like looking out for the Younglings that he couldn't save from Anakin. By the same token, it'd be interesting to see him try to navigate interactions with things like the Sand People, Krayt Dragons, and the other backwater scum that inhabit the world while not drawing undue attention to himself – the opposite of The Mandalorian in that respect. He'll have to figure out how to do the right thing but also not become the center of involvement. There are moments that would still allow for moments of him being a Jedi covertly, and Star Wars Myths & Fables outlines a pretty solid one around the Tuskens and a Krayt that is the sort of thing that I think would work spectacularly.
Maul actually has a really good position to work in. We know that he's the head of Crimson Dawn, which provides ample opportunity to delve into things like the Pikes & Hutts and non-film worlds the fans love like Nal Hutta & Nar Shadda. Being able to delve into the Star Wars criminal underworld with someone you know ISN'T a good guy but whose story you're still invested in is a DAMNED solid background for interesting moral grounds. Again, to pose against The Mandalorian, this is what it would be like if our main character didn't go back for The Child – but we also don't expect him to. At the same time, we also know that The Inquisitors have been and are actively hunting Maul by the time we see him in Solo, since he's in possession of one of their lightsabers. This also gets to revel in being somewhat the opposite of what Obi-Wan is, because Maul WANTS power, infamy, and recognition but he also needs to figure out how to embrace those things from the shadows after what happened on Mandalore. Jedi: Fallen Order does a really damn good job of utilizing the Inquisitors as characters, and because of the way that they're Jedi who are tortured into a dark version of what they were before will give the foil to have Maul look into himself and his hatred – where we know that he fails to ever find the exact answers he seeks, but he starts exploring other paths since his hatred for Palpatine drives him closer to identifying with the fallen Jedi, but without ever quite getting there and eventually leaving him as the person who attempts to take up Ezra under his wing.
When it comes to reception, there's a lot more to it than that, though. Solo had a lot of uneven feelings around it when it came to casting, but also because it was always surrounded by the hesitance from the change in directors. On top of that, it came out six months after The Last Jedi, whereas every other Star Wars film has had a winter release with at least a year of breathing room – not to mention the way that The Last Jedi stirred up a lot of emotion among fans that was still very much an active topic at the time. Additionally, Solo's been pretty well received outside of theaters, and there's generally a lot of positivity about the film and not nearly as much negativity around it. Rogue One also delivered on the look of A New Hope as people remember it in their imagination and thrives heavily off of its connection to the film that follows it chronologically.
Again, the risk at this point is that the have to ensure that whatever they're doing with Star Wars now gives both the audience and the folks who invest confidence that what they're doing is being approached with care, and also in a way that has legs to carry ideas forward, not to mention helping to propel Disney+ as a service. That's why Obi-Wan being a bit too close to The Mandalorian definitely merits some time to think through the specifics of what they want it to achieve.
X
Clement Rage
Pro Adventurer
I'd be more tolerant of cameos and tie ins if they hadn't overdosed on them so much already. Rebels got increasingly silly in later seasons with the leads bumping into every major character in the galaxy, Before Crisis style.
Clone Wars was at its best when it told its own story, when it tried to tie into the broader narrative it tended to stumble.
Fallen Order was doing well until
Every time Kenobi ties into something, it undermines the point of his exile. (And Qui teaching Obi the error of his ways is a hard no from me, but you knew that.)
Maul, maybe it could be done, but that would be a pretty hard sell to me. To each their own, I guess.
Clone Wars was at its best when it told its own story, when it tried to tie into the broader narrative it tended to stumble.
Fallen Order was doing well until
Vader showed up at the end to completely wreck his own headquarters for no reason.
I haven't even seen this show, but Mando's not immune. They're doing things like visiting Tattooine and having Mando visit, of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, the Mos Eisley Cantina. 'HEY AUDIENCE! DO YOU GET THIS REFERENCE? DO YOU?'
Every time Kenobi ties into something, it undermines the point of his exile. (And Qui teaching Obi the error of his ways is a hard no from me, but you knew that.)
Maul, maybe it could be done, but that would be a pretty hard sell to me. To each their own, I guess.
X-SOLDIER
Harbinger O Great Justice
- AKA
- X
To be fair, the purpose of Rebels' story placement is to serve as connective tissue between Clone Wars and the original trilogy, and those things do interlink into those various characters' journeys. I definitely have similar issues with Fallen Order – but my point in mentioning it was more about the fantastic use of the Inquisitors and less about its faults (of which there are plenty).
