New Obi-Wan movie shows lack of creativity at Disney

[Adam Reynolds]

Apparently there is now an Obi-Wan movie in development. There are two main points worth discussing here, and neither are exactly positive.

The first problem is about timing. Assuming this takes place between ROTS and ANH, it either leaves Obi-Wan on Tattoine or means that he abandons his responsibility. There actually was a moderately interesting book in the old EU that featured Obi-Wan on Tatooine, but such a story would never work for a Star Wars movie. The only good option that occurs to me is if the movie uses a split narriative, in which most of the the action takes place in a different context through flashbacks. Though that would be unprescedented for a Star Wars movie and rather unlikely.

The second and worse problem is that this indicates an extreme lack of creativity and an unwillingness to take risks in Star Wars as a setting. When is the new EU going to get something like KOTOR that manages to be entirely different and yet extremely familiar at the same time? Everything doesn't have to be about the Skywalkers or connected to the OT. It looks like Rogue One is the closest to an original Star Wars movie we are going to get for awhile.

[Batman]

What the everloving fuck are you talking about? ANH, even back when it was merely called 'Star Wars', established that Kenobi completely stayed out of Luke's life. Unless you can point to some threats he averted or probes by Vader or the Emperor he deflected while the movies and the EU weren't looking, until the fateful day he met Luke when Luke was chasing R2 he did jack all to affect Luke's life. What responsibility would Kenobi be abandoning by continuing to not affect Luke's life in any way from a different location?

[Eternal_Freedom]

^Very much this.

There's a big chunk of years to fill. Frankly, as long as they don't try and tie Obi-Wan into the DS plans storyline of Rogue One/ANH, they can do what they like and I'll stil go see it, especially if they do get Ewan MacGregor back in the role.

It's a big damn universe that they can run with. And while the "stand alone" films do, well, stand alone like Rogue One, there is at this point (IMO) very little point in setting them anywhere other than in the PT/OT timeframe - too much of the film would be needed on world-building to make it enjoyable or dramatic, which was a problem TFA faced.

There are literally countless cool story ideas you could use for an Obi-Wan film set between ROTS and ANH, even some that don't require him to walk away from whatever "responsibility" he might have watching over Luke - perhaps he's dealing with some threat from the Empire that's investigating the young lad, or sometihng about Jabba or someone else.

Basically, how about you wait until some actual plot details are provided before jumping to fucking conclusions about a film? At this point all we know about it is a) they're working on it and b) it will involve Obi-Wan. That's precisely fuck-all to base criticism on, especially a "lack of creativity" criticism, when as I said there are 20+ years or history they can work in with no EU bullshit to tie them down.

[Ralin]

What the everloving fuck are you talking about? ANH, even back when it was merely called 'Star Wars', established that Kenobi completely stayed out of Luke's life. Unless you can point to some threats he averted or probes by Vader or the Emperor he deflected while the movies and the EU weren't looking, until the fateful day he met Luke when Luke was chasing R2 he did jack all to affect Luke's life. What responsibility would Kenobi be abandoning by continuing to not affect Luke's life in any way from a different location?

Obi-wan was there primarily to watch over Luke. And to hide, but he could have done that anywhere. Even if they never interacted it's implied he was keeping an eye on Luke from a distance and was ready to intervene if it looked like he was genuinely in danger. It wouldn't have been constant surveillance, but presumably a lot of the time he spent meditating he was listening for warnings about threats to Luke. And if nothing else I expect he Force Suggested a couple of old-timers in town who perked up when they heard the name "Skywalker" or something like that.

[The Romulan Republic]

^Very much this.

There's a big chunk of years to fill. Frankly, as long as they don't try and tie Obi-Wan into the DS plans storyline of Rogue One/ANH, they can do what they like and I'll stil go see it, especially if they do get Ewan MacGregor back in the role.

It's a big damn universe that they can run with. And while the "stand alone" films do, well, stand alone like Rogue One, there is at this point (IMO) very little point in setting them anywhere other than in the PT/OT timeframe - too much of the film would be needed on world-building to make it enjoyable or dramatic, which was a problem TFA faced.

