The Last Jedi

Obi-Wan Kenobi Parts 1 and 2

SPOILERS ABOUND!

“I can’t be what she needs me to be.”

“I’m not the man you remember.”

“It’s time for the Jedi to end.”

“The time of the Jedi is over.”

A legendary Jedi, fading in stature, cut off from the Force, grieving his failure to save a Skywalker. Star Wars, as George Lucas said, rhymes.

But first, I just need to take a moment to tell you about my second favorite subject, which is what is wrong with me. I would like to talk about the efforts that were made to get me a TV to watch this new Star Wars movie on. (That’s how my brain registered it, and how it felt, and after an hour and a half, what it is!)

Yesterday, I was at a Best Buy in Middletown NY. It’s the closest Best Buy, an hour away from the new house my wife and I just bought in Sullivan County. The home is green and surrounded by farms and is on the outskirts of an adorable village. It’s a place to take a break from screens, watch the bird feeder like a television and watch our cat, Monday, whine at bugs on the other side of the window.

But, it’s Obi-Wan Kenobi. I would have lined up to see this at midnight back in my glory years. Watching it on a laptop (which is fine! which is fine!) didn’t feel quite what I wanted. And now I have a new office, barely completed, upstairs, just waiting for a new television.

Anyway, I researched the TV I wanted on Wirecutter, was prepared to buy basically anything (every TV on Earth is the best TV ever made compared to what I grew up with) but hoping to get this one particular TV if they had it.

I met Peter, the Best Buy sales guy, who I can only applaud. When he saw the TV I wanted he said “That’s a beautiful TV” and proceeded to sing it’s praises. He said I could have it in the store by Sunday at the earliest. Pam watched me wince. I explained I needed a TV today. I wanted to watch something tomorrow.

Peter said “Stranger Things? Obi-Wan?” His phone rang. It was the X-Men Theme song. He apologized. No need.

I don’t know where Peter lives on the spectrum, but he was not one for picking up social cues. I said “Well what if I got this other TV?” He literally said “That’s horrible.” He ran down every other TV in the store as if it would be an insult to let me buy them. I was looking straight at a perfectly great 4K TV in my price range and he was staring at it like watching me purchase it would be a huge disappointment to us both.

He then said “Look, just watch Obi-Wan on your laptop and then watch it on the big screen later.” He said “If it’s Obi-Wan, it’s just going to be like, a lot of sweeping shots of the desert anyway.”

Here is what I could not say to Peter: Are you out of your mind? All I want is to watch sweeping shots of the desert in the middle of the night on a big TV in my new office and if that doesn’t happen I will cry, and I know that’s ridiculous and my long-suffering wife is standing here watching my embarrassment as I curl into myself and all she wants is a nice afternoon and to paint the office, for God’s sake, and I’m making that project harder, but she’s also put a lot of time and effort into getting me this TV because I am an overgrown child, so no Peter, I am not going to just watch it on a laptop even though I know I can, it’s possible, I could also watch it on my phone, like some kind of monster, is that what you recommend, I watch it on the subway on my iPhone?

Instead I said I would think about it, and hemmed and hawed, and decided to go see what they had at Target.

Just as I, shoulders slumped, was about to leave for less green pastures, Peter approached. Actually, an LG C1 OLED was just returned. It’s being held by the Geek Squad. It’s just a damaged box. If you wait a minute, says Peter, I can sell you the TV you want at a discount.

I was Jerry, dying in The Zoo Story. “I came unto you and you comforted me. Dear Peter.”

Let’s just say that getting something for less than sticker price pleases Pam to no end, so I like to imagine that was Spirit giving her a little something for her trouble. Let’s also say that this last-minute intervention felt like magic or my own dedication being rewarded by the universe. Let’s also add that Peter up-sold me relentlessly on the HDMI cables and the insurance. “You just saved $200 on the TV you should get the insurance,” said Peter. He knew a man in need when he saw one. And what to do to a man in need. Sell him insurance.

For God’s sake, I haven’t even talked about the show yet, so I will spare you the details of having to use furniture that Pam’s grandfather made by hand to prop up the TV itself, or how much I sweated into my glasses while trying to install the stand on a heavy TV that you cannot touch the front of lest you destroy it completely. Suffice to say, when it was over, I was mercifully still married, and I had a television set to watch this new movie on. This television is now the only thing in my office except for a wobbly desk we found on the street for free and a carpet.

Was it worth it?

Yes, yes, yes. Holy living Force yes. Obi-Wan Kenobi is everything. Somehow, Obi-Wan Kenobi joins the story of prequels, the spirit of the Filoni-verse, the lived-in feel of the original trilogy, and the aching pain of a hero who has seen too much, which was so well-explored in the sequel trilogy.

