The Acolyte - Disney Plus Star Wars Series

[Big s]

3 minutes ago, Duke Togo said:

You know, I thought this was going be a story from the Sith perspective. Or, at least, from the dark side. I thought that's how they were selling it, and we got all of one episode of that.

There’s always the possibility things might turn out interesting for the series if OSHA after putting on the helmet becomes the acolyte rather than Mae since she had been rejected by the Jedi. Or that Mae and osha balance eachother and somehow become one as the acolyte, but those are pretty far fetched. Then again there’s one episode left and the show really didn’t seem to need to be titled the Acolyte unless something far fetched happens, but that’s hoping for too much at this point 

[Seto Kaiba]

3 hours ago, Duke Togo said:

Outside of Andor, the Star Wars shows have really felt hamstrung. Even Mando as it's gone on. Not just by their runtime and budget, but by the small part of the sandbox they're actually allowed to play in. The Feloni-ization of Star Wars. Everything must tie into the same story, mostly in support of Clone Wars in some way or form.

That's what the fans wanted, though.

They rejected Disney's fumbling attempts to put a fresh face on Star Wars and now most of their efforts are focused on fanservice and combing through the open septic tank that is the old Expanded Universe for the least odious content they can find to repurpose.  They brought Filoni back because the fans like him and he's obsessively tying things back to his own previous body of work.

 

3 hours ago, Duke Togo said:

They have a huge SW EU/RPG nerd showrunnung Acolyte

There is beautiful irony in this.  The Jedi say that attachments and the fear or loss that comes with them are the path to the Dark Side, and The Acolyte harps on this heavily.

The Acolyte's writing suffers in no small part because of its showrunner's attachments to Star Wars and its Expanded Universe.

Leslye Headland is a "promoted" long-time Star Wars fan with a profound love of the series as a whole and the Expanded Universe in particular.  Her attachment to that pre-existing material is inherently limiting, as it disincentivizes making creative decisions that might compromise the status quo of that older material she so adores and promotes "in the box" thinking and a tendency to focus on fanservice like continuity nods, homages, and in-jokes.

This is extremely clear in the entertainment news coverage of the series, which focuses heavily on all the little "Glup Shitto" odds and ends rescued from one EU work or another and inserted into the background in The Acolyte that don't actually contribute to the story in any way.

(Can I just say I love how the Star Wars fandom coins nicknames?  "Smilo Ren" was solid gold, but "Glup Shitto" as a catch-all term for that kind of pointless and stupid rescuee from the EU is one of the best terms I think I've ever seen a fandom produce.  Shine on you crazy diamonds, shine on.)

It's no accident that the best writing Star Wars has had came under Tony Gilroy, a showrunner who was not a Star Wars fan.  He didn't have affection for the source material getting in the way of telling the story.

[Roy Focker]

3 hours ago, Duke Togo said:

Outside of Andor, the Star Wars shows have really felt hamstrung. Even Mando as it's gone on. Not just by their runtime and budget, but by the small part of the sandbox they're actually allowed to play in. The Feloni-ization of Star Wars. Everything must tie into the same story, mostly in support of Clone Wars in some way or form.

They have a huge SW EU/RPG nerd showrunnung Acolyte and they could have done something really interesting there. Something new, something that's outside of the Feloni box. But instead we got another show really seems to tie back into the Anakin/Prequels/Clone Wars story.

 

Mando is great example of the Feloni-zation. Season two ended on a high note with many potentially good ideas for a third season. How will Mando carry on without baby Yoda? Will there be a conflict between Mando and Bo now that he has the Dark Saber? They could have devoted an entire season to both of those. Instead, they solve both in the first couple of episodes. Rest of the season is Baby Yoda being cute and concluding the Mandalorian story arc from the Clone Wars. There was no storyline for Mando's character. They had one and quickly solved it to make way for Clone Wars story.

Premise for The Acolyte sounded promising. A murder mystery, a Sith apprentice and Jedi coverup. Premise for Kenobi sounded good too. They all sounded good in theory, but they have screw them all up. I think make these shows with a cookie cutter. One might be chocolate chip, another peanut butter or a sugar cookie but all have same shape and weight. 

I'm surprised by the creative freedom that was allowed for the production of Andor. Imagine how bad that show would have been if it was made with the same cookie cutter. During the making of The Acolyte nobody questioned some of the creative decisions? Casual viewers laughed at the Witches ceremony but everyone at Disney thought it was good? Any person with half a brain would have told them to reshoot the scene. Maybe that scene works better in cartoon form. It is like they are trying to make things bad on purpose. Which is exactly what they are doing. Making it all fit the same mold.

I have zero confidence that Skeleton crew is going to be better. Great lead in Jude Law but it is a show featuring kids. Disney's Star Wars is already childish and tame. Now they're going to double down on that.

[pengbuzz]

 

 

1 hour ago, Roy Focker said:

Mando is great example of the Feloni-zation. Season two ended on a high note with many potentially good ideas for a third season. How will Mando carry on without baby Yoda? Will there be a conflict between Mando and Bo now that he has the Dark Saber? They could have devoted an entire season to both of those. Instead, they solve both in the first couple of episodes. Rest of the season is Baby Yoda being cute and concluding the Mandalorian story arc from the Clone Wars. There was no storyline for Mando's character. They had one and quickly solved it to make way for Clone Wars story.

Premise for The Acolyte sounded promising. A murder mystery, a Sith apprentice and Jedi coverup. Premise for Kenobi sounded good too. They all sounded good in theory, but they have screw them all up. I think make these shows with a cookie cutter. One might be chocolate chip, another peanut butter or a sugar cookie but all have same shape and weight. 

