#Wan kenobi movie
#Wan kenobi series

#Wan kenobi series

You can forgive me, then, for my excitement about Obi-Wan Kenobi, the new series from Disney+ that stages a reunion between Anakin, played by Hayden Christensen, and Obi-Wan Kenobi, played by Ewan McGregor. This is the fate of the Star Wars fan: to be forever trying to recapture the initial discovery, the inaugural thrill, and yet forever braced for disappointment. When I’m let down by Star Wars, as is far more often the case, I wonder if a few moments of joy are worth the frustration.

#Wan kenobi movie

And when I watch a Star Wars show or movie now that reawakens that old sense of wonder, it’s like I’m 12 years old again, jumping up and down on our well-worn couch during a climactic lightsaber battle.

Even as I have revised my personal rankings to acknowledge the superiority of the originals, I still enjoy the prequels. But neither the sophisticated themes nor the unmistakable flaws registered with me as a child or punctured the awe and excitement I felt upon watching the movies: the same joy that young Gen Xers experienced watching the original trilogy. As an adult, I can appreciate their depictions of the corrosive effects of endless war on democracy, how an authoritarian government can take hold under the guise of populism, while at the same time recognizing the unwieldy dialogue, the tacky CGI, the uncomfortable racial stereotypes. Like many children of the 1990s-younger millennials and older members of Generation Z-the prequels were my Star Wars movies. Replaying the DVD so many times that it scratched and skipped, I had no idea of the conventional wisdom about what was and wasn’t considered “good” Star Wars. On internet rankings, you can usually find it hovering somewhere near the bottom. It is generally thought to be among the worst Star Wars films. If you’re unfamiliar, Attack of the Clones sees Anakin fall in love, fight with his mentor, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and brutally murder an entire village. No, the movie I loved was Episode II: Attack of the Clones, which chronicles the awkward travails of Anakin Skywalker, the sulky Jedi-to-be who will eventually become Darth Vader. A trio of so-called prequels, widely considered to be inferior to the original series, appeared in 1999, 2002, and 2005 my favorite was not Episode I: The Phantom Menace or Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, the better two of that bunch. It was not Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back or Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, the other two films in the classic original trilogy.

That movie, the movie that hooked me, was not the celebrated original, A New Hope, first released in 1977 and later rebranded as Episode IV. Entranced by the action, the romance, the grand scale of a saga that encompassed the fate of a galaxy, I watched one movie on repeat.