The Acolyte - Disney Plus Star Wars Series

[Dynaman]

On 6/28/2024 at 8:53 PM, Thom said:

Why would they need to think they needed reinforcements? They had overwhelming numbers to go after a single Force-user who had killed two Jedi, one on one.

Very soon after Darth Smiley revealed himself he managed to take on pretty much the entire lot of Jedi without too much trouble.  That would have been a good point at which to send in a report.  Then again they did send the one guy back to the ship and he got distracted.

[Thom]

53 minutes ago, Dynaman said:

Very soon after Darth Smiley revealed himself he managed to take on pretty much the entire lot of Jedi without too much trouble.  That would have been a good point at which to send in a report.  Then again they did send the one guy back to the ship and he got distracted.

The entire fight didn't take all that long, and I don't think they have communications with Coruscant without someone being on the ship. Yord was the best bet to sound an alarm.

[Dynaman]

23 hours ago, Thom said:

The entire fight didn't take all that long, and I don't think they have communications with Coruscant without someone being on the ship. Yord was the best bet to sound an alarm.

It did take long enough for the apprentice kid to notice Smiley fight her master to a standstill, and in true stupid Jedi fashion (going all the way back to Phantom Menace when Qui-Gon goes after Maul instead of waiting for Obiwon to catch) she goes after Smiley instead of trying to keep her distance at least.

[Seto Kaiba]

On 7/1/2024 at 7:13 PM, Thom said:

The entire fight didn't take all that long, and I don't think they have communications with Coruscant without someone being on the ship. Yord was the best bet to sound an alarm.

Y'know, thinking back on it... the arrogant overconfidence of the Jedi Order is on full display in Master Sol's handling of the mission to Khofar.

They never seriously consider that Master Kelnacca, who has apparently been out of contact with the Jedi Order for a year, might already be dead.

Despite theorizing that Mae was probably trained by a rogue Jedi faction and having previously caught an accomplice of hers, the Jedi don't seem to consider that Mae might not be operating alone on her mission to assassinate the Brendok four.  

Master Sol certainly doesn't seem to consider or prepare for the possibility that his mission might run into trouble.  He takes the entire group, civilians included, with him into the uncharted forest in one large group.  He doesn't leave anyone - civilians included - back on the ship where someone could relay a call for help to the rest of the Jedi Order or even bring the ship into the forest to rescue survivors if the mission went badly and they got ambushed.  He just marches his troops right into the forest and right up to Kelnacca's hut without any kind of encirclement or means to prevent escape, and is promptly ambushed by the third party he neglected to consider the possibility of because his forces weren't paying attention to their surroundings.  He basically did everything he could to fail and die.

Even Star Trek's Starfleet, who are memetically infamous for their lax attitude towards security, show more caution than that.

[pengbuzz]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Y'know, thinking back on it... the arrogant overconfidence of the Jedi Order is on full display in Master Sol's handling of the mission to Khofar.

They never seriously consider that Master Kelnacca, who has apparently been out of contact with the Jedi Order for a year, might already be dead.

Despite theorizing that Mae was probably trained by a rogue Jedi faction and having previously caught an accomplice of hers, the Jedi don't seem to consider that Mae might not be operating alone on her mission to assassinate the Brendok four.  

Master Sol certainly doesn't seem to consider or prepare for the possibility that his mission might run into trouble.  He takes the entire group, civilians included, with him into the uncharted forest in one large group.  He doesn't leave anyone - civilians included - back on the ship where someone could relay a call for help to the rest of the Jedi Order or even bring the ship into the forest to rescue survivors if the mission went badly and they got ambushed.  He just marches his troops right into the forest and right up to Kelnacca's hut without any kind of encirclement or means to prevent escape, and is promptly ambushed by the third party he neglected to consider the possibility of because his forces weren't paying attention to their surroundings.  He basically did everything he could to fail and die.

Even Star Trek's Starfleet, who are memetically infamous for their lax attitude towards security, show more caution than that.

Worse than original trilogy stormtroopers, huh?

[Seto Kaiba]

All right... it's 9pm on Tuesday, time for Disney+ to serve up another helping of The Acolyte so we can either marvel at its insipid blandness or wonder why it took half the series to start doing lower-middle-tier competent storytelling.

Spoiler

"Teach/Corrupt"... oh boy, they really think they're being clever here don't they.

Last time, on The Acolyte... the only remotely likeable character in this series murdered all the other characters effortlessly with the Power of Manny.

Now for something much less interesting!

Osha wakes up in a cave of some kind, discovering that someone mysteriously bandaged her wounds and even put a meal on.  They even seem to have left her a change of clothes AND weapons.  Shame she's on an island in the middle of freaking nowhere.  Looks like Mae really is committed to this Parent Trap routine.

Wait, they went all the way somewhere else by the ocean without anyone noticing in the time it took Sol to walk back to his ship?  

Sol tries to call for help, but conveniently the communications system is on the fritz so the person he's talking to can't hear what he's saying.  Just as Mae's sneaking up to shank him good, he tells "Osha" to take the wheel so he can go fix the transciever.  Sol gets to have a very quiet breakdown alone in the ship's lower decks, which would be considerably more convincing if his acting for the rest of the series wasn't so flat and the other characters so unlikeable.  Bazil, meanwhile, is wandering about and sets to recharging Osha's droid Pip.

