AndyDursin wrote: ↑Sat May 28, 2022 9:26 pm
I don't know how to say it but this theme sounds like it has "too many notes". It's a lot of huffing and puffing, and a flourish here or there that sounds like some kind of elegaic Force theme variant or a little motif from The Phantom Menace. But like a lot of his scoring for the Disney movies beyond Rey's Theme, it doesn't have much of a center to pull you in. It's "busy" but kind of meandering and not very appealing.
I listened to the theme during the end credits and found myself humming the JURASSIC PARK: THE LOST WORLD theme.
AndyDursin wrote: ↑Sat May 28, 2022 9:26 pm
I don't know how to say it but this theme sounds like it has "too many notes". It's a lot of huffing and puffing, and a flourish here or there that sounds like some kind of elegaic Force theme variant or a little motif from The Phantom Menace. But like a lot of his scoring for the Disney movies beyond Rey's Theme, it doesn't have much of a center to pull you in. It's "busy" but kind of meandering and not very appealing.
I listened to the theme during the end credits and found myself humming the JURASSIC PARK: THE LOST WORLD theme.
And that's exactly how I felt about that theme/score as well!
jkholm wrote: ↑Thu Jun 02, 2022 6:28 pm
I have to admit that if I didn't know about the controversy involving the new character, I wouldn't have thought there was anything to get worked up about. She seems fine to me although I can't remember her name other than she's the "third sister." That other villain who seems to be second in command is far more annoying.
Anyway, I asked my teenaged son what he thinks of the series so far and his only complaint is that "Leia is annoying," which just goes to show that boys and young men were not Disney's intended audience for this particular storyline. Of course a teenager is going to find a little kid annoying. let's get on with the light saber duels! I'm fine with Obi-Wan rescuing young Leia. If we're going to watch Obi-Wan try to keep a Skywalker child safe and hidden from Darth vader, going off to different planets with Leia is more interesting than watching kid Luke through binoculars.
I think what it boils down to is the whole nature of telling this story. I will call it THE LAST DAYS OF PATTON syndrome, whereby, you have a different set of filmmakers revisiting and continuing a very well known story with a different set of sensibilities and style. The result in that case is not only a depressing bore, but even the established character that George C. Scott created seemed a bit off in terms of the writing and direction, which also impacted Scott's performance as PATTON.
With OBI-WAN (and all of the Disney + Star Wars properties), the first problem is that they are porting what was a cinematic experience into episodic storytelling. The beats are all off, dramatically - which is one of the reasons why I gave up on THE MANDOLORIAN. So far with OBI-WAN, I will come back and finish this out, but I am not enjoying this as the cinematic experience of Star Wars - and so far not as an episodic one either. The scale and scope is off and I not seeing any compensation for that in the storytelling. In that initial episode, seeing Obi-Wan as this hermit living out a mundane existence, his interaction with Uncle Owen, and the post Jedi knight solitude seemed a great start. But now we're jumping to the Leia plotline as the device to bring Obi-Wan and Darth Vader to confrontation. They have to be careful as to not meddle with the established parameters that Lucas has set or the fidelity of the overall story is rendered impotent.
I am aware of the obvious attempts at injecting modern social values of diversity and inclusion into the production aesthetic. I don't have a problem with that. so long as these are not gratuitous, with superfluous characters, and virtue signaling that interferes with the established DNA of the universe. However, even the established DNA isn't without its shortcomings. I wish Lucas did more with Samuel L. Jackson's Mace Windu or Natalie Portman for that matter. Although one could argue that Lucas intended for Portman's character to follow the same paradigm as Leia's, because the bigger focus was on Anakin and Luke. In hindsight, he made what he made - and there's no going back to redo it. At times, I feel like the Disney Star Wars wants to revisit and correct the Lucas' canon with what it believes is socially just. It just rubs me the wrong way, because the storytelling can be so much better if we (1) had a good story to tell (2) had good characters to tell it with (3) and good actors to pull off those character portrayals. Moses Ingram is trying to bring out the "Reva" character, but the end result will depend on her story arc and how they user her. So far, I see her as a means to an ends character, but nothing more.
Just to piggyback on what Ed wrote, the main, disingenuous angle with this Reva "controversy" is Disney WANTED it. They started sending out pieces "warning about discrimination" to willing news outlets BEFORE this show ever started -- whether it's a need to generate publicity or further promote progressive/diversity angles they think will $ell this to the demographic they want (both probably), who knows. But to then rush out and within hours start castigating people for "hate speech" -- okay, there are idiots out there on the internet. Always have been and will be. Most of the concerns with fans is they just don't like the writing, or the fact the show is called OBI-WAN and they've done a bait-and-switch again where a lot of the focus has little to do with him. Calling "haters racists" is just a transparent way of deflecting shortcomings within the material -- reminds me of the 2016 GHOSTBUSTERS, except with race used as a deflection point instead of the characters' genders.
