Obi-Wan Kenobi Episode 6

Obi-Wan and ex-Anakin finally get the lightsaber duel (and closure) they've been brooding about for a decade. A recap of “Part VI,” the sixth episode and ...

There’s a bit more of this matching game later in the episode, as Obi-Wan agrees to take a more hands-off “here if you need me” approach to his watching over Luke, tacitly explaining why a teenage Luke is familiar with “crazy old Ben” rather than “the cool lightsaber-wielding guy who’s always watching our backs.” It helps Obi-Wan’s case that he’s not the one who saves Luke from Reva, who knocks him down from an embankment and approaches his unconscious body, ready to strike. I understand that the funky-alien-diner vibe was ultimately not the goal of this relatively somber character piece, but if Obi-Wan pulls a classic prestige TV and does follow up its “limited series” with a second season, I dearly hope it will leave room for some more Lucas-style whimsy. • The petty question that always lingers with me when a cinematic event or character makes the jump to TV is this: Did this need to be a series? (It seems like Vader would have the resources to pursue Obi-Wan while sending the rest of the Empire after the others, but never mind.) Here is the actual lightsaber battle, that “rematch of the century” that can’t really hope to live up to the operatic intensity of characters battling it out on an erupting lava planet. Obi-Wan Kenobi started out feeling like a sequel to a prequel; it ended up feeling like a prequel to itself. That’s doubly true of Obi-Wan’s crushing rejection of Vader’s vow for revenge: “Good-bye,” he says, before adding an uneasy “Darth.” Obi-Wan has never really talked about attempting to bring Anakin back from the dark side; the futile hope and subsequent sad reality of the situation are all allowed to live in McGregor’s performance. (“The weakness still remains … which is why you will always lose!” isn’t worlds away from Darth Helmet’s “Evil will always triumph over good … because good is dumb.”) As directed by Deborah Chow, the fight feels like it has its own visual identity, using her favored (and, let’s be frank, probably cost-effective) lightsabers-as-lanterns technique and the landscape’s roughness to stage something scrappier and less elegant than the Revenge of the Sith face-off. For a few minutes, the show, too, gets to pierce through all of that heavy helmet iconography and look for a human who might be able to meet Obi-Wan’s gaze. As the entertaining and satisfying “Part VI” opens, the Empire is hot on the heels of the transport carrying various Force-adjacent refugees, and while Roken (O’Shea Jackson Jr.) tries to keep hope alive among his passengers, he quietly confides to Obi-Wan that they’re basically screwed. (Doesn’t he also … want to save everyone?) Okay, fine, you want to make it clear that Obi-Wan is actually ready to stop avoiding the big Darth, but boy, it would have been cool if Roken felt like an actual character and not just the person who spouts off contradictory assertions to gin up nominal conflict. Gleaming, menacing helmets have become a major part of the Star Wars iconography, to the point where they’ve come to symbolize a kind of originalist traditionalism in the series. Yet the movie is prescient about one aspect of Star Wars movies that had not yet been produced back in 1987: Underneath the gleaming, menacing dark helmet is a whiny, insecure human being — whether it’s Rick Moranis or Hayden Christensen.

Here's why one truly epic moment in 'Obi-Wan Kenobi' Episode 6 feels so distinctly reminiscent of a powerful scene from the end of 2017's 'Star Wars: The ...

Saving Those You Love — At the start of both Obi-Wan and The Last Jedi, Rey and Ben Kenobi are unsure of themselves, which results in their connections to the Force becoming unbalanced. The Inverse Analysis — The Obi-Wan Kenobi finale draws inspiration from a number of different Star Wars sources, and it manages to pay homage to what’s come before while also remixing certain beats to accommodate its own story. For both Rey and Obi-Wan, lifting the rocks that lay before them is the only way they can protect those they love, so that’s exactly what they do. This gives Rey and Obi-Wan the strength needed to reorient their spiritual sides. Overcoming Doubt — The midpoint of Obi-Wan and Anakin’s climactic duel in the Kenobi finale finds McGregor’s Jedi Master trapped under a pile of rocks that his former padawan piled on top of him. The rush of images gives Obi-Wan the renewed strength he needs to free himself from Darth Vader’s makeshift pit.

