The Acolyte - Disney Plus Star Wars Series

[Thom]

4 hours ago, the_foul_fowl said:

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.

It looked like Sol was getting ready to fire on Mae's ship, and in that dangerous environment I would assume her ship would not have survived. Kind of an odd thing for Sol to do, if he was trying to chase her down. So I think the little rat guy, knowing what Sol was doing was not very Jedi, disabled the weapons, perhaps more to save Sol from his actions than Mae.

 

Sadly, a lackluster ending for a lackluster show.

[Duke Togo]

2 hours ago, Thom said:

Sadly, a lackluster ending for a lackluster show.

I don't think that's the end. That pretty clearly sets up a second season.

[kajnrig]

14 minutes ago, Duke Togo said:

I don't think that's the end. That pretty clearly sets up a second season.

*sigh* Such a lackluster ending to a lackluster show...

[pengbuzz]

53 minutes ago, Duke Togo said:

I don't think that's the end. That pretty clearly sets up a second season.

So did Mel Brooks at the end of Robin Hood: Men In Tights....

[Duke Togo]

I'll give the show this: the lightsaber combat is second-to-none.

[Big s]

5 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

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

I’m not saying that it’s not possible, just that I’m 50/50 on it. Why hide in a cave if you’re the master? It could just be that he’s a creepy perv, but as I said on the previous page, there’s also the idea that he could just be checking things out to learn from the witches or he could’ve been manipulating things indirectly for a while without making himself known.

 

38 minutes ago, Duke Togo said:

I'll give the show this: the lightsaber combat is second-to-none.

The hand to hand combat was pretty cringe though 

 

44 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

So did Mel Brooks at the end of Robin Hood: Men In Tights....

That’s probably next on his list of movies that weren’t supposed to get a follow up. I think it was just last year they had History of the world and this year they announced the new Space Balls.

[Dynaman]

1 hour ago, Big s said:

 Why hide in a cave if you’re the master?

Because his reveal was supposed to be bait for a second season.  Of course a person would starve trying to fish with the bait in this show.

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, Big s said:

I’m not saying that it’s not possible, just that I’m 50/50 on it. Why hide in a cave if you’re the master? It could just be that he’s a creepy perv, but as I said on the previous page, there’s also the idea that he could just be checking things out to learn from the witches or he could’ve been manipulating things indirectly for a while without making himself known.

Why not hide in a cave if you're the Master?  Perhaps it's just my jaundiced eye view as a filthy casual, but the Sith seem to have an extreme flair for the dramatic.

I guess it must come naturally if you're part of an ancient sect that has spent millennia devoted to taking revenge on a bunch of stuffy and repressed space monks.  That sort of backstory practically demands being extra AF.  (What are they taking revenge for anyway?)

Joking aside, if that really is Qimir's master then he has good reason to spy on Qimir.  The one and only path to Sith career advancement is the Klingon Promotion: kill your master to become the master.  If his student's up to something behind his back he has every reason to suspect imminent and possibly fatal betrayal is in the offing.  Keeping an eye on a person whose literal job it is to one day murder you and take your place is common sense if you're as death-adverse as Darth Plagueis supposedly was.  For bonus points, Qimir's come home with a living specimen of life created by Force manipulation... so if he's really Darth Plagueis the only thing standing between him and doing an undignified victory dance and giving Qimir a congratulatory hug is probably his villainous image wouldn't survive it.

Edited July 18 by Seto Kaiba

[Thom]

3 hours ago, Duke Togo said:

I don't think that's the end. That pretty clearly sets up a second season.

But if I don't watch the second season...😜

3 hours ago, kajnrig said:

*sigh* Such a lackluster ending to a lackluster show...

2 hours ago, Duke Togo said:

I'll give the show this: the lightsaber combat is second-to-none.

About the only thing to like about this show, other then Jecki. Poor Jecki....

[Big s]

2 hours ago, Thom said:

About the only thing to like about this show, other then Jecki. Poor Jecki....

Her dying and the constant reshowing of her rotting corpse were some of the only highlights of this show 😊

 

2 hours ago, Thom said:

But if I don't watch the second season...😜

I have my doubts that there will be a second season.

Edited July 18 by Big s

[Seto Kaiba]

2 hours ago, Thom said:

But if I don't watch the second season...😜

Wait, you mean you aren't simply crippled by FOMO over the amazing premise of an entire eight episode season devoted to how a lime-green Karen and a recent lobotomy recipient hunt the only halfway likeable character in this show and his new girl Friday across the galaxy to cover up the coverup of a coverup of events that are completely inconsequential to the setting and that almost nobody in the story cares about either?