The other issue is this show, just like the films they've made, was a conceptual mess and shows. They started off with the show following the "canon" of EPISODE IV with Kenobi guarding Luke, and having Darth Maul. That didn't work, so they brought in Vader, reshot scenes, recast Luke, and decided to bring Leia in. There's just no sense, no consistent POV in what's being told. There's also, as Ed wrote, an established story line they are now rendering useless if not nonsensical. It makes no sense, at all, for Obi-Wan Kenobi to be saving little Leia except gender demographics. The whole point was for her to go into hiding! And she never knew Obi-Wan, ever, before...so they've already thrown out the established plot line, simply because Disney can't have a show focused too much on males, they can't have something for young boys to watch unless girls play a prominent role.
Disney's entire focus on all the movies -- ROGUE ONE and the sequel trilogy -- was to "feminize" Star Wars. Probably as a money play, since they knew it appealed to males and that audience was going to support them anyway. But it's just so transparent it's absurd.
It's just become really exhausting to be an old-school Star Wars fan. They act like you're a racist -- despite the fact everybody loved Lando and James Earl Jones has been venerated as a God for his work as Vader. People loved it when Samuel L. Jackson was cast in the prequels, and most fans were sad he didn't have more to do (ditto Darth Maul). They act like you only want the Skywalkers -- when in fact real Star Wars fans LOVED it when Lucasfilm went off "the reservation" for, say, the Timothy Zahn books or SHADOWS OF THE EMPIRE or the other video games or any number of things where new characters were introduced and played the leading roles. What fans, at least many of them, wanted was more STAR WARS -- not a sequel trilogy that had to be a direct continuation necessarily, where its leading heroes were unceremoniously killed off in what eventually became an uninspired retread of the original trilogy's narrative.
I'm stuck watching these shows because Theo is into them, and I concede THE MANDALORIAN got its act together and is easily the best "expression" of contemporary Star Wars -- because Filoni and Favreau had a consistent vision and laid out a story line that worked, that was also totally relatable and felt "connected" to Lucas' world. But this OBI-WAN show isn't nearly on that level. It's slick and expensive, and the "universe" is still there so I'm compelled to watch it -- but from a narrative and dramatic level, it's as much of a mess as the movies were. Showing all the signs of Kennedy's meddling and Disney suits ticking off diversity boxes as they mangle the world Lucas once created to suit their own corporate ideology.
AndyDursin wrote: ↑Fri Jun 03, 2022 10:15 am
Just to piggyback on what Ed wrote, the main, disingenuous angle with this Reva "controversy" is Disney WANTED it. They started sending out pieces "warning about discrimination" to willing news outlets BEFORE this show ever started -- whether it's a need to generate publicity or further promote progressive/diversity angles they think will $ell this to the demographic they want (both probably), who knows. But to then rush out and within hours start castigating people for "hate speech"
^ This. It's akin to poking at a lion or bear through the bars of its cage at a zoo and expressing disbelief when it takes a swipe at you. "You have a problem with this character's race or gender? SHAME ON YOU...!!!"
Uhhh, it ain't the fact that it's a black lady, it's that it's a lame character. YOU were the ones who brought up the character's race/gender before anyone had a chance to complain, just to stir sh!t up. The fact that they have Ewan McGregor filming his own video castigating irate fans for being "racist" is absurd. One wonders if this was not written into his contract from the beginning.
And where were the cries of "racism" when people dogpiled on Jar-Jar Binks (voiced and motion-performed by black actor Ahmed Best)? People may have found the character himself objectionable, but Lucas/Fox didn't turn it around and start blaming the FANS for phantom "racism" for disliking the character. We didn't like Jar-Jar because he was ANNOYING, not due to the color of the skin of the actor who portrayed him.
I'd actually like to know how many racist emails have actually been received. How racist IS the old white Star Wars fanbase? Because I don't trust Disney and Kathleen Kennedy in the slightest...and they started talking about all this BEFORE the show even started.
No different than a belligerent black person pulling out the "race card" to demand extra stuff from a harried employee. "You won't knuckle under to my outrageous demands?! Ya'll RACIST...!"
"You have a problem with this character's race or gender? SHAME ON YOU...!!!"
