One of the big questions going into Star Wars: Obi Wan Kenobi, the new live-action limited series on Disney+, was whether whatever happens between middle-aged Ben and his former Padawan Darth Vader would all make sense in the bigger picture. We knew from marketing materials and numerous interviews that they would meet at this halfway point between Episodes II and III, but does that really jibe with their interactions in the original Star Wars film?
Well “Part III” of Obi-Wan Kenobi sort of answers that question, in that it seems like they’re just gonna roll with it. “A presence I’ve not felt since…” now means “since we fought on that one mining planet nine years ago,” not “since we dueled to the (apparent) death over the lava flows of Mustafar.”
But whatever… I’m willing to get past that disconnect and roll with it myself, so long as the trip is entertaining along the way– and that’s true for the most part in this episode, which gets off to an uneven start but rights itself by the halfway point. It begins where “Part II” left off: with the titular Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) aboard the automated cargo vessel hurtling through space with a ten-year-old Princess Leia Organa (Vivien Lyra Blair). Ben appears to be trying to contact his old master Qui-Gon Jinn again, but instead he has more visions of Anakin Skywalker’s fall to the dark side, culminating in us cutting to Vader’s Castle back on Mustafar. The Dark Lord of the Sith (played by Hayden Christensen in body and nonagenarian James Earl Jones in voice) orders Inquisitor Reva (Moses Ingram) to capture Obi-Wan once and for all– and the Third Sister is all too happy to comply in order to curry favorite with Vader in the hopes of claiming the title of Grand Inquisitor for herself.
On the mining planet of Mapuzo, Ben and Leia wander through a landscape dotted with Joshua trees, headed toward the coordinates provided to them by Haja Estree in the previous installment. Long story short, they wind up having a couple of close calls with some stormtroopers after hitching a ride with a seemingly friendly transport driver (voiced by guest star Zach Braff of Scrubs fame) and stumbling upon an Imperial officer named Tala Durith (Rome’s Indira Varma) who turns out to be a Jedi sympathizer running an Underground Railroad for Force-users on the run. When Vader and the Inquisitors finally track Obi-Wan to Mapuzo, Leia and Ben get separated and master and apprentice clash lightsabers for the first time since Revenge of the Sith.
The back half of this episode is pretty thrilling, and I love the eerie lighting during its final battle sequence, but some of the ostensibly suspenseful encounters with stormtroopers up top just fell flat for me. I didn’t get why these particular troopers knew they were searching for an escaped Jedi but had no idea what he looked like– Obi-Wan’s image was sent out there for the bounty hunters last episode and clearly the Probe Droid here had enough information to identify him, so why were those bucketheads so in the dark? I guess they’re just incompetent in general, as usual. But I dug the rest after things got underway with Tala, the reveal of the hidden tunnel system and its graffiti, and the climactic duel. Plus we got confirmation that the above-mentioned James Earl Jones– now a 45-year veteran of the Star Wars franchise (along with legendary Obi-Wan Kenobi contributor John Williams)– has returned as his most famous character, an astounding feat at his age.
Does the line “When I left you, I was but the learner; now I am the master” from A New Hope still make sense in the larger Star Wars continuity? I don’t really know either way, but I guess we still have three full episodes left of this series to see if and how Obi-Wan and Darth Vader interact again. For now it’s just fun to see Ben attempt to regain the skills he lost from a decade of atrophy in the Tatooine sun.
The first three episodes of Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi are now available to stream, exclusively on Disney+.