Television Star Wars: The Acolyte (Disney+), update (08/19): RIP in Peace

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

I will say I don’t think Sol was a good Jedi. Maybe it was the writing or directing. But he the more the show went on and told his story, the more it became apparent how much he was motivated by selfishness of wanting a padawon and the fear he’d never get one.
 

I am used to stories where Jedi are at least trying to do good as their main motivator. Not that they are trying to convince others and themselves they are doing good. But here it seemed so many Jedi were just looking out for themselves. Answering not even to other Jedi.
 

maybe it is weird, but that senator may be the only character in the show actually trying to do good. lol  

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

5 minutes ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

Why would anyone defend The Last Jedi?

It’s at least top 4 of the “skywalker saga, 9 movies”. lol 

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

You’re right. Maybe more like top 3, but I like the overall themes, fights, and sound track of Revenge of the Sith. 

[AbsolutSurgen]

2 minutes ago, Spawn_of_Apathy said:

It’s at least top 4 of the “skywalker saga, 9 movies”. lol 

Its clearly in the top 9. 

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

1 minute ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

Its clearly in the top 9. 

I’ll consider this meeting me halfway as no matter my ranking, this would still be true. lol

[johnny]

24 minutes ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

It was the post-series thoughts in this video from Headland that caught my attention. 
I’d only come across him in the last 2 weeks. 
 

Why would anyone defend The Last Jedi?

because it’s one of the best star wars movies made. 

 

posting that dude, lmao you’re a joke 

[AbsolutSurgen]

41 minutes ago, Spawn_of_Apathy said:

You’re right. Maybe more like top 3, but I like the overall themes, fights, and sound track of Revenge of the Sith. 

1) Empire Strikes Back

2) Star Wars

3)Return of the Jedi

4) Force Awakens

[Big Gap]

5) Attack of the Clones [Based solely on what happens on Geonosis]
6) Phantom Menace

[Galaxy Sized Gap]
7) The Rise of Skywalker [Based solely on the quality of the action scenes]
8) Revenge of the Sith

9) The Last Jedi

 

FWIW, I would put The Mandalorian, Andor and Rogue One above Force Awakens. [Likely Rebels, Clone Wars and Bad Batch as well.]

I was in my mid 20s/early 30s for the prequel trilogy movies- and recognize that people who experienced them at a different age for the first time may have a different perspective.

26 minutes ago, johnny said:

because it’s one of the best star wars movies made. 

 

posting that dude, lmao you’re a joke 

Clearly. I’m shocked it wasn’t nominated for best picture. 
EDIT:  The Casino scene was worthy of being put in Citizen Kane. 

[skillzdadirecta]

43 minutes ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

1) Empire Strikes Back

2) Star Wars

3)Return of the Jedi

4) Force Awakens

[Big Gap]

5) Attack of the Clones [Based solely on what happens on Geonosis]
6) Phantom Menace

[Galaxy Sized Gap]
7) The Rise of Skywalker [Based solely on the quality of the action scenes]
8) Revenge of the Sith

9) The Last Jedi

 

FWIW, I would put The Mandalorian, Andor and Rogue One above Force Awakens. [Likely Rebels, Clone Wars and Bad Batch as well.]

I was in my mid 20s/early 30s for the prequel trilogy movies- and recognize that people who experienced them at a different age for the first time may have a different perspective.

Clearly. I’m shocked it wasn’t nominated for best picture. 
EDIT:  The Casino scene was worthy of being put in Citizen Kane. 

 

Dude, you have Attack of the Clones at number 5. ATTACK. OF. THE. CLONES. Now that I think about it, it explains a lot... carry on.

 

 

[sblfilms]

Attack of the Clones is not even a real movie by any normal assessment. An absolute travesty of filmmaking.

[AbsolutSurgen]

45 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

 

Dude, you have Attack of the Clones at number 5. ATTACK. OF. THE. CLONES. Now that I think about it, it explains a lot... carry on.

 

 

I thought the prequel movies weren’t particularly good. But, AotC had the best action scenes. It’s a reflection of what I think of the other movies. 
Again, I would rank the Timothy Zahn books (the only ones I’ve read), the original trilogy, most of the recent animation and Rogue One/Andor as significantly better. 
AOTC is not a hill I would die on - I don’t think it’s a good movie. I just think there are some other Star Wars movies that don’t have Yoda fighting Dooku. 
 

 

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

I’ve always been a fan of this series. 

 

[skillzdadirecta]

IGN'S Review of the season... I normally don't read these or pay much attention to them, but they're thoughts pretty much echo mine. I'm a little more positive about the show than they are though.

