Ben Stovall Blog

Tag: movies

  • 2024: Year in Review

    2024: Year in Review

    For me, it feels like the theme of this year was that I wish I’d done more. I read fewer books than I’d planned to, I didn’t play very many new games, I scarcely watched movies or tv shows. And I certainly didn’t write as much as I’d wanted to. It’s like I stalled out after the first third of the year, but we talked about that plenty in the Irregular Update a couple weeks ago, didn’t we? Despite a relatively austere year, I had the privilege of experiencing some media that really stuck with me, grabbed me, or inspired me.

    Let’s get into it.

    Books

    I had a much easier time burning through books back when I wasn’t working from home, to be honest. Taking them in to read during my lunch break really worked out, and often left me on some interesting cliffhanger that made it easier to read some more once I got home. With my current schedule, I only have a 30 minute break for lunch, and often don’t read during that window. (Exceptions were made for Wind and Truth this month.)

    Over time, I was excited to play different video games and hopped right into them when I was done with my shift. I played a lot of Warcraft following the War Within’s launch, and other games kept drawing me back like a magnet over the year. So it goes.

    I think, when I brought a book in to the office and didn’t have something else I could be doing, it made it easier to stick with things that weren’t grabbing me in a vise-like grip. I could muddle through something I had a middling opinion of just to fill the time. Couple books this year I grit my teeth and plowed through, and it might’ve proved detrimental to my desire to keep reading through the rest of the year.

    (I just need to throw my smartphone in a box and take a book into another room to get around this.)

    Anyway.

    Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

    This was a book I read early on in the year and it ruled. I loved the intrigue, I loved Gideon and Harrow’s fraught relationship, I loved reading about space necromancers. I’m looking forward to reading more of the series in 2025, and I can’t recommend this book enough.

    The Sunlit Man by Brandon Sanderson

    I got around to the other two Secret Projects back at the start of the year. In the afterword of the Sunlit Man, Sanderson called the project a book he wrote for his fans – where Yumi and Tress had been more as gifts for his wife. I have to say, as a fan, Sunlit Man absolutely rules. It left so many questions in my head, waiting for Wind and Truth. It had a breakneck pace and excellent action. It is, without a doubt, the most cinematic cosmere novel so far. A movie could be made from this book practically one-to-one and it would rock.

    I also greatly enjoyed Yumi and the Nightmare Painter and Wind and Truth this year from Sanderson, but I wanted to specifically celebrate Sunlit Man for the ways it’s different from many cosmere novels here.

    The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman

    This book is a lot easier to recommend than Between Two Fires. It’s a fun classic quest from the perspective of our eponymous thief as he’s taken on a march across the continent with a host of interesting characters and fun action. It was fun to read despite some grim details in the setting, and books that are just fun to read will be a balm to many in the coming years.

    Movies

    I think I went to a movie theater once this year. Whatever time I might’ve spent watching movies, I think I watched longform video essays instead – like F. D. Signifier’s many drops throughout the year, Lindsey Ellis’s nebula-exclusives, Matt Colville’s video about the Elusive Shift, and videos about movies from Patrick H. Willems. And I thoroughly enjoyed them all!

    Point is, I saw like three movies this year total, and we all know which ones I’m going to be talking about here.

    Dune: Part Two

    A cinematic achievement. An excellent adaptation. Incredible effects, an excellent story translated near-perfectly to screen. I love Dune, and I loved these movies. The way they’ve infected culture, with people jokingly calling their friends Lisan al-Gaib or Maud’dib or permutations thereof is endlessly entertaining. What more is there to say, really?

    Furiosa: A Mad Max Story

    Fury Road is one of my favorite aesthetics in modern fiction. I love the wasteland, I love the motorized bikes and buggies, and I had a blast with this film. While many bemoaned it as an unnecessary addition to the canon, when every minute of this movie is as awesome as this was, it needs no further justification.

    TV Shows

    I didn’t watch much TV either, to be honest. I had Netflix for exactly two months this year; I watched a lot of Peaky Blinders when I was running Blades in the Dark near the start of the year for inspiration, and I returned for one month specifically for the first show below (but ended up watching the second show on this list too, on the recommendation of a friend). I never got around to temporarily using Hulu to watch Shogun despite meaning to, and as much as I love Invincible, I do think it was hurt a little by splitting up the season. House of the Dragon? Woof. I hope there were some external circumstances behind that season’s ending, because that was a fine episode in a vacuum, but not as a season finale.