I'm surprised by the creative freedom that was allowed for the production of Andor. Imagine how bad that show would have been if it was made with the same cookie cutter. During the making of The Acolyte nobody questioned some of the creative decisions? Casual viewers laughed at the Witches ceremony but everyone at Disney thought it was good? Any person with half a brain would have told them to reshoot the scene. Maybe that scene works better in cartoon form. It is like they are trying to make things bad on purpose. Which is exactly what they are doing. Making it all fit the same mold.

I have zero confidence that Skeleton crew is going to be better. Great lead in Jude Law but it is a show featuring kids. Disney's Star Wars is already childish and tame. Now they're going to double down on that.

If it gets any worse...

Spoiler

...they'll have the Jedi as the space equivalent of nursery school teachers, and the Sith as toddlers who badly need a diaper change!

 

[Big s]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

 The Jedi say that attachments and the fear or loss that comes with them are the path to the Dark Side

The Jedi in this show all seem to have attachments.

 

2 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

If it gets any worse...

  Hide contents

...they'll have the Jedi as the space equivalent of nursery school teachers, and the Sith as toddlers who badly need a diaper change!

That was episode one

[pengbuzz]

1 minute ago, Big s said:

The Jedi in this show all seem to have attachments.

 

That was episode one

Of The Acolyte, or The Phantom Menace?

[Duke Togo]

1 hour ago, Roy Focker said:

I have zero confidence that Skeleton crew is going to be better. Great lead in Jude Law but it is a show featuring kids. Disney's Star Wars is already childish and tame. Now they're going to double down on that.

That's been Star Wars since Return of the Jedi, which I feel is better regarded than it should be. 

Edited July 11 by Duke Togo

[Big s]

4 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

Of The Acolyte, or The Phantom Menace?

Pretty much the whole prequel thing. Anakin was such a baby. And Padme was such a Quagmire…..gigiddy

[Dynaman]

5 hours ago, Duke Togo said:

That's been Star Wars since Return of the Jedi, which I feel is better regarded than it should be. 

Yup, the last actually good, Star War movie was Empire Strikes Back.  Return was dreck through and through.

[Seto Kaiba]

5 hours ago, Big s said:

The Jedi in this show all seem to have attachments.

The Brendok Jedi have emotional baggage, but that's not quite the same thing.

They're all afraid their secret will get out, but it's only Master Sol who gets lost in reminiscences about his old students and gets lectured by his current student about how very inappropriate that is.

 

1 hour ago, Big s said:

Pretty much the whole prequel thing. Anakin was such a baby. And Padme was such a Quagmire…..gigiddy

To be fair, Anakin was NINE at the start of his story... being childish is pretty damned excusable there.

His arc is pretty believable IMO for a kid who's been raised on the belief that he is The Chosen One in an environment where emotional repression is the norm.  It's actually pretty impressive more Jedi don't fall to the dark side, because those ain't mentally healthy living conditions.

[renegadeleader1]

On 7/11/2024 at 10:24 AM, Seto Kaiba said:

That's what the fans wanted, though.

They rejected Disney's fumbling attempts to put a fresh face on Star Wars and now most of their efforts are focused on fanservice and combing through the open septic tank that is the old Expanded Universe for the least odious content they can find to repurpose.  They brought Filoni back because the fans like him and he's obsessively tying things back to his own previous body of work.

 

There is beautiful irony in this.  The Jedi say that attachments and the fear or loss that comes with them are the path to the Dark Side, and The Acolyte harps on this heavily.

The Acolyte's writing suffers in no small part because of its showrunner's attachments to Star Wars and its Expanded Universe.

Leslye Headland is a "promoted" long-time Star Wars fan with a profound love of the series as a whole and the Expanded Universe in particular.  Her attachment to that pre-existing material is inherently limiting, as it disincentivizes making creative decisions that might compromise the status quo of that older material she so adores and promotes "in the box" thinking and a tendency to focus on fanservice like continuity nods, homages, and in-jokes.

This is extremely clear in the entertainment news coverage of the series, which focuses heavily on all the little "Glup Shitto" odds and ends rescued from one EU work or another and inserted into the background in The Acolyte that don't actually contribute to the story in any way.

(Can I just say I love how the Star Wars fandom coins nicknames?  "Smilo Ren" was solid gold, but "Glup Shitto" as a catch-all term for that kind of pointless and stupid rescuee from the EU is one of the best terms I think I've ever seen a fandom produce.  Shine on you crazy diamonds, shine on.)

It's no accident that the best writing Star Wars has had came under Tony Gilroy, a showrunner who was not a Star Wars fan.  He didn't have affection for the source material getting in the way of telling the story.

Good lord! You do like to waste a lot of words on a lot of thoughts that are empty at best or downright BS at worst like you have no idea what the hell you are talking about.

 

That later part couldn't be anymore obvious than where you blame the Acolyte's failures on "glup shitto" moments and pulling from the EU and then heap praise Andor which is one of the most "glup shitto" EU infused shows Disney has ever made!

 

Literally everything in Andor is a reference to some other Star Wars EU work or ties back into the movies somehow. The Corporate Sector, the Imperial Security Bureau, Mon Mothma forming the alliance, a the prison planet that doesn't release it's prisoners, and Andor himself are all nods to previously created stuff.

 

Meanwhile The Acolyte through 7 of 8 episodes has what? A reference to cortosis from the Kotor game, a character from the High Republic novels that has barely had any screentime, a prequel trilogy cameo by a character no one would would have noticed if not for the end credits, some force witches, and some vague Jedi/Sith mythos references all of which you don't need to really to be steeped in Star Wars knowledge to get the gist of?

 

It's not the EU or "Glup Shitto" ruining a shows quality, but quality of the show being bad to begin with.

 

Andor is a slow burn, but well put together heist/espionage/resistance noir series where even the antagonist characters have clear motivation and paths they want to follow. 