Qimir casually presents the audience with another pair of tickets to the gun show while he walks around the island doing not much, and Osha continues to follow him for no clear reason.  Ok, he's gone for a bath and she's spying on him dropping trou.  It's a nice little tidal pool he's got there.  She's making a play for his lightsaber too... that's quite daring considering he Worf'd an entire squad of Jedi.  Qimir's got some pointers on Osha's technique while she's threatening him with his own lightsaber, which just shows he's completely unthreatened by her.  He posits whether it's honorable to cut him down while it's all hanging out.  She asks if he killed Sol or Mae, and he confirms that he didn't.  Qimir notes that she asked about Sol first, indicating they have a special relationship.

Sol's ship makes it back to its hyperdrive section, and Mae handles the docking just fine on a ship she's never flown.  Sol STILL doesn't seem to realize that something's off with "Osha".  Sol seems set to confess something, he says it's time he went before the High Council to tell them everything.  Power conveniently fails across the whole ship, and Sol asks "Osha" to take a look.  He's definitely not on his game.  

On Coruscant, Green Karen is worrying that the Senate is calling for external oversight of the Jedi.  A Jedi named "Mog" reports that they received a distress call from Sol and that it sounded like the entire time was wiped out.  When he mentions they've lost communication, she orders a rescue team sent.

Back on...?... Qimir mentions he was a Jedi a long time ago.  Osha seems to think that Qimir's keeping her around to trap Sol.  He tells her she can swim to the ship and leave if she wants, or stay for dinner.  Mae clearly hasn't got a freaking clue what to do with the ship, though it looks like Bazil and Pip are responsible for it.  Mae does a factory reset on Osha's droid and has it help her fix the ship.  Qimir gives Osha a lecture on how to tap into force powers beyond the ways the Jedi teach, and she notes that that's "the path to the dark side".  He dismisses it as pure semantics.  

Qimir makes some pretty fair points here... especially when it comes to Yord being an arsehole victim at best who tried to send Osha to prison on a trumped-up charge.  He points out that her relationship with Jecki was a non-starter because Jecki was a Jedi.  He points out that Osha still hasn't killed him, and he argues with her about why she left the Jedi.  She snaps and admits she failed as a Jedi, threatening him with his own saber.  Qimir claims that he lost everything, but that losing everything makes one free.  

Green Karen follows up with Mog, who is going to leave for Khofar imminently.  

Hey, they have Jeffries tubes on Jedi starships.  Will wonders never cease?

Sol still hasn't figured out that "Osha" is Mae, and she claims that the ship's systems need to restart and it'll be back up in ~5.  Sol's beating himself up over not sensing the true intentions of Qimir on Olega.  Sol comments on Osha's attachment to Pip.  He still doesn't seem to realize how forced Mae's responses are... she's all but telegraphing that she's not Osha, but he's not paying attention.  She asks him if he's told her everything about Brendok.  Once again the story conveniently interrupts her attempts to get Sol to say what happened on Brendok... it seems Bazil tipped Sol off at some point and he stuns her from behind without issue.  The Jedi rescue team tells him to leave his ship's transponder on, and he immediately turns it off and jumps to hyperspace just in time to miss the rescue party.

Green Karen's rescue party are told that a giant colony of those carnivorous moth things hatched recently and that that might explain the high casualty rate.  She doesn't seem to be buying it, and they set off into the woods.  

We get to see Qimir fixing his mask, and while talking with Osha he notes that he screwed up with Mae because she only wanted revenge... not an apprentice.  Apparently Qimir's helmet is a sensory deprivation helmet, so he was doing all that fighting blind and deaf... which is honestly pretty damned impressive.

Green Karen's rescue party finds the scene of the massacre, starting with Jecki, then Yord, then the crew of randos who got effortlessly bodied by Qimir at the start of the fight last episode.  We get to see her use her lightsaber whip to take out one of those bugs while quizzing Mog, who notes that them being killed by a lightsaber means a powerful Jedi has fallen to the Dark Side.  Green Karen dismisses the theory that it was Sol who turned.  They head back to the ship to prep the bodies for burial.

Mae wakes up restrained to the medical bed in the ship, with Sol watching her like a creep.  He insists he's going to let her go after they've had a talk.  He decides he's going to say all the stuff he decided he'd say if he ever got the opportunity.  

Osha's fondling Qimir's helmet... no that's not a euphemism for anything... and decides to try it on.  Can't see sh*t captain!  And we fade to black with her breathing heavily in Qimir's helmet.

 

I gotta say, they are jumping through some hoops to avoid having Master Sol just spit it out and say what really happened on Brendok.  He dodges it at least twice in this episode alone!  Hopefully in one of the two remaining episodes he'll finally spit it out.

Mostly, this is just the tedium of the Parent Trap switcheroo pulled last episode, except the reveal is done offscreen so it doesn't really come with a dramatic payoff.  All that this episode is really doing for the series is giving Qimir more character development, which he's already got the lion's share of, and having Green Karen do a literal postmortem of last episode.

How can a series be just eight episodes long and still feel this padded?

[Mog]

One comment:  That Jedi named Mog is CLEARLY short for “Utter Putz Who Does NOT Deserve the Name Mog.” 

A freakin’ moogle shows more stones and smarts than this knucklehead.