    Anyway, onto the good.

    Arcane Season 2

    Arcane’s final season aired a little over a month ago, and I’m still thinking about it – mostly the small moments, like those which filled the seventh episode. I remember the end of the first batch, with Ambessa’s plan revealed as the music swelled with the punctuation of the crowd beating their chests – what a moment that was. This show is so far beyond the gold-standard for animation it isn’t fair. It’s so premium in its presentation, I loved every minute.

    Delicious in Dungeon

    So, I don’t really watch anime.

    Look, it’s a personal thing, okay? It’s nothing to do with animation – three of the shows I’m mentioning here are animated. It’s … more to do with the common themes that exist in anime not being those I’m particularly interested in. Delicious in Dungeon (or Dungeon Meshi) doesn’t avoid these things, but I liked everything else about the show enough to get over them. The aesthetic of a classic D&D party delving into a megadungeon rules. The show’s got some problems with an inconsistent tone – it doesn’t want you to take it too seriously, but things keep happening that feels like they should be taken seriously. Without spoiling anything beyond the show’s very first scene – our hero Laios is fighting a huge dragon with his party when he realizes he’s so hungry he can’t fight. And it’s pretty funny – except, people are getting mauled in the background and someone gets full-on eaten.

    If any of that’s a dealbreaker, probably safe to skip this one. Otherwise, you might have a fun, zany little show to enjoy.

    The Legend of Vox Machina Season 3

    Critical Role continues to make inspired adjustments to their live streamed D&D game to make for a compelling TV show. There were some fans disappointed by the changes made to this specific leg of the campaign – from people disliking the stakes becoming more personal for our heroes, to a couple of beloved moments from the campaign not occurring as the fans expected.

    I, however, think there’s something to be gleaned from these adjustments. If you don’t want any spoilers, skip to the next section.

    So, one major criticism was the change to Grog’s delivery of “Fix him!” in the show. In the livestreamed game, Travis yells the words, shouting for Scanlan to be resurrected following his death at the hands of Raishan. In the animated series, Scanlan is unconscious after escaping certain death at Thordak’s claws, and the delivery of the line is much more subdued. There is certainly a lot of power and pathos in the original delivery – but perhaps it always felt out of place? Immediately after that shouted line, Travis speaks his next few lines in a more mundane register. Perhaps, with how much closer he and Pike have remained (with her not being absent for so much of these adventures) has developed Grog into someone who’s much more reluctant to scream at her – especially when she’s trying her best.

    The next major problem many fans had stems from the Bard’s Lament moment being skipped – at least, that’s the way it appears. There’s still certainly enough in the show to bring the moment back in season 4, but given the show’s uncertain future, they decided not to leave the team on such a bitter, tragic note. If this had been the final season, Scanlan blowing up at his friends and entirely withdrawing from the team would’ve been a rather sour note, and all of the ingredients for the moment are still there. Perhaps Scanlan will be hesitant to return to the party come season 4 – let’s give the team some grace, eh?

    Fallout

    Ella Purnell makes the list twice! This show was a good, fun romp through our favorite wasteland, and I’m looking forward to seeing more. The moment toward the end of the first or second episode where our heroine’s chipper attitude holds despite her needing to decapitate someone just really sells the whole vibe of the show.

    Video Games

    Much of my year was spent enthralled to my old staples – Warcraft and Deep Rock Galactic. I played a few new games; things I saw on the odd stream, a few anticipated titles. And I got around to getting a Nintendo Switch, more on that later.

    Balatro

    Last year, I had this long paragraph about how much gameplay matters in a roguelike game – about how if the game isn’t fun, it won’t work? Balatro has the sauce. This indie game from a solo dev blew everyone’s minds this year for good reason. Hell, it had an honest chance to win Game of the Year at the VGAs, and while I haven’t had the chance to play Astro Bot myself, I’ve heard a wealth of good things about it. Whatever LocalThunk makes next is sure to be on everyone’s radar.

    Windblown

    From the developers behind Dead Cells comes this little isometric co-op roguelite I’ve been enjoying with a friend. It’s been a blast to play, and every time I launch the game I can’t bear to skip it’s little anime intro! It’s still in early access right now, but I’m willing to stake my flag and say this will be one worth checking out.

