Where to start? I've watched all three episodes and have some thoughts.
First, it's hard to ignore the burgeoning Youtube careers built around hate-watching modern media, especially Disney and Star Wars, and monetizing that outrage online. Review bombing is rampant, labeling everything as "woke" and expressing outrage at any deviation from a narrow, heteronormative, white male perspective. This includes backlash against diversity in race, gender, or sexuality.
A quick glance at YouTube reveals the usual suspects racking up views by railing against The Acolyte. It's clear this outrage is now a business model with a large audience. That said, there is a sliver of truth in some of the criticism that political and social agendas are sometimes awkwardly shoehorned into shows without the finesse that older shows used to handle their social commentary. However, this doesn’t justify the rage-baiting that is usually thinly veiled agenda-based culture war crap. We seem to have an extreme case on our hands here.
All this being true means that critiquing these shows with integrity often requires making these annoying caveats first. The same thing happened with The Rings of Power. There was a lot of outrage around it. The show wasn’t good, but the reasons for that had nothing to do with black people being in it.
Now, let me try to be objective about The Acolyte.
Episode 1, "Lost/Found": I thought it was fine, though a bit clunky in places. The assassination at the start could have been handled better. Osha came across as a bit bland, but overall, it was decent. The mystery is serviceable, and I’m curious to see where it goes. I appreciate some live-action focus on this era. I loved Lee Jung-jae in Squid Game, so it’s cool to see him as a Jedi Master. Yord and Jeki seem interesting, too. I liked that they didn’t drag out the Jedi’s disbelief in Osha. Such contrivances become annoying quickly. Yord is skeptical, but they come to terms with Mae’s responsibility relatively swiftly. In fact, there were multiple times when I expected a scene to end in a contrivance, but simple communication between characters resolved things. I LIKE THIS.
Episode 2, "Revenge/Justice": I had more issues with this one. Mae’s seedy accomplice (who looked distractingly like Ezra Miller) explaining to her that giving Master Torbin "absolution" by letting him commit suicide with poison was ridiculous. How could he know he’d kill himself just by seeing Mae? There’s a line about him not speaking for ten years, and maybe Mae connects this to his guilt, but it’s still a massive stretch for the accomplice to know that. Then... it works! He just drinks the poison and dies. There wasn’t a better way to handle this? It really took me out of the episode. Also, the production quality is fine (as it should be with a $190 million budget), but when I saw Torbin, I couldn’t help but think of that terrible glue-on beard Ewan McGregor wore in Attack of the Clones reshoots.
Other than that, it was fine again.
Episode 3, "Destiny": A full episode dedicated to the backstory of Osha and Mae wasn’t a pacing choice I’d have made, but it clears the way for the rest of the show to progress. Some of the acting was grating, but the concept of them being raised in a witches' coven, which seems like an offshoot of the Nightsisters of Dathomir, was intriguing. The chanting scene and the cackling from one witch were a bit cringeworthy. I was confused by how readily Osha trusted the Jedi and wanted to leave with them, especially her claim that they were good. They’ve been completely cut off from the outside world and raised by the coven, so where is she getting this information? She’s rebellious and not buying into the coven’s ideology like her sister, but it still felt odd.
The Jedi’s morally dubious methods are in line with established lore, and it’s good to explore this further rather than portraying them as perfect moral figures.
The "I’ll kill you" line was bad.
Mae starting the fire wasn’t the sole cause, or even a cause, of the whole complex burning down. Torbin’s guilt, enough to drive him to suicide, suggests the Jedi were complicit in some way. This should have been handled better, as the whole place going up from her little fire, even as a fake-out, was ridiculous. Also, the episode title is just one word, so (having just recently read Pale Fire), I think there’s an unreliable narrator here (and no, I'm not comparing Nabokov to the writing here, lol), and we have yet to see Mae’s perspective.
So, I wasn’t blown away and didn’t love it. The writing is serviceable, but there is some clunkiness in how scenes play out, some wooden acting, and some iffy pacing in places that detract from it.
I feel I blame pacing a lot in my reviews but it's a thing I notice, OK?
With that said, it has enough intriguing elements that I want to see where it goes. It’s far from perfect, but I enjoyed watching it. I also detected nothing that BREAKS THE LORE. Some are whining about no father being needed for conception, but nothing says Anakin was the only case of it happening, and the methods used in making Osha and Mae are (as far as we know) different. Even if they aren’t, that might make Anakin’s conception more interesting. I mean, it's either manipulation of the force or the spontaneity of the force on it's own, right?
Also, I really didn't like the trailer for this, as I said at the start of this thread. It looked like empty Marvel-style flashy action with a Star Wars skin slapped on top, and the show isn't that. They are at least trying to tell a compelling story here. How well they do in the end, we will have to wait and see.
Disney Star Wars is a mixed bag. Some of it I’ve really liked, and some I’ve really disliked. This leans more towards the top of that list than the bottom.
So, yeah. This is THE END OF STAR WARS. If you let children watch this, they will become GAY COMMUNISTS.
