Star Wars Fans Owe This Live-Action Series an Apology

Star Wars fans have a reputation for turning fast, and not always gently. That did not start with Disney buying the franchise in 2012. The prequels took plenty of heat long before that. Still, the Disney era has had its share of dogpiles, from The Rise of Skywalker to The Acolyte and more. Some of that backlash landed for good reason — Palpatine’s magic comeback remains a hand-wave too far. But one target keeps getting pummeled way beyond what it deserves: the 2022 Obi-Wan Kenobi series.

The day-one backlash, and why it stuck

Obi-Wan Kenobi launched in 2022 and the criticism started immediately. A chunk of the noise was about focus: the show didn’t sit on Obi-Wan’s shoulder every second, and it introduced new faces like Imperial Inquisitor Reva Sevander alongside a young Princess Leia. The reaction to Reva got ugly fast — Moses Ingram was hit with racist abuse, which Ewan McGregor publicly called out on social media.

Then you had the classic chorus: the "no one asked for this" crowd (which ignores the many fans who absolutely did). Others argued the show shouldn’t revisit this particular slice of the timeline at all — that staging another Obi-Wan/Darth Vader showdown messed with the prequels and the original trilogy and nudged canon in directions they didn’t like.

Four years later, some corners of the fandom are still swinging at the series. And honestly, the intensity is out of proportion to what the show actually is and what it adds.

What Obi-Wan Kenobi actually gives the saga

• Leia matters here, in ways that ripple forward. The show makes it crystal clear why teenage Leia would reach out to Obi-Wan in A New Hope — and, later in life, why she would name her son Ben. It also finds a quiet, tender way to address the Skywalker family tragedy. Leia never knew her parents; she even crossed paths with her father without knowing it and suffered at his hands. Obi-Wan gets to tell her who Anakin and Padme were, and how much of them is in her. That beats a footnote in a lore book; it’s character work the movies never had time to do.
• Luke’s home life finally has weight. Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru aren’t just the people who nagged Luke about chores. The series shows them as the line between Luke and a very bad day, fully prepared to die to keep him safe. And Owen’s simple, stubborn love for the kid lands:

  "He is my own."

• The rematch delivers, both as action and closure. If you flinch at the idea of another Obi-Wan/Vader encounter, fair. But the lightsaber work here is among the most charged since the prequels, and the emotional payoff — two people who were once like brothers finally saying the quiet part out loud — sticks. Call it fan service if you want; it’s effective fan service that deepens both characters.
• It broadens Obi-Wan, Leia, and Luke in this era. Beyond the marquee moments, the series adds texture: who Obi-Wan is after failure, who Leia is before politics harden into destiny, and how Luke’s guardianship actually functioned in practice. That’s not nothing.

So, was any of the criticism fair?

Some, sure. Not every beat lands, and Star Wars has a documented habit of over-mining certain time periods. But lumping Obi-Wan Kenobi in with the franchise’s worst decisions — especially while ignoring the character work it nails — feels lazy. There’s plenty here to appreciate, and the show’s best sequences easily stand with the saga’s highlights.

Short version: the pile-on has lasted longer than the show’s actual problems. If you bounced off it in 2022, it might be worth a clean rewatch now — without the noise.