I am shocked.  Shocked!  Well, not that shocked. 🤔

It's actually kind of impressive what a complete nonevent the whole story actually is within the greater scope of Star Wars.

[Black Valkyrie]

 

(What a piece of junk)  Luke. 

 

[pengbuzz]

9 hours ago, Big s said:

I’m not saying that it’s not possible, just that I’m 50/50 on it. Why hide in a cave if you’re the master? It could just be that he’s a creepy perv, but as I said on the previous page, there’s also the idea that he could just be checking things out to learn from the witches or he could’ve been manipulating things indirectly for a while without making himself known.

 

The hand to hand combat was pretty cringe though 

 

That’s probably next on his list of movies that weren’t supposed to get a follow up. I think it was just last year they had History of the world and this year they announced the new Space Balls.

O.o

[pengbuzz]

7 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

I guess it must come naturally if you're part of an ancient sect that has spent millennia devoted to taking revenge on a bunch of stuffy and repressed space monks. 

A bunch of stuffy and repressed space monks with more issues than a newsstand.

[Big s]

38 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

A bunch of stuffy and repressed space monks with more issues than a newsstand.

It takes place a long long slightly longer time ago, back when newsstands were a thing. The audience today probably wouldn’t have an any idea what those were, but at least they understand that OSHA was responsible for putting guard railings on walkways because of her emotional attachments from turning to the dark side, that and cancer warnings for everything 

[electric indigo]

Final episode was the best for me. Great visuals & production design, great Qimir x Sol fight, but my favorite scene was this dialogue:
 

Quote

 

Senator Rayencourt: You don't like me. You think my campaign for an external review of the Jedi is a personal vendetta.

Vernestra Rwoh: If you want my honest opinion, yes.

Senator Rayencourt: Good. Here's mine. I think the Jedi are a massive system of unchecked power, posing as a religion, a delusional cult that claims to control the uncontrollable.

Vernestra Rwoh: We don't control the Force.

Senator Rayencourt: Not the Force. Your emotions. You project an imagine of goodness and restraint, but it's only a matter of time before one of you snaps. And when, not 'if', that happens, who will be strong enough to stop him?

Vernestra Rwoh: That's certainly an opinion, and not one shared by the rest of the Senate.

Senator Rayencourt: The majority of my colleagues can't imagine a galaxy without the Jedi. And I can understand why. When you're looking up to heroes, you don't have to face what's right in front of you.

 

Then of course, a lot of the potential of the show was obliterated by the bad writing that seems to be a trademark of the franchise since ROTJ. So far, only Tony Gilroy & his team seem to have mastered the art to move a plot forward without terrible contortions and to create characters that are interesting even if you hate them.

[Thom]

10 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Wait, you mean you aren't simply crippled by FOMO over the amazing premise of an entire eight episode season devoted to how a lime-green Karen and a recent lobotomy recipient hunt the only halfway likeable character in this show and his new girl Friday across the galaxy to cover up the coverup of a coverup of events that are completely inconsequential to the setting and that almost nobody in the story cares about either?

I am shocked.  Shocked!  Well, not that shocked. 🤔

It's actually kind of impressive what a complete nonevent the whole story actually is within the greater scope of Star Wars.

I had to look up FOMO!😅 And no. If these were legacy characters, then I would be more tempted, and I'm not interested in a show centered on the Sith.

I'm more put out that Harewood had such a small role than Sol dying! The whole thing makes me really wish they had done this so far back as to be in the dawn of the High Republic. Or even before.

11 hours ago, Big s said:

Her dying and the constant reshowing of her rotting corpse were some of the only highlights of this show 😊

😑

11 hours ago, Big s said:

I have my doubts that there will be a second season.

Problem solved then!

[Seto Kaiba]

6 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

A bunch of stuffy and repressed space monks with more issues than a newsstand.

You'd think a multiple millennia-old organization that has strict emotional control as a central tenet of its philosophy because it exists in a universe where even justifiable anger or fear is literally The Power of Evil would teach its members healthier strategies for processing their emotions than "repress everything".

This whole fiasco - by which I mean both The Acolyte's plot and the Skywalker Saga as a whole - could've been avoided if the Jedi Order had some therapists on staff to assist its members with processing trauma and perhaps preemptively identifying members at risk of falling to the Dark Side.

