{"id":17338,"date":"2022-06-22T16:33:22","date_gmt":"2022-06-22T14:33:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/?p=1667704"},"modified":"2022-06-22T17:08:27","modified_gmt":"2022-06-22T15:08:27","slug":"obi-wan-kenobi-should-have-been-a-movie","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/rss_feed\/obi-wan-kenobi-should-have-been-a-movie\/","title":{"rendered":"Obi-Wan Kenobi should have been a movie"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Huw Fullerton\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Wednesday, 22 June 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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After six episodes, a few fan-baiting flashbacks and a lot<\/em> of waiting before Ewan McGregor said \u201cHello there!\u201d, Disney Plus<\/a>\u2018s Star Wars spin-off Obi-Wan Kenobi<\/a> has finally come to its conclusion \u2013 and for me, it\u2019s been a bit of a mixed bag.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get me wrong, there\u2019s been plenty to like about the series. For a start, it actually felt like Obi-Wan Kenobi had a story to tell with some emotional resonance, bridging the gap between the horrors the character faced in the prequel trilogy (and we don\u2019t just mean Jar Jar) and the serene, wise teacher Alec Guinness played him as in the original trilogy.<\/p>\n

Reuniting McGregor and Christensen was a good move, the flashbacks were well done and generally speaking the story was a perfectly acceptable, enjoyable ride. The issue was\u2026 well, the entire way the show was made.<\/p>\n

Obi-Wan Kenobi should have been a movie. At one point, it was supposed to be, with Stephen Daldry on the books to direct a feature-length version of the story with McGregor. Unfortunately, Disney got cold feet after the underperformance of Solo in 2018, and basically nixed all their film plans before shifting Kenobi to Disney Plus.<\/p>\n

I really wish they\u2019d stuck to their (uncivilised) guns. Despite its TV-high price tag, you could see the limitations in Kenobi from early on, with the vast scale and richness of the feature films traded in for dull, empty locations and planets with little visual flair.<\/p>\n

After their last clash on an exploding lava planet, stretching over miles of falling buildings and failing equipment, Obi-Wan and Vader\u2019s big rematch\u2026 was in a dimly-lit, dusty quarry. A few episodes later, in the finale, this was upgraded to a dimly-lit, misty area full of loose stones.<\/p>\n

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Ewan McGregor plays Obi-Wan Kenobi<\/span><\/figcaption> Disney<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n

Flashbacks to the larger scale of the prequels only highlighted the contrast, and the Disney Plus version of Obi-Wan Kenobi started to feel small and grubby by comparison. There are so many half-sized ships, bases and small rooms, after we\u2019d previously seen the character in huge pitched battles and vast spaces. At various points throughout the series, you could see the strain of trying to tell a movie story under these constraints.<\/p>\n