Episode 4 of the live-action Star Wars miniseries about Obi-Wan Kenobi came out on Disney Plus on Wednesday, putting us past the halfway point. Jedi-in-exile Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) is in bad shape after he almost died when he saw his former apprentice Darth Vader again after he had become evil (Hayden Christensen).
Our hero was able to get away with the help of Tala Durith (Indira Varma), an Imperial officer who helps the Jedi sneak away from Vader through an underground railroad called the Path. When he finds out, the volatile Sith Lord will be very happy.
Unfortunately, Tala and Obi-Wan left little Princess Leia Organa (Vivien Lyra Blair) alone to get to the ship that will take her home to Alderaan, and she walked right into the hands of the Third Sister, also known as Imperial Inquisitor Reva (Moses Ingram). The bad guy wants to make Vader like him, so it’s a good thing that only Obi-Wan knows that Leia is the Sith Lord’s lost daughter.
Now is the time to go all in with the Force and dive into a galaxy full of SPOILERS. This show takes place about nine years before A New Hope and ten years after the Revenge of the Sith.
No Escape
Obi-Wan gets back in touch with the Force and teams up with Tala to save Leia from Fortress Inquisitorius on Nur. However, Reva has put a tracker in Leia’s favorite droid, LOLA, so that she can be found. It’s part of her plan to find the Jedi and the Path, which keeps her from being killed by Vader’s Force choke (who storms into the room in an extremely cool manner).
As he lets Reva go, the Dark Lord says, “It looks like I underestimated you.” At 91, James Earl Jones is still so great that every line gives me chills.
This reminds us of the first Star Wars movie (also known as Episode IV: A New Hope), in which Vader uses a similar trick to get the Empire to the hidden rebel base on Yavin IV by letting the Millennium Falcon lead them there. Since that movie takes place nine years after this show, it makes sense that the Sith Lord would use the same trick again.
In A New Hope, Leia also remembers the move. She thinks that having a tracker on board is “the only way” to explain how they got away. I guess the things that happened on this show made her learn that the hard way.
Obi-Wan sneaking around an Imperial building looks a lot like how he sneaks around the Death Star to turn off the battle station’s tractor beam in the first Star Wars movie. Fortress Inquisitorius was first seen in the 2019 video game Jedi: Fallen Order, where Cal Kestis infiltrated it for the last mission (the game takes place five years before this show).
Creepy Inquisitors
During his infiltration of Fortress Inquisitorius, Obi-Wan finds a horrifying room full of the bodies of dead Jedi, including those of younglings. It’s a powerful reminder of how bad the Empire was.
Some fans might recognize a Cosian among the entombed who looks like Jedi Master Tera Sinube. He was in the CGI animated series The Clone Wars more than once. Perhaps the most memorable time was when he helped Ahsoka Tano, the Padawan of Anakin Skywalker, find her lost lightsaber.
He also lived a long time, showing up in stories from the time of the High Republic (more than 200 years before the events of this show). Before Order 66, when clone troopers turned on their Jedi allies, we didn’t know what happened to him.
It’s not clear why the Empire is holding on to the bodies of Jedi, but it might have something to do with Emperor Palpatine’s plans to create Force-strong beings that could take his place if he died.
The first season of The Bad Batch, which takes place 10 years before Obi-Wan, and The Mandalorian, which takes place about 18 years after this show, both show that Palpatine tried to use science to live forever. When he was killed in Return of the Jedi, he hadn’t quite pulled it off. That’s why he comes back in The Rise of Skywalker in a gross, failing clone body (around 44 years after the events of this show).
Since we already know how the Palpatine story goes, this seems like a bit of a dead end for the story. We hope that these experiments on genetics will be about more than just his plans.
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Early Rebellion
Before going to Nur, Obi-Wan takes a quick dip in a bacta tank to heal the burns he got from fighting Vader. Like any good action hero, he rushes through his recovery so he can save Leia. This trope always makes me worry—Obi-Wan, get some rest, you don’t want to get a terrible space infection.
This bath was also the perfect place for a fun flashback to Obi-Wan and Anakin being best friends and jumping around in their cool armor during the Clone Wars, but that doesn’t happen. Just ask Boba Fett, who loved his sleepy memories. We only see a picture of the Sith Lord in his own bacta tank and a memory of how scary it was for him to fight Vader recently. Which is still pretty cool and a better way to keep the story moving than going back further in time.
Obi-Wan also meets Roken, the leader of an anti-Imperial network played by O’Shea Jackson Jr., who is trying to help the Jedi who are still alive. His wife was either a former member of the Order or a Force-sensitive person who the Inquisitors were trying to find. We don’t know if she’s someone we know or not.
Roken’s group isn’t quite the Rebel Alliance we see in the Original Trilogy (A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi). At this point in time, the resistance is made up of many small groups that work mostly on their own. A few years later, renegade Imperial Senator Mon Mothma and Leia’s foster father Bail Organa bring them together during the events of the CGI animated series Rebels.
Obi-Servations and Easter Eggs
- The scene where Obi-Wan hits the Stormtroopers from the shadows is just like a scene from a trailer for the 2010 game The Force Unleashed 2.
- Obi-Wan swimming into Fortress Inquisitorius is similar to how Cal Kestis infiltrated the base in the last mission of Jedi: Fallen Order. In The Phantom Menace, Obi-Wan did the same thing to Naboo.
- Leia was probably able to stop Reva’s mind probe because she was sensitive to the Force.
- We overhear a Stormtrooper saying that Nur gives him the creeps. I never get tired of hearing snippets of Imperial goons’ conversations, which remind me that most of them are just regular people trying to make a living in a galaxy run by space wizards.
- Leia is taken to a torture chamber that looks a lot like the one where the final boss of Jedi: Fallen Order is held.
- In this episode, the black-armored Purge Troopers make their first appearance in live-action. They have been seen before in Jedi: Fallen Order (where they were very hard to beat in battle), it’s Dark Temple tie-in comic series, and writer Charles Soule’s Darth Vader comic run from 2017. In the years since then, their helmets have changed, likely because the Empire switched from clone troopers to stormtroopers.
- Obi-Wan hiding Leia under his trenchcoat looks like a sad attempt to get a child into a movie theater.
- The fact that Roken’s pilots use T-47 airspeeders is really cool. As seen in The Empire Strikes Back, the Rebel Alliance will later change their ships into snowspeeders so they can be used on the icy planet of Hoth.
When episode 5 of Obi-Wan Kenobi, the second-to-last chapter, comes out on Disney Plus on June 15, we’d be thrilled to have you join us for more Easter eggs and observations.
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Final Words
Episode 4 of the live-action Star Wars miniseries about Obi-Wan Kenobi came out on Disney Plus on Wednesday. This show takes place about nine years before A New Hope and ten years after the Revenge of the Sith. Obi-Wan’s infiltration of Fortress Inquisitorius looks a lot like how he used to sneak around the Death Star. Fans might recognize a Cosian among the entombed who looks like Jedi Master Tera Sinube. He also lived a long time, showing up in stories from the time of the High Republic.
In Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Obi-Wan meets Roken, the leader of an anti-Imperial network played by O’Shea Jackson Jr. We also see a picture of Anakin in his bacta tank and a memory of how scary it was for him to fight Vader. Episode 5 of Obi-Wan Kenobi, the second-to-last chapter, comes out on June 15. Black-armored Purge Troopers make their first appearance in live action. The Rebel Alliance will later change their ships into snowspeeders so they can be used on Hoth.