Qimir's decision to quit the Jedi Order and join the Sith is implied (by Qimir) to be a mistreatment-induced betrayal.  Osha washed out of the Jedi Order...

Spoiler

... and later fell to the Dark Side...

... because she was never allowed to process the trauma of her sister's attempt to murder her and the deaths of literally everyone she knew after becoming a Jedi trainee.  Torbin and Kelnacca both holed up in isolation for over a decade because that was the only coping mechanism they had to deal with the guilt and trauma of their accidental roles in the Brendok massacre.  Sol displayed a frankly creepy interest in Osha from the start, and was allowed to take her as his apprentice despite having killed her mother.

 

Just now, Thom said:

I had to look up FOMO!😅 And no. If these were legacy characters, then I would be more tempted, and I'm not interested in a show centered on the Sith.

Legacy characters seems to be their hook for a season two... getting Yoda involved, and possibly other familiar faces.

[kajnrig]

6 hours ago, electric indigo said:

Final episode was the best for me. Great visuals & production design, great Qimir x Sol fight, but my favorite scene was this dialogue:
 

Then of course, a lot of the potential of the show was obliterated by the bad writing that seems to be a trademark of the franchise since ROTJ. So far, only Tony Gilroy & his team seem to have mastered the art to move a plot forward without terrible contortions and to create characters that are interesting even if you hate them.

That was my favorite scene as well, purely on the strength of that dialogue. Who's this Tony Gilroy? Is he who Star Wars fans think... I forget... Clone Wars guy everyone seems to credit with "redeeming" the prequels... Anyway, is he who Star Wars fans think that guy is?

[Thom]

13 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

You'd think a multiple millennia-old organization that has strict emotional control as a central tenet of its philosophy because it exists in a universe where even justifiable anger or fear is literally The Power of Evil would teach its members healthier strategies for processing their emotions than "repress everything".

This whole fiasco - by which I mean both The Acolyte's plot and the Skywalker Saga as a whole - could've been avoided if the Jedi Order had some therapists on staff to assist its members with processing trauma and perhaps preemptively identifying members at risk of falling to the Dark Side.

Qimir's decision to quit the Jedi Order and join the Sith is implied (by Qimir) to be a mistreatment-induced betrayal.  Osha washed out of the Jedi Order...

  Hide contents

... and later fell to the Dark Side...

... because she was never allowed to process the trauma of her sister's attempt to murder her and the deaths of literally everyone she knew after becoming a Jedi trainee.  Torbin and Kelnacca both holed up in isolation for over a decade because that was the only coping mechanism they had to deal with the guilt and trauma of their accidental roles in the Brendok massacre.  Sol displayed a frankly creepy interest in Osha from the start, and was allowed to take her as his apprentice despite having killed her mother.

 

Legacy characters seems to be their hook for a season two... getting Yoda involved, and possibly other familiar faces.

She was too old for a reason, partly because the Jedi want to train younglings when they can more easily sever familial attachments. Osha was too old and Sol, because he lied about how exacly her family died, set up the problem. Also, the Jedi are not Star Wars Vulcans. They have emotions, they are just forbidden to have families. They are 'monks with a little on the side.'😉

[azrael]

1 hour ago, kajnrig said:

Who's this Tony Gilroy? Is he who Star Wars fans think... I forget... Clone Wars guy everyone seems to credit with "redeeming" the prequels... Anyway, is he who Star Wars fans think that guy is?

Tony Gilroy is the showrunner for Andor. He also wrote Rogue One. Andor is, so far, the only show that seems to be universally 👍.

Dave Filoni, the-"Clone Wars guy everyone seems to credit with "redeeming" the prequels"-guy has made consistent but not the best shows. The Mandalorian and Ashoka were just OK (The Mandalorian started good, but has moved into just-OK-territory). But those shows are just extensions of Clone Wars and Rebels (and by extension, The Bad Batch too) so there's a built-in audience for those shows. Being the showrunner when Lucas was still in charge probably gives him the best understanding of the Star Wars-universe. But again, his stuff has been "just-OK".

[Mog]

Yeah, there’s definitely some dog-poo level stuff from the Filoni animated shows, but some of the best Star Wars moments to ever grace the screen have also come from those same shows.

[Seto Kaiba]

The Acolyte showrunner Leslye Headland credits Dave Filioni with mentoring her during the development of her series and helping her develop the setting for the story.