Edited July 3 by Mog

[jvmacross]

Well, at least Sol initially tried to do the logical thing and report back to his handler...off-brand Nebula...and then the lights go out...but I must have missed the reasoning behind why he would not want to finish what he started once the lights came back on....instead he jumps off to who knows where...guessing either Witch Mountain or he knows where exactly to find Almost-Sith's Spa...

So now the number of 'witnesses' to a potential Sith re-emergence have grown, which means off-brand Nebula's got to go and for sure Mug and the other no-name Jedi are bantha fodder....as of this episode, the number of Jedi 'in the know' is still manageable and can still manage to keep the Jedi's belief that 'No Sith have existed for a millenium'....

Anyone else get an Ach-To vibe to that 'unknown' planet?  Maybe the other side of it is full of Porgs and Blue-milk Manatees!

[pengbuzz]

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

All right... it's 9pm on Tuesday, time for Disney+ to serve up another helping of The Acolyte so we can either marvel at its insipid blandness or wonder why it took half the series to start doing lower-middle-tier competent storytelling.

  Reveal hidden contents

"Teach/Corrupt"... oh boy, they really think they're being clever here don't they.

Last time, on The Acolyte... the only remotely likeable character in this series murdered all the other characters effortlessly with the Power of Manny.

Now for something much less interesting!

Osha wakes up in a cave of some kind, discovering that someone mysteriously bandaged her wounds and even put a meal on.  They even seem to have left her a change of clothes AND weapons.  Shame she's on an island in the middle of freaking nowhere.  Looks like Mae really is committed to this Parent Trap routine.

Wait, they went all the way somewhere else by the ocean without anyone noticing in the time it took Sol to walk back to his ship?  

Sol tries to call for help, but conveniently the communications system is on the fritz so the person he's talking to can't hear what he's saying.  Just as Mae's sneaking up to shank him good, he tells "Osha" to take the wheel so he can go fix the transciever.  Sol gets to have a very quiet breakdown alone in the ship's lower decks, which would be considerably more convincing if his acting for the rest of the series wasn't so flat and the other characters so unlikeable.  Bazil, meanwhile, is wandering about and sets to recharging Osha's droid Pip.

Qimir casually presents the audience with another pair of tickets to the gun show while he walks around the island doing not much, and Osha continues to follow him for no clear reason.  Ok, he's gone for a bath and she's spying on him dropping trou.  It's a nice little tidal pool he's got there.  She's making a play for his lightsaber too... that's quite daring considering he Worf'd an entire squad of Jedi.  Qimir's got some pointers on Osha's technique while she's threatening him with his own lightsaber, which just shows he's completely unthreatened by her.  He posits whether it's honorable to cut him down while it's all hanging out.  She asks if he killed Sol or Mae, and he confirms that he didn't.  Qimir notes that she asked about Sol first, indicating they have a special relationship.

Sol's ship makes it back to its hyperdrive section, and Mae handles the docking just fine on a ship she's never flown.  Sol STILL doesn't seem to realize that something's off with "Osha".  Sol seems set to confess something, he says it's time he went before the High Council to tell them everything.  Power conveniently fails across the whole ship, and Sol asks "Osha" to take a look.  He's definitely not on his game.  

On Coruscant, Green Karen is worrying that the Senate is calling for external oversight of the Jedi.  A Jedi named "Mog" reports that they received a distress call from Sol and that it sounded like the entire time was wiped out.  When he mentions they've lost communication, she orders a rescue team sent.

Back on...?... Qimir mentions he was a Jedi a long time ago.  Osha seems to think that Qimir's keeping her around to trap Sol.  He tells her she can swim to the ship and leave if she wants, or stay for dinner.  Mae clearly hasn't got a freaking clue what to do with the ship, though it looks like Bazil and Pip are responsible for it.  Mae does a factory reset on Osha's droid and has it help her fix the ship.  Qimir gives Osha a lecture on how to tap into force powers beyond the ways the Jedi teach, and she notes that that's "the path to the dark side".  He dismisses it as pure semantics.  

Qimir makes some pretty fair points here... especially when it comes to Yord being an arsehole victim at best who tried to send Osha to prison on a trumped-up charge.  He points out that her relationship with Jecki was a non-starter because Jecki was a Jedi.  He points out that Osha still hasn't killed him, and he argues with her about why she left the Jedi.  She snaps and admits she failed as a Jedi, threatening him with his own saber.  Qimir claims that he lost everything, but that losing everything makes one free.  

Green Karen follows up with Mog, who is going to leave for Khofar imminently.  

Hey, they have Jeffries tubes on Jedi starships.  Will wonders never cease?

Sol still hasn't figured out that "Osha" is Mae, and she claims that the ship's systems need to restart and it'll be back up in ~5.  Sol's beating himself up over not sensing the true intentions of Qimir on Olega.  Sol comments on Osha's attachment to Pip.  He still doesn't seem to realize how forced Mae's responses are... she's all but telegraphing that she's not Osha, but he's not paying attention.  She asks him if he's told her everything about Brendok.  Once again the story conveniently interrupts her attempts to get Sol to say what happened on Brendok... it seems Bazil tipped Sol off at some point and he stuns her from behind without issue.  The Jedi rescue team tells him to leave his ship's transponder on, and he immediately turns it off and jumps to hyperspace just in time to miss the rescue party.

Green Karen's rescue party are told that a giant colony of those carnivorous moth things hatched recently and that that might explain the high casualty rate.  She doesn't seem to be buying it, and they set off into the woods.  