 

Acolyte is a ham fisted incoherent mess of of one dimensional literally disposable stumbling bumbling jedi caricatures wandering around forests, encountering creepy cults, lured into shallow set ups that are resolved five minutes into the next episode, and everything focusing on unlikable pair of twins with plot schizophrenia that constantly change their motivations from literal one minute to the next with their sleazy "masters."

 

It's saying something that the most vaguely interesting character in Acolyte is a lvl 99 dude bro with literal pay to win plot armor whose only existence in this show is to be a catalyst for the dropped jedi assassin plot, kill everyone, and provide a fanservice experience for the ladies and others so inclined.

 

The Acolyte is just bad to the core. Bad concept, bad plot, bad characters, bad effects(for a 180 million 30 minute  8 episode show), bad cinematography, and the EU or "glup shitto" have nothing to do with it.

Edited July 12 by renegadeleader1

[Seto Kaiba]

2 minutes ago, renegadeleader1 said:

Good lord! You do like to waste a lot of words on a lot of thoughts that are empty at best or downright BS at worst like you have no idea what the hell you are talking about.

Hm... it seems I've upset you, and for that I apologize.

That said, you are kind of going off on a tangent here about something that was just one specific example of how the showrunner's "promoted fan" status contributed to the series having an Idiot Plot infested with one-dimensional stock characters.  The point I made is that The Acolyte's creative team were so thrilled to simply be working on the High Republic era and so in love with it from the Expanded Universe works set there that once they'd brought it to life they were too afraid to actually do anything with it.  So The Acolyte ended up with a directionless story that visits many lovingly rendered locations in the Star Wars galaxy but has nothing to do once it gets there except show off its attention to detail.  That's why, as I pointed out, the media can find nothing to talk about WRT the series except its "Glup Shitto" moments.  They're a symptom, not the problem.

 

2 minutes ago, renegadeleader1 said:

Literally everything in Andor is a reference to some other Star Wars EU work or ties back into the movies somehow. The Corporate Sector, the Imperial Security Bureau, Mon Mothma forming the alliance, a the prison planet that doesn't release it's prisoners, and Andor himself are all nods to previously created stuff.

I don't doubt you for a second, though it's basically expected in Andor since Andor leads directly into Rogue One which leads directly into A New Hope.

As I said previously, Andor is a much better story because it doesn't let affection for the source material get in the way of the story they're telling.  It has loads of references, sure, but they're in service to the plot rather than distractions from it or purely decorative.

[jvmacross]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

 

 

I don't doubt you for a second, though it's basically expected in Andor since Andor leads directly into Rogue One which leads directly into A New Hope.

 

And just to make sure no one forgets...everything....unlimately leads to the sequel trilogy....

Even the post-Skywalker Saga by default will just technically be a new 'Skywalker' Saga thanks to one Rey Skywalker....

Star Wars needs to time skip a thousand or more generations back or forward....

[Big s]

3 hours ago, renegadeleader1 said:

The Acolyte is just bad to the core. Bad concept, bad plot, bad characters, bad effects(for a 180 million 30 minute  8 episode show), bad cinematography, and the EU or "glup shitto" have nothing to do with it.

At least the lightsabers work.………………………………………………………………………………..sorry, was trying to think of something else to give praise to in this series.

[Seto Kaiba]

40 minutes ago, Big s said:

At least the lightsabers work.………………………………………………………………………………..sorry, was trying to think of something else to give praise to in this series.

Eh... the visual design for the series is nothing to sneeze at most of the time.

The fight choreography in the lightsaber fights is a lot more visually impressive and exciting to watch than anything the sequels brought to the table.

Even the story could be turned into something pretty damn interesting if only the creative team working on it weren't blinded by their love of the source material.  Just to throw a couple ideas out there that I think would've made a more interesting series with little actual change to the framing of the story:

• Mae could've been a Jedi padawan who fell to the dark side and started killing Jedi because she discovered that the Jedi had actually taken her in after killing her family and not because she'd been willingly given up her family.  That could've driven a much more personal character arc for Mae without the need for the identical twin BS, and neatly avoided the continuity-breaking Sith Lord too.  The Jedi could've been pursuing Mae for the same reasons, to cover up the murder of Jedi by Jedi.
• Mae's Master could have been a rogue Jedi who discovered some kind of awful hidden truth about the Jedi Order and either went mad from the revelation or decided to try to bring the Jedi to justice by killing the criminal Jedi Masters to draw attention to their crimes.  The Order could be pursuing them either to enforce the coverup or to simply cover up the murders.  Mae could've been someone taken in and weaponized by that rogue Jedi specifically to avoid putting themselves at risk.

 

Edited July 13 by Seto Kaiba

[Big s]

28 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Eh... the visual design for the series is nothing to sneeze at most of the time.

The fight choreography in the lightsaber fights is a lot more visually impressive and exciting to watch than anything the sequels brought to the table.

Even the story could be turned into something pretty damn interesting if only the creative team working on it weren't blinded by their love of the source material.  Just to throw a couple ideas out there that I think would've made a more interesting series with little actual change to the framing of the story:

• Mae could've been a Jedi padawan who fell to the dark side and started killing Jedi because she discovered that the Jedi had actually taken her in after killing her family and not because she'd been willingly given up her family.  That could've driven a much more personal character arc for Mae without the need for the identical twin BS, and neatly avoided the continuity-breaking Sith Lord too.  The Jedi could've been pursuing Mae for the same reasons, to cover up the murder of Jedi by Jedi.
• Mae's Master could have been a rogue Jedi who discovered some kind of awful hidden truth about the Jedi Order and either went mad from the revelation or decided to try to bring the Jedi to justice by killing the criminal Jedi Masters to draw attention to their crimes.  The Order could be pursuing them either to enforce the coverup or to simply cover up the murders.  Mae could've been someone taken in and weaponized by that rogue Jedi specifically to avoid putting themselves at risk.