    My Game of the Year: Tears of the Kingdom

    See, this is the benefit of being behind on some games. I get to celebrate Baldur’s Gate 3 last year, and the Legend of Zelda this year! I get to have the cake and eat it after all.

    Jokes aside, yeah. Nothing this year grabbed me half as well as Tears of the Kingdom. It was an excellent evolution of everything Breath of the Wild did, and the new tools were so fun to play around with. With some truly stellar cinematic fights and small ways the game broke the expectations it gave you, I loved every minute. Never would I have guessed how powerful a handshake could be. (If you know, you know.)

    So. That’s the year as remembered by me. Here’s hoping for some good media in 2025!

  • 2023: Year In Review

    2023: Year In Review

    In 2022, it wasn’t until September that I’d decided to make a retrospective post about the media I’d enjoyed that year. This time, I had it in mind from the start, and I jotted down little notes throughout about what I wanted to include. I’ve had some of the below on the list as far back as February (and my friends and family will recognize them, since I’ve talked them up all year long). As before, I’ll avoid spoilers as much as I can. Let’s get to it!

    Books

    As last year, I didn’t read as much as I’d hoped. I’ve played maybe a few too many hours of video games, watched a few too many episodes of TV shows or movies. I’m still figuring out how I want to sketch out my daily routine with my new job, but I’ll get there. Regardless, there were still several books the absolutely ensnared me and that I want to maybe draw more eyes toward.

    The Fires of Vengeance by Evan Winter

    I don’t really have a whole lot to say here; I liked this book just as much as I did the first and I’m excited to see more from Evan Winter. I think this could be one of those series that becomes mainstream as it gets more and more entries. With how much I’ve enjoyed this series so far, I’d hate to be wrong.

    Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson

    It’s been an amazing year for Sanderson, there’s no doubt about that. Perhaps the only people coming out ahead of him are his fans, receiving five books of his this year – myself included. I was unemployed when the kickstarter for his Four Secret Projects launched and I still made an incredibly silly financial decision and backed him. I’ve only read the first two of those releases thus far, and between them and The Lost Metal, Tress is my certain favorite.

    I think something that really worked here was the perspective of the book – most Sanderson stories I’ve read are in third person, bouncing perspectives on chapter changes or on scene breaks when things are kicking off, and I think the consistent voice really enhanced this book.

    Between my love for this and Scott Lynch’s Red Seas Under Red Skies, maybe I’m just a big fan of fantasy pirate books.

    Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman

    This is probably the best book I read all year, but it’s one I hesitate to recommend. It is a hard read. Horrible things happen to these characters, but then, of course they do – it’s a dark fantasy story set in France during the Black Plague, and Buehlman really makes it easy to feel the suffering of our tiny band of characters. He does not shy away from the horror of our history, and it is made much worse by the supernatural.

    Children of Time & Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovsky

    I wonder if I’m going to end up having an “off-the-wall weird” sci-fi rec each year. In this book, a scientist, Avrana Kern, wants to make a garden world for humanity to eventually settle. A utopia with genetically-engineered servitors and an impeccable biosphere, an Eden amidst the stars. Unfortunately, a saboteur tries to utterly upend her goal, killing the monkeys she intended to see the planet with, but rather than admit defeat, she launches her nanovirus anyway and it infects a surprising host … we witness some of their development over the course of hundreds of years, then a wave of humans eventually comes to settle the garden world, discovering things are so much different than they expected.

    And – wouldn’t you know it, this duology won a best series Hugo award this year! I was ahead of the game this time.

    Movies

    I saw as many new movies at home as I did in theaters this year – which is to say, I didn’t see that many movies. It isn’t that I don’t like movies, I love film, but going to the theater has become unbearably expensive and when I’m home, I usually gravitate toward games or shorter-form media instead. Despite all that, I saw a few movies that really mattered to me this year.

    Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

    I had a lot of fun seeing this movie and I’d love to see this gang of adventurers again someday – another heist, a dungeon crawl, whatever. We’ll see if anything comes of that. Hasbro continues to prove itself a poor parent company with layoffs right before Christmas this year despite D&D having a banner year all around (more on that later).

    Oppenheimer

    This is the first biopic I’ve ever seen. I wanted to give it a shot because I’ve been enjoyed every Christopher Nolan film I’ve seen and I was interested in the subject. I loved it. I don’t know when on earth I’ll find time to watch it again, but I know that I want to. The use of color and black-and-white presentation really blew me away when I discovered the reason for it.