We get to see Qimir fixing his mask, and while talking with Osha he notes that he screwed up with Mae because she only wanted revenge... not an apprentice.  Apparently Qimir's helmet is a sensory deprivation helmet, so he was doing all that fighting blind and deaf... which is honestly pretty damned impressive.

Green Karen's rescue party finds the scene of the massacre, starting with Jecki, then Yord, then the crew of randos who got effortlessly bodied by Qimir at the start of the fight last episode.  We get to see her use her lightsaber whip to take out one of those bugs while quizzing Mog, who notes that them being killed by a lightsaber means a powerful Jedi has fallen to the Dark Side.  Green Karen dismisses the theory that it was Sol who turned.  They head back to the ship to prep the bodies for burial.

Mae wakes up restrained to the medical bed in the ship, with Sol watching her like a creep.  He insists he's going to let her go after they've had a talk.  He decides he's going to say all the stuff he decided he'd say if he ever got the opportunity.  

Osha's fondling Qimir's helmet... no that's not a euphemism for anything... and decides to try it on.  Can't see sh*t captain!  And we fade to black with her breathing heavily in Qimir's helmet.

 

I gotta say, they are jumping through some hoops to avoid having Master Sol just spit it out and say what really happened on Brendok.  He dodges it at least twice in this episode alone!  Hopefully in one of the two remaining episodes he'll finally spit it out.

Mostly, this is just the tedium of the Parent Trap switcheroo pulled last episode, except the reveal is done offscreen so it doesn't really come with a dramatic payoff.  All that this episode is really doing for the series is giving Qimir more character development, which he's already got the lion's share of, and having Green Karen do a literal postmortem of last episode.

How can a series be just eight episodes long and still feel this padded?

 

Spoiler

It makes me think the writers are using Qimir's helmet when writing these episodes.

No sense AT ALL.

 

[azrael]

3 hours ago, jvmacross said:

Anyone else get an Ach-To vibe to that 'unknown' planet?  Maybe the other side of it is full of Porgs and Blue-milk Manatees!

Some fans have noticed the planet looks an awful like

Spoiler

the description of the planet Bal'demnic from the novel Star Wars: Darth Plagueis by James Luceno. It has a large cortosis deposit in some of the caves as we see in the episode.

 

[pengbuzz]

2 minutes ago, azrael said:

Some fans have noticed the planet looks an awful like

  Hide contents

the description of the planet Bal'demnic from the novel Star Wars: Darth Plagueis by James Luceno. It has a large cortosis deposit in some of the caves as we see in the episode.

 

That would explain a lot of stuff.

[jvmacross]

5 hours ago, azrael said:

Some fans have noticed the planet looks an awful like

  Hide contents

the description of the planet Bal'demnic from the novel Star Wars: Darth Plagueis by James Luceno. It has a large cortosis deposit in some of the caves as we see in the episode.

 

It makes sense that Osha would think she would have remembered him since they are in the same age group....The line where he says he was a jedi....a long time ago.....made me think he was a lot older than he appears.....are they going to change who Darth Plagueis was?...or is Darth Plagueis keeping him looking young?  This may also explain why he made the comment to Sol about how he did not remember him, if he really is older than he appears....

If he is indeed the new "canon" Darth Plagueis....it makes Palpatine look like more of a badass for being able to eventually take him down at some point....

[Seto Kaiba]

12 hours ago, Mog said:

One comment:  That Jedi named Mog is CLEARLY short for “Utter Putz Who Does NOT Deserve the Name Mog.” 

A freakin’ moogle shows more stones and smarts than this knucklehead.

"This is an enormous slur on my professional conduct."

 

 

12 hours ago, jvmacross said:

So now the number of 'witnesses' to a potential Sith re-emergence have grown, which means off-brand Nebula's got to go and for sure Mug and the other no-name Jedi are bantha fodder....as of this episode, the number of Jedi 'in the know' is still manageable and can still manage to keep the Jedi's belief that 'No Sith have existed for a millenium'....

As unlikeable as everyone except our potential Sith Lord is... I'm A-OK with Smilo Ren stepping in to clean house again.

Watching him do it the first time was the only moment of dramatic tension or excitement the series has had so far.

 

12 hours ago, jvmacross said:

Anyone else get an Ach-To vibe to that 'unknown' planet?  Maybe the other side of it is full of Porgs and Blue-milk Manatees!

I couldn't remember the name, but that was absolutely what I thought when I saw the little trunked whatsis critters skittering around and the islands.

Maybe those are the baby form of Luke's green milk sea cows.

 

 

11 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

 

  Hide contents

It makes me think the writers are using Qimir's helmet when writing these episodes.

No sense AT ALL.

 

Nah, I'd disagree... the plot in The Acolyte isn't by any means nonsensical.

What it is, is poorly constructed.  It's a cliche storm full of flat characters and standard issue set pieces where the story progresses more in spite of the characters than because of them.  The only thing keeping the story going at this point is the promise of eventually revealing what the Jedi actually did on Brendok.

At many points, it really does feel like a work of fan fiction in the negative sense.  The writers are so eager to show their affection for, and intimate knowledge of, Star Wars that it's getting in the way of developing interesting or likeable characters and telling the story.  

Spoiler

We'll see how far they decide to take the Parent Trap twin switch... right now it looks like they're going to pretend they were being very clever having the same actress play both sisters, by having Osha turn out to really be the titular (Sith) Acolyte.

