Deconstruction of Heroes - a really annoying trend

I found it was really getting to me when Steven Moffatt took over "Doctor Who".

"Doctor Who" had transitioned from the Russell T. Davies reboot to Moffatt, who had written some of the best, and most haunting, episodes during the Davies tenure.

Under Davies, there was a fair amount of deconstruction of the Doctor's character and personality. A lot of trying to get into the character's head and part the mystery, but for some reason, I didn't find it too much. Then Moffatt stepped in and just kept going bonkers with incomprehensible story arcs that just orbited the Doctor in a bonkers fashion. And he went further in trying to deconstruct the character and break apart all the mystery that made the Doctor so interesting. He even invented an entire incarnation (the "War Doctor") to go nuts on the mythology.

I would up giving up on the show after a while. I've read a bit about what Chris Chibnall has done for the show's mythology and... no regrets from walking away.



Then Rogue One: A Star Wars Story came out.

I have to admit, I didn't think Rogue One was a bad story, exactly. It was just... unnecessary. I honestly didn't need an entire rambling caper telling me how the Rebels got the plans to the Death Star. And having watched the movie, with the really insanely contrived plot twists, it didn't do the story any favors, imho.



Then came the Han Solo movie. I watched a trailer and... nope. I really didn't need an entire movie trying to pidgeonhole in all of Han's backstory so we could see the Kessel Run and how he won the Millennium Falcon. Honestly, that much naked Disney greed to milk more and more out of the fanbase was too much for me.



Around the same time, I think Rian Johnson's The Force Awakens came out and we got treated to PTSD Luke Skywalker, with his addiction to alien blue milk, fresh from the alien teat.

Wow. Yeah.

Watching the heroic Jedi from Return of the Jedi turned into a broken old man with a milk fetish was way over-the-line. I was somewhat annoyed that Abrams had turned Han and Leia into a divorced couple, with Han a scrounger on the run, but given the plot thread of killing off Han, it seemed pointless to get irriated. Turning Luke into an attempted child-murderer and weirdo hermit was just way too much.

I was done with Star Wars at that point.



"The Mandalorian" came along and, I gotta admit, I found myself hooked on the franchise again. Then they did "The Book of Boba Fett" and... really? I mean, making the cool character from The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi return was... okay, I guess? Turning him into a weirdly-broken, weak, and kind of pathetic wanna-be sheriff/boss on Tatooine was really unnecessary. If the show hadn't jumped to the Mandalorian for a bit, I'd have written the whole thing off as a waste of time.



And now we've got "Obi-Wan Kenobi".

So, honestly, I never saw a point to telling a story of Obi-Wan's time in exile. There was no way he was doing anything especially-noteworthy during his time as a desert hermit, right?

I'll admit, what they've got going is somewhat-intriguing. A side-quest to rescue young Leia is intriguing. It's unclear if she knows who he is and the attention paid to some details has been fun, but honestly I really don't need to see broken Ben Kenobi, cowering in the shadows. And there's a lot of that, three episodes in.



This trend to take heroic characters from various series and put them through some kind of blender to squeeze some kind of drama from their past tales - stories told after the character's performed their main heroic arc - is demeaning to the character and kinda lazy storytelling. It's a really irritating trend, and I really wish it would stop.

I'm enjoying parts of "Obi-Wan Kenobi". I have to admit, I like the new villain characters. The girl playing young Leia is awesome. Bringing back Owen Lars was well-done. I'm ambivalent about the return of Darth Vader. Seems kind of pandering, but I suppose the entire series is that.