Yes, that's Liam Neeson as the Force ghost of Qui-Gon Jinn, returned from the dead at long last to help guide his former student Obi-Wan Kenobi. Based on the ...

It doesn’t do this work with nearly the brio of, say, Rogue One, an interquel that took real tonal risks and neatly tied itself off at the end (to the detriment of any characters you might have wanted to see live to fight another day, but still). Obi-Wan is clearly designed to be open-ended, as everything from Reva’s survival to the climactic appearance of Liam Neeson as Qui-Gon Jinn’s Force ghost makes clear. Bonnie Piesse is good as his wife Beru (a role originated by Shelagh Fraser), too, but Edgerton really feels like the gruff, protective, no-bullshit man played by Phil Brown whom we meet in A New Hope. Edgerton is as good at this in his own way as Ewan McGregor is in capturing some of the vocal mannerisms of Alec Guinness. He knows that the age situation between himself and Guinness really can’t be explained away, so he spent the whole series going hard on Obi-Wan’s overall sense of loss, failure, weariness, aging himself before his time. I even enjoyed Obi-Wan’s parting shot of calling Anakin “Darth,” which is not a name but an honorific, and which he will do again on the Death Star years later. (This is why stuff like “Why didn’t he just kill him when he had the chance?” is popping up in my mind—not because I’m some CinemaSins-style pedant, but because the project’s overall sense of mild aimlessness gave my brain a chance to question plot holes I’d otherwise overlook.) And finally, he and Qui-Gon ride off into the distance, to watch and wait and prepare for that one final mission. In order to save the refugees from the Jedi/Force-sensitive relocation program called the Path from the Darth Vader–helmed Star Destroyer that’s firing on them, Obi-Wan jets off on his own and lures Vader into battle.

Facing an even more formidable task than "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story," "Obi-Wan Kenobi" deftly threaded the needle between "Revenge of the Sith" and "A ...

Because while fans might have their own ideas about when it's time to ride into the twin sunset, after a project as polished and commercially marketable as this one, well, studios will do what they must, too. that sent the concept to streaming, everything here suggests it would have been a crowd-pleasing blockbuster. It's worth remembering "Obi-Wan Kenobi" was initially conceived as a movie, and despite the "Solo"-induced cold feet

Deborah Chow brings Obi-Wan Kenobi full circle with a thrilling, action-packed, and above all deeply moving finale, bolstered by stellar performances.

Reva arrives at the Lars homestead in the middle of the night. Obi-Wan uses the former line to, once again, warn Vader of his intentions, and he uses the latter line to introduce himself to Luke. The meme quotes in The Rise of Skywalker and No Way Home felt forced, but Obi-Wan Kenobi’s use of prequel memes like “I will do what I must” and “Hello there” don’t feel like forced nostalgia-baiting at all; they fit beautifully in the context of the scenes they’re in. Obi-Wan’s brutal showdown with Vader is one of the show’s darkest sequences, but the episode also has some really sweet moments that tug on the heartstrings. Like every other episode to date, the Obi-Wan Kenobi finale exhibits the biggest problem with prequels. The six-episode run of Obi-Wan Kenobi hasn’t quite been a home run.

It's about time these characters got the credit they deserved for all their work with Luke.

