EPISODE 717: LEAVE ME ALOBIWAN KENOBI
Ben Shot First
POP CULTURE SPIRIT WOW
Stranger Things back for yet another run at the Upside Down! Star Trek: Strange New Worlds debuts a new Star Trek big bad that seems like it might be the coolest thing since the Borg! Maverick back for another run at fighter jets and The Righteous Brothers! People seem to be really into reassessing the Star Wars prequels (which is crazy, they are bad)! Someone paid me to throw punches at the new Downton Abbey!
Oh, and hey, Disney+ just launched a new series with this guy!
Yep, definitely a week to take off of your woolen robes and get comfortable.
Here's what you need to know.
SO MUCH EVEN WAY MORE STRANGER THAN STRANGE THINGS
Netflix launched the first seven episodes of its fourth season of Stranger Things Friday, after three years. There are two more to come July 1st, which is definitely a strange choice, so bravo, I guess? Also the run time for the season as a whole is 13 HOURS, which means every episode is over an hour long, and two are longer than the movie Free Guy.
Netflix is marketing this as a "super-sized" season, as in "look at all this extra content you get for your money," except we don't pay per episode and for a lot of people extra-long episodes are like asking students to write a five-page essay and you turn in a 20 pager. I love your enthusiasm, but that was not what you were asked to do and I have other papers to grade, you know?
I'm five episodes in. Without spoilers, I can say expect some strong Freddy Krueger vibes this season. Also, Kate Bush and many many storylines. This is what happens when you move half the cast to California and then throw everyone's favorite dad in a Russian prison to boot. The Hawkins story starts VERY strong, and the California story does, too, in a very different way.
Right now I'm a little worried whether some of the plots aren't collapsing in on themselves; is Freddy Krueger actually a bigger bad than the Mind Flayer attacking the whole town? Magic 8-Ball says "undecided." But the performances are as strong as ever, and if there is a God we're finally going to see Will confess how much he loves Mike, and I am definitely here for that.
EVEN MORE STRANGER THAN STRANGER THINGS PLUS ALSO SPACE
If you haven't checked out the new Star Trek show Strange New Worlds yet, my God get thee to a Paramount+ free tryout, because it is fantastic. Great characters, sexy cool vibe and a very Star Trek: The Original Series playbook—new worlds and adventures every episode.
Though this series is a prequel to that original Trek, this week they introduced an enemy we've never heard of, and they were scary as hell. Seriously the best introduction of a Star Trek villain since the Borg—or maybe Khan. (Yeah, that good.) And the twist is, we never even saw their faces.
If you're into scifi, you definitely need to beam yourself up.
TOM CRUISE IS BACK AND GOSH DARN IT PEOPLE LIKE HIM
Top Gun: Maverick came out this week, too, and from what I'm reading it's currently trending as Tom Cruise's best box office opening ever. Which seems CRAZY for a film that a whole generation has probably not seen, but good for him. Maybe that means Avatar 2 will be a big hit, too.
DOWNTON ABBEY IS BACK AND WOW IT'S BAD
To be clear: I love Downton Abbey. But watching the new movie I kept wondering if the characters all died in between the last movie and now and what are we actually watching is them trying to remember that fact so they can escape from hell.
And for some reason my editors let me write about that.
OBIWOW WOW
Friday ALSO saw the release of the first two episodes of the new Obi-Wan Kenobi mini-series, which takes place ten years after Revenge of the Sith, with Obi-Wan hanging out on Tatooine, waiting for Luke to show signs of the Force so that Obi-Wan can abduct him and start the whole Jedi cycle of horror and pain all over again.
The first two episodes have a lot of interesting stuff in them. I'm going to jump right into it; if you haven't see the show yet, SPOILERS AHOY.
DANGLING THREADS
The thing I loved most about Obi-Wan was the way it brought to light so many areas raised by the prequels that have never been resolved. First and foremost, there's that comment that everyone keeps making throughout the prequels about Anakin Skywalker is "the Chosen One," which George Lucas then never explained. The first two Obi-Wan episodes show him wrestling with this idea in dreams, and with any luck we're finally going to see some kind of conversation about this.
My hope is that we learn the prophesy was very much a "Be careful what you wish for" kind of vibe—Yes, he was the one to bring balance to the Force, but that meant the destruction of the Jedi because they had grown to be horrible as an organization.
There's a lot of ways that's not satisfying, though. How many millions of people did he also help the Emperor to murder? How could that possibly mean greater balance in the Force?
Hopefully we'll see.
Ben's dreams (Raise your hand if you much prefer calling him Ben?) also include him remembering Padme's assertion that there's still good in Anakin. This is of course what's going to save him at the very end of his life, when Luke bets the galaxy on it.