    Puss in Boots: the Last Wish

    This movie released last December and I kept hearing praise for it all over the place. On a whim, once it showed up on Amazon, I rented it and it still blew me away with how fantastic it was. It’s an animated movie that treats its audience, kids and adults both, with respect. It’s incredibly stylish with crisp and beautiful animation. It was the first thing to be thrown onto my list for this blog post this year – hell, I saw it about a week before I started really getting back into writing, so maybe it was just straight-up inspirational for me.

    Music

    I didn’t include music on my list last year because I am perpetually behind on music and my tastes haven’t changed much from my teenage years. Luckily, they didn’t need to.

    This is Why from Paramore dominated my listening for several weeks when it dropped back in February. I had the album on endless repeat, especially Running Out of Time and You First. I’ve also been obsessed with The Adults Are Talking from the Strokes’ The New Abnormal since I heard it this summer. (Which, yes, is from 2020. As I said, perpetually behind.)

    Video Games

    It’s probably because they dominate most of my time as my primary hobby, but this feels like the real meat-and-potatoes of the post to me. Maybe I just trust my opinions about video games more than I do anything else since I’ve been playing them as long as I can remember. Regardless, here’s some of the highlights of my year and anyone who knows me will already know what my game of the year is.

    Core Keeper

    Survival games are hit-or-miss for me. If it finds me in the right mood, or it’s got a good story or good RPG elements, I can get hooked. But it can also have both of those things and just still fail to grab me. Core Keeper was a hit, right on target. It’s got a full release planned for next year, and I played the hell out of it for a few weeks this summer. My friends and I enjoyed it immensely, getting all the way to the hard edge of the progression curve right before their big biome update a few months ago. I’m glad to know there’s new stuff waiting for me whenever I get back into it. (And I will!)

    God of War: Valhalla

    It feels like Santa Monica Studio made an excellent little bonus game mode they could’ve sold for like $20 and they handed it out for free. It’s an excellent epilogue for Ragnarok, and it is what I’m going to get back to playing the moment I finish drafting this post (hopefully I’ll be done with its story when this goes up).

    Roboquest

    Roguelites put their gameplay front-and-center – if that doesn’t work, the whole game fails. They must be fun to play. And Roboquest is a freakin’ blast. The gunplay here is so immaculate and satisfying (I really love the comic-book style sound effects that pop up right next to your guns) that it’s a blast to play through. And it’s got 2-player co-op! Grab your best brobot and run-and-gun to your mechanical heart’s content! You will not regret it.

    My Game of the Year: Baldur’s Gate 3

    If I still had the time on my hands like I did when I was a teenager slamming through Dragon Age: Origins runs, I’d probably have six completed playthroughs by now. I’ve yet to make good on my goal to get all of the achievements (a few of them are contingent on a co-op run I have in Act 3 that my friend and I haven’t gotten back to yet), but it’s still my plan to do it. Even that new one for an Honor Mode completion. I can’t wait to see what Larian does next (and I really appreciate the post-release support. That reunion party was exactly what I wanted when I finished the game the first time).

    Well, there we have it. Farewell, 2023. As always, thank you for reading. Here’s to many new stories and adventures in 2024. Happy New Year, everyone.

  • 2022: Year in Review

    2022: Year in Review

    As we come upon the end of 2022, I wanted to take a moment to look back at all of the media I’ve enjoyed this year and talk about what I loved. Consider this a graduation of a “Ben Recommends” post, one plus-sized entry to talk about several games, books, movies, and TV shows that I didn’t devote an entire post to earlier in the year. Not all of these projects were released this year, but they were things I experienced for the first time in 2022. As always, we’ll avoid spoilers as much as we can, so without further delay, let’s dive in.

    Books

    I didn’t read as much as I’d planned to this year, but there was certainly no shortage of quality books that completely ensnared me. The craft on display inspired me to keep honing my own writing, to pursue the best I can manage and always improve.

    A Memory Called Empire & A Desolation Called Peace

    Arkady Martine’s Hugo winning duology was instantly one of the best books I’d ever read. I remember a moment – the first “on-screen” interaction between Ambassador Mahit and her predecessor Yskandr – that I just felt floored. Every time I pick up a Hugo winner, I find something, an idea or an impeccable presentation, some way to present a thought in a way that I hadn’t been able to consider or articulate myself, that just reminds me why I was so drawn to writing in the first place. I read Desolation before 2022’s Hugos were awarded, but I had no doubt it my mind it would snag the win.

