The six episodes of Disney+’s latest Star Wars derived series Obi-Wan Kenobi had now released and with the finale watched I can give me impression of the show.

meh

Obi-wan Kenobi lacked the flair and novelty of The Mandalorian but also presented more heart and characterization that The Book of Boba Fett landing squarely between the two shows.

Set ten years after the rise of the galactic empire, the fall of Anakin Skywalker to the dark side of the force, and the slaughter of the Jedis, the series follows Obi-Wan Kenobi, on hiding from Imperial Inquisitors hunting the few remaining surviving Jedi his force-powers atrophied to near non-existence. Kenobi’s seclusion is shattered when as part of a plot to draw him out of hiding ten-year Lea Organa is kidnapped and her adopted parents call upon him to find and rescue her. Leaving the safety of his desert cave Kenobi brings him in the sights of an obsessed young Inquisitor and exposes him to a vengeful Darth Vader.

The problem with Star Wars in its most recent iterations is that development-wise it has grown quite incestuous.

The original film released in 1977 drew inspiration from Japanese Samurai movies, American adventure serials, and Campbell’s theory of the monomyth. (Along with literary SF traditions such as John Carter and it even angered Frank Herbert who felt it had lifted significant elements from his work Dune.) The point is that Star Wars 77 engaged in that rich artistic tradition of being in conversation with the culture and its artistic history.

The new millennium’s Star Wars is only in conversation with itself. It’s references are to other Star Wars stories and properties. With the exception of The Mandalorian which borrows heavily from American Westerns and Samurai films each new film and television series is an act of self-cannibalism as plot and story are derived almost exclusively from the pre-existing cannon.

While Disney’s other property the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been critiqued for an overreliance on 3rd act CGI heavy battles the MCU has shown that superheroes can be used to tell a variety of stories. Political Thrillers (Captain American: the Winter Solider) Dysfunctional Family Comedies (Guardians of the Galaxy) and even Horror (Dr. Strange in The Multiverse of Madness) but Star Wars remains telling the same sort of story over and over with few exceptions. The Mandalorian and Rouge One are the rare examples of the franchise taking risks and going in new direction with new characters with little use of the tired Skywalker drama.

Obi-Wan Kenobi was not bad, but it was tired and gave me very little that was truly emotional engaging, I have hopes, but they are fading, that the franchise will find new territory to explore and leave the Skywalkers to history.