 

8 hours ago, azrael said:

Some fans have noticed the planet looks an awful like

  Hide contents

the description of the planet Bal'demnic from the novel Star Wars: Darth Plagueis by James Luceno. It has a large cortosis deposit in some of the caves as we see in the episode.

 

So Smilo Ren managed to get all the way to another planet, likely in another star system, in the time it took Master Sol to walk out of the woods?

 

 

2 hours ago, jvmacross said:

It makes sense that Osha would think she would have remembered him since they are in the same age group....The line where he says he was a jedi....a long time ago.....made me think he was a lot older than he appears.....are they going to change who Darth Plagueis was?...or is Darth Plagueis keeping him looking young?  This may also explain why he made the comment to Sol about how he did not remember him, if he really is older than he appears....

If he is indeed the new "canon" Darth Plagueis....it makes Palpatine look like more of a badass for being able to eventually take him down at some point....

Anything and everything in Legends is subject to replacement in the new canon... though considering what I found when I looked into possible Sith identities for Smilo Ren he may be Plagueis's Master since the range of dates given for Plagueis in now non-canon media would make him either not born yet or just a teenager at most at this point.

If he does turn out to be Darth Sideous's teacher, it would absolutely explain why Sideous was such a pro duelist... and why he had to kill his master through subterfuge instead of direct confrontation.

Edited July 3 by Seto Kaiba

[jvmacross]

4 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

The only thing keeping the story going at this point is the promise of eventually revealing what the Jedi actually did on Brendok.

 

At this point I fully expect Sol to get decapitated by Darth Manny in the last episode as he is about to reveal all the shameful things he and his deviant crew did on Witch Mountain.....then the screen goes black

[Seto Kaiba]

11 minutes ago, jvmacross said:

At this point I fully expect Sol to get decapitated by Darth Manny in the last episode as he is about to reveal all the shameful things he and his deviant crew did on Witch Mountain.....then the screen goes black

I wouldn't put it past them.

 

Spoiler

I'd forgive the entire series if Master Sol ultimately falls to the Dark Side because he snaps after one too many people interrupt his attempt to explain what happened on Brendok and starts cutting people down. 

Bonus points awarded if he attempts to explain what happened on Brendok after everyone is dead, only to be cut off by the credits... and I'll proclaim it my favorite Star Wars ever if there's a post-credits scene of him hunting down the writers, director, and producers because of it.

 

[jvmacross]

23 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

I wouldn't put it past them.

 

  Hide contents

I'd forgive the entire series if Master Sol ultimately falls to the Dark Side because he snaps after one too many people interrupt his attempt to explain what happened on Brendok and starts cutting people down. 

Bonus points awarded if he attempts to explain what happened on Brendok after everyone is dead, only to be cut off by the credits... and I'll proclaim it my favorite Star Wars ever if there's a post-credits scene of him hunting down the writers, director, and producers because of it.

 

It is revealed that the Witches all died playing some Squid Games style tournament sponsored by the Hutts and televised throughout the galaxy via underground gambling venues on Boonta Eve...all made possible and in conjunction with the help of a rogue contingent of the Jedi led by off-brand Nebula and her dirty Jedi crew...

 

 

[pengbuzz]

  

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Nah, I'd disagree... the plot in The Acolyte isn't by any means nonsensical.

What it is, is poorly constructed.  It's a cliche storm full of flat characters and standard issue set pieces where the story progresses more in spite of the characters than because of them.  The only thing keeping the story going at this point is the promise of eventually revealing what the Jedi actually did on Brendok.

At many points, it really does feel like a work of fan fiction in the negative sense.  The writers are so eager to show their affection for, and intimate knowledge of, Star Wars that it's getting in the way of developing interesting or likeable characters and telling the story.  

If he does turn out to be Darth Sideous's teacher, it would absolutely explain why Sideous was such a pro duelist... and why he had to kill his master through subterfuge instead of direct confrontation.

Idea: Darth Plaegis is actually-

Spoiler

Osha

 

Edited July 3 by pengbuzz

[Roy Focker]

They must have had some good ideas when they were thinking up this show, but it all got lost in the mediocre writing and low production values. Much like all of these shows.

[Seto Kaiba]

34 minutes ago, jvmacross said:

It is revealed that the Witches all died playing some Squid Games style tournament sponsored by the Hutts and televised throughout the galaxy via underground gambling venues on Boonta Eve...all made possible and in conjunction with the help of a rogue contingent of the Jedi led by off-brand Nebula and her dirty Jedi crew...

Either that or Master Sol will arrive to discover the entire coven is actually alive and well... the whole disaster that drove him to decades of grief and traumatized Mae and Osha was actually just a prank staged for an episode of Space Jackass.

 

18 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

Idea: Darth Plaegis is actually-

  Hide contents

Osha

 

Oh no... I could see them actually doing that... and the absolute bedlam that would ensue not just for lore reasons but politicized ones as well. 😵‍💫

[jvmacross]

I was thinking about that new "supe" from The Boys that needs to get repeatedly lobotomized in order to enjoy her life....

From a certain point of view....you almost have to have any previous knowledge of any and all Star Wars lore...canon or legends...forcibly removed from your memory in order to be able to enjoy most of these new Disney shows "as is" with no backstory baggage from previous movies or books, etc....

Or would it just be easier to just go for the lobotomy?

