The acting of Ewan was phenomenal. He really sold the PTSD broken Jedi. The chemistry between Ben and Leia felt real and reminded me of the banter Obi-wan had with Anakin, Ahsoka and Rex. I smiled when rusty ben gets help from fearless little Leia. The intro of Vader was chilling and he looked and sounded exactly as I remembered. We even got some lore and name dropping. I'm really sorry that I have to say this but I do feel like they fumbled on the landing.
I get that Darth Vader wanted to make Obi-wan suffer and wanted to take his time, but this is only 10 years after their duel. He should have been way more unhinged and certainly would have had no problem in preventing Obi-wan's escape. Simple force crush of the loader would have been enough. Sorry but anything other than a vehicle getting them out of there at high speed is bad writing ( like they evaded Maul in episode 1 ). Vader searched the entire galaxy for a decade and he's now being stopped by 5m of fire in between two over sized molehills?
Second huge question is how Reva got to the pilot first? Was there a shortcut that Tala and Leia didn't take ? Why did they take the long way round ? Did Revan meet Tala on her way back and then did a forcerun flash to pass Leia ?
I don't expect Star Wars to be Godfather quality but I really hope they explain those things.
Why do american shows always do this ? Jesse, Walter and Saul are the good , the bad and the ugly.
That Jesse gets away and gets a new start is a bit wishful thinking but I can accept it.
The arc of Walter who does things out of desperation, then breaks bad and then finally comes to his senses is also believable. Sacrificing himself to at least get his student/protégé free was also in his long term character.
But then we get McGill who was a drifter his ENTIRE life, tries to do better but eventually goes of the rails when Kim leaves. He became ugly, he enjoyed the success and tried his best to stay out of prison. This is a guy who was ready to hit a cancer patient over the head,or even strangle an old lady to escape. He was so angry and resentful at Kim he damn near broke the payphone ( for someone that never gets psychical the entire show ) . Him getting a sentence of 190 years down to 7.5 years was completely in his skill set and character.
But we can't have the bad guys win like in real life do we. So we let the ugly man get his redeeming moment and fall on his sword for the love of his life. I'm glad many people like it but I call BS. Those final moments cost the entire series at least a point in my review.
Personally I would have preferred he got his 7.5 years and as he is walking away with a big smile on his face gets shot by either Kim or one of the many widows, heck even shanked in country club prison by the cartel would have been better although VERY predictable.
The best ending would have been that he walked on a technicality. Nobody would have seen that coming, very realistic and at least it wouldn't have been so damn sweet. Free but poor and totally alone, a life sentence on its own.
I was already a huge fan of this show but this episode really drove home how good the writing on this show is.
Every episode has a quote you can take to the bank. "Security is an illusion", "Win and walk away", "The axe forgets, but the tree remembers", etc so i caught myself actually cheering at the TV for this week's gem.
This episode has nearly no action at all but I was either completely immersed in the world building, the dialogue or the scheming. I really can't understand why people label it as slow when the quality and pacing is on par with Breaking Bad, Ozarks or House of the Dragon. Heck compared to The Old Man this show is a race car.
I needed to rewind a couple of times just to catch everything and it is one of a few shows where I can see the episode again, just days later ( I think this will be an excellent show to binge ) Every time I catch something extra.
The moment they show the K-2S0 droids got me the same feeling I had when I first saw The Terminator in '86. This show is everything an adult fan could ever hope for. Even Mon Mothma is being fleshed out into a much more interesting character than the clone wars did. Fingers crossed we get a Gerrera Guerrilla arc, Forest Whitaker would be ideal in this show based on his recent work in Godfather of Harlem
From the writing ,the acting to the set builders, this is top quality Star Wars. Can you imagine the level this show could reach if they introduced an actual Jedi ( they kinda did though cough, wink, wink ) or fan favorites like Alan Tudyck ( K-2SO )
As a life long SW fan I would rather watch this than Kenobi again. This episode is a solid 8 for me.
I watched every episode of Supernatural because when it aired it was something new and refreshing. It was "The Boys" of its time. For years we were stuck with female oriented supernatural stuff. From the Scream franchise ... they clobbered to death over Buffy, Angel and even Lucifer, it was always love and relationships.
Sam & Dean were beer drinking, burger eating, rocking badasses! Relationships were more like a Bond movie. Instead we got banter with Bobby, Cas and Cromwell. Episodes of them breaking the forth wall or even Scooby-Doo tribute were legendary.
So I checked out the pilot and they cover a part that was already told in the original series. Without any explanation they changed that. I can't be bothered to look it up, but they also changed a LOT of lore. Introduced the most boring arc of the Original with the Men of Letters in such a tempo it had my head spinning. They don't speak like in the seventies, they don't act like that time and they don't dress the part. I know it's low budget but come on.
Now if that was needed to deliver a kickass spin off, I would have forgiven it, but then they showed us the supporting characters. A person of color and a dandy. I'm all for inclusion but both felt like the bare minimum to meet the quota. Either you go woke or you don't, this just pisses of everybody.
This pilot is something my son would have turned in as homework, something with minimal effort to get a passing grade.They even go hunting in a van like the Scooby-Doo gang. I was really looking forward to this but this only damages the original in my book
I know it's cool to hate on this show so I waited a few episode to give them a fighting chance.
If LOTR was a cake your grandma made, then the Hobbit was a store bought cake. This show is a wedding cake: very expensive, looks amazing, but inside is the most boring generic cake.
If you are going to modernize it anyway, then why bother buying the rights to the best known fantasy franchise. Tolkien was already on the edge of political correct thinking when Peter Jackson made his movies. It's like buying a hippy van, stripping everything but the chassis and then installing an electrical engine when you could just have bought the new E van.
I'll probably end up watching the entire first season but at no point does it feel like the same universe. In fact as soon as I started to watch this show like I did with The Orville ( close to Star Trek but not it ) I could actually enjoy Durin, Elrond and Arondir.
Amazon if you are reading this, next season cut 25% of the gfx department and hire a few solid writers. I won't miss a few waterfalls in the background when I'm focused on the dialogue, or Valar forbid, some action.
I watched every episode,every tedious minute of drama to follow a story. There were times I stayed up late and watched AMC live through a website just to avoid spoilers. I even checked out the spin-offs but I only got hooked on FTWD.
Just to say I once loved the show, but the show was rinse repeat since The Governor. Neegan was the last decent bad guy and the cast losing 3 major characters didn't help ( ok ... okay, Maggie came back after that spy flop).
I kept on it even though I couldn't care less about the 4th generation ( sorry Luke ) but after finally catching up I am angry. We never found out why the zombies came ( interview says Space ) , what happened to Rick nor Michonne. What is the super organized faction with the helicopters ? etc.
You expect us to fork over even more cash to go watch a movie ? Push that part of the actual story telling to the spin-offs ?
This was 12 year looking at gore and special FX but we never got ANY answers. Sorry but this final was even worse than the one for Dexter or Lost, heck it wasn't even one of the better season finals.
At the end of the day people watch a movie or a show for the same reasons. For a story. If you can't answer the basic questions after 10+ seasons, you failed.