There are literally countless cool story ideas you could use for an Obi-Wan film set between ROTS and ANH, even some that don't require him to walk away from whatever "responsibility" he might have watching over Luke - perhaps he's dealing with some threat from the Empire that's investigating the young lad, or sometihng about Jabba or someone else.

Basically, how about you wait until some actual plot details are provided before jumping to fucking conclusions about a film? At this point all we know about it is a) they're working on it and b) it will involve Obi-Wan. That's precisely fuck-all to base criticism on, especially a "lack of creativity" criticism, when as I said there are 20+ years or history they can work in with no EU bullshit to tie them down.

I find this idea rather odd, that you can't introduce some major change like a different era in a stand-alone film because their won't be time to develop it (a similar objection was raised to the idea of introducing a new antagonist in a hypothetical Voyager film over in the Star Trek forum, as I recall).

I'm going to repeat here what I said their: that this is a problem every first film in a franchise has to deal with- establishing a setting while still making an interesting film.

[Adam Reynolds]

What the everloving fuck are you talking about? ANH, even back when it was merely called 'Star Wars', established that Kenobi completely stayed out of Luke's life. Unless you can point to some threats he averted or probes by Vader or the Emperor he deflected while the movies and the EU weren't looking, until the fateful day he met Luke when Luke was chasing R2 he did jack all to affect Luke's life. What responsibility would Kenobi be abandoning by continuing to not affect Luke's life in any way from a different location?

Luke clearly knew who he was, which indicates some form of contact. Owen clealy wasn't a fan of Kenobi, and did everything he could to keep him away, but Obi-Wan's most important duty was to protect Luke. Nothing else he could have left Tatooine to do would have mattered as much as insuring that Luke remain alive until he was old enough to become a threat to Vader. Especially given that Leia had the relatively high risk position of being a Galactic Senator associated with the Rebel Alliance who could thus never overtly develop Force powers. Even using the Force extensively could potentially bring inquisitors to Tatooine, as they were attuned to this to some extent.

It's a big damn universe that they can run with. And while the "stand alone" films do, well, stand alone like Rogue One, there is at this point (IMO) very little point in setting them anywhere other than in the PT/OT timeframe - too much of the film would be needed on world-building to make it enjoyable or dramatic, which was a problem TFA faced.

For a big damn universe that has conflicts lasting millennia, they seem rather hung up on the same 30 year period, with an even smaller cast. The problem with TFA was that it had virtually no worldbuilding, and what it did have made little sense, not that it was a different era. What makes Star Wars special is the universe itself, not that everything has to be about the OT era.

I find this idea rather odd, that you can't introduce some major change like a different era in a stand-alone film because their won't be time to develop it (a similar objection was raised to the idea of introducing a new antagonist in a hypothetical Voyager film over in the Star Trek forum, as I recall).

I'm going to repeat here what I said their: that this is a problem every first film in a franchise has to deal with- establishing a setting while still making an interesting film.

Though sequels have the opposite problem, trying to do something new while still feeling like the same story as the last one. Most bad sequels are such because they are unwilling to do anything new, which is something SW films are going to have to get away from sooner or later if they want to continue to be interesting.

[Patroklos]

What the everloving fuck are you talking about? ANH, even back when it was merely called 'Star Wars', established that Kenobi completely stayed out of Luke's life. Unless you can point to some threats he averted or probes by Vader or the Emperor he deflected while the movies and the EU weren't looking, until the fateful day he met Luke when Luke was chasing R2 he did jack all to affect Luke's life. What responsibility would Kenobi be abandoning by continuing to not affect Luke's life in any way from a different location?

Obi-wan was there primarily to watch over Luke. And to hide, but he could have done that anywhere. Even if they never interacted it's implied he was keeping an eye on Luke from a distance and was ready to intervene if it looked like he was genuinely in danger. It wouldn't have been constant surveillance, but presumably a lot of the time he spent meditating he was listening for warnings about threats to Luke. And if nothing else I expect he Force Suggested a couple of old-timers in town who perked up when they heard the name "Skywalker" or something like that.

Watch over Luke like being 100% oblivious to the fact that the Empire's top Jedi strong man was in orbit overhead desperately seeking an object that was currently in Luke's possession?