The Lars family is more than just the redshirts wiped off the face of Tatooine to send Luke on his intergalactic adventure. When we think of who made Luke the person he is, it’s tempting to say Obi-Wan or Yoda, but they only made him the Jedi he became. Luke is her son just as much as Leia is the Organa’s, and she’ll do anything to protect him. Though Obi-Wan Kenobi focused on the relationship between Obi-Wan and young Leia, it was bookended with his original mission to protect Luke from anyone who could harm him while he grew up on his uncle’s moisture farm. Star Wars has never been shy about reinforcing that adopted families are just as legitimate as biological ones, but the Lars extended family raising young Luke always came off as a favor. From estranged family like Luke and Leia to found family like Rey and the Skywalkers, there’s a constant refrain that you can survive anything with family by your side.

Readers of my previous Obi-Wan Kenobi reviews know that I have been a pretty harsh critic of the latest live-action Star Wars show on Disney+.

I can’t think of a single tune, whereas I still get The Mandalorian’s theme stuck in my head randomly. - Leia using the holster Ben gave her as a pouch for Lola the droid is adorable. This, again, reminded me too much of the lousy slow chase in The Last Jedi and I find it beyond silly to watch Vader’s Star Destroyer unsuccessfully chase one single transport ship that’s not even a fast or exciting ship like the Millennium Falcon. I also find myself more annoyed with Leia than anything during all of her scenes. He’s off on a new adventure when the credits roll, lending some credence to the idea that a second season could, indeed, happen. But given that Obi-Wan is a Jedi with knowledge of the Sith, he knows that this is not a name, not something you’d call anyone. Owen and Beru put up a fine defense—it goes better than when the Stormtroopers attack nine years later—but ultimately Luke has to flee into the desert where Reva tracks him down and knocks him unconscious. If he’s accepted that this isn’t his former friend and pupil, that he is now a killer and a monster and a clear and present danger to Luke, Leia and the fledgling rebellion (not to mention himself) why not just end the bastard now? Elsewhere in the show we get the Reva storyline’s resolution. But just in terms of the story in this show, in isolation, why doesn’t he kill him? And the first showdown between Darth Vader and our titular hero was pretty bad, to say the least. The ensuing dialogue between Anakin and Obi-Wan is also quite good. The problems up to this point have been manifold.

As Obi-Wan Kenobi prepares for a showdown with Darth Vader, someone else's revenge plan may destroy the future of the galaxy.

After a tense reunion with Obi-Wan, Owen and Beru prepare to search for Luke before Reva returns with the boy in her arms. Days later, Obi-Wan arrives on Alderaan to say goodbye to Leia. Obi-Wan also returns home and packs his things before reconciling with Owen. In return, Owen allows Obi-Wan and Luke to meet for the first time. In the ensuing rematch, Vader’s mask is broken and he speaks as both Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader. Although Vader is too weak to continue the fight, he tells Obi-Wan that he killed Anakin Skywalker. Obi-Wan reluctantly accepts this and leaves his injured nemesis behind. Obi-Wan receives flashes of Reva’s attack on Owen, Beru, and Luke before he races to Tatooine. However, Reva’s head start insurmountable. When Reva attacks, her weakened state gives Owen and Beru the chance to defeat her. While the Empire chases Obi-Wan and The Path refugees through space, Reva is already on Tatooine and asking questions about Owen. Darth Vader refuses to let up on his former friend and mentor, so Obi-Wan decides to leave his new friends and give them the best chance to escape.

The climactic duel in 'Obi-Wan Kenobi' Episode 6 marks a new high point for Star Wars' Disney era, one that creates an effective visual bridge between the ...

However, as a duel between two lightsaber wielders, Obi-Wan Kenobi’s climactic rematch is undeniably thrilling, and it manages to strike a balance between Star Wars’ original and prequel trilogies that none of the franchise’s other recent action sequences have managed. A Dangerous Confrontation — There’s a sense of aggression in Obi-Wan and Anakin’s climactic fight that’s palpable from the moment it begins. The Perfect Balance — Ever since Disney acquired control of the Star Wars franchise in 2012, the studio and the filmmakers it’s hired have struggled to deliver lightsaber duels that manage to satisfy fans.