 

Star Wars: The Acolyte Season 1 Review

WWW.IGN.COM

---

Disney Plus series has intriguing ideas undone by clumsy storytelling.

 

Quote

VERDICT

 

You can sense Leslye Headland’s excitement to expand the Star Wars universe throughout The Acolyte’s first season, which is brimming with interesting and thoughtful ideas for building on what we knew about the Jedi and Sith and how the Force is actually used – and why it’s more complicated than simply “Light Side versus Dark Side.” There are highlights in the acting and the drama, but the storytelling lacks luster, leading to many frustrating moments of unfulfilled potential. It could provide a solid foundation for a  second season with better focus – but there’s no guarantee that we’ll see a second season of The Acolyte.

 

[Kal-El814]

17 hours ago, sblfilms said:

Attack of the Clones is not even a real movie by any normal assessment. An absolute travesty of filmmaking.

But things happen in it. Sort of. 

[SuperSpreader]

[GeneticBlueprint]

On 7/19/2024 at 8:08 PM, Spawn_of_Apathy said:

It’s at least top 4 of the “skywalker saga, 9 movies”. lol 

Top 2 actually

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

One element that I wish the show went into more on is the idea it brought up that the Jedi behave as though they have a monopoly on the force, who have the right to dictate who can and cannot use or train in the force, and even feel entitled to take anyone child that shows

force sensitivity. 

[skillzdadirecta]

1 hour ago, Spawn_of_Apathy said:

One element that I wish the show went into more on is the idea it brought up that the Jedi behave as though they have a monopoly on the force, who have the right to dictate who can and cannot use or train in the force, and even feel entitled to take anyone child that shows

force sensitivity. 

They kinda do? Both the Nightsisters' coven and Qimer talk about this. Qimer brings it up when he's talking to osha about his motivations.

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

1 minute ago, skillzdadirecta said:

They kinda do? Both the Nightsisters' coven and Qimer talk about this. Qimer brings it up when he's talking to osha about his motivations.

They didn’t really though. I mean a greater exploration and journey with it. For Qimir he mentioned it, and what we know of the Jedi, maybe, but we never see where he has been a victim of that. At the time it came across as if he is assuming the Jedi would not allow him to study the force the way he wants and would try to kill him. With the Nightsisters they were more like CPS. Sol would have been perfectly fine taking the children and leaving the witches to continue doing whatever. And the only reason Trinity even went along with it was Sol lying about the girls being in danger when “they have force sensitive children” wasn’t enough. 
 

Yeah I’m coming at this more from “the story should have been different”. Where it wasn’t one person selfishly trying to take a child to have as his own apprentice. Instead more like they were fulfilling a dogmatic duty instilled in them that only the Jedi can be trusted with the force and to train others in the force. Anyone else, group or individual is “too dangerous”. Then maybe Sol’s pleading would be more in line with him actually trying to save the girls because he knows otherwise the Jedi will deem the group, including the children, to be too dangerous to leave alone. 

[Kal-El814]

Conservations around the MCU have, for years now, occasionally attracted comments like, "I wish they tried something different even if it wasn't great, rather than do the same old thing." But then Book of Boba Fett or The Acolyte come out, both of which try to do something different and are on some level flawed, and they get absolutely scorched. 

 

Ultimately I think The Acolyte was an okay, fun, sometimes frustrating show that had ideas loftier than its execution. But I'd be excited to see another show from this team and hope that the reps would do them well.

[GeneticBlueprint]

I think most of the haters on this board are trashing it because it's bad. Not for trying something different.

[Spork3245]

You know there's a TV/Movie drought when we're spending this much time on such a mediocre show  

[AbsolutSurgen]

Andor was different -- put was universally praised.

The Acolyte was different -- and wasn't.

 

It's not about being different.  If you make great stuff, it will get praised, even if it is different.  If you make bad stuff, it probably won't be praised, even if it is different.

[skillzdadirecta]

56 minutes ago, Spork3245 said:

You know there's a TV/Movie drought when we're spending this much time on such a mediocre show  

Sad thing is, there really isn't a TV and movie drought. There's too much to watch right now if you ask me... this board just loves to

 

[SoberChef]

 

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

 

[GeneticBlueprint]

"Shows her his sarlac pit" lmao

[AbsolutSurgen]

[GeneticBlueprint]

30 minutes ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

 

No lies detected

[cusideabelincoln]

Holy fuck, what a terribly written show. There was only one good written piece of dialogue, and it was for the one-off spiel given by Senator Martian Manhunter Rayencourt.