Additionally, I'd definitely withhold judgement about The Mandalorian if you haven't seen it, specifically because of how it executes its references. The Mos Eisley Spaceport is established as an exceptionally notable shady location, and the bar helps to establish that the show is taking place in a different time for viewers who are less familiar with all of the series' details. If I had to present the polar opposite to J.J. Abrams' style of nostalgia-grabbing reference usage in The Rise of Skywalker, it would be how things are delivered in The Mandalorian aside from a few final episode bits of exposition-teasing.
I'm curious what you view the point of Kenobi's exile as, since I think that's important to understanding what narrative choices would or wouldn't jive with your sensibilities (especially given that Maul'd be a hard sell for ya).
X
Additionally, I'd definitely withhold judgement about The Mandalorian if you haven't seen it, specifically because of how it executes its references. The Mos Eisley Spaceport is established as an exceptionally notable shady location, and the bar helps to establish that the show is taking place in a different time for viewers who are less familiar with all of the series' details. If I had to present the polar opposite to J.J. Abrams' style of nostalgia-grabbing reference usage in The Rise of Skywalker, it would be how things are delivered in The Mandalorian aside from a few final episode bits of exposition-teasing.
I'm curious what you view the point of Kenobi's exile as, since I think that's important to understanding what narrative choices would or wouldn't jive with your sensibilities (especially given that Maul'd be a hard sell for ya).
X
Clement Rage
Pro Adventurer
Then that's a problem, because the purpose of any story should be to tell its own story, not connect into everyone else's.
Ezra bumping into everybody from Maul to Kenobi to Vader to Palpatine to Leia to Lando to Thrawn to Yoda is just... well, it speaks for itself
The thing about Mando is, right now, I don't really want to see it? I keep hearing things I don't really like. (Yes, that includes "The Child). If I saw it on Netflix or TV I'd probably give it a shot, but I'm not nearly interested enough to get Disney plus. Maybe my impressions are wrong, who knows?
I don't buy it. Is that why they had his employer sit in Han's exact chair? Is that why Tuskens sneak up on someone using binoculars? Is that why they're making Stormtrooper inaccuracy jokes that make absolutely no sense in universe? 'this army that eradicated my people and ruled the galaxy with an iron fist are so harmless, heheh,'
Kenobi is hiding. Any time someone from the wider world finds him, the self imposed exile loses some impact.
X-SOLDIER
Harbinger O Great Justice
- AKA
- X
The purpose of the story is still to tell its own story – Rebels is telling a story about growing up, gaining a family in those who are closest to you, and ultimately learning how to stand up for things you believe in, even when you don't rally everyone else to your cause.
It's not reductive to the story that the characters in it also serve the purpose of fleshing out small details of other characters & events during that time by selecting backgrounds for them that allow them to naturally be in a position to explore those things that people already know and find interesting. Not every story needs to exist in a complete vacuum – especially those in Star Wars. They're using the setting to embrace it, not to shy away from it, as that's a core part of storybuilding in a connected universe. Rebels is a group who is a focal point for those interactions because of the character's backgrounds and connections to existing elements of the universe at the time. New characters don't need to bump into every legacy character possible, but they also shouldn't be permitted from doing so if it makes sense and is telling an interesting story that serves to develop all the characters involved.
It definitely seems like you're reaching for particular examples of things you don't like, without any other context to how they're used. That means the only context you have is that, it "has a thing you don't like the sound of, so it must be used in a way you don't like it being used, so that must be indicative of the majority of said thing" which is far from accurate of the examples you gave.
The shots are the same, because it's using the visual storytelling to communicate the differences to ensure that any audiences will recognize the location and layout, and not just nerds who know all sorts of little details. The Tusken scene is again an example of familiar but different. (those are also both in Dave Filoni's second episode, and he's the greenest live-action director of all of the ones in the series by far).
Also, Stormtrooper accuracy jokes are literally all over in Star Wars stuff. I'm not sure why you're picking this out – but again, this is why it's important to have watched something before you try to criticize it. Both of the times those sort of jokes occur in the series are specifically to make a juxtaposition to demonstrate the differences between the regular Stormtroopers who are essentially grunts just interested in a paycheck, from the elite military individuals like Imperial Sharpshooters & Death Troopers that were also a core component of the Imperial army.
Also, Stormtrooper accuracy jokes are literally all over in Star Wars stuff. I'm not sure why you're picking this out – but again, this is why it's important to have watched something before you try to criticize it. Both of the times those sort of jokes occur in the series are specifically to make a juxtaposition to demonstrate the differences between the regular Stormtroopers who are essentially grunts just interested in a paycheck, from the elite military individuals like Imperial Sharpshooters & Death Troopers that were also a core component of the Imperial army.
Counterpoint: Living alone in the middle of nowhere isn't the only way to hide, and Kenobi disappearing without being killed just means that the Empire and Vader would be even more interested in finding him. Drawing attention away from where he's hiding can also an important part of remaining hidden in the long-term.
X