Kenobi : Ewan McGregor in potential Kenobi movie OR series

Yeah, I wonder if the success of Logan convinced Lucasfilm that doing a tighter, more insular Star Wars narrative with a fan favorite character like Kenobi would be possible.

 

Logan was an aweful movie. Let's hope Obi wan has a better story, directing, acting. Indeed its success was only because of the popularity of a character. I will be extremely happy if Disney keep in line with RO with all the anthologies.

 

Simply pointing out that the general public is capable of absorbing and appreciating a film that doesn't follow the standard blockbuster formula, that's all. This not painting you as an elitist. Just stating a fact affirmed my massive popular successes like Logan and One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest. If done right, character-driven films can bring in blockbuster dollars.

And though there's action in Logan, and a popular story of people down on their luck getting back up again (Americans, especially, respond well to that), it is very much mostly a character-driven, talky film.

darthOB1

Rogue One is my favorite Star Wars film, so I agree that films on that plane are more than welcome. But I disagree about Logan. It was a critical and commercial success, and I believe a deserved one.

 

You're using "One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest" as an example in a debate about modern movie-making?

And whether or not the general public is capable of absorbing and appreciating a talking heads movie isn't the point. Obviously they are, movies like that get watched all the time. However, they're rarely if ever advertised and shot as blockbusters. It seems like directors and executives think they need violence to get bums in seats. Every modern blockbuster movie is chock-full with violence.

You must be aware then how incredibly weak your example is. The director obviously thought a Wolverine-movie without a couple of spectacular action scenes wouldn't work (and I've read some praise about the gritty action in Logan).

That's why the director of an Obi-movie will make sure to put a bunch of action scenes in there (along maybe some more introspective scenes as well). Which was precisely my point. There won't ever be a "Diplomacy"-version of SW.

I'm wondering if you're not using my ignorance regarding Logan against me. Just how "intellectual" is this movie really?

 

I watched Logan (which I've come to realize is pound-for-pound my favorite superhero film) again last night, so it's fresh in my memory. It is a very, very violent film, but the action scenes are grounded and intimate, not CGI reliant displays of digital spectacle. However, the movie frequently makes time for quiet scenes wherein characters talk to each other and convey how they feel, hashing out complicated emotions such as grief and guilt and ennui, and dealing with concepts like mortality and living with our life decisions at the end of our lives.

I think there's room for that in a Kenobi film. No one is asking for a one-act play where Obi-Wan laments on how much he hates sand for two hours. Action scenes are expected and necessary in a film of this kind, but their scale and circumstance should compliment an intimate story rather than being Big Blockbuster excursions away from it. I don't think Lucasfilm would be averse to that, especially since they're hiring someone known for his dramatic work, and they have the recent precedent of Logan to show it could work with a modern audience.

 

You're battling a strawman. I never said there should be "no action" in an Obi-Wan film. I'm simply making the case that it doesn't need to be "mostly" action, as you're contending. Logan is a perfect example of that.

 

It also doesn't have to be a huge, planet-hopping adventure either.

 

I think we were both talking past each other to a degree.

Just how introspective can a movie be when all the main problems are solved through violence? And that's the formula that modern blockbuster movies are using. With some rare exceptions (Luke throwing his lightsaber away), it always comes down to some sort of killing.

I guess this is why I don't see a really philosophical movie in the cards. It can feature some philosophical scenes, yes certainly, and maybe Obi wins the final fight (after killing a few hundred faceless goons) through a grand, pacifistic gesture like Luke. But that's about it.

And this is what makes the movie "mostly action". Because all the pacifism-stuff is in reality just window-dressing and fluff. It's nice to have this fluff, but it's not at the core of the thing. This is why any pacifist message must fall flat in the end.

This is what I meant in my first post here on the subject.

 

i want them to expand on Vader's "Obi-Wan once thought as you do" line to Luke in ROTJ.

