On the whole, I give this episode and series two thumbs sideways. Decent fan service, it’s kind of cool to see a souped up souped up Vader do things and all that. The hardest thing with selling a series like this that’s set before another story is the stakes are low. You know Leia, Obi-wan, Vader, and Luke live. You don’t care enough about Reva or the other lady who blew herself up in episode 4. So it all ends up being a bit anti-climactic. Without knowing how it has to end, Obi-wan buried under a ton of rock might have some emotional value. Knowing he was sure to bust out took that away.
In the end, I think this series didn’t have much value beyond fan service, and the way it messes with the continuity with the original series works somewhat against even that. The whole conversation where Vader says “I killed Anakin” had Obi-wan says “then Anakin is already dead,” was kind of the ultimate fan service moment.
The other thing that struck me is how little I liked or cared for Ewan as Obi-wan. I’ve seen only episodes I and III of the prequels, and then only once, and I have no real affinity for that character. The few parts where he seemed to show some spirit and spine were cool, but a lot of the time he was just sort of pouty.
Also, the prequels make it impossible to care about his relationship with Anakin or have any interest in any sort of redemption story arc for Vader. They made him so unlikable in the prequels! When Obi-wan tells Leia at the end how great her dad was, I just rolled my eyes.
One other thing that annoyed me. At the beginning of this episode the star destroyer is chasing the ship, and Obi-wan takes off on his shuttle and they’re like “oh, we can only follow one of the ships, so we’ll let the others get away and focus on Obi-wan.” Then (when Obi-wan miraculously happens to be right by a habitable planet), Vader boards his shuttle and follows him to the planet surface. Um, he couldn’t have chased Obi-wan by himself while the main ship went after the others? They didn’t have any tie fighters they could scramble to shoot the others down? They couldn’t have quickly blown Obi-wan out of the sky and then focused on the others? Also, what is the shield capability of this transport ship that the star destroyer doesn’t just breach it in about 5 minutes? It’s this kind of stuff that was so poorly written into the story.