Its one thing to not react due to Vader's presence alone so you don't actually lead Vade to Luke. But once there was already something leading Vader to Luke anyway he should have been doing something about that. What if Luke had never gone to see Obi Wan in the first place? What if he never said anything to R2D2 about him even existing? Luke would have just been sitting there with a giant Vader magnet on him.

[Ralin]

Its one thing to not react due to Vader's presence alone so you don't actually lead Vade to Luke. But once there was already something leading Vader to Luke anyway he should have been doing something about that. What if Luke had never gone to see Obi Wan in the first place? What if he never said anything to R2D2 about him even existing? Luke would have just been sitting there with a giant Vader magnet on him.

Yeah, it's almost like Obi-wan had literal psychic powers that let him magically predict the future and guided him to the exact right moment to step in and make contact with Luke.

More on topic, I don't think temporarily leaving the planet is necessarily abandoning his duty to watch over Luke? Like, we all seem to agree that it was probably a fairly long-range guardianship. Sure he'd need a good reason, but if, say, he got a message from Mace Windu saying that he's alive and trying to make contact or Jabba found out who he was and blackmailed him into dealing with a rogue Nightsister turned budding crime boss who was fucking with Jabba's operations or whatever I don't think it would be that out of character for Obi-wan to assume Luke can go a week without getting himself killed.

[ray245]

Its one thing to not react due to Vader's presence alone so you don't actually lead Vade to Luke. But once there was already something leading Vader to Luke anyway he should have been doing something about that. What if Luke had never gone to see Obi Wan in the first place? What if he never said anything to R2D2 about him even existing? Luke would have just been sitting there with a giant Vader magnet on him.

Yeah, it's almost like Obi-wan had literal psychic powers that let him magically predict the future and guided him to the exact right moment to step in and make contact with Luke.

More on topic, I don't think temporarily leaving the planet is necessarily abandoning his duty to watch over Luke? Like, we all seem to agree that it was probably a fairly long-range guardianship. Sure he'd need a good reason, but if, say, he got a message from Mace Windu saying that he's alive and trying to make contact or Jabba found out who he was and blackmailed him into dealing with a rogue Nightsister turned budding crime boss who was fucking with Jabba's operations or whatever I don't think it would be that out of character for Obi-wan to assume Luke can go a week without getting himself killed.

This. We know that Jedi have an ability to sense danger. Obi-Wan doesn't have to physically monitor Luke 24/7 to protect him. His Aunt and Uncle are doing a decent job of protecting him as well.

[Lord Revan]

Its one thing to not react due to Vader's presence alone so you don't actually lead Vade to Luke. But once there was already something leading Vader to Luke anyway he should have been doing something about that. What if Luke had never gone to see Obi Wan in the first place? What if he never said anything to R2D2 about him even existing? Luke would have just been sitting there with a giant Vader magnet on him.

Yeah, it's almost like Obi-wan had literal psychic powers that let him magically predict the future and guided him to the exact right moment to step in and make contact with Luke.

More on topic, I don't think temporarily leaving the planet is necessarily abandoning his duty to watch over Luke? Like, we all seem to agree that it was probably a fairly long-range guardianship. Sure he'd need a good reason, but if, say, he got a message from Mace Windu saying that he's alive and trying to make contact or Jabba found out who he was and blackmailed him into dealing with a rogue Nightsister turned budding crime boss who was fucking with Jabba's operations or whatever I don't think it would be that out of character for Obi-wan to assume Luke can go a week without getting himself killed.

This. We know that Jedi have an ability to sense danger. Obi-Wan doesn't have to physically monitor Luke 24/7 to protect him. His Aunt and Uncle are doing a decent job of protecting him as well.

Indeed the "keep your survival a secret" part would cause more issues then the "protect Luke" part, should Obi-wan leave Tattooine, but even that's not an issue that's impossible to overcome.

[Solauren]

Obi-wan had a simple mission: Take Luke to Owen/Beru, then go into hiding until it's time to train Luke and/or Leia. (Revenge of the Sith was vague if the plan was to train them both or just Luke).

So, realistically, Obi-wan should have stayed put unless something really out of the ordinary happened.

He was in a good position to keep an eye on one of the twins, in an out of the way area that no one gave two shits except for the Hutts and scum of the galaxy. Perfect hiding spot for a Jedi Knight.

