New episode out.

I'm not sure how to handle the revelation of Third Sister's origins and motivations. I guess the Grand Inquisitor's distaste for her was based not on her being a former youngling, which would be rather hypocritical given his former occupation as a Jedi Temple Guard, but her act of 'cowardice' of hiding in the bodies of other younglings. That being said, I wonder if the show-writers are even aware of that fact, so it might just be the youngling thing.

I really enjoyed the bit where the ship was starting to take off and Vader's just like, "No." Also, props to him to stick around until his subordinate is done gloating.

 

That was a great episode. It tied up all the loose threads, had much better fight scenes, Vader got to let loose a little, and it cleared up the "the last time we met" bit from ANH with the "you'll always be a padawan until you learn the lesson" thing (handled how many were expecting, but I thought it was done very well).

The de-aging makeup/effects for the flashback were shockingly good.

 

It's not that she was a former Jedi, it's that she's a former Jedi youngling. The rest of the Inquisitors were, I believe, already fully trained Jedi or near to it. So she was easily the least in terms of skill and power. Add in that she had very little control over her own anger and hate and there you go. Successful dark side adepts can at least control or chain up the rage, hate, fury and pain until it is time to unleash it. She was a beaker consistently on the edge of boiling over. On the dark side stability scale she's closer to mentally unstable, out of control Kylo Ren than Darth Vader.

Great episode, both love and hate that the last episode is next week.

EDIT:

Yep, more impressive than Rey doing the same in Ep IX just do to the sheer size and power of the ship in comparison. Though I enjoyed ripping the side of it open more than pulling the ship back down.

And have to let the gloating happen, best way to rub in her own failures.

On a completely unrelated note, you can definitely see in that Darth Vader vs Third Sister fight that Vader definitely took in at least part of the lesson in the throwback training duel.

On the topic of the flashbacks, really the only part where the de-aging didn't really work for me was Hayden Christensen's nose. It just didn't look quite right. That being said, de-aging was still at minimum an 8/10 for quality.

EDIT 2 EDIT HARDER: Just thought of this, but the "You're not bringing me to him. I'm bringing him to you" bit is a nice callback (call-forward? Foreshadow?) to RotJ.

 

That was pretty masterful in the sparring flash back.

Also Anakin being big dumb and trying the same moves again a few years later when it is for realskies, but it makes a sick scene with the battle of the heroes theme played up? a key to sound not as ominous.

And then doing the schlorp the saber away move vs Third.

Someone needs to make a cut with this scene and the mustafar duel

 

The episode had an unusual amount of good in it with the usual boatload of bad.

All the Vader bits were great and I honestly hadn't thought the producers had it in them.

Where did that second ship come from which they used to escape? The leader guy explicitly stated that they had to wait for Obi-Wan's return so they could flee. I didn't see it in the initial landing shot or Vader's entrance either.

I can't remember if there was some hidden reason, but why didn't Reva use her light-saber right from the get-go to open that door?

Blaster hits obviously are only deadly when it suits the moment and cute slaps on helmets are more effective.

Two sizeable armed groups standing practically face to face with virtually no cover somehow manage to produce a drawn-out shoot-out.

Still don't understand why that Eternals guy was kept alive, still annoyed, too.

Reva surviving pissed me off more than it should probably. When Vader had her easily beaten on her knees and two lightsabers I fully expected and hoped for a call-back to Anakin executing Dooku.

Could have been somewhat artistic even. Shot from the side, you see Vader's legs, Reva's upper body, hear the glowing lightsabers, and see their reflections on Reva's shiny shoulder pads.

You hear the act, you hear the head tumble on the ground, change to a shot from behind Vader, who is blocking the view, we hear Reva keel over to the side, Vader walks away and we see Reva motionless, her neck just out of frame.

Long story short, the Vader bits managed to distract from a lot of crap.

 

This baffled me too. First off, they lug out what appears to be the Star Wars equivalent of light field artillery to blast open the door. Where were their breaching charges? We know they have them. Stormtroopers used them in literally the very first scene of the very first movie to cut and blast through the Tantive IV's airlock, to great effect. Instead they stand back and fire a cannon at the door (which is an absurd thing to use a cannon for), and the cannon doesn't appear to do anything except make a pretty glowy spot on it.

