did anyone else physically cringe during the chase in the forest?

I thought the “we found you in a gutter” line was pretty woke.

I felt the first episode was off to a great start. The dialogue, interaction, and chemistry between Obi and Owen was fantastic. The inquisitors were ominous enough to be compelling, with the sole exception of off-the-rails, inexplicably obsessed Reva. That kind of obsession feels so misplaced without a compelling backstory to explain her obsession with him. The poor attempt to explain it away with dialogue fell completely flat and didn't make her interesting or compelling in the least. She is an overplayed caricature and her over the top acting is making it worse. Ewan was fantastic as always and once again proves he can carry the franchise despite the shit he has to work with.

The Leia scenes were just abysmal. They took a solid, beloved character and ruined her completely. I get that they want to show Leia as an independent, headstrong free spirit, but the actress and the portrayal makes her immediately unlikable. She has effectively supplanted Jar Jar as the most hated character. Every scene with her felt dry and disconnected. Then they decided to one up themselves by incorporating her in action sequences. The forest abduction was some of the worst cinematography I have witnessed in years. You could immediately and obviously tell the "trained professionals" were moving at less than quarter speed to try to make it appear they were struggling to keep up with a 10 year old child with the stride of an Ewok. It literally reminded me of watching the Steven Seagal running meme... Then they doubled down in the second episode with an even longer, extended action sequence that looked even worse than the first. I felt myself wishing he'd have just let her fall and spared us anymore scenes with her. Every time she was on screen it felt like I was watching a low-budget fan-fiction film.

The "pretend" Jedi was another misstep... he wasn't amusing, likable, or humorous. It just felt out of place and forced.

I never thought I would feel as disappointed in Star Wars as I was with the original prequels ever again -- I felt like I had learned my lesson and would not let them get my hopes up like that again... but with the Mandalorian and Bobba, somehow I let them trick me into thinking they couldn't screw this up and now I'm sitting here reliving the same disappointment of the prequels. My mistake I guess.

The whole Leia being chased in the forest by adults scene was just stupid. Cringeworthy stupid. Yelling at the screen how bad and stupid it is... stupid. Not even sure why they put it in other than as filler to pad the episode time. Adds absolutely nothing to the story/plot line. In fact so much focus on the kids, particularly Leia, just seems like a waste of the plot line.

Inquisitor Reva scenes were almost painful. Her acting was just not very good or believable, felt forced. Maybe she grows into the character, and the acting quality gets better, maybe not.

On the whole the entire first episode felt like the actors where thrown together seconds after being handed the script lines to read and they shot everything in one take on the first reading. Even the bit part characters (like the Asian bartender guy) with no lines/few lines just seemed like forced acting.