Also, thanks to Star Wars Rebels, we KNOW that Kenobi knew what was going on in the wider galaxy. We also know he was was not aggressive at all when Darth Maul showed up, UNTIL Maul appeared to figure out why Kenobi was there. THEN Kenobi busts out the Lightsaber.

BUT....
I can see, under the right circumstances, Kenobi going somewhere near by. What it could be that wouldn't also result in Vader showing up, however, is beyond me.

[Galvatron]

It's long been my theory that Obi-Wan ventured away from Tatooine from time to time in the years between ROTS and ANH.

That could nicely explain why he knows exactly where to hire a pilot and how to identify short-range Imperial fighters on sight. Even his statement that he's "getting too old for this sort of thing" always struck me as an allusion to some recent adventure during which he may have noticed how much of a toll the years and mileage have taken on him.

He may have had dozens of off-world adventures, for all we know. So long as he always returns to Tatooine in the end, where's the problem?

[Gandalf]

The second and worse problem is that this indicates an extreme lack of creativity and an unwillingness to take risks in Star Wars as a setting. When is the new EU going to get something like KOTOR that manages to be entirely different and yet extremely familiar at the same time? Everything doesn't have to be about the Skywalkers or connected to the OT. It looks like Rogue One is the closest to an original Star Wars movie we are going to get for awhile.

A Star Wars film is still a huge event of a thing, and as such there's no real incentive for Lucasfilm to take risks with a film that will cost hundreds of millions and potentially make a billion. It seemed as though the best reviewed bit of Rogue One was Vader's thirty seconds, so I can see why they're back to familiar characters.

[Batman]

Disney isn't doing Star Wars to be creative, they're doing it to make money. And as long as reusing established characters lets them do that, they'll go on doing so.

[Gandalf]

Disney isn't doing Star Wars to be creative, they're doing it to make money. And as long as reusing established characters lets them do that, they'll go on doing so.

It looks to me as thought the saga films that are coming out every two years will be the ones which establish new characters (with the assistance of the OT lot for transitional purposes) for the younger generation of fans. Conversely, the standalone films will be more targeted at the previous generation who still want the OT and its characters in one form or another.

Maybe as new characters assets become established, one of the standalone films will be the adventures of Poe Dameron or something.

[The Romulan Republic]

The second and worse problem is that this indicates an extreme lack of creativity and an unwillingness to take risks in Star Wars as a setting. When is the new EU going to get something like KOTOR that manages to be entirely different and yet extremely familiar at the same time? Everything doesn't have to be about the Skywalkers or connected to the OT. It looks like Rogue One is the closest to an original Star Wars movie we are going to get for awhile.

A Star Wars film is still a huge event of a thing, and as such there's no real incentive for Lucasfilm to take risks with a film that will cost hundreds of millions and potentially make a billion. It seemed as though the best reviewed bit of Rogue One was Vader's thirty seconds, so I can see why they're back to familiar characters.

To be fair, I would argue that Vader's scene (well, the second one, during the battle, not his brief appearance in his base on Mustafar) was legitimately the best scene of the film, though not simply because Vader was in it.

[Soontir C'boath]

Vader having a one sided fight against rebel troopers was always going to be a highlight of the movie, but that doesn't necessarily mean people want to see Vader come back espousing dialogue as he horrendously did with Krenic either.

[Cykeisme]

I still think that avoiding exploring ancient history in Star Wars is a huge waste.

Even if they don't use the setting for the "Knights of the Old Republic" established in various video games and traditional roleplaying game material, there's film-level canonical statements in Episode I about the Jedi and Sith having clashed millennia before. Let's see some of that.

Conversely, if they do use the pre-existing KotOR material in a film, I believe that any slim chance it has of failing to be a huge hit (both critical and box office) would be due to poor execution of the filmmaking craft, rather than a problem with the backdrop "time period" setting.

It's pretty simple but solid setting, that was quite deliberately designed to include all the usual Star Wars stuff (giant spaceships, zippy little one-man fighter spaceships, lightsabers, the Force, blasters, etc).

And the odds of poor execution can be minimized by helming it with a good director and giving him the par-for-the-course budget, of course.