 

 No matter the background, it’s still under D+ and more than likely they’d screw it up with bad writing. The basic plot for this show and many others could have worked if the hired writers that were worth it. Unfortunately they can only hire the mentally deficient for every franchise they’ve been running lately 

[jvmacross]

Well, for a brief few seconds, I had hope this would have went in the right direction to keep the series as one self-contained story...but NOPE...

Spoiler

...I guess with Sol's death and Mae's 'mind wipe' you could...from a 'certain point of view' say that there is NO ONE left that would have even considered the 'evil' force user as proof that the Sith had returned....but no...now they want to muddle things up further and bring Yoda into the quagmire....why?  Only thing I can think of is to somehow make the vocal hard core fans demand for a Season 2.....

The only cool thing was the appearance of what I can only assume to be the true Sith Master...Darth Plagueis....too little too late....he should have killed everyone that showed up at Witch Mountain...plus, was Dath Manny aware of his presence?

I am sort of torn....now that they have the Magikal Withces out of the way....the show can now truly devote itself to what D+ had trolled us all about...which is that The Acolyte was going to be a Sith show, instead of the Sh!t Show we actually got....but I guess it wasted about 7 out of 8 episodes to finally get there....

And is it just me but does anyone else wish they could get the rat catchers from HotD to come and take care of Bazil?

Also, I forgot, but was Pip's memory erased at some point, otherwise he/it also knows about the Not-Sith creep....

So much potential wasted....oh well

 

[Seto Kaiba]

Oh boy... here I go watchin' schlock again.  The eighth and final episode of The Acolyte.

Spoiler

So... we're back on... wherever, and Osha's got her head in Smilo Ren's happy bucket.

No that's not a euphemism for anything.

Our boy Qimir slips back into the room while Osha is meditating in a helmet that no doubt smells no stale sweat, greasy hair, and quite a bit of halitosis.  Osha starts to convulse, and Qimir tries to help her only to be stopped via the Force.  It seems he's been pitched into the same kind of Force illusion that was used on Torbin.  We see in reality his eyes have gone completely black, while in the vision he's normal.  He's trying very hard to remove the helmet.  He succeeds, and Osha comes up gasping for air.  Apparently she had a vision of the future in which Mae kills Sol without a weapon.  Osha wants to go stop her, and Qimir quite reasonably asks her with what ship, since he intends to be using his.  Apparently they're going to go together, and see who can get through to Mae first... Qimir or Osha.

Our bright spark Master Sol has taken his ship to Brendok.  He intends to have the Jedi meet them there, to prove that there is a vergence in the force.  He describes what happened to Aniseya as an accident, which Mae isn't buying it.  Sol defends the Jedi's intervention, and blames Mae for the deaths of the coven because she started that inexplicably destructive fire.  Mae, meanwhile, is using Osha's droid to pick the lock on the restraints.  Sol says his biggest regret was not being able to save both Mae and Osha at the same time.  

Sol asserts that Mae and Osha are not twins.  Not siblings.  Mae interrupts before he can do any actual expositing, and electrocutes him with Osha's droid before taking off down the corridor.  Mae opts to take the ship's escape pod, which in this case is more of an actual independent shuttle, and goes tearing off.

Sol gives chase in his ship's landing section, as Mae regrets that her escape ship has no hyperdrive to escape with.  She steers into a planet's ring system, with Sol in hot pursuit.  Whatever Sol is trying to do is sabotaged by Bazil, the stupid little gerbil man, and Sol's ship spins out and knocks Mae off course.  Her escape ship is disabled and crashing on Brendok, conveniently.  

Mog is back... which I'm sure will not please @Mog one bit.

Spoiler

Back on Coruscant, Green Karen's dogsbody Mog tells her that the Senator who wants to exercise more oversight over the Jedi is here to see her... and that he let them into the control room to wait.  The Senator confronts her about the murder investigation under the radar of the Senate, and she defends herself claiming she has the authority to take independent action.  She accidentally lets slip that there have been multiple victims, to the Senator's surprise.  She dodges the rest of the questions, and he confronts her about his policies.

The Senator, quite reasonably, points out that in his view the Jedi are an unchecked political power within the Republic posing as a religion.  He frames them as a delusional cult that claims to be in control of their emotions, and points out that when one of them finally snaps and goes off the deep end it'll be very difficult to stop them.  Apparently the Senator has already reported Green Karen's obfuscations to the Chancellor and warns that it may come up in the form of a tribunal.

Back on wherever, Qimir's trying to get Osha to tell him where they're going without much luck.  He suggests Osha should be trained, and she declines his offer.  He seems a bit disappointed about the whole affair, and notes that Mae jumped at the offer of training without even thinking about it.  We see a vaguely skeletal figure poke his head out of a cave watching them leave... someone with yellow eyes like a Sith.  Qimir's master?

On Brendok, Sol has set his ship down and goes looking for Mae.  He stops to turn his ship's transponder back on.

On Coruscant, Green Karen is trying to get through to someone.  She's interrupted by Mog, who tells her they've found Sol on Brendok.  She orders her ship prepared and tells him to gather as many knights as he can without raising alarm. 

On Brendok again, Qimir comments that she's come all the way back home, and Osha shuts off his controls.  She notices that Sol and Mae are already there, both headed to the fortress, which we see from Sol's perspective is now overgrown and in ruins.  Sol shouts for Mae, and then begins hearing the events of the past.  Osha tells Qimir that getting the elevator working is the only way in unless he wants to climb... and he asks "Are you sure?" before pulling a Batman and disappearing the second she looks away.  

Sol, meanwhile, has wandered back to where Mae fell.  It seems Mae was hiding in the chasm, and he doesn't spot her.  Mae, meanwhile, is back in her and Osha's old room with its fire damage, and is looking around.  Osha's still messing about with the lift while all this is going on and manages to get the door open.  