I'm not sure it's a coincidence that some of The Acolyte's weakest and most-maligned writing - the witches - draws heavily on Filoni's prior body of Star Wars work.

[sh9000]

I'm glad I didn't watch this series.

[azrael]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

I'm not sure it's a coincidence that some of The Acolyte's weakest and most-maligned writing - the witches - draws heavily on Filoni's prior body of Star Wars work.

Not really. The Nightsisters and these witches don't have much in common besides being Force witches. Nightsisters like to re-animate dead/inanimate stuff. The witches in this show are creating something out of nothing.

[electric indigo]

I don't care for the space witches or space whales, but IMO the true bane is Feloni continuing the George Lucas School Of Lazy Writing that might work a little better in a comic, cartoon or animation, but riddles the features with human actors with cringe moments.

Admittedly, it must be hard for the writers to do some serious work when you have to tick all those boxes first:

https://numidianprime.wordpress.com/2024/07/17/the-acolyte-continuity-breakdown/

[Big s]

5 hours ago, azrael said:

Andor is, so far, the only show that seems to be universally 👍.

Actually, it did pretty bad. For those that finished the show, it was fairly heavy on the likes. But the majority of the viewers hated the first episode or two so much that they never finished it.

[renegadeleader1]

22 minutes ago, Big s said:

Actually, it did pretty bad. For those that finished the show, it was fairly heavy on the likes. But the majority of the viewers hated the first episode or two so much that they never finished it.

It didn't help they based the show around a dead man walking. That in and of itself turned away a lot of casual viewers. Plus you can't really have tension with a character you know has to survive to appear later.

 

Solo didn't help it either being another prequel work of an established character... That was also killed off in other works prior to release

[Big s]

1 minute ago, renegadeleader1 said:

It didn't help they based the show around a dead man walking. That in and of itself turned away a lot of casual viewers. Plus you can't really have tension with a character you know has to survive to appear later.

 

Solo didn't help it either being another prequel work of an established character... That was also killed off in other works prior to release

That probably had something to do with why people didn’t care to even start Andor, but I gotta put the blame a bit more on those first few episodes. They were really really bad. If you get passed the second half of episode 3 of Andor, it’s definitely worth it. But the viewership was totally killed and had put the show in extreme jeopardy. It was only a small amount of viewers that really liked the show. Even now after word has gotten out about how good it ends up, I still haven’t met any actual people that liked it, either because they didn’t watch or just hated the beginning and never wanted to try it out.

[Seto Kaiba]

3 hours ago, azrael said:

Not really. The Nightsisters and these witches don't have much in common besides being Force witches. Nightsisters like to re-animate dead/inanimate stuff. The witches in this show are creating something out of nothing.

I went back and checked, and they do suggest that the witches are Nightsisters in the 7th episode. They don't confirm it, but the only argument they make against it is Nightsisters don't raise younglings... which Sol replies to by pointing out that they don't treat the girls like children.

They are seeing using the same kind of weapons that the Nightsisters use (the bows) and we do see them use at least two powers that the Nightsisters used in previous works, like turning themselves into mist (Mother Talzin's favorite trick) and mind control. Not using necromancy may simply be from a lack of dead bodies to use since they haven't been living on Brendok long, or they may not have been taught the skill since in The Clone Wars it was only the elder witch who actually knew how to do that.

 

38 minutes ago, Big s said:

Actually, it did pretty bad. For those that finished the show, it was fairly heavy on the likes. But the majority of the viewers hated the first episode or two so much that they never finished it.

It was well received by those who watched it all the way through. 

It just didn't have a very high total hours viewed because of all the people who dropped it after the first episode or two due to its slow start.

It makes for a sharp contrast to The Acolyte, which seems to have achieved a broadly negative reaction from most of those who watched it all the way through.

Edited July 18 by Seto Kaiba

[the_foul_fowl]

I have a pretty low bar when it comes to media, for what what it’s worth I have at least enjoyed most of the prior SW and MCU shows (yes even she-hulk!). I’d think reasonable suspension of disbelief is a basic requirement, but the leaps of logic requiring EU knowledge that was central to the plot (cortosis?), characters that don’t really make sense (rat sabotage, sol’s non-response, osha), cringeworthy moments (power of one! Two! Quimir X osha) broke the back of the proverbial camel for me. I just don’t know who this show is for.
 

