«Obi-Wan Kenobi», new content for Disney+.

One of the main characters in Star Wars has returned in recent weeks in a mini-series: Obi-Wan Kenobi. The Jedi Order decimated, former Master Kenobi now watches over young Luke Skywalker with a dull eye. However, an incredible adventure pulls him abruptly out of his vegetation on Tatooine, for the duration of six piquant episodes. The result is the worst that contemporary creators' obsession with the zeitgeist can produce. Here's a rant.

Admittedly, it's still very pleasing to see several of the prelogy actors reprise their roles 17 years after the original. Revenge of the Sith, Ewan McGregor's enthusiasm is clearly evident in these episodes broadcast on the Disney+ platform. Further confirmation that George Lucas was right to cast Ewan McGregor in the role of Anakin Skywalker's Master. So much for the positive.

A scenario that doesn't fly high

Because nothing, or almost nothing, works in this series. In the first place, its script, which attacks the very health of your mind, a common Disney artistic device. The story, which is based on facile plot devices and plot holes of all kinds, making viewing an intense but regular procession of facepalm (of self-inflicted slaps in the face) that can only be stopped by credits or a can, a vital accessory for surviving a new episode: people who die, but don't really die; others who magically teleport from one planet to another; still others who know what they can't know; a kid who outruns adults in a footrace; scenes where you think you can hear Benny Hill's music playing in the background, etc.

The three main story arcs fly no higher than the six-foot-tall Leia Organa, now a spoiled little brat. Clearly, production company Lucasfilm and its president, the virtuoso Kathleen Kennedy, were delighted to give Obi-Wan the same «White Heroes Special» treatment that they've given to Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Boba Fett and others since 2015. And here, Disney has pulled out all the stops: in McGregor's rag-tag portrayal, there's nothing left of the captivating character of the 2000s. Goodbye wisdom, humor, phlegm and IQ; welcome guilt, weakness of body and mind!

Star Wars à la sauce woke

And hello to the obligatory passivity of the female characters, whose imperative role is to save our deconstructed man from all the bad times and put him back in his subaltern place, the one that belongs to his group in the scriptwriters' politico-social fantasies. Among them is Princess Leia, aged just 10, but gifted with the behavior, understanding and skills of an adult. A comical character for people who claim to turn their backs on clichés, whereas here they fall into the child-adult cliché, confirmation of the fact that Hollywood never seems to have grasped the psychology of the child, of the adult, of the child. E.T. to War of the worlds.

The mouse has no qualms about continuing this tradition of tasteless tropes in the character of Reva, fetishism woke of the series. The prophetic words of the youtuber from «The Critical Drinker», who had guessed this strong woman's story arc even before the first episode aired: although in the service of the bad guys, this tough-as-nails from the good slice of American demography cannot by nature be bad.

We also discover that she has allowed herself to be manipulated by a representative of another demographic class, the evil one, in order to finally redeem herself and erase, through a good deed, the responsibility she bears for years of massacres and nameless crimes. With a headless plan for personal vengeance in hand, the «magnificent and courageous» Reva sets out to steal Obi-Wan Kenobi's thunder in her own series, using sentimental outbursts and «badassitude».

No surprises, which is not surprising.

The plague that has become Disney Studios' assembly-line production method enriches the project. If you're looking for originality or interesting action scenes with attention to detail, you'll have to pass. Skip it. The direction, cutting, staging, soundtrack and sets are all flat, as they should be. Most remarkable, however, is Disney's in-house photography, which the company now applies to all its products to facilitate post-production, distributed among several special effects companies: dull, gray, colorless and lacking in contrast. Obi-Wan Kenobi is indeed a standardized product, content to enrich Disney's streaming service; and from the point of view of the principle of least surprise, what a success!

It's hard to imagine how such financial and technical resources can produce so much nothing. Every day, we see quidams, untrained youtubers, who could have done a much better job than the scriptwriters under the orders of the brave Kathleen Kennedy. And yet, the former have nothing with them but reverence for the characters and the canons of sound storytelling, the kind that respects the elementary principles of logic and explores the universal archetypes of the human soul.

Provisional conclusion (or not)

This seals the creative and intellectual bankruptcy of the parasite into which Disney has transformed itself, and of a breathless Hollywood, where films are made for Twitter and critics judge works according to the ease with which they can deduce elements that support fashionable political positions. Also a wreck for Lucasfilm and of those production studios that are all too often the bitter enemies of art and good entertainment, who do violence to films by making them incoherent in tone and logic, through what is now customary rewriting.

«Don't ask questions, consume the product, then rejoice in the next!» says the meme. Is it still necessary when a new entry adds no depth to an already firmly established story and to the characters it distorts? When all you think you're seeing on screen are gender studies students playing with action figures? Star Wars and seem to force-feed them a good half of their curriculum? But let's stay positive: the more Star Wars continues, the more Nerdrotic approach: «Disney didn't start the Star Wars, But you can be sure that Disney will finish them.» See you this fall for Amazon's series on the Lord of the Rings which is already looking very, very promising!

Write to the author: danilo.heyer@leregardlibre.com

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