First, it's hard to ignore the burgeoning Youtube careers built around hate-watching modern media, especially Disney and Star Wars, and monetizing that outrage online. Review bombing is rampant, labeling everything as "woke" and expressing outrage at any deviation from a narrow, heteronormative, white male perspective. This includes backlash against diversity in race, gender, or sexuality.
A quick glance at YouTube reveals the usual suspects racking up views by railing against The Acolyte. It's clear this outrage is now a business model with a large audience. That said, there is a sliver of truth in some of the criticism that political and social agendas are sometimes awkwardly shoehorned into shows without the finesse that older shows used to handle their social commentary. However, this doesn’t justify the rage-baiting that is usually thinly veiled agenda-based culture war crap. We seem to have an extreme case on our hands here.
All this being true means that critiquing these shows with integrity often requires making these annoying caveats first. The same thing happened with The Rings of Power. There was a lot of outrage around it. The show wasn’t good, but the reasons for that had nothing to do with black people being in it.
Now, let me try to be objective about The Acolyte.
Episode 1, "Lost/Found": I thought it was fine, though a bit clunky in places. The assassination at the start could have been handled better. Osha came across as a bit bland, but overall, it was decent. The mystery is serviceable, and I’m curious to see where it goes. I appreciate some live-action focus on this era. I loved Lee Jung-jae in Squid Game, so it’s cool to see him as a Jedi Master. Yord and Jeki seem interesting, too. I liked that they didn’t drag out the Jedi’s disbelief in Osha. Such contrivances become annoying quickly. Yord is skeptical, but they come to terms with Mae’s responsibility relatively swiftly. In fact, there were multiple times when I expected a scene to end in a contrivance, but simple communication between characters resolved things. I LIKE THIS.
Episode 2, "Revenge/Justice": I had more issues with this one. Mae’s seedy accomplice (who looked distractingly like Ezra Miller) explaining to her that giving Master Torbin "absolution" by letting him commit suicide with poison was ridiculous. How could he know he’d kill himself just by seeing Mae? There’s a line about him not speaking for ten years, and maybe Mae connects this to his guilt, but it’s still a massive stretch for the accomplice to know that. Then... it works! He just drinks the poison and dies. There wasn’t a better way to handle this? It really took me out of the episode. Also, the production quality is fine (as it should be with a $190 million budget), but when I saw Torbin, I couldn’t help but think of that terrible glue-on beard Ewan McGregor wore in Attack of the Clones reshoots.
Other than that, it was fine again.
Episode 3, "Destiny": A full episode dedicated to the backstory of Osha and Mae wasn’t a pacing choice I’d have made, but it clears the way for the rest of the show to progress. Some of the acting was grating, but the concept of them being raised in a witches' coven, which seems like an offshoot of the Nightsisters of Dathomir, was intriguing. The chanting scene and the cackling from one witch were a bit cringeworthy. I was confused by how readily Osha trusted the Jedi and wanted to leave with them, especially her claim that they were good. They’ve been completely cut off from the outside world and raised by the coven, so where is she getting this information? She’s rebellious and not buying into the coven’s ideology like her sister, but it still felt odd.
The Jedi’s morally dubious methods are in line with established lore, and it’s good to explore this further rather than portraying them as perfect moral figures.
The "I’ll kill you" line was bad.
Mae starting the fire wasn’t the sole cause, or even a cause, of the whole complex burning down. Torbin’s guilt, enough to drive him to suicide, suggests the Jedi were complicit in some way. This should have been handled better, as the whole place going up from her little fire, even as a fake-out, was ridiculous. Also, the episode title is just one word, so (having just recently read Pale Fire), I think there’s an unreliable narrator here (and no, I'm not comparing Nabokov to the writing here, lol), and we have yet to see Mae’s perspective.
So, I wasn’t blown away and didn’t love it. The writing is serviceable, but there is some clunkiness in how scenes play out, some wooden acting, and some iffy pacing in places that detract from it.
I feel I blame pacing a lot in my reviews but it's a thing I notice, OK?
With that said, it has enough intriguing elements that I want to see where it goes. It’s far from perfect, but I enjoyed watching it. I also detected nothing that BREAKS THE LORE. Some are whining about no father being needed for conception, but nothing says Anakin was the only case of it happening, and the methods used in making Osha and Mae are (as far as we know) different. Even if they aren’t, that might make Anakin’s conception more interesting. I mean, it's either manipulation of the force or the spontaneity of the force on it's own, right?
Also, I really didn't like the trailer for this, as I said at the start of this thread. It looked like empty Marvel-style flashy action with a Star Wars skin slapped on top, and the show isn't that. They are at least trying to tell a compelling story here. How well they do in the end, we will have to wait and see.
Disney Star Wars is a mixed bag. Some of it I’ve really liked, and some I’ve really disliked. This leans more towards the top of that list than the bottom.
So, yeah. This is THE END OF STAR WARS. If you let children watch this, they will become GAY COMMUNISTS.
