You’re here for my Obi-Wan Kenobi Episode 4 review. You’ll probably guess from my title that this was not my favorite episode of Kenobi thus far. And, you’d be right. I’ll simply begin by saying that whilst I didn’t think this episode trash at all, it was the weakest episode so far. I will as usual get into my thoughts in a non-spoiler manner and then clarify after a SPOILER jump.
On paper, if you broke this episode down with no script, I’d think it sounds exciting. However where things are sadly lacking in Episode 4 is the script itself, which just seems to have disappeared for the most part. Episode 4 feels like a choreographed set piece, which it is, but maybe not the best you’ll ever see. The problem is that across a full episode I felt the one thing lacking in Episode 4 was character development. Kenobi himself didn’t evolve here for me, neither did Leia or Tala. The only moment that I truly loved from a dramatic point of view was the sole Vader scene this week, I’ll talk more about that below.
Some of the action scenes, of which there are many were pretty cool, and McGregor does great with what he is given this week, it’s just not much. Ultimately I thought we’d be getting a slower episode where we see Obi-Wan dealing with what just happened, before making plans. However instead we are just thrown straight into the next task the gang has to accomplish.
To be clear, there’s nothing horrid here, for me. However there’s nothing that stood out me apart from a couple of cool action moments either.
SPOILERS BELOW
Since this is a review, I’ll get straight to some specific stand out moments from me.
I really enjoyed Obi-Wan’s infiltration, despite it making security look really lax. When Kenobi is on the run, I liked the fight scenes in the corridor, Kenobi does the job, but he still looks ill at ease and rusty in this mode which I appreciated. The scene where Kenobi holds back the window from shattering and then uses it to escape the Stormtroopers was pretty cool.
Finally, I loved Vader’s confrontation with Reva. Very well done, Vader is ready to literally tear her apart, until she explains what she has done. Vader immediately see’s the benefit in her actions and decides to keep her alive for now. Small, short, but precise and well put together.
RELATED: Obi-Wan Kenobi Episode 3 Review – Brutal, Emotional And Still Careful
As for what I disliked? The absence of any character moments between Kenobi and his new friends. They just go straight to planning a hostage rescue. Tala basically tells Obi-Wan, without knowing him, ‘ah buck up pal, you’ll be a’ight’. Then, when Kenobi, Tala and Leia are surrounded at the end and the speeders come in… hmm. It just felt off to me somehow? Like everyone was set up to be shot and allow them to get away. I guess you could argue that was the point of Reva’s plan. However, it just lost weight with me for some reason. The kid who gets killed, I didn’t even know his name, I don’t care about that, and I don’t care about his sad sister, girlfriend, buddy, whoever that was flying the other ship. See, I should know who she was?
The reason I don’t care, is because the episode doesn’t properly give us any time to know these people. If we had an episode of Kenobi recovering, and learning about what these peoples lives are, maybe I would care? Therefore, I so far feel like this episode needed to be much longer, like 10-20 minutes longer with a lot more character time at the start, before we get to the plan. I’d have made this episode have three acts like most movies. Maybe that was the intention, but there was no time spent on the first act, and little on the second. Have Obi-Wan react to these people and learn their names and a little about them. I would then appreciate when they turn up to rescue him and one of them gets killed in the process.
Overall, I kinda just hope the final two episodes are better.
GRADE: B –
What did you think of my Obi-Wan Kenobi Episode 4 review? Let me know, or leave your own Episode 4 review below, or over on Discord.
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