The characters inside keep saying that they'll blast through the door quickly, but from what was shown, if Obi-wan hadn't run up and provoked Reva, they had a solid 20 or 30 minutes before the door was damaged enough that stormtroopers could get through single-file.

The fact that Reva, using her lightsaber, got through the door in less time than the cannon took to fire one ineffectual shot makes the whole thing look comically stupid, and makes her look like an idiot for not just doing that from the start.

In fairness, several of the resistance fighters had some kind of tower shield that appeared to block many of the stormtroopers' shots. However, that doesn't excuse the stormtroopers' criminal stupidity. In the OT, we almost never see stormtroopers just standing out in the open in a firefight. They typically hug the walls and corners, at least staying near cover. Not here, though.

Yeah, what was the point of that beyond yet more avoidable drama? Vader has never been the type to not make sure he didn't finish the job, especially when it comes to someone who survived the exact same wound once before.

One thing I'll add to your analysis is that while I generally liked Vader's scenes in this one, the duel between him and Reva was a little bit meh. It had some really cool moves and callbacks to the training duel, but overall the choreography looked unpolished. Like the actors hadn't practiced that sequence in-costume before, and they weren't quite sure how to move. There was also a lot of weird hesitation at critical moments from Reva right when she gets into a position to actually land a hit on Vader. I can only assume that was the result of the actress getting into position too fast and waiting for Hayden to get into his counter-position before she swings.

Also, they seem intent on making Leia a brat. Sure, she's only ten, but everyone in the show treats her bratty outbursts as if it was no different from grown-up Leia's snark, which really rubs me the wrong way because that's not how it comes across to me at all.

All in all, this episode was thoroughly average. The highs were higher than usual, but the derps were also derpier. I still plan on watching the finale, but I can't really muster any enthusiasm for it right now.

 

Really solid fight between Vader and Kenobi, that echoed both Mustafar and Vader's future face-off with Ahsoka. Great end to an all around great show. And that "Hello There". I had the dumbest grin on my face.

There were a few hiccups and headscratchers throughout the series, but I thoroughly enjoyed it on the whole. Please give me more Star Wars with this level of thought and care, Lucasfilm.

 

I feel like that's putting it mildly...

I fast-forwarded like 2/3 of the last episode just to be done with it.

This along with a number of other issues is its main weakness in my opinion.

 

Well, I'm sorry you couldn't find the same level of enjoyment. Have a Sadakin.

 

I really appreciated Obi-Wan using a more force based approach to beating anakin in his older age. Just wish we could remaster the fights in the OT to be a bit more like that. Also

Spoiler

 

I loved the way they did the voices there at the end with JEJ and Hayden, and its always fun to see a mom conflicted Vader. He was pure sith lord there

 

My money is on season two being Kenobi training Reeva.

 

I sincerely hope not. First because I feel like they actually stuck the landing with this one, and that's a hard thing to do. Better to just move on after a satisfying conclusion than to drag things out until Disney squeezes every last drop of cash out of it that they can, until there's nothing left but a fandom that's sick of the characters they used to like.

And secondly, because Reva's character felt a little superfluous. Certain elements were good, and I thought her performance as an actor was mostly good, but I'm not sure the series wouldn't have been better without her. She would have been interesting as a standalone main character in her own series, but in this one it felt too much like she was distracting from the characters I actually tuned in to see.

Especially since the final climax of the conflict in the show was not the Vader/Obi-wan fight, but instead the resolution to Reva's arc. That in particular was deeply irritating to me, because it seemed like the show was saying "yeah, yeah, Vader and Obi-wan are interesting and all, but Reva's choice is what's really important!"

 

One of the things I liked about Obi-Wan lifting the rocks is that it reminded me of an old background of mine:

Spoiler

Title: "You Must Go!"

 

I agree with everything you're saying. I just don't trust Disney not to do it.

 

Pretty certain this is a one season only thing.

 

So far, that's been the official line. Pretty sure that Disney has changed their minds about stuff like that before though, when they've decided there's more money in doing so.

 

Yeah, but I don't think Ewan McGregor would do another.

 

Eh, Liam Neeson swore he would never reprise his role as Qui-gon, but they got him to do it for at least one scene. I don't know how Ewan McGregor feels about his role as Obi-wan, but I wouldn't be surprised if they talked him into doing more.

 

Ewan has been surprisingly straightforward about this: he ”hope(s) we do another one“ though perhaps not for a while.

Source