    The Rage of Dragons

    I first picked up Evan Winter’s novel to read while I was unable to engage in my more persistent distractions, but I found it so gripping that even when I’d finally returned home, it was still consuming my time. Reading it reminded me of the way Game of Thrones made me feel when the show had been at its best, even despite how different the two tales are. The book is so deliberate, so consistent, that even moments that might drag in a lesser novel remained just as enthralling here. I can’t wait to catch up with the Fires of Vengeance and join everyone else in waiting for the next novel.

    Elder Race

    Adrian Tchaikovsky is an author whose name I’d see pop up on the fantasy subreddit time and again, so I decided to give Elder Race a try to dip my toes into his work. I finished the entire novella in a day, moving only when my spot on the couch started to become uncomfortable. Only once I’d finished did I set the book down, adding more of his work to my wish list for the holidays.

    Movies

    I only found my way into a theater a handful of times this year, catching The Batman and the new Marvel movies, and when I did sit down with a movie at home it was often one I’d already seen. Still, there was a notable exception that deserves a spot of recognition here.

    Knives Out & Glass Onion

    Say what you will for Rian Johnson’s entry into Star Wars, but the man knows how to craft an exciting mystery. I finally got around to seeing Knives Out this year, and I immediately knew I had to share the movie with my mother. It’s a wonderful film with surprising twists and turns all throughout, and Glass Onion certainly serves as a great sequel to expand the canon on Benoit Blanc.

    TV Shows

    There were a lot of new shows this year that I didn’t ever get around to watching. I’ve heard great things about dozens of shows, but never had the opportunity to check most of them out. Of what I did see, the two below really stick out as the best of the best.

    Better Call Saul

    I was a huge fan of Better Call Saul since the first season. Each time they finally got added to Netflix, I slammed through each episode, hungry for more. Peter Gould and Vince Gilligan worked a miracle, following up one of the best television dramas ever with a spinoff sequel, that, for me, surpassed the original. It’s a master class in pacing, in setup and payoff, in following through, even if it might become predictable. The final season stuck the landing, and I can’t wait to see what these guys do next.

    Andor

    If it hadn’t finished so close to the year, I think Andor would’ve had its own entire post. This show was something I’d always wanted from Star Wars: a gritty, grounded story about people rising against the tyranny of the empire. It isn’t afraid to take its time, to build clear stakes and show us who these characters are. Despite the darkness it is hopeful – things are bad, but there are those who are willing to fight, to build a tomorrow they will never see, so that things will be better one day.

    Video Games

    The video game industry continues to swing wildly between the best and the worst it can be. In the same year that we get Elden Ring and God of War: Ragnarok as examples of the pinnacle of what games can be, we get Diablo: Immortal, a blatant pay-to-win cash grab, and Pokémon Scarlet and Violet releases as a buggy mess with very little in the way of innovation despite being one of the highest grossing media franchises in the world. I’ve always been a bit of a patient gamer, only buying games on day one when they’re a highly anticipated release, but I still got around to a lot of games that were new this year.

    Vampire Survivors

    I was an early adopter of this tiny little game, picking it up at the start of February in early access. Very, very few games are as much of a value trade as this ended up being. For that $3 price point I got 54 hours of excellent gameplay, and they just released a $2 DLC that I’m excited to get around to diving into soon. For a while, I was keeping up with each patch and collecting the achievements as they came, but I hadn’t played since April until a couple weeks ago and I had a lot of new things to check out when I got back into it.

    Potionomics

    I was never someone who was interested in dating simulator games. I’d confidently skipped over them all, certain I wasn’t missing anything. Then, I saw someone playing Potionomics on a stream and decided to give it a shot. It had just enough of a game laid overtop that I bought in, and I enjoyed the game immensely. I stuck around for two full playthroughs to get all of the achievements on Steam and I have no regrets. I don’t think it’s completely changed my opinion on dating simulators, but if this team releases another one with another decent game on top, they’ve at a minimum earned my interest.

    Dicey Dungeons

    A friend of mine played this game on Game Pass and immediately knew I’d love it. That same day he sent me a gifted copy, and he was completely correct. This little roguelike battle game has been an absolute blast to play. The game gives you items to equip on each run that you use rolled six-sided dice to dismantle your foes with. There’s appropriately six characters to play as, each with their own unique dice interactions and mechanics: the warrior can reroll dice to get better results, the rogue wants lower dice values to unleash a flurry of attacks, the robot rolls each dice one-at-a-time with a hard cap on how much their CPU can handle each turn. With lots of comedy buried in the enemy profiles you unlock with each achievement, this game is overflowing with charm.