 

I'm sure you could enjoy it if you have absolutely no object permanence. The idea is good, but the writers' plot to get Osha tuned into the Acolyte was the most contrived shit. Most of the dialogue was vapid, redundant, and/or bombastically vague. The one-liners and jokes were also so very cringe. George Lucas may have written Star Wars for kids, but this show was written for toddlers like @johnny  They even bothered to put the names of the planets on screen when they changed scenes so you wouldn't be confused, buddy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mind wiping 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

With some time and distance from the conclusion of the series, I thoroughly agree with IGN's verdict of the overall season in that there are genuinely interesting ideas worthy of exploration that were compromised and left unfulfilled either by a rushed production schedule and/or an inability to execute them due to the "kitchen sink" approach articulated below:

 

Quote

 

It’s one thing to leave some plot threads dangling for a possible second season, but The Acolyte says “we’ll deal with this later” too many times for what could be a one-and-done series. The finale opens up multiple new doors – Darth Plagueis is apparently spying on Qimir and Osha, Rayencourt is a new thorn in the Jedi’s side, Vernestra is going to speak to Yoda to possibly reveal the truth about what happened to Sol – without answering basic origin-story questions about its main characters. (Despite those two all-flashback episodes!)

 

I made a running joke in my weekly episode reviews about Yord’s padawan, Tasi Lowa, who we meet briefly in the premiere. She’s an odd inclusion from the get-go, since Yord’s characterization and role in the story – his prim and proper attitude and how other Jedi seemed a bit dismissive of him – don’t really go hand in hand with giving him a padawan. But look, that could make for an interesting dynamic: a guy who gets little respect still trying to be someone’s mentor. Except not only do we never see Tasi Lowa after that first episode, she’s never even mentioned again. It’s unclear what the point of introducing her in the first place is, which feels indicative of The Acolyte’s slapdash nature. There’s a lot of “Let’s do this and this and this!” And so many of the things they introduced were indeed worth exploring. It just could have been done so much better.

 

 

This lends to the sense that this could've been a much more satisfying, cohesive project if the team was working within the constraints of a 2.5 hours-long movie where a lot of those unfulfilled ideas would've ended up on the cutting room floor.

 

For me personally, the most baffling part of the entire series is this:

 

    

        On 7/17/2024 at 2:17 PM, Greatoneshere said:     

    

Why does the tracker Balzin rip the wiring out of the ship, stopping Sol from getting to Mae as she escapes in the ship chase?          

    

NOTHING about that made the least bit of sense at all and I actually rewound that part a couple of times to make sure that I didn't miss anything.  At least I got some completely unintentional comedy from the facial expressions of both Balzin and Sol out of it 

[Greatoneshere]

29 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

NOTHING about that made the least bit of sense at all and I actually rewound that part a couple of times to make sure that I didn't miss anything.  At least I got some completely unintentional comedy from the facial expressions of both Balzin and Sol out of it 

 

Yeah it just made absolutely no sense when it was Balzin who presumably warned Sol in the first place (after kicking Mae and showing distrust towards her on the ship) that this was Mae, not Osha. Just truly slap dash.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

3 hours ago, Greatoneshere said:

 

Yeah it just made absolutely no sense when it was Balzin who presumably warned Sol in the first place (after kicking Mae and showing distrust towards her on the ship) that this was Mae, not Osha. Just truly slap dash.

 

The more I think about that particular scene, the more I'm convinced that it was originally intended to be cut, but was accidentally left in due to a rushed editing process.

[johnny]

i figured he did that cuz sol was gonna get them killed flying thru that asteroid field or whatever it was. they kept hitting shit trying to shoot mae 

[Greatoneshere]

1 hour ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

The more I think about that particular scene, the more I'm convinced that it was originally intended to be cut, but was accidentally left in due to a rushed editing process.

 

Entirely possible, which if so indicates further that this show was mishandled at multiple levels. 

 

3 minutes ago, johnny said:

i figured he did that cuz sol was gonna get them killed flying thru that asteroid field or whatever it was. they kept hitting shit trying to shoot mae 

 

This is the most generous interpretation of that scene, and if that was the case, the show didn't do enough to make that clear, which still makes it structurally poor. Also for Sol not to punish Balzin and just let it go is also bizarre given he was against what Balzin was doing. 

[Kal-El814]

Isn’t that character’s name Baliz? Or is @Greatoneshere just trying to get someone to make a Balzin your mouth joke?  

[AbsolutSurgen]

When you have a show that is as poorly executed as this one, there wasn't much that could be done to save it.  There were SO MANY scenes that didn't make any sense.