Smilo sneaks up on Sol and thanks him for leading him to Mae.  He says that they make a great team, and powers up his saber.  Sol and Smilo Ren square off in the corridor, with Sol backing further and further away as Smilo Ren advances.  There's quite a bit of incidental damage, and a jump scene straight out of a wire fu movie, before they land on the ground.  Sol says he'll destroy Smilo Ren, and Smilo replies "Not if she gets you first."  Smilo draws his second blade and goes after Sol two-handing it.  Sol manages to disarm Smilo Ren partway, though he quickly gets his second blade back and throws both, planning to use the force to attack Sol from behind... but Sol blows both sabers and Smilo away with one move.

Osha finds Mae in their burned room.  Osha confronts her sister about the fire and death, and blames her for the whole thing.  Mae tries to tell her that Sol lied and blamed her for it, and Osha replies that Sol never blamed Mae.  She says he tried to teach her to accept that someone she cared about could be capable of something like this, and she says that is what she failed as a Jedi.  Mae tells her that Sol killed their mother, and tries to argue that the failure was Sol's.  Osha loses her sh*t and attacks Mae, and the two end up having a fight... which ends up being a lot of completely symmetrical violence.  

Sol and Qimir's fight is interrupted by the arrival of yet another ship. Smilo Ren points out that they're not here for him.  He's not wrong, that's Green Karen and she's here for Sol and for Mae.  Osha and Mae notice another ship arrive too.  Mae uses this moment to Batman herself away too just like Smilo did earlier.  Smilo tries to steer Sol's blade into his helmet, and Sol evades, doing a standard anime step-past-and-cut that lops the end off Smilo's saber.  He removes his helmet, and Sol holds him at saberpoint until Mae attacks him from behind.  In their brief scuffle, Mae is able to steal Sol's saber.  She throws it away, seemingly breaking it, while Smilo challenges her to strike Sol down. 

Mae refuses the standard Sith Lord provocation.  She insists that she wants Sol alive.  She wants him to confess.  To surrender himself to the Jedi High Council, the Senate, and the Republic to face justice for his crimes.  Sol stubbornly insists he did the right thing to protect Mae and Osha.  He falls back on the exposition he was interrupted in back at the start.  He says that Mae and Osha are one person, not sisters or twins.  He wants to find out how Aniseya used the Force to create them.  Sol launches into a rant about how rare such a power is, but eventually relents and admits he killed Osha and Mae's mother.  Osha calls him on it, and asks why he didn't tell the Jedi if killing Mother Aniseya was the right thing to do.  He claims there was no proof of the unnatural way Osha and Mae were created with Mae "dead".  He defends the coverup as doing what was best for her, to protect her dream of becoming a Jedi.  

Osha absolutely loses her sh*t and force chokes Sol.  As she's strangling him, the crystal in Sol's lightsaber turns red in her hand, and she chokes him to death after he tells her "it's okay".  

Well, that explains that... I guess we now know how this little Sithy secret didn't get out.  

Spoiler

Smilo Ren reaches out to Osha, and she flips out AGAIN and tries to use Sol's lightsaber against him... its blade starts turning red.

Green Karen and her crew take their dear sweet time getting there.  She does... something... and senses Smilo Ren.  Apparently she knows him.  He FREAKS and puts on his helmet as fast as he can.  She leads them away towards where Mae and Osha are.

Back at the fortress, Mae is trying to talk Osha down.  She tells her that she knows a way out, and they take off together.  They climb down the pit where Mae fell, into a convenient sewer(?) pipe.  

The Jedi arrive and find a courtyard with one dead Sol and not much else.  Green Karen senses the events of the past and sends her search party out to look for the missing girls.  Smilo, meanwhile, seems to have gone undetected and is watching from afar.  

We see Mog's search party chasing Osha and Mae, who have reached the tree where we saw them in the first flashback.  Mae apologizes for starting the fire, and they start their creepy childhood twin rhyme until Smilo busts in and takes Sol's saber.  He points out that if he can find them, so can the Jedi.  They say that they'll explain what Sol did.  Mae points out they'll be killed like their mother was.  Osha volunteers to go with Smilo if he helps Mae escape.  Smilo volunteers to wipe Mae's memory, and does while they recite more creepy twin poetry.  

The Jedi search party find Mae, dressed as Osha, and arrest her.  They take her back to Coruscant, and Green Karen interrogates her.  She professes ignorance of her crimes, and Green Karen correctly understands that her mind has been wiped.  She explains that Sol killed Mae's mother.  We then cut to a meeting with Senators, where Green Karen explains the coverup perpetrated by Indara, Sol, Kelnacca, and Torbin and subsequently frames Sol for the murders committed by Mae claiming that he committed the three murders to prevent the truth from coming out.  When the Senators ask where Sol is now, she says he was found dead on Brendok from suicide.  Green Karen asks for Mae's help finding a student of hers who turned to evil (Smilo).  

Back on... wherever... we see Qimir and Osha taking in a sunset holding hands around Master Sol's damaged lightsaber.  

Then we see Green Karen come to talk to Yoda.

 

Well, that was... I think underwhelming might not be strong enough.  The writers clearly tied themselves in knots to make sure that this series ended with the rest of the galaxy in the dark about the existence of the Sith Lords... except it finishes with Green Karen knowing...

Spoiler

... and she even knows who it is, because the mystery Sith Lord is her former apprentice.

... and we also see her taking the subject to a member of the High Council, meaning that there is now a pretty substantial plot hole.

Spoiler

We get a look at a being who is probably Qimir's Master spying on Qimir and Osha.  I'm guessing, from the literally long face that Qimir is an apprentice of Darth Plagueis the Wise from before he took on Palpatine.