    My Game of the Year: God of War Ragnarok

    Ragnarok is a sequel in the most honest sense of the word. Everything about God of War (2018) is improved upon here: the gameplay is smoother, the systems are more developed with more options, things are expanded naturally, and the story and performances are top-notch. Elden Ring is absolutely one of the best games I’ve ever played, but Ragnarok appeals more to me as a person. It would be a lie to say Elden Ring lacks a narrative, but presentation between these two games couldn’t be more different, and I’m a sucker for a great story.

    There’s also something to be said for the difference in boss design in these two games. While you have so much more freedom in how you build your character in Elden Ring, there’s certainly a value in the way a God of War boss can have mechanics that require a specific answer to be dealt with. In Elden Ring and the Dark Souls games, what you’re capable of as a character can be so varied that I don’t believe there’s any mechanics in the game that the dodge roll can’t avoid. In Ragnarok, there was a boss that I needed to interrupt with a weapon throw, or a couple mechanics that I could use a specific arrow from my ally to interrupt, and it felt fantastic to go step-for-step in these dance-like encounters. Neither of these design philosophies is better than the other: what you gain in player choice and freedom in Elden Ring is incredibly valuable, while the limited choices you make in God of War can still adjust your playstyle, just not nearly as much as the decisions in Elden Ring.

    2022 delivered some truly incredible stories, and I couldn’t be more thankful to have the opportunity to experience them. I’m excited to see what new stories we can share with one another in 2023. As always, thank you for reading. I hope you have a happy New Year, and I’ll see you again soon.

  • Kenobi: Another Missed Opportunity

    Kenobi: Another Missed Opportunity

    I remember when the news about Disney purchasing Lucasfilm and Star Wars first surfaced. There was a cautious kind of excitement. A lot of blame had been laid at George Lucas’s feet for the missteps of the prequel trilogy, after all, and there’s fair criticism to be made when it comes to those three movies. So maybe with new blood at the helm, and Lucas reined in or aided in areas he had shown weakness, some new, incredible stories might’ve been told.

    This post isn’t about the sequel trilogy, though. The Kenobi show “aired” (feels like the wrong word with a streaming service) its final episode about a month ago, and ultimately my feelings on the show have only soured further with time. Lucky for me, I’ve got the perfect excuse to write about it and pretend that it’s productive! So cue the John Williams and start the title crawl. And, obviously, spoilers ahead.

    A Plague of Prequels

    There’s a stagnation with Star Wars under Disney that I don’t know anyone expected would come when the buyout broke. The universe is stuck in a bookended era with movies on either side. We know how these stories end. Hell, for Kenobi and the upcoming Andor series, we know how these characters die. When Han Solo’s solo movie released, we knew how he died.

    That of course doesn’t eliminate the possibility of a good story. Romeo and Juliet is still being enjoyed today and it tells you how the story ends right at the start. But it’s different in a prequel story. It completely changes the texture of tension. It is a foregone conclusion that anyone who’s had exposure to Star Wars before knows that Kenobi and Darth Vader must survive the show, and that cuts the tension of them battling one another off at the knees. It can still be entertaining and enjoyable, but that genuine worry that something bad might happen to a character you like is absent. We’ve seen old man Kenobi on Tatooine. We’ve seen him die when Luke and Han rescue Princess Leia. The stakes are not that high for a duel between him and Vader alone on a barren rock.

    There are avenues to bring that tension back – introduce new likable characters and thrust them into danger. In Better Call Saul (no spoilers), the fate of Nacho Varga and Kim Wexler and other characters can revive that tension, so that while we know Jimmy McGill makes it alive to Walter White’s rise to power, we can be unsure of these other character’s fates.

    Kenobi did some of this with the resistance group, the Path, and Indira Varma’s character Tala, but if the final battle between Vader and Kenobi had occurred in some place where other people were in immediate danger if Kenobi didn’t defeat him, that would’ve raised the stakes in a tangible way.

