After years of rumors, talks and speculation, an Obi-Wan Kenobi spin-off series has finally been made reality. Star Wars fans have been clamoring for a Kenobi film with Ewan McGregor returning for the role at least since Disney announced they would be doing spin-off films (this was pre-Disney+ of course).

And return he did, along with Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader and others from Revenge of the Sith including Joel Edgerton (Owen Lars), Bonnie Piesse (Beru Whitesun Lars) and Jimmy Smits (Bail Organa).

Does Obi-Wan Kenobi live up to the hype? Let’s dive in and find out.

Minor spoilers ahead.

The series takes place a decade after the events depicted in Revenge of the Sith, the Empire is at the height of their power, the Jedi are all but gone, and Obi-Wan Kenobi (using the alias “Ben”) is exiled on Tatooine and watching over a young Luke Skywalker from a distance.

Meanwhile, an Imperial Inquisitor known as Third Sister (Moses Ingram), orchestrates the kidnapping of a young Princess Leia Organa (Vivien Lyra Blair) due to the girl’s adopted father Bail working with Obi-Wan in the past. This leads Obi-Wan out of his exile to find Leia, and ultimately leads to him confronting his former apprentice, turned Sith Lord, Darth Vader.

Immediately upon hearing about this series, one of the things I was worried about was how it would retroactively change the events of the original Star Wars, although I’m happy to confirm that it does avoid anything too egregious for continuity (as much as continuity exists in Star Wars).

But continuity is a secondary aspect to a series (like dessert, nice to have, but you can get full without it), the important thing is story and character.

Some have criticized the series for just being a rescue plot (like that isn’t what all the movies have in common), honestly it harkens back to the origins of Star Wars and I think it is fine for it.

Ewan McGregor’s performance helps to bridge the gap between the portrayal of Kenobi in the prequels and the more zen master we see in Star Wars. The series gives a broken Obi-Wan still suffering from the trauma of dueling Anakin and leaving him for dead on Mustafar. It feels like the natural progression for the character and McGregor brings a lot of interesting things to the series.

Hayden Christensen and James Earl Jones both return to physically and vocally portray Darth Vader. Vader is an intimidating figure that steals every scene he is in (in no small part helped by the direction from Deborah Chow). While nothing has official been said one way or another, I believe they used the same digital modulation to help James Earl Jones sound as he did in the Original Trilogy (listen to Vader’s voice in Rogue One versus here and you’ll see what I mean).

There are many bit players in the series, but the other two main characters to spotlight are Leia and Reva the Third Sister.

Vivien Lyra Blair absolutely sells the idea she is playing a younger Leia, with her performance notably being based on Leia’s attitude post-detention center “rescue” in the original film with all the snark that entails.

Moses Ingram’s Third Sister ultimately feels underused. She turns in a fine performance, but quickly gets sidelined when Vader enters the story. I feel that maybe she was supposed to have a larger role, but was changed to add more Vader.

John Williams returned to compose the theme music, while Natalie Holt provided the majority of the music in the show. While the score is good, it unfortunately didn’t come off as terribly memorably to me.

Direction was strong, but I felt the decision to use shaky cam in the lightsaber fights made them a little uninteresting to watch.

I do think this show would have worked better as a single spin-off movie as there are scenes that drag on a little too long. This show also falls into the tv show trend of the “older guy and kid that he must protect travel around and have misadventures” trope that is seen in The Last of Us, the new Halo series, The Mandalorian and parts of Game of Thrones season 4.

On the whole, the show manages to tell its story well and matches up pretty well with where we find these characters in the original Star Wars movie.

Obi-Wan Kenobi gets a 7/10.