But we also know that by the end of his life (and beyond) Ben was very much of the mindset that this theory was absolutely wrong, that Luke had to kill his father. I can't say that I think that really needs explanation, and in fact I fear that digging into it too deeply will end up killing some of what made that choice great, namely that it's so awful and wrong. Please, Star Wars, learn from Han and Greedo and don't try to fix Ben's mistakes.
(For some reason I felt the same about the reveal that Ben doesn't know Anakin survived. It could be a GREAT choice; does Ben now blame himself for the destruction wrought by Vader? Does he feel obligated to go and try to finish what he started? But it could also just end up recreating the end of Revenge of the Sith, maybe with the twist that this time Ben is the one that barely escapes. I guess we'll see!)
We also reintroduce Uncle Lars, previously known as the worst uncle ever. Here we get him trying to protect Luke from the Jedi, which is really interesting because in Star Wars even understanding what he was trying to do he seemed like an ass. But here we're 100% on his side. It's a fun twist. Too bad he's going to end up burned alive.
SWEETEN, DON’T SOLVE
The biggest immediate thing, though, is that for the very first time we really get to see Alderaan and explore Leia's childhood. Every aspect of that was really thrilling.
Watching that storyline unfold had me thinking a lot about the immediate difference between the prequels, which are very much not good movies, @ me all you want I am correct, and much of what I’m seeing here. The prequels were really all about explaining how we got to Star Wars. Trapped by where they knew they were going, they struggled to achieve any sort of vitality of their own. It's both why young Anakin is so over the top adorable—you want to start your protagonist as far from where he's going to end up as possible—and why none of Young Adult Anakin's decisions make any sense. He's not a real boy, he's a Trojan Horse containing the Empire virus.
On Alderaan, on the other hand, the writers of Obi-Wan aren't trying to explain anything. They're trying to sweeten and complicate our experience of the original trilogy. Watching Alderaan get wiped out in A New Hope was BRUTAL. But it's going to be that much harder to watch after this mini-series, because now people like Leia's parents or world will be that much more real in our minds.
It's the same to some extent with Kid Leia. I had predicted that she might be in the series; but I don’t think anyone would have assumed she’d show Force powers. And yet the ability they give her to read people deeply adds to our understanding of the character in the original trilogy, her leadership ability and also her luck. They don't overplay it, either; it's just right.Â
I did find Kid Leia in episode two is less successful. Her decisions start to have a sort of Ani vibe. They seem far more plot driven than based in her character.
SITH AND SPIN
The one other area that's interesting to me about the first two episodes is the whole notion of the Inquisitors. These characters have been around for a long while in the animated series, but never in the Skywalker Saga live action stuff, and honestly it’s not entirely clear to me how they work.
Supposedly the Sith insist there can only be two of them at any one time, so as to keep themselves hidden from the Jedi. But what really makes these Inquisitors any different? They're all Force sensitive. They're all evil. And many of them are former Jedi. That's page one of the Emperor's playbook. So why not call them Sith, too? Here's hoping we get some conversation about that.
Definitely an interesting start! I just hope we get some of this:
YA BEN-BURNED!
CURRENT EVENTS
As part of America's coverage of the shooting in Texas I had a piece on Hollywood and guns in America over the weekend. Although I don't talk about it in the article, my thoughts really emerge from my own experience working on Preacher, a TV show that was extremely violent. We had a great time developing the show, and the violence was in many ways cartoonish. But when my time on the show ended I wondered about the difference between what most everyone involved in the show would think about guns and the way we used them in the show. It's definitely harder to get people to see guns as a problem when they are constantly on television and in the movies and being presented as normal.
And in other news, the Bishop of San Diego, Robert McElroy, was just made a cardinal by Pope Francis. This is HUGE news for many reasons, most especially the fact that it seems to very clearly signal that Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles is not going to be getting a red hat anytime soon. Given some of the choices Archbishop Gomez has made as president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, that's maybe not such a surprise. But it is shocking that the leader of the largest diocese in the United States is not a cardinal, and also that once again Pope Francis has chosen not to give a red hat to a Latino bishop, despite the fact that Latinos represent much of the growth in the Catholic Church in the U.S.
THREE TWEETS
THIS
SO TRUE
TED SARANDOS ON THE VALUE OF QUESTIONING THE VALIDITY OF SOMEONE ELSE'S EXISTENCE
Hope you all have a great Memorial Day. Be good to yourself. See you next week!
"They're all Force sensitive. They're all evil. And many of them are former Jedi... So why not call them Sith, too?"
I wonder if the answer could be similar to answering why there are so many different religious orders... I mean, you're all Catholic, right? And you all take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience? What's the difference? ;)