I actually liked Russian doll, which was also written and directed by the showrunner, so I’m not sure what went wrong here.

 

[Thom]

19 hours ago, Big s said:

That probably had something to do with why people didn’t care to even start Andor, but I gotta put the blame a bit more on those first few episodes. They were really really bad. If you get passed the second half of episode 3 of Andor, it’s definitely worth it. But the viewership was totally killed and had put the show in extreme jeopardy. It was only a small amount of viewers that really liked the show. Even now after word has gotten out about how good it ends up, I still haven’t met any actual people that liked it, either because they didn’t watch or just hated the beginning and never wanted to try it out.

I'm wiling to give shows a chance to rev up, but the main drawback for me was that 1) it is a prequel (not terrible, in itself) and 2) the main character is dead. If he (and Jyn) had survived their movie, I would have watched it. And I would have liked R1 a lot better if they had gone with the ending that had them surviving. But that's just me.

[Big s]

4 hours ago, Thom said:

I'm wiling to give shows a chance to rev up, but the main drawback for me was that 1) it is a prequel (not terrible, in itself) and 2) the main character is dead. If he (and Jyn) had survived their movie, I would have watched it. And I would have liked R1 a lot better if they had gone with the ending that had them surviving. But that's just me.

Honestly, I didn’t really care much for Rogue one. It’s better than most Disney stuff though, but o just didn’t really like any of the characters. Especially that weird suicidal guy that gave up on his porch. I did like K-2so though. But I still liked the Andor series even though I never liked Andor himself.

I still don’t know who Manny Bothans was

14 hours ago, the_foul_fowl said:

but the leaps of logic requiring EU knowledge that was central to the plot (cortosis?),

Honestly, I found the story extremely easy to follow even though I’ve never read any of the novels, maybe a couple issues of a comic and only played one or two games and never bothered with the badly animated cg series. The cortosis thing got explained in the following episode well enough for me, but the rest of the stuff was mainly just terrible writing. I don’t think any amount of EU knowledge would help explain the actions of most of these characters like the beaver dude. It was mostly a problem that could have easily been solved by trimming this down to a single movie because there was just way too much time spent on nothing and repeating stuff that already happened and just overall delaying things

[Seto Kaiba]

15 hours ago, the_foul_fowl said:

I have a pretty low bar when it comes to media, for what what it’s worth I have at least enjoyed most of the prior SW and MCU shows (yes even she-hulk!). I’d think reasonable suspension of disbelief is a basic requirement, but the leaps of logic requiring EU knowledge that was central to the plot (cortosis?), characters that don’t really make sense (rat sabotage, sol’s non-response, osha), cringeworthy moments (power of one! Two! Quimir X osha) broke the back of the proverbial camel for me. I just don’t know who this show is for.

The Acolyte has a lot of bad writing, sure as sure, but I'll come to its defense (halfheartedly) and say that there was only really one such leap of logic and that was the whole schtick with Smilo Ren's lightsaber-proof body armor.  As others fairly pointed out to me, we'd already seen lightsaber-proof armor before in The Mandalorian, just not a kind that caused sabers to short out.  So it's more an irritating easter egg than a leap of logic IMO.

From the reports I've seen, the series has the lowest viewership of any Disney+ Star Wars series except Andor, so I'm sure the execs are asking the same question about who this was for.

 

5 hours ago, Thom said:

I'm wiling to give shows a chance to rev up, but the main drawback for me was that 1) it is a prequel (not terrible, in itself) and 2) the main character is dead. If he (and Jyn) had survived their movie, I would have watched it. And I would have liked R1 a lot better if they had gone with the ending that had them surviving. But that's just me.

Andor is as much the story of the birth of the Rebellion as it is the life of Cassian Andor.  Its slow start could definitely have been handled better, but it was necessary to show how Cassian was "making do" under the Imperial regime and the chain of events that gradually convinced him the Empire needed to be torn down by all means available even if it cost him his own life.

Rogue One's writing would not be nearly as powerful if the characters weren't sacrificing themselves for the cause.  

I'm also rather partial to the characters having a definite ending that precludes any Expanded Universe bullsh*t.  Cassian gets to have an arc that actually ends where so many of the characters in Star Wars have to be dragged back again and again until everything likeable or interesting about them has worn away and they become an unrecognizable mess like The Last Jedi Luke.

[ErikElvis]

In short I don’t really care where the story goes. The little bit of lore we had was all well and good. I do consider the series interesting.