Neither Osha nor Mae's story received a satisfying conclusion.  The Brendok Jedi's arc is basically a massive waste of time that goes nowhere and does nothing interesting.  None of what happens here adds anything new or interesting to Star Wars.  

Like I said a few posts ago, the showrunner and writers are so preoccupied with showing their love for the lore that they forgot to write an actual coherent story.

[kajnrig]

Didn't put up my thoughts of the previous episode because I'd pretty much checked out. To summarize: What happened was dumb, and the "fallout" from it equally so. I only decided to watch this because it was the final episode psych! and what the hell right.

To summarize my thoughts of the final episode: What happened was dumb, and the "fallout" from it equally so. The fights were neat, but I still dislike that you can tell they're fighting with glowing sticks. They were all I wanted from this series, so I suppose in that way all my expectations were met, but I never thought I'd have to trudge through all the worst aspects of the prequel trilogy in order to get there.

Oh well. It's done now. Time to move on and forget all about it.

On 7/12/2024 at 10:14 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

Eh... the visual design for the series is nothing to sneeze at most of the time.

I like the not-Sith helmet a lot. Very good design, that.

On 7/12/2024 at 10:14 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

The fight choreography in the lightsaber fights is a lot more visually impressive and exciting to watch than anything the sequels brought to the table.

Boo. The Last Jedi throne room fight is spectacular. It's among the most beautiful sequences in the franchise. I mean that with absolutely zero irony; I don't care that fans like to meme on it, whatever, they probably think the prequels are good movies anyway.

On 7/12/2024 at 10:14 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

Even the story could be turned into something pretty damn interesting if only the creative team working on it weren't blinded by their love of the source material.

I don't think they were blinded by their love of the source material, I think they just sucked at telling a story. They truly reflected all the good and the overwhelmingly more numerous bad about the prequels: there are some truly good ideas strewn throughout this mess, but execution, execution, execution.

22 minutes ago, jvmacross said:

Well, for a brief few seconds, I had hope this would have went in the right direction to keep the series as one self-contained story...but NOPE...

  Hide contents

now they want to muddle things up further and bring Yoda into the quagmire....why?

The only cool thing was the appearance of what I can only assume to be the true Sith Master...Darth Plagueis....too little too late....he should have killed everyone that showed up at Witch Mountain...plus, was Dath Manny aware of his presence?

And is it just me but does anyone else wish they could get the rat catchers from HotD to come and take care of Bazil?

Also, I forgot, but was Pip's memory erased at some point, otherwise he/it also knows about the Not-Sith creep....

who cares

who cares

absolutely yes frakk that guy

who cares

 

No, but seriously:
 

Spoiler

- I hated the sequel baiting. After all that talk about this being a self-contained thing and all.

- I could not have cared any less for Whoever-the-frakk. True Sith master? Plageuis? Hell, Palpatine somehow and the whole Plageuis story was always a smokescreen? Don't know. Don't care.

- I'd ask why he decided to screw with Sol's ship's wiring, maybe I missed something in the last episode, but... whatever. Skin him, skewer him, roast him over a fire.

- He was "factory reset" way back when, but who knows what that entails about his "consciousness." Maybe he didn't develop enough of a new personality to know to remember Smilo Ren.

Edited July 17 by kajnrig

[Seto Kaiba]

2 minutes ago, kajnrig said:

Boo. The Last Jedi throne room fight is spectacular. It's among the most beautiful sequences in the franchise. I mean that with absolutely zero irony; I don't care that fans like to meme on it, whatever, they probably think the prequels are good movies anyway.

To each their own, naturally...

I don't disagree the fight in the throne room in The Last Jedi is beautifully composed.  The style of lightsaber fighting used in the sequels is kind of awkward.  It lacks the speed and the fluidity that made the lightsaber fights in the prequel trilogy so very impressive.  There's a lot of (understandably) inexperienced flailing from Rey in the first and second sequels but Kylo Ren's style is very jerky with a lot of heavy slashes that don't feel appropriate for a laser sword with a weightless blade.  They don't mesh with the style we saw in previous titles... which admittedly is not a very practical style as it involves so much flynning, but it looks more impressive.

Whoever choreographed the lightsaber fights for The Acolyte is probably the only person on this series besides the set and prop designers who really earned their keep IMO.  Just gorgeous, fluid, wild fighting especially from Qimir and Sol.  It's a treat to watch, which makes the quality of the rest of the show kind of a pity.  Qimir's style is brutal without being heavy and slow.  It's why Kylo Ren's style should have been.

[kajnrig]

2 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

They don't mesh with the style we saw in previous titles... which admittedly is not a very practical style as it involves so much flynning, but it looks more impressive.

Fair enough. But the prequel fighting style was itself such a departure from what came before it, that I just sort of shrugged off the sequel trilogy style doing the same. For the most part I too didn't care for it; it was all serviceable enough, but nothing to write home about.

2 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Whoever choreographed the lightsaber fights for The Acolyte is probably the only person on this series besides the set and prop designers who really earned their keep IMO.

I mean, they clearly received the lion's share of resources and budget. I don't know if it's fair to say they were the only ones earning their keep when everyone else wasn't really earning much of anything. Or maybe I'm wrong and the cast and crew did work just as hard on the rest of the show as they did on the fighting, in which case... oof.

[Mog]

So yeah, I don’t care for any of the surviving characters.  At.  All.

The whole coverup makes the High Council look like stupid putzes.  “No Sith in a millennium.” 🤦🏻‍♂️ 

Gonna be like Mae, and just mindwipe this crappy plodding plot from my head-canon.

Don’t care for a second season, and won’t watch it if this somehow gets a second season.

Dammit Disney, focus on the damn characters and make us actually care for them.

[Roy Focker]

Haven't watched it yet, but you're telling me they covered up to cover up with another cover up?

Blaming it on them doesn't make sense because didn't they have an alibi for a couple of those deaths? There are still witnesses who were with them during the first 2 deaths.

