The Official Good Television Thread

I have just finished up Obi-Wan Kenobi. A pretty good finale in my opinion. Tied up most of the series plot arcs. Reva Sevander / the Third Sister grew on me in the end. Definitely one of the stronger villains in the Star Wars universe. The fight scene between Vader and Kenobi is spectacular and very well composed with some great background scenery. I have heard rumblings of a second series. I think they will do one.
 
The biggest issue is with the final duel. It doesn't make sense and is a completely missed opportunity. It's based on a very literal, surface-level reading of Vader's quote from A New Hope that when he left Obi-Wan he was still a learner. These writers (and a lot of fans) seem to interpret that as he had to suffer another physical defeat. That just doesn't work. Vader has been training in the dark side under Palpatine for 10 years. He's been traveling the galaxy fighting and eliminating Jedi survivors. He's been waging war for the Empire. He's grown exponentially in power. Obi-Wan has been hiding in the desert. He's buried his lightsaber. He's limited his use of the force. He hasn't been in combat. The duel between Vader and Obi-Wan in the third episode of the Obi-Wan series is a more accurate portrayal of what would happen in these circumstances. Vader rightly dominated Obi-Wan. My understanding is that in all of the new canon comics, etc. they've been building up Vader's power. That continues in this series with his dominance in that duel and when they show Vader pulling down a starship in episode 5. Even at the beginning of the fight in episode 6 he buried Obi-Wan in the ground.

Between the first duel and the second there's very little indication of anything that Obi-Wan did or could've done in such a short time-frame to change this balance of power. However, after Obi-Wan is buried by Vader we are supposed to believe that this weakened, rusty Obi-Wan who just got dominated twice by a Vader who is clearly much more powerful than him at this point turns everything around because he thinks about Luke and Leia and he's suddenly more powerful than he's ever been even at the height of his participation in the Clone Wars. It's absolutely bad writing that everyone wants to excuse because the post-fight dialogue got them emotional.

What should've happened is that they should've shown Obi-Wan communing with Qui-Gon from the first episode. Yoda said he would teach Obi-Wan this at the end of Revenge of the Sith (which is why Qui-Gon appearing at the end of this series and making it seem like Obi-Wan has never seen him is another retarded plot hole). They should have shown Qui-Gon continuing to teach Obi-Wan some force ability that is unknown to the Sith. When Vader and Obi-Wan confront each other for the second time Vader again dominates the fight, but then Obi-Wan uses this skill he learned from Qui-Gon to make a miraculous escape. Perhaps he learned some way (at great risk to his life) to pull his body into the force and move himself some distance so that he is able to escape. This leaves Vader thinking "What the hell just happened?" and it really sets up the scene in A New Hope where Vader kills Obi-Wan but Obi-Wan is able to, upon his death, become one with the force and transform into a force ghost. The scene at the end of the Kenobi series should have been a prelude to that. Having Obi-Wan adopt an aggressive stance and overpower Vader in a lightsaber/force duel is a complete joke that is not in keeping with either character or their development up to this point (especially since Disney had, prior to this, done a great job of building up how powerful Vader has become - but now he can't deflect some rocks and just force choke Obi-Wan like he did a few episodes ago).

I also agree that, up until this juncture, Reva's character is pretty pointless. I think Vader should've Dooku'd her when he had both lightsabers pointed at her. Would've been the most fitting ending. The youngling backstory didn't make her sympathetic and having her randomly run-off to Tatooine, traumatize the Lars family, and then disappear into the desert or whatever with all of that knowledge just doesn't make any sense.

The writers did a lot of fan service that casual fans will eat up (OMG OBI SAID HELLOE THERE; WE GOT TO SEE HAYDEN'S FACE IN THE MASK AND HIS VOICE CHANGED) but it's very apparent that they are outsiders trying to construct these stories in some sort of clinical way and not because they really lived and breathed this stuff growing up. One of the writers got busted for not even knowing that Obi-Wan knew that Anakin had become Darth Vader. I don't think they're even familiar with Revenge of the Sith because they botched that and the fact that Obi-Wan should have been communing with Qui-Gon for 10 years at this point. It's like if somebody who'd never listened to Metal read a book about it and tried to construct a Metal song from these different elements the metalheads are supposed to like but they don't actually understand how they fit together and it has no soul. That's Disney Star Wars in a nutshell.
 
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That's a pretty brutal dismantling of the show but I completely agree with all of that.

Even though the final duel pulled a power imbalance in favour of Obi out of its arse, these Vader & Obi moments were still the most interesting, entertaining and engaging moments. Which I suppose says a lot about the show.

If I were as steeped in Star Wars lore as I used to be I'd probably be way more disappointed with the show, and I'm still pretty disappointed. To Vader's power increase over that 10 year period, did we ever see him do anything even remotely as crazy as force-pulling starships or what he did to Obi in every fight until the finale in the original trilogy? Maybe it's just been so long but I don't remember him being quite that OTT.
 
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CiG said:
That's a pretty brutal dismantling of the show but I completely agree with all of that.

