THIS IS WHERE THE SPOILERS BEGIN
It must have been late August or early September of 2011 when I walked out of an adult DVD shop in midtown Manhattan and ran directly into my friend Moira. I was working way downtown near South Ferry, so there was no reason for me to be in this particular part of the city in the late afternoon. It was hot, I was sweaty, and I was hurrying back to my job before anyone noticed I’d ducked out.
The reason I was walking out of this purveyor of adult videos, one of the dwindling few in the city, is that I had been calling around to see if any stores had received a copy of Star Wars: The Complete Saga, the first full Blu-ray release of the (to that point) entire saga. I had learned, over the years, that these types of stores often received a typical assortment of DVDs and Blu-Rays that they kept in the front, in order to maintain their business of selling… other types of stories.
I imagine this was a regulatory thing about what percentage of merchandise could be adult, I don’t know, and I’m too lazy to research it. If they were trying to be in compliance with some Bloomberg era rule about smut, they did not give one bit of a care about compliance with retail release dates. If they got it in a box, it went on the shelves.
I found almost all my Star Wars DVDs before street date that way, after first discovering a copy of Episode I in the new releases rack something like three weeks before it was slated to come out, at some crumbling DVD shop on 14th Street in 2001.
Kids, this is how long it once took to get your favorite movies at home. Episode I was released on DVD something like two years after it was available in the theaters. (Before then, I had to watch an illegal bootleg I’d bought that from a guy who had stacks of them on a blanket.)
This is why I found myself, sweating and puffing, inexplicably far from my day job, standing outside a porn shop. Feeling like I was in the Tell-Tale Heart, even though Moira was not quizzing me, I blurted out my confession. I told her I was buying a Star Wars Blu-Ray box set.
Moira, who has kindly remained my friend, took my confession like a Catholic priest, showing no judgment. I still believe if I had been buying a dirty movie like a normal person, it would have been less weird.
I also think she would have judged me more harshly if I told her I bought it for well over the retail price. Or if I described the moment when I heard the guy on the other end of the phone say “we have two left” and I bolted out of my new job, hoping no one would notice, and lept onto the R Train. I didn’t tell her I spent the rest of the day hovering over the cover of the box set, the way Gollum looks at the One Ring.
I tell you this to show just how impatient I am when it comes to Star Wars. (Ironic, yes. I have yet to learn patience. Maybe that’s why I can’t open doors by waving my hands yet.) I refresh my browser for tickets. I stood on line for midnight showings. I stood at the gates of a not-yet-open Target in order to buy Rise of Skywalker Vintage Collection action figures the moment they were on sale. I stood outside a Toys R Us in Union Square in early 2002 so I could buy Attack of the Clones action figures, enduring the mockery of NYU students. I want my stuff the moment it’s available. Sooner than available, if at all possible.
Which is why living on the East Coast in the age of Disney Plus has been a challenge. Midnight showings? I can take it. Barely. Sick have I become, old and weak. THREE AM? That’s pretty much the only time of day what would make me wait a few hours to watch something new.
Going to sleep on a Tuesday night, knowing that there will be four hours between Star Wars being available and my watching it? It’s unsettling. I toss and turn. I wake up early. I have my coffee waiting. When I have to feed the cats before watching the show, I resent the cats. The adorable cats. I resent them.
For The Mandalorian? I adjusted. Book of Boba Fett? Totally fine to watch it when I was ready.
Last night, though, I set my coffee to be brewing at 3:15 am. I knew that my own internal clock would probably try to rouse me to watch the finale. (I now pee in the middle of night like someone who should probably get that diagnosed, as it is.)
When I did stir, around 4 am, my body told me to stay where it was. For God’s sake just watch it in the morning, said my back. You’re in your mid-forties, my body said, do not ruin your day tomorrow in order to watch a show for kids before the sun has come up.
I did not listen to my body. I watched Obi-Wan Kenobi’s season finale from 4 am to just about 5 am, and then I went back to bed. Sort of. You know, sometimes you try to go back to bed and now you’re up? That was me. That’s what I did.
My mouth has tasted like metal all day. My shoulders hurt. I’m grumpy.
Was it worth it?
Dear readers, it was. It absolutely was.
The finale of Obi-Wan Kenobi was a big fat ball of wow.
This show fires the heavy canons, so to speak. Instead of scribbling around the edges of the central story, this mini-series writes in oversized capital letters, establishing itself not only as ‘A Star Wars Story’ but a worthy part of the main story. Call it The Star Wars Prequels Coda: The Death of Anakin Skywalker.
Darth Vader versus a rejuvenated Obi-Wan Kenobi, his Super Combo Gauge filled up by the Skywalker Twins, is everything I could have hoped for. It delivers an iconic stand off (look out for fan art aplenty), extra-glowy lightsabers used to special cinematic effect, cheer-worthy sequences, and this!
Who said the Force is not about lifting rocks?
Yes, this where Anakin Skywalker truly meets his demise, at least in the mind of Ben Kenobi. Throughout the series, once he discovers his brother is still alive, Obi-Wan Kenobi equates Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader, using their names interchangeably. After overcoming his foe, Obi-Wan looks at the half broken mask of Vader and apologizes for Anakin’s terrible fate.
It is Darth Vader who ironically absolves his former Master, laying claim to Anakin’s murder himself. As I’ve said, neither of them can ever truly win one of their duels, because they are both caught in a trap of Palpatine’s devising. At least here, Obi-Wan Kenobi can leave the battle with a feeling of relief. He is, as he says to Reva later in the episode, free.