[jvmacross]

On 6/28/2024 at 10:59 AM, jvmacross said:

IMO...the show needs to accomplish a few things to end somewhat satisfactorily...first....the reason for what made floating hippie Jedi kill himself has to be a real convincing and heinous reason....second, to keep the whole thing about the Sith being unknown to the Jedi for a millenium...it has to be revealed...at least to the remaining survivors of the Jedi Posse....that "The Stranger" was just a rogue Force practicioner that was disgruntled about something yet to be revealed and not...at least as far as the Jedi are concerned...not an actual Sith...they may end up blaming the Witches for his training and thus have even more reason to "control who gets to use the Force"....and finally.... because this whole series has been trolling everyone about how this is the re-emergence of THE SITH....it needs to end with the actual onscreen reveal...for the audience only ...that Darth Plaguis has been involved in everything that has gone sideways from the start....perhaps "The Stranger" actually is his latest apprentice but has gone rogue and in the end he "takes care of the problem"...

This would be the only reason why I would want a season 2...

FIrst requirement.....FAILED

Second requirement.......FAILED (mostly), clearly it will take a second season to 'clean' this up...but with the last second 'reveal' the hole just got dug deeper....

Final requirement...........PASSED (sort of)...too bad that a show sold to everyone as a 'Sith' series took 8 episode out of 8 total in the series to finally reveal what I can only assume was Darth Plagueis...or at minimum the actual Sith pulling the strings.....

I feel that if they had just wiped the entire cast clean by the end of the series' Season 1, it could have then started a good ALL SITH Season 2 or it could have just ended somewhat reasonably.....eliminating the Witch Mountain ladies was a good start....but now that our little green friend is involved, it just makes things even more muddled.....so many new plot holes with just that last second reveal....and worst of all, if there is no Season 2....now the line about no Sith seen for a millenium is at best just another 'certain point of view' remark....maybe Disney will take one from the George Lucas playbook and retcon the line.....'There hasn't been a confirmed encounter with the Sith for a Millenium'...LOL

[Mog]

27 minutes ago, Roy Focker said:

Haven't watched it yet, but you're telling me they covered up to cover up with another cover up?

Blaming it on them doesn't make sense because didn't they have an alibi for a couple of those deaths? There are still witnesses who were with them during the first 2 deaths.

They got their patsy in Mae.

But honestly, I don’t feel like wasting any more thought on this show.  I’ll just dump it with the Obi series and Book of Boba Fett. 🤮

[Big s]

2 hours ago, jvmacross said:

Second requirement.......FAILED (mostly), clearly it will take a second season to 'clean' this up...but with the last second 'reveal' the hole just got dug deeper....

Thing ain’t looking so great for a second season.

 

On 7/11/2024 at 5:11 AM, Big s said:

There’s always the possibility things might turn out interesting for the series if OSHA after putting on the helmet becomes the acolyte rather than Mae since she had been rejected by the Jedi. Or that Mae and osha balance eachother and somehow become one as the acolyte, but those are pretty far fetched. Then again there’s one episode left and the show really didn’t seem to need to be titled the Acolyte unless something far fetched happens, but that’s hoping for too much at this point 

Just quoting myself because that first far fetched thing kinda happened and if the show were getting a second season, then the other one might’ve.

i did think they’d show what happened to bad mom, because I still don’t remember seeing her dead body in the episode before this one and I haven’t heard anyone mention it. And I’m not ever planning to rewatch this show.

 

Spoiler

I knew green lady had something odd going on, but it was a little more basic than what I thought.

 

As far a plagus or however it’s spelled, he was definitely creeping around and I don’t know if he was just spying on the situation or really was the one training Smilo.

Spoiler

Mae said she was sucked through that hole, possibly pulled through by Darth Nosferatu, who may have been watching the whole situation. Or he possibly could’ve been the actual one manipulating the whole situation rather than having first hand contact 

Anyway, we may never find out, and it’s not really disappointing if we don’t. Overall it was a mostly predictable end to what was supposed to be some kind of space mystery. Not as bad a show as the Obi show, not as good as the not really good Boba show, just kinda whatever. And as I’ve said before, the conventions about the show are far more entertaining than this show ever actually was. Hopefully some people that obviously deserve to be fired get fired for this mess and hopefully one day some worthy talent actually gets hired in their places to restore balance in this teetering mess of a franchise 

[azrael]

So the people in charge of this show are practically begging for a season 2. 🤨😑🙄 I'd prefer they didn't and try to just end the series. How about just giving us something I can walk away as a complete story, not a "But wait..there's more!".

As for the episode...

Spoiler

• Sol dies. Yeah he had a death flag. Meh. Whether it was Osha or Mae that did it...I just didn't care for some reason. All the Jedi who were on that original mission were all doomed to die so I felt nothing with each of the getting killed of.
• Osha becomes the Acolyte. Qimir is Darth Plagueis' apprentice (yes, that was Plagueis hiding in the shadows of the unnamed planet). Plagueis will probably axe off Qimir if Jedi-Nebula doesn't and make Osha his lab experiment. It's what the Sith do. Apprentice tries to become the master and gain an apprentice. It only works if the apprentice kills the master, which Qimir didn't do so he's gotta death flag on him.

As for the lightsaber fights?
Jeki vs Qimir and Sol vs Qimir were the only 2 fights where they look like they spent time on. They were mildly better than the sequel fights. Credit to Manny Jacinto, Dafne Keen and Lee Jung-Jae for actually spending some time to learn the fight. Their fights were OK. Not good. Not great. It would be nice if they could get Nick Gillard back to be sword master cuz we really need an experienced Star Wars stunt coordinator. Every other fight was just people swinging baseball bats. 🙄

I'm glad I just shut up, not nitpicked each episode to death and let this show run it's course cuz the ending should have stuck the landing and it didn't because the the blatant "GIVE US A SEASON 2"-ending.

