Now that we’re halfway through Obi-Wan Kenobi on Disney Plus, it’s safe to say that it has gone down an absolute treat with audiences and critics alike. But there’s still one thing that keeps the new Star Wars series from truly embodying the spirit of the galaxy far, far away, and that is the cheesy PowerPoint transition wipes that plagued the Skywalker Saga as early as A New Hope in 1977.
When George Lucas first conceived Star Wars in the late ’80s, the original script for Adventures of Luke Starkiller, As Taken From the Journal of the Whills, Saga 1: The Star Wars had been divided into numerous story blocks that each represented a facet of what the filmmaker was trying to convey with his space opera. That storytelling technique thrived all the way through the prequel trilogy in the early 2000s, and the ingenious way Lucas jumped between these narrative beats was to use rough frame transitions that reminded everyone of serialized TV shows in the ’50s.
After taking over the franchise, Disney brought dozens of creatives to work on the ever-expanding Star Wars canon and not many of them felt the necessity to carry on the tradition of using PowerPoint transitions in their stories. That’s why fans have now realized the odd thing about Obi-Wan Kenobi and its perfectly modern transition cuts, so many of them are naturally calling out Lucasfilm on this negligence.
Now that we know, this little factoid is going to haunt us through the remaining three episodes. Thanks, fandom.
For many Star Wars enthusiasts, those transitions are what made the series what it is, as hard as that may be to believe. And it is.
It’s an irredeemable travesty, though one that we could probably live with if the show continues to be a bang for the buck as it’s been over the past two weeks.
Obi-Wan Kenobi returns next Wednesday with its fourth episode on Disney Plus.