This scene is everything I was hoping for out of this series: it’s as heroic as it is heartbreaking. Ewan McGregor is gutting and great in this scene. He’s warm and sparkling in every scene, but it takes a rare actor to take these big space opera moments and ground them in real human emotion. It’s a career-defining performance, his best ever work in Star Wars.
Far away, another fate being decided. Reva has arrived on Tatooine in search of Owen, knowing that he’s hiding someone, and ready to reap what she feels others have sown.
This sequence offers another Star Wars tradition: intercutting! Star Wars is the world champion of cutting between action sequences, lacing them all together to reach a crescendo. See The Phantom Menace’s duel, attack on the Droid Control Ship, and Gungan ground battle; Return of the Jedi’s three battles in, on and near Death Star II; and The Last Jedi’s interconnected sequence leading up to the Holdo Maneuver, as prime examples of the form.
It was not entirely clear to me what Reva’s motivations were for chasing down Luke Skywalker. When asked what she wants, her answer is “justice,” which would imply she is trying to do to Anakin what he did to her. That would mean she knows who Luke is, which seems like quite a stretch. It could be that she’s looking to destroy anything Obi-Wan means to protect as revenge against him.
Frankly, Reva seems like she’s just lashing out. She’s holding herself together with bandages and pure rage. If you asked her what her plan was, I wonder how coherent her own answer would be.
If Reva’s unclear about her mission, that is not true of the Owen and Beru Lars. The doomed couple get to play pioneer-defending-the-homestead in the style of a Western.
Owen’s protectiveness is retrofit here wonderfully. In his original appearance, he seems to be standing in the way of Luke’s dreams, an out of touch farmer who just doesn’t get it. Isn’t that always how parents feel when we’re ready to leave home? Like they’re just saying no for the sake of saying no? Even if they only want to keep us safe? Even if what’s changed is us, not them.
Joel Edgerton has had ample opportunity to show off what a stellar actor he as Owen, so I was thrilled to see Bonnie Piesse’s Beru get past the blue milk and kick ass like only a mother can. Plus, I lived for the blink-and-you’d-miss-it moment where Beru blames Owen for Ben not being there to protect them. “And whose fault is that?” she asks. Sometimes, all a character needs is one good line to show you everything you need to know.
In the end, Reva relents. Her redemption plays differently than most other Star Wars redemption narratives. Instead of sacrificing herself to save the people she has threatened, she emerges from the desert, exhausted. She isn’t stopped by our heroes, she stops herself. It’s a very human arc, brought in for a careful landing by Moses Ingram. It leaves quite a lot to explore in the future.
Decks cleared, villains subdued, if not really vanquished, we’re treated to two very different farewells. First, Ben returns the on-loan Lola to Leia on Alderaan. Then, he returns to the Lars homestead to release Luke from his at-a-distance guardianship.
The contrast between these scenes is perfection. Ben and Leia share one last moment of warmth, completing a series-long arc. Musically, we even hear the Force Theme and Leia’s Theme in this scene. By the time they part, there’s not a dry eye in the house and it’s no wonder Leia names her son Ben. (Three more cheers for Vivien Lyra Blair, who was wizard in this role, and to the writers and director, who navigated every canyon dune turn and made Young Leia a scene-stealing part of every episode.)
Conversely, we are reminded that Obi-Wan Kenobi has never even met Luke. He only earns the right to give him one last iconic “hello there” once he’s about to let him go.
For all the time spent reestablishing, quoting, or reasserting consistency - Ben giving Luke that toy, “I will do what I must,” Luke asserting “I’m not afraid,” Ben moving out of the cave, a delicious cameo from Ian McDiarmid to get Darth Vader to let the past die if he can’t kill it - the biggest moment, from a story perspective, is the last.
The return of Qui-Gon Jinn is played for a smile, but from a mythological perspective, it’s so much more than that. Remember, Qui-Gon invented The Force Ghost. He learns to retain his identity after he has become one with the Force and teaches that to Obi-Wan Kenobi before A New Hope. There’s an argument that this makes Qui-Gon Jinn the most important Jedi in the story. If not for him, Obi-Wan Kenobi cannot become ‘more powerful than you can possibly imagine’ and lead Luke posthumously down the Jedi Path. His appearing to Obi-Wan has vast consequences of the rest of the story. (It’s also just plain cool to see him again.)
In a world where we’ve already seen two seasons of The Mandalorian and a whole season of Boba Fett this sentiment may seem passé, but I still can’t believe this show was made. The Mandalorian only started airing three years ago. Live action Star Wars on television is still in a nascent phase. The animated series were spectacular, but to bring back the live action cast of the Star Wars prequels and give them, essentially, one more movie? It just wasn’t on the list of things I thought could happen. I guess the only way to process it is to watch the whole thing again.
With all six episodes of the series released, Obi-Wan Kenobi now feels like an exorcism and epilogue for the prequel trilogy.
Ewan McGregor and the entire cast of the prequels were excited to be a part of Star Wars (just watch him in the fantastic documentary about the making of Episode I, The Beginning, to see how giddy he could be). They were equally devastated by how critically and culturally maligned those films were.
Now, twenty years later, the generation that grew up with those films have come of age and become defenders of that vision of Star Wars. (There are those of us who are older who loved those movies the first time, too, just sayin’.) It’s given Ewan McGregor, Hayden Christensen, Joel Edgerton, Bonnie Piesse, Jimmy Smits, Ian McDiarmid and Liam Neeson a chance for an extra curtain call. They’ve earned a standing ovation, after such a fraught relationship with this material, for a story richly told, expertly produced and passionately performed.
It feels like the will of the Force.
With that, I will take Princess Leia Organa’s advice to an old man who doesn’t know what the future holds.
I think I should sleep.
There were a few signs in those early years that we would be friends for life. That day was one of them. xo