Gonna give this show (or "season 1") a 👎.

One more thing...

Spoiler

It's 2024. Please stop using the FRAKKIN' puppet Yoda and just use the CG model. Good god. Frak people's childhood. CG Yoda is passable now. 🙄

 

[Roy Focker]

Just finished it.

I found the way things ended between Mae, Osha and Sol believable. I'm not buying where things end for the twins.

Spoiler

Osha's killing of Sol seemed more like a loss of control under duress. I wouldn't call it fully embracing the dark side, but she agrees train with him to protect Mae. If Osha went fully dark, she would have killed Sith guy too. 

So many plot holes in that coverup.

Spoiler

1. Green lady didn't have any of those Jedi guarding the ships? Didn't they see that Sith ship when they came in? How did they escape?

2. Weren't there a ton of witnesses at the Jedi temple who saw Sol hanging around with them during the same time he killed Trinity? Isn't somebody going to ask questions?

3. The Jedi at that smaller temple where Tobin died at. They know Sol didn't do it. Another alibi.

4. When news gets around among the Jedi of what Sol did. Are all these witnesses going to agree to cover it up?

5. Sith dude kicked everyone's ass during the first fight. For the next man-on-man fight with Sol their fighting ability is now equal? Sol was out of his league before, Now he's better?

The real villain...

Spoiler

Are the Jedi and Green lady. Those 4 Jedi original Jedi tried to do the right thing but screwed up royally. Trinity a Jedi Master was the one who decided to do the original coverup. That was the first intentional non-Jedi like action. Then 16 years later Green lady just continues trying to hide things. Why? To protect the order's standing in the Republic. That doesn't sound very Jedi-like. During her meeting with the Senator, it looked like she was feeling some negative emotions. Her use of the force to open the door for him appeared to be using her powers to intimidate him. Making her friend Sol the fall guy? Everything she doing to protect the order makes her tainted with the dark side. Once she starts talking to Yoda, he has to sense her bullshit. Unless he ends up agreeing with her. Making him just as bad.

In the prequels the Jedi's problem was their hubris. That what did them in. They failed to see that real threat around them. But this show makes them of hypocrites too Who are taking part in the same type of shadowy evil politics that Senator Palpatine used to gain power. Maybe Anakin's point of view is right - The Jedi are evil. They just think they're doing good. While the Sith don't hide the fact they're evil. 

 

[Big s]

Spoiler

31 minutes ago, azrael said:

Qimir is Darth Plagueis' apprentice (yes, that was Plagueis hiding in the shadows of the unnamed planet).

 

I’m not totally convinced that he was his apprentice 

Spoiler

The creepy dude was definitely hiding in the shadows, but I’m not sure if he was staying hidden because he was manipulating events from afar or mostly observing how things were happening to learn from the witches.

I feel it could go either way here and if they got that second season, then maybe there’d be answers. But as as I don’t really care enough to find out. I’d hate to watch a second season that just basically teased events and the backstory of the not Sith side of things, because that’s probably the route they’d go. Lots of flashbacks and teasing the reveal

[pengbuzz]

This show, unlike the lightsabers used in it, was utterly pointless.

[Big s]

32 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

This show, unlike the lightsabers used in it, was utterly pointless.

They had kind of a snub end actually. But at least they did the job. I’ll always remember that Jecki never got back up and that was the best part of the entire show.

[the_foul_fowl]

Most of the Star Wars shows have been somewhat passable to me, but the Acolyte is probably the bottom ranked show for me.

Spoiler

That rat man thing… so it was never revealed why it disabled Sol’s ship… even thought it seemed to know that Mae was cosplaying as Osha. Why did it do that? And Sol didn’t even question it after… and just took a stroll off the ship? Maybe question why the rat did that? Every scene the rat appeared in, I hoped it got flayed with an errant lightsaber.

The cameo with Yoda… totally unnecessary and it now leaves a gaping plot hole if Yoda and Ki Adi knew about the Sith. Was Vernestra planning to fib Yoda? Who even greenlit that scene?

After Mae force chokes Sol, she tries to redeem herself by confessing to the Jedi, and a second later she’s all Sith again? 

Verne Stra to the Jedi. Spread  out to cover a 5-klick radius. To mog, get the rat. In the very next scene, all the Jedi are together again. Why even bother with that line? And did ‘klick’ sound very out of place in Star Wars? Was this first time metric measurements are mentioned?
 

And what was the point of showing the wizened creepy looking hand that supposedly belongs to Darth Plagueis? A shout out to EU? A creepy dude who’s stalking Osha? Again it didn’t make any sense at all, same as the Cortosis helmet if you needed specific EU knowledge to appreciate it.

 

The only thing going for me were the lightsaber fights. Everything else is best forgotten. 

Edited July 17 by the_foul_fowl

[Big s]

35 minutes ago, the_foul_fowl said:

That rat man thing… so it was never revealed why it disabled Sol’s ship

I was wondering the same thing, but then when they didn’t explain, I just figured it was bad writing again. To be honest, that whole scene had problems. Why couldn’t they fly through that ice. They were only goig25 over the speed of the ice. It was totally harmless to both ships. Even if it wasn’t, it was so thin Squid game could’ve flown over it no problem. 

Edited July 17 by Big s

[azrael]

7 hours ago, Big s said:

I’m not totally convinced that he was his apprentice 

I think he is, or maybe trying to be, willing or unwillingly.

[Seto Kaiba]

9 hours ago, Big s said:

I’m not totally convinced that he was his apprentice 

Palpatine won't be born for another 50-something years, so it certainly seems possible.

Especially considering the turnover rate we've seen for Sith apprentices and the various students of those apprentices in titles like The Clone Wars.