Even though the final duel pulled a power imbalance in favour of Obi out of its arse, these Vader & Obi moments were still the most interesting, entertaining and engaging moments. Which I suppose says a lot about the show.
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Agreed. The Vader and Obi stuff was all that was really interesting which just increased my disappointment when they botched the ending.

If I were as steeped in Star Wars lore as I used to be I'd probably be way more disappointed with the show, and I'm still pretty disappointed. To Vader's power increase over that 10 year period, did we ever see him do anything even remotely as crazy as force-pulling starships or what he did to Obi in every fight until the finale in the original trilogy? Maybe it's just been so long but I don't remember him being quite that OTT.
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I haven't kept up with it in any detail myself for over a decade. I read some comics and stuff that came out after Revenge of the Sith where Vader takes on like 6 Jedi at one time and kills them all not long after being placed in the suit. Apparently there has been a lot of stuff like this since where he kills Jedi Masters, takes on multiple Jedi at once, annihilates entire rebel armies by himself, manipulates massive machines or creatures with the force, even controls natural phenomena like oceans. If this will show up, there's a post here by a Brett Lissaman that screencaps some of his achievements in the comics:

https://www.quora.com/How-did-Disney-made-Darth-Vader-more-powerful-after-Revenge-of-the-Sith
 
I'm not talking about the comics, I'm talking about the cinematic canon.

I think in some sense holding the cinematic universe to the developments in the books and comics is a bit retarded because a) way less people have read any of that stuff and instead rely on consistency across the cinematic universe to weight and balance everything they see and b) books and comics are produced at a much more rapid pace which can often to lead to power creep in order to keep things interesting.

What I'm curious about is, if Vader becomes this God-tier force user in the 10 years between Revenge of the Sith and the Obi-Wan Kenobi series, is that consistent with the Vader we saw in the original trilogy. I don't remember him doing anything close to force-pulling ships. Why not? etc.
 
Like I said, I haven't followed closely, but I imagine there's not much to go off of for the time between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope if you exclude novels and comics. There were some particularly good novels that came out soon after ROTS and it looks like they've done well with comics lately (which are considered canon by Disney). As far as shows, I can't think of much except maybe Rebels and Rogue One. There's always the possibility of a Darth Vader series in the future.

I think, ultimately, that Disney might be tempted to eventually do new special editions of the OT. So much about Star Wars has evolved exponentially past A New Hope (in particular) that there is inevitably going to be some visual clash, especially when it comes to things like lightsaber duels. Lucas originally envisioned lightsabers to be these really heavy, unwieldy things and wanted to follow a more authentic, samurai influenced form of fighting which quickly went out the window even by The Empire Strikes Back. The prequels started to elevate our vision of what force users could accomplish with it and with lightsaber combat and Disney has chosen to take it even further. So, I think it's less about Darth Vader's power and more about how these changes lead to some inevitable visual clash when viewing the OT again in the context of what's happened since. If there is any desire to establish some kind of consistency (which honestly doesn't seem that important to Disney - though money is) we might see some slightly revised sequences like Lucas did in '97. Or something like this: which is honestly pretty bad ass and updates the original duel while also establishing Vader's physical dominance.
 
All I'm getting at is, this modern version of Vader throws a huge monkey wrench into the original trilogy. All the pointless cat and mouse bullshit, losing 2 death stars etc, when Vader could've just force-grabbed ships and crashed them, stopped the Millennium Falcon from fleeing right after he fought Obi a final time etc.

Arguably he should've been insanely powerful that many years later (he'd be in his 50's), if he's already this powerful 10 years into being a Sith.
 
Japan’s Kore-eda Hirokazu Sets ‘The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House’ as Netflix Series Debut.
“Shoplifters” director Kore-eda Hirokazu has set “The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House,” as his first series production for global streamer Netflix. The show is a live action adaptation of an original comic.

The series is based on “Maiko in Kyoto: From the Maiko House,” a popular graphic novel by Koyama Aiko, first serialized in Weekly Shonen Sunday from 2016. Set in the geisha district of Kyoto, the protagonist Kiyo becomes a Makanai (person who cooks meals) at a house where apprentice geishas live together. The story depicts the everyday life of Kiyo maiko Sumire, her childhood friend who came with her from Aomori to Kyoto, amid a vibrant world of geisha and maiko courtesans and delicious food.
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This sounds amazing and wholesome.
 
I'm five episodes into The Old Man and just finished the second episode of Black Bird. Television series' which are well written and well acted. Poignant to see Ray Liotta in one of his final roles in Black Bird, plus Taron Edgerton is doing very well. The Old Man is certainly changing up some of what you would expect in a cat and mouse situation. At first I thought, they had messed it up but it is working slowly. People will understand once they watch it.
 
CiG said:
Watched the latest (9th) episode of Better Call Saul last night.

Gus is gay. Am I retarded or was this revealed ages ago and I just didn't absorb it?
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Never revealed, but it's been hinted at since BB.
 
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