[Seto Kaiba]

Huh... if we take that view, then someone like me whose prior exposure to Star Wars is basically just the movies ought to be the ideal Disney+ Star Wars viewer.

That I still find most of these shows to be incredibly tedious and overdependent on fanservice is probably not a great sign.

 

I'm probably not supposed to be rooting for the bad guy, but here I am doing it... because he's the only character in this bloody show with an actual personality.

[pengbuzz]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Either that or Master Sol will arrive to discover the entire coven is actually alive and well... the whole disaster that drove him to decades of grief and traumatized Mae and Osha was actually just a prank staged for an episode of Space Jackass.

 

Oh no... I could see them actually doing that... and the absolute bedlam that would ensue not just for lore reasons but politicized ones as well. 😵‍💫

Yeah... the exact race and gender of Plaegis was never firmly established. All we have is Palpatine's telling of the story to Anakin. AFAIK.

[jvmacross]

32 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Huh... if we take that view, then someone like me whose prior exposure to Star Wars is basically just the movies ought to be the ideal Disney+ Star Wars viewer.

Nah...you are by no means a filthy casual fan as you claim....you still have way too much knowledge of the various Star Wars lore out there....whether by accident or actively seeking it out....whether canon or not...regardless of source medium....

I'm thinking these shows only fit 2 demographics....hard core fans that simultaneously would never find any fault with anything "Star Wars" related....or people who have zero knowledge of anything Star Wars and are simultaneously easily entertained by white noise....

Occasionally they do come up with something more or less enjoyable by most....like Andor...and IMO it is because it respects what has come before it and does not try to recon or reinvent anything while also providing a generally good story...

[Roy Focker]

That scar on his back looks to me like it might been cause from a burning whip of some kind.

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, pengbuzz said:

Yeah... the exact race and gender of Plaegis was never firmly established. All we have is Palpatine's telling of the story to Anakin. AFAIK.

Well, sort of.  Palpatine/Darth Sideous refers to Darth Plagueis using masculine pronouns (He/Him) when he relates "The Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise" to Anakin.

Hopefully you see what I'm getting at there WRT your hypothesis... and why that topic could very quickly turn ugly for reasons beyond simple lore ones that we shall not discuss further.

 

1 hour ago, jvmacross said:

Nah...you are by no means a filthy casual fan as you claim....you still have way too much knowledge of the various Star Wars lore out there....whether by accident or actively seeking it out....whether canon or not...regardless of source medium....

By that standard, anyone with a functioning memory, any kind of attention to detail, or any inclination to use Google to look up unfamiliar key terms knows too much...

Because that's all I've got here... a good memory, attention to detail, and Google for when I get confused about who Quardlo Dungleflap from Bongwater XVII is supposed to be.

 

1 hour ago, jvmacross said:

I'm thinking these shows only fit 2 demographics....hard core fans that simultaneously would never find any fault with anything "Star Wars" related....or people who have zero knowledge of anything Star Wars and are simultaneously easily entertained by white noise....

That's pretty harsh.

Granted, perhaps not unduly harsh.  It definitely seems like there's very little middle ground between the Star Wars fans saying The Acolyte sucks and the ones blatantly white knighting for it.

[jvmacross]

34 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

By that standard, anyone with a functioning memory, any kind of attention to detail, or any inclination to use Google to look up unfamiliar key terms knows too much... 

Exactly....the point is that Star Wars is way too entrenched in pop culture that it is highly unlikely to have a show where you will be able to appease most viewers especially when trying to come up with something new...."they ruined my Star Wars head canon!!!"

 

[Seto Kaiba]

2 hours ago, jvmacross said:

Exactly....the point is that Star Wars is way too entrenched in pop culture that it is highly unlikely to have a show where you will be able to appease most viewers especially when trying to come up with something new...."they ruined my Star Wars head canon!!!"

Hm... an interesting thought, if nothing else.

To be honest, most of what I've seen in terms of reactions to Disney-era Star Wars leaves me thinking that many of the franchise's current problems can be summed up in just six words:  "The Expanded Universe was a mistake."  If Star Wars had just done what most other franchises did and made its licensed comics, novels, etc. non-canonical all along we wouldn't have to hear the fans kvetch about how what the writers of these shows are doing contradicts some decades old comic book or novel or fact file.  We also wouldn't have to put up with stuff like The Acolyte is pulling where the story is infested with unnecessary callbacks to comics and novels that 90% of the audience never read.

They struggle to deliver a series that'll satisfy most viewers because a good chunk of the audience is determined to be unhappy with everything, and a decent percentage of the rest are just ****ing lost because there's more required reading for these shows than most college classes.

Imagine learning that, to properly understand the story of a series that's currently only got eight episodes, you should watch TWO HUNDRED AND EIGHT EPISODES of decades-old painfully mediocre CG cartoons?

[jvmacross]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

 

Imagine learning that, to properly understand the story of a series that's currently only got eight episodes, you should watch TWO HUNDRED AND EIGHT EPISODES of decades-old painfully mediocre CG cartoons?

Not even that...for me, if it is animated or a 'live-action' movie or show...it's canon....so I feel I have watched almost all the Clone Wars and everything else that meets that criteria with the exception of the Resistance animated show and the latest toddler Jedi show that is on D+....and yet, it was still not enough...the show had me wondering what the heck I was watching on several occasions....

