121 Days of Star Wars
Minute 35:00 of 121:00
Minute 35:00 has it all: moody lighting, low talking, and…
To set the mood for Kenobi’s dark tale of the past, the late afternoon sunlight is distilled through small high set windows, and the lighting creates a noir-esque atmosphere. The low music shifts from a nonspecific mystical sound to something slower and moodier.
As Obi Wan explains who Darth Vader is, an old pupil who turned to the Dark Side of the Force and murdered Luke’s father, the shots of this conversation are in close up, zero’ing the audience in to Luke’s reactions and Ben’s feelings.
The first time viewer might be on the same page as Luke, who stops Obi Wan’s story to ask him about the Force. Obi Wan explains that it’s an energy field binding the galaxy together and giving a Jedi his/her power. He does not mention midi-chlorians, probably because he’s far-right and doesn’t accept the science behind it.
Kenobi can deny the truth all he wants. Someday we’ll be able to clone Jedi using ancient mosquitos fossilized in amber, and prove midi-chlorians’ existence. We’ll just need to use Gungan DNA to fill in gaps in the sequence.
Here’s an artist’s rendering of a midi-chlorian with big personality:
Obi Wan is giving Luke and the audience a Force crash course that sets us up for the road ahead. A modern fantasy always has this obligatory scene, in which our young hero first learns of his destiny and gets a taste of his potential.
Like this…
Or this…
Or this……
Viewers watching Star Wars for the second or third time might notice that Obi Wan has a stain on the right shoulder of his tunic, which is probably bantha vomit. Does he ever wash his clothes or is he too busy meditating all the time?
When he finishes giving Luke “the talk,” he walks over to Artoo and within seconds, the little droid is playing Princess Leia’s message, and not just the “help me, Obi Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope,” version that was perfect for Vine.
No, R2-D2 now decides to show Princess Leia’s message in it’s entirety. She starts with a formal bow and gets into her sales pitch: “General Kenobi, years ago, you served my father in the Clone Wars–”
Wait a second, if anybody saw Star Wars Episode II or III, you would have noticed that Obi Wan did not directly serve Princess Leia’s father in the Clone Wars. I mean, he was a member of the Republic Senate during this time, but Bail Organa didn’t give direct orders during this time. Sure, maybe there were interactions in the Expanded Universe, but the lack of any real relationship between Bail, Obi Wan, and Anakin in the prequels is a missed opportunity. I don’t just say this because of Leia’s line in this movie (which was originally intended as a piece of expository dialogue). This would have added more drama and character development to the prequels and more complexity to this film. Think about it, if Bail Organa (played capably by Jimmy Smits) was more of a presence in Episodes I-III, Obi Wan’s insistence to get to Alderaan would have carried more weight, and the fate of Alderaan would have mattered waaaay more than it already does.
Leia goes on to beg for Obi Wan Kenobi’s help and the minute ends on Leia’s line, that her “ship has fallen under attack.” With the reveal that the princess is an Imperial captive, Obi Wan and Luke have to decide what to do next. We’ve been given a new context for the ruthlessness of a genocidal Empire and the fact that we may just be watching the last Jedi Master and apprentice. The stakes have risen.
Rating: 19,500 out 20,000 midi-chlorians per cell.
Best Performance by a Human: Sir Alec Guinness again! Whether he knew his character was lying to Luke when he filmed this scene or not, he plays it with so many levels that Lucas could have had the big Empire Strikes Back reveal be “Obi Wan killed Lincoln,” and it would’ve fit into the context of this scene.
Best Performance by a Non-human: R2-D2. He’s eager to please and he shows Leia’s message with pleasure.
Best Performance by a Human in a Relationship with a Duck:
Originally published at mindctrlaltdel.tumblr.com.