 

Understood. Though I'm not taking about pacifism. Rather, I'm talking about the emotional, philosophical and practical elements of exile that have nothing to do with action. The loneliness, the frustration of people treating you like dirt, the humility, the hard daily grind, the mental effects, etc. These are issues Logan explored and explored well. And I think an Obi-Wan film could do it even better. Might the conclusion be achieved by some kind of violence? Sure. But that doesn't define a film as an "action" film. I'm thinking something akin to "Shane," with its lone hero, mixed with Logan.

 

Nothing says Ben was on Tattooine the entire time. Just that he ended up there. I'd dig a Kenobi centered movie. The guy's the James Bond of AGFFA!

 

I don't understand the flak this announcement is getting online. Yeah we don't need young Yoda or Jabba the Hutt or the Han Solo spinoff but the Obi-Wan movie with Ewan McGregor is literally the one established character spin-off that I thought 99% of fans would be completely on board with.

How can anyone in their right mind NOT want to see Ewan McGregor as the inbetweenquel Obi-Wan. Have it be like a "one last mission" or an introspective movie where he learns how to be a force ghost or have it be Logan but with Obi-Wan. Seriously this will be gold. Ewan is the perfect age. This is the one spin-off that seems pretty safe that I am 100% on board for.

 

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Yes, I liked the way Obi Wan discovering that Vader was still alive was handled in Dark Lord. Obi Wan was in a cantina having a drink and saw a Holonet news report about Vader and had the crushing realisation that Anakin/Vader had survived to travel further down the dark path.

 

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It'd be great of Liam Neeson could be persuaded to appear as a force ghost to teach Obi Wan how to manifest himself as a force ghost after his death.

 

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With you 100% on this. I'd have preferred them to do an Obi Wan film over the Han Solo spin-off. I'm not massively excited thus far about the Solo film. Still, I'll go see it when it comes out. As for an Obi Wan film ... yes please BUT only with Ewan McGregor.

 

The McGregor anouncement has to coming. Disney would be insane not to get Ewan McGregor back after all the buildup and hype surrounding the idea for the past few years.

 

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Yes, it is a no brainer. I read a post yesterday suggesting that Kenneth Branagh could play the role of an older Obi Wan. I'm sure he could do so and do so very well, but I think Disney would be utterly crazy to go ahead with an Obi Wan film set in the period between RoTS and ANH without McGregor as Obi Wan. I hope all parties get everything sorted and make the announcement soon. So, basically, yes.

 

Agreed! This film and a Boba Fett bounty hunter film set in the underworld seem like safe options that should be very well received I think a lot of the concern comes from fans that are worried that Disney will only do several films before they stop... And they want the ones they want before that happens. I think it would be stupid of us to assume that fatigue won't set in eventually! (I personally don't care if they do 10 films because if I don't like them ala the PT I just won't watch them or add them to my per/can)

 

Well, a Kenobi movie and a Han Solo movie ... two wasted oppurtunities. Fine, just mean less money to throw at Disney/Lucus films.

 

I do. Everybody's a complainer. There's STILL people moaning about Rogue One, as awesome a Star Wars movie as that was. Literally anything that deviates from the most purist of interpretations with Star Wars is almost biblical. Some people just freak out. I had serious confrontations with people who insisted, INSISTED, that Chewbacca had to be dead during TFA. As if they thought Harrison Ford had less input than some pop-fiction writer. TThat Han Solo would appear on the silver screen without Chewbacca... People seriously believed that!

The EU got tossed. It's all new now. Some people won't accept that.

 

You've seen both films already? And for free?

 

You'll see them both

 

In one respect, at the risk of getting hit by mods for going off topic, i think LFL needs to allow bantam to end Legends for all of it's readers. Dropping them off a cliff the way they did isn't cool. Couldn't hurt to let Dark Horse Comics or Bantam Books do a coda.

 

All that needs to be understood is that the internet complains about everything. There's literally not a single spin-off movie idea that wouldn't attract a large chorus of whining.

 

This is also Star Wars and while the prequels got the full force of it because there was nothing else to take it at the time there is now so much star wars muddling in the OT waters that its fairly over whelming for people.

Honestly though i have seen more positive comments about an obi wan movie then i have a han solo movie or any of the other spin offs.