I found it funny though, how an episode later they 'schooled' the non-fanatics about 'Cortosis'....Darth Manny sort of explains 'Cortosis'....it's like the concept is brought up as a wink-wink, nod-nod to allow the mega fans to bask in their Star Wars 'street cred' while the rest of us have to wait for the explanation....

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, jvmacross said:

I found it funny though, how an episode later they 'schooled' the non-fanatics about 'Cortosis'....Darth Manny sort of explains 'Cortosis'....it's like the concept is brought up as a wink-wink, nod-nod to allow the mega fans to bask in their Star Wars 'street cred' while the rest of us have to wait for the explanation....

The Acolyte, being produced and partly written by a megafan, has a real problem with doing that kind of fanservice bonus.

Like the most recent episode, we had that completely unnecessary scene where Green Karen has to kill a bug for no real reason in the middle of a conversation just to show that she's got that lightsaber whip they haven't STFU about since the series cast was announced.  It doesn't add anything to the story - it actually interrupts a scene - but they felt that they needed to tick that fanservice checkbox and get that weapon onscreen so it got a pass.

Those kinds of nods can be made to work in a story, like when Yoda visits the Sith homeworld and talks to the ghost of Darth Bane in The Clone Wars, but when they're just there for the sake of being there it just detracts from the story.

[pengbuzz]

7 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Well, sort of.  Palpatine/Darth Sideous refers to Darth Plagueis using masculine pronouns (He/Him) when he relates "The Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise" to Anakin.

Hopefully you see what I'm getting at there WRT your hypothesis... and why that topic could very quickly turn ugly for reasons beyond simple lore ones that we shall not discuss further.

Understood. Still think they may go wonky, but I'm just a pengbuzz in a cold cruel world. O.o

Moving right along....

3 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Hm... an interesting thought, if nothing else.

To be honest, most of what I've seen in terms of reactions to Disney-era Star Wars leaves me thinking that many of the franchise's current problems can be summed up in just six words:  "The Expanded Universe was a mistake."  If Star Wars had just done what most other franchises did and made its licensed comics, novels, etc. non-canonical all along we wouldn't have to hear the fans kvetch about how what the writers of these shows are doing contradicts some decades old comic book or novel or fact file.  We also wouldn't have to put up with stuff like The Acolyte is pulling where the story is infested with unnecessary callbacks to comics and novels that 90% of the audience never read.

They struggle to deliver a series that'll satisfy most viewers because a good chunk of the audience is determined to be unhappy with everything, and a decent percentage of the rest are just ****ing lost because there's more required reading for these shows than most college classes.

Imagine learning that, to properly understand the story of a series that's currently only got eight episodes, you should watch TWO HUNDRED AND EIGHT EPISODES of decades-old painfully mediocre CG cartoons?

I personally think they used the "expanded universe" to keep some kind of revenue coming in from Star Wars before George /Lucasfilms thought of doing any sequels. They never banked on the franchise reaching this point, let alone trying to mine the EU for material for their various series'. And I agree with you 100 percent: all this ends up in is a bunch of potential fans being choked in minutiae and esoteric "callbacks" like a bunch of irradiated mutant kudzu vines gone wild.

(this moment from Gi Joe ARAH illustrates what I mean):

 

[kajnrig]

10 hours ago, jvmacross said:

you almost have to have any previous knowledge of any and all Star Wars lore...canon or legends...forcibly removed from your memory in order to be able to enjoy most of these new Disney shows

I dunno, given how slavishly devoted this show is to the Prequel Jedi, I'd say it's the opposite. It's the most uncritical Star Wars fan, the as you say "hard core fans that simultaneously would never find any fault with anything "Star Wars" related" who this show seems both written by and aimed at. There's no other explanation for them continually insisting that no, the Jedi are super cool and nice and good guys, y'all!, while simultaneously having them do some insanely ethically heinous crap. Swinging the weight of the Republic around in order to quell other religions is super wtf-y of them; how can you not know better than to have them do it in the first place, or to then implicitly endorse it narratively?

2 hours ago, jvmacross said:

I found it funny though, how an episode later they 'schooled' the non-fanatics about 'Cortosis'....Darth Manny sort of explains 'Cortosis'....it's like the concept is brought up as a wink-wink, nod-nod to allow the mega fans to bask in their Star Wars 'street cred' while the rest of us have to wait for the explanation....

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

The Acolyte, being produced and partly written by a megafan, has a real problem with doing that kind of fanservice bonus.

I actually found that to be one of the few moments of decent worldbuilding and unforced fanservice. It doesn't get undue focus, it doesn't overstay its welcome. The writers don't use it to make tortured references to other parts of the canon.

It gets brought up organically in the scene - or organically enough, given how... shaky the writing still is - and all you learn about it is exactly what you need to know about it: its name, and that it affects lightsabers. Then it's right on to other aspects of the helmet. Fans correctly guessed what it was beforehand, but it still could have been any number of alternatives, and moreover, it wasn't a wink and nod reference the way, say, repeating a movie's title in-dialogue is.

 

Anyway, this episode is... fine, I guess. It has the veeery slight hints of the veeery beginnings of what I'd actually want from a morally-dubious Force story, but it spent 3/4 of the story getting there. And jesus, stringing along the frakking mystery box "what really happened in Brendok?" nonsense was already testing my patience; now I just don't care. There is no form it can take that can make me reassess my opinion of the show as a waste of everyone's time.