This show made me realize something that had somehow escaped me: Luke Skywalker lived through his own personal Order 66. We have never seen it dramatized, but isn’t that exactly what the loss of his own Jedi Temple means to him? He’s not in exile out of fear. Luke feels he failed, he’s traumatized, and that it’s time to move on.

Obi-Wan Kenobi is in a very different part of the timeline, but his refusal of the call is so much like Luke’s will be in Episode VIII. As Bail Organa says, “It’s not about the boy.” It’s about his belief that he can’t be who he was. And his suspicion that who he was isn’t something he’s particularly proud of anymore.

So, given all he’s been through, what could possibly bring Obi-Wan Kenobi off of Tatooine? His sole, solitary mission is to ensure Luke Skywalker’s survival.

The answer is… there is another Skywalker!

The introduction of a ten year old Princess of Alderaan with her unbelievably cute droid Lola is a heart-bursting surprise and joy. In lesser hands, this could feel like clumsy fan service, but it’s thoughtfully tied into our story. You can almost imagine the writers sitting down to discuss how you could ever get Obi-Wan Kenobi to leave his post and landing on, really, the only answer that makes any sense.

No scene with Leia is wasted. It every moment, we see how fiercely she questions and how naturally she leads. Her scenes with Jimmy Smits bring out his best work in Star Wars. It also seems like having to be rescued sits about as well with her at ten as it will at nineteen.

Can’t say enough about Vivien Lyra Blair’s performance. Whenever I see a child actor thriving, I think about the community and culture around them that made it possible. Add that to the list of many ways Deborah Chow clearly knows how to make magic on a set.

Speaking of Deborah Chow? This is the best I’ve ever seen a director make use of the LED dome that Lucasfilm calls the volume. The show has scope that would live comfortably next to any Star Wars live action movie. The desert feels vast, Tatooine feels bustling with life, and Daiyu is dangerous, funny, seedy and full.

Chow shows effective restraint. The action is lively and sudden, but happens only in necessary bursts. There’s such confidence and skill on display, from the way the camera finds the anonymous Obi-Wan at work, to the way we watch Obi-Wan take in the age of his beloved Eopie, to the green birds released into the sky in the middle of a pitched battle, it’s quite a thoughtful production, full of detail.

Welcome to Star Wars, Moses Ingram! There’s so much to say about Reva, the Third Sister. Just a hunch, and I don’t read spoilers, but given how Obi-Wan Kenobi opens with a ground level reenactment of Order 66, I would not be shocked if the Padawan who says “we run” turns out to be Reva herself. Who else would be as dogged in her pursuit of Obi-Wan Kenobi as a youngling who believes he failed to protect her? We’ll see if that proves true, but so far, she’s taking this all personally in a way that is fascinating.

I loved how she taunts Obi-Wan with his greatest fear. More than physical threat, the Dark Side is a threat to the soul. As she calls out the name “Anakin Skywalker,” you can tell she takes glee in the attack to Obi-Wan’s heart that the word contains.

There’s too much to talk about, like what’s going on with Qui-Gonn, but I’ll save some thoughts for later. (I will take some time in another post to talk about how different Order 66 feels in the wake of what happened in Texas this past Tuesday.) Simply put, for all its characters and callbacks, Obi-Wan Kenobi is a story about despair and how to overcome it.

Despair can feel seductively rational. I know many people whose depression shows up in practice like world-weary wisdom. I know many people who are reading the news and feel like the battle’s done. We lost. Stay hidden. In the moment we find Obi-Wan in this series, it feels like the Empire is unbeatable. Even the small hope he has, Luke, lives just out of reach.

In the Star Wars story, though, it took Palpatine decades to create the Galactic Empire. That same mighty Empire barely lasted twenty years. Obi-Wan can’t know the future from where he’s sitting, he can’t know that his vigilance will pay off. Just like we can’t see our own future now, and the hope it may bring us in retrospect.

The Inquisitors are wickedly right about one thing. Compassion isn’t curable. The compassionate are as compelled by compassion and the selfish are by greed. When Luke Skywalker is The Last Jedi, he eventually comes forth to stand with Leia’s indomitable spirit. We know he will. No matter how much he has internalized his pain, he eventually sacrifices everything to be the hero he is called to be. Because he’s Luke Skywalker.

Obi-Wan Kenobi’s rational despair cannot overcome his irrational hope. He is, after all, Obi-Wan Kenobi. Even in his lowest moment, he will come to the rescue.

Which is why he will not be the last Jedi.