[Lagmonster]

It always makes me laugh when someone demands novelty from a 40 year old franchise. The creative part was 1976, dude. Everything since then has been a dollar chase until Lucas could finally hit the big cash-in and retire.

You want fresh, keep handing money to young filmmakers until one of them pays off.

[The Romulan Republic]

It always makes me laugh when someone demands novelty from a 40 year old franchise. The creative part was 1976, dude. Everything since then has been a dollar chase until Lucas could finally hit the big cash-in and retire.

You want fresh, keep handing money to young filmmakers until one of them pays off.

I disagree with this.

Just because you are working in a preexisting franchise, or trying to turn a profit, does not mean that creativity is impossible.

Indeed, I would argue that thematically and plot-wise, ESB and RotJ are arguably more original than the original '76 film, because while the '76 film is a fairly standard, albeit remarkably well-executed, heroic fantasy-type story (aside from the being set in space, anyway), the subsequent films of the OT transform the story by introducing the concept of Vader as Luke's father, which leads to the Vader redemption plot, and takes the simple story of good vs. evil, hero slays villain and transforms it into a story about trying to save the villain instead.

[Adam Reynolds]

It always makes me laugh when someone demands novelty from a 40 year old franchise. The creative part was 1976, dude. Everything since then has been a dollar chase until Lucas could finally hit the big cash-in and retire.

You want fresh, keep handing money to young filmmakers until one of them pays off.

Guardians of the Galaxy managed to be pretty creative despite being part of the Marvel juggernaut.

Creative stories and being part of an existing franchise are not mutually exclusive. If you want a truly new franchise this is needed, but it is certainly possible to come up with something new in the context of exisitng properties.

[Lagmonster]

Guardians of the Galaxy managed to be pretty creative despite being part of the Marvel juggernaut.

Creative stories and being part of an existing franchise are not mutually exclusive. If you want a truly new franchise this is needed, but it is certainly possible to come up with something new in the context of exisitng properties.

I'd say that unlike literature, you have to break huge media ventures like movies into parts. I'm okay with acknowledging the creativity of, say, Ray Harryhausen, even if I would disagree that the idea of a Jason and the Argonauts movie is a novel concept, or that the writer/director's interpretation of the myth warrants significant recognition.

And I'll be frank, I don't think Guardians is a good example of something fresh, even though it was something good. Lucas showed the world something it hadn't seen before. Guardians stood on the shoulders of many predecessors in sci-fi filmmaking.

[Adam Reynolds]

Guardians was something fresh relative to the MCU, which is what I meant. It was space opera within a superhero universe. Just as Jessica Jones is superhero noir.

Star Wars really should look to do something similar.

[KraytKing]

We know how this ends. Obi-Wan survives to protect Luke. He can't die. Far more interesting: Lando after Endor. We don't see him in TFA, so he could be dead. Or perhaps something on the actual Rogue One, Wedge Antilles. Someone who is expendable.

[Juubi Karakuchi]

I still think that avoiding exploring ancient history in Star Wars is a huge waste.

Even if they don't use the setting for the "Knights of the Old Republic" established in various video games and traditional roleplaying game material, there's film-level canonical statements in Episode I about the Jedi and Sith having clashed millennia before. Let's see some of that.

Conversely, if they do use the pre-existing KotOR material in a film, I believe that any slim chance it has of failing to be a huge hit (both critical and box office) would be due to poor execution of the filmmaking craft, rather than a problem with the backdrop "time period" setting.

It's pretty simple but solid setting, that was quite deliberately designed to include all the usual Star Wars stuff (giant spaceships, zippy little one-man fighter spaceships, lightsabers, the Force, blasters, etc).

And the odds of poor execution can be minimized by helming it with a good director and giving him the par-for-the-course budget, of course.

My current favorite would be something on the lines of Han Solo and the Lost Legacy. I've long been a fan of Xim the Despot and the Tionese, but they never get all that much development, and they drop in and out of the wider canon.

As a movie, it would be something on the lines of the Indiana Jones movies. You've got ancient ruins, a cult descended from Xim's followers, ancient war robots, and treasure that turns out to be worthless . Admittedly it's been done, but so has just about everything.