I'll see you all after the finale, I guess. Maybe. I dunno.

 

EDIT:

  

9 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

Yeah... the exact race and gender of Plaegis was never firmly established. All we have is Palpatine's telling of the story to Anakin. AFAIK.

Speaking of, did you know Anakin did his college thesis on Darth Plageius the Wise?

Edited July 4 by kajnrig

[pengbuzz]

Just now, kajnrig said:

I dunno, given how slavishly devoted this show is to the Prequel Jedi, I'd say it's the opposite. It's the most uncritical Star Wars fan, the as you say "hard core fans that simultaneously would never find any fault with anything "Star Wars" related" who this show seems both written by and aimed at. There's no other explanation for them continually insisting that no, the Jedi are super cool and nice and good guys, y'all!, while simultaneously having them do some insanely ethically heinous crap. Swinging the weight of the Republic around in order to quell other religions is super wtf-y of them; how can you not know better than to have them do it in the first place, or to then implicitly endorse it narratively?

I actually found that to be one of the few moments of decent worldbuilding and unforced fanservice. It doesn't get undue focus, it doesn't overstay its welcome. The writers don't use it to make tortured references to other parts of the canon.

It gets brought up organically in the scene - or organically enough, given how... shaky the writing still is - and all you learn about it is exactly what you need to know about it: its name, and that it affects lightsabers. Then it's right on to other aspects of the helmet. Fans correctly guessed what it was beforehand, but it still could have been any number of alternatives, and moreover, it wasn't a wink and nod reference the way, say, repeating a movie's title in-dialogue is.

 

Anyway, this episode is... fine, I guess. It has the veeery slight hints of the veeery beginnings of what I'd actually want from a morally-dubious Force story, but it spent 3/4 of the story getting there. And jesus, stringing along the frakking mystery box "what really happened in Brendok?" nonsense was already testing my patience; now I just don't care. There is no form it can take that can make me reassess my opinion of the show as a waste of everyone's time.

I'll see you all after the finale, I guess. Maybe. I dunno.

Makes me wonder if they'll need to release a "The Acolyte" movie in theaters just to explain what happened in Brendok?

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, pengbuzz said:

all this ends up in is a bunch of potential fans being choked in minutiae and esoteric "callbacks" like a bunch of irradiated mutant kudzu vines gone wild.

Kudzu is a perfect metaphor for it, not just because of how it is tangled and invasive and spreads like mad in every direction while being generally unpleasant to deal with... there are also a fair number of people who happen to enjoy consuming kudzu.

 

1 hour ago, kajnrig said:

There's no other explanation for them continually insisting that no, the Jedi are super cool and nice and good guys, y'all!, while simultaneously having them do some insanely ethically heinous crap. Swinging the weight of the Republic around in order to quell other religions is super wtf-y of them; how can you not know better than to have them do it in the first place, or to then implicitly endorse it narratively?

Having watched the tail end of the Clone Wars in parallel with the early episodes of this series, I can kind of see why the creators assumed it didn't need to be explained. 

The witches attempt to invoke Dark is not Evil, but anyone familiar with Star Wars knows it doesn't work that way in this setting. The dark side is, for practical intents and purposes, the Power of Evil and a coven of witches that worship the dark side would naturally be a Religion of Evil and not something defensible. The previous depictions of witches in the prequel era are very much in card carrying villan territory. The most prominent group of witches in the Clone Wars could fairly be described as a Sith Acolyte talent agency. The coven's "magic" included things like necromancy, mind control, and standard Hollywood evil voodoo. They are so heavily villain coded that the Jedi can effectively get away with being dicks to them while maintaining the moral high ground, and even then the one survivor decided to carry on being maximum evil and sides with the Empire twice. The only way they've been able to make the witches even slightly sympathetic was by having them exterminated by a greater scope villain like General Grievous in Tales of the Empire.

Other force worshiping religions depicted have been either primitive superstitions or other evil cults like the witches. Sometimes both. It's actually surprising the Jedi tolerate as many of them as they do. Especially considering the traumatic history the Republic has with the Sith.

[pengbuzz]

8 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Kudzu is a perfect metaphor for it, not just because of how it is tangled and invasive and spreads like mad in every direction while being generally unpleasant to deal with... there are also a fair number of people who happen to enjoy consuming kudzu.

I see :puke:

8 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

The witches attempt to invoke Dark is not Evil, but anyone familiar with Star Wars knows it doesn't work that way in this setting. The dark side is, for practical intents and purposes, the Power of Evil and a coven of witches that worship the dark side would naturally be a Religion of Evil and not something defensible. The previous depictions of witches in the prequel era are very much in card carrying villan territory. The most prominent group of witches in the Clone Wars could fairly be described as a Sith Acolyte talent agency. The coven's "magic" included things like necromancy, mind control, and standard Hollywood evil voodoo.

In other words:

Spoiler

They gave the coven Kathleen Kennedy's powers.

 

[Big s]

A little late to watching this one, and it went from last week having the best episode to this week having the worst. 
The writing in this show is some of the worst I’ve ever seen. The whole episode is just a tease for another episode, kinda like the last few episodes where they teased that things would be explained and weren’t. At this point most people already have a pretty good clue about what happened and it’s just gonna be a disappointment. There was so much nothing this whole episode. 

The only thing great about this episode was Seing that Jecki didn’t recover off screen.