    An expansion of a story must justify its own existence. When a sequel or prequel is made, it changes the context of the original work – there must be something driving that decision. In a sequel, the story is at a minimum moving forward, but prequels have predetermined end-points: all they do is add context. When you intend to craft a compelling story, these are important considerations to have in mind. With a show like Kenobi, however, it feels like the intent was merely to cash-in on something the fanbase had thought would be cool to see for a long time with little thought as to how such a project would impact the characters and the universe at large. Speaking of …

    Darth Vader Shouldn’t be in This Show

    I grew up seeing the prequel movies in theaters. Revenge of the Sith was a movie my mom took me to see on my birthday. I completely understand the desire to see Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen back together on the screen as these characters. Their dialogue in the final episode of the series is legitimately the greatest thing about the show.

    But. In that selfsame conversation, Obi-wan accepts that Anakin is truly dead, going so far as to call him “Darth” as he exits (as he will later in A New Hope). So, why doesn’t Obi-wan kill him here? If he hadn’t had the opportunity, that would be one thing, but he bests Vader in one-on-one combat and leaves. I could accept it on Mustafar: he’d sliced up Anakin real good and it was all he could do to keep himself out of the lava. Not being able to strike the killing blow on his one-time padawan and brother made sense then, but it’s been years. Vader has terrorized the galaxy as part of the Empire, and while striking him down wouldn’t end the regime of the Galactic Empire, it would help people, right?

    Obi-wan even advocates for Luke to kill Vader, and while Luke’s refusal ultimately brings Anakin back from the darkness to slay Darth Sidious, it isn’t something Obi-wan predicted would happen. But they’re both clearly alive in A New Hope, so this duel can only end with them both walking away. Which is flimsy itself, given that there’s a massive imperial ship in orbit that could and should obliterate Obi-wan’s ship as it leaves the planet after Vader’s failure.

    There’s foundational flaws to the whole scene, no matter how great it is. It’s contrivance stacked on top of contrivance to get them both here and then allow them to both leave, and there’s no reason it had to be this way.

    Princess Leia Shouldn’t be in This Show

    The actress they found for young Leia did an truly good job. Child actors can be really hit-or-miss, but Vivien Blair sold young Leia well. I think, however, if they wanted to include a young Leia in this story, they shouldn’t have made her so entirely precocious. She behaves like an adult Leia shrunken down. Her being a child has almost no bearing on the story, with the exception of being physically picked up throughout the show, and being small enough to fit into a maintenance area that will open the gates for the members of the Path to escape their base toward the latter half of the series. (Which, why wouldn’t that be designed for average sized people to access? Anyway.)

    If Leia had to be in this show, she should be a kid with traits we can tell will mature into her personality in A New Hope and onward. The same style of humor? That’s a decent fit. Outrunning adult bounty hunters for several minutes by using knee-high shrubs and bushes? That’s stretching my suspension of disbelief. I understand the idea of her being able to use her size to outmaneuver these guys, but it’s shot in such an unconvincing way with these professional bounty hunters running into chest- or knee-high branches and stopping dead, instead of just … going around, over, or under them.

    It’s not impossible that Leia would’ve been an excellent addition to a Kenobi story. I just don’t think the show we got is that story. I’ve seen others online propose having the inquisitor, the Third Sister, Reva, be more friendly with children given her past as a jedi youngling. Her building a friendly rapport with Leia instead of interrogating her and nearly torturing her and getting information that way is an idea I can get behind.

    Ultimately, I guess I expected something very different from what we got. I hoped for a story with different stakes than Kenobi being sent to save Leia on a galaxy-trotting adventure. And the story we got might’ve worked, but the execution and writing were flawed. We got a show full of contrivances and problems, with a couple moments of brilliance buried within it. When Star Wars is good, it’s incredible. But that just makes it seem even worse when it falls short of its potential.

    The Dark Side of the Fanbase

    The worst thing that about this show, though, is that it provided the worst parts of the Star Wars fandom another chance to spew vitriol and hate at a member of the cast for no good reason. Moses Ingram, the actress for the inquisitor Reva, faced a deluge of racist attacks on social media, not dissimilar from what happened to Kelly Marie Tran after her role as Rose Tico in the Last Jedi.

    Whatever someone’s reaction to the writing of a character or the plot of a movie or show might be, it is not okay to harass actors or staff online. Whatever criticism someone might have regarding a piece of media, it should not deteriorate into personal attacks. Criticize the writing, the production, the acting itself, sure.

    But racism has no place in Star Wars.

    As always, for reading, I thank you.