The Acolyte - Disney Plus Star Wars Series

[Thom]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

...

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.

Luke was just done dirty! They knew audiences wanted to see a Luke reminiscent of the OT, despite the setbacks he'd suffered, but instead we're given a broken-down quitter. I think they were tying to Yoda-fy Luke, but they just it took the wrong way. Even in his exile, Yoda had still not given up, and I think Johnson missed that Luke should have been a version of Old Ben instead. It's all in the way you write them, as Luke could have been this heroic figure right from the moment Rey first met him, not the guy who casually tossed away the Youngling Slayer 9000 for an attempt at audience giggles. (I did cackle a little.)

But, if they had kept Jyn and Cassian alive at the end of R1, that would been a movie I would watch over and over again. Instead, I've only seen it all the way through the one time. I don't like the main characters being killed off, though I certainly recognize the weight inherent in that sacrifice. I'm just more for hopeful/happier endings not just for the movies but for the characters themselves.

[Big s]

5 hours ago, Thom said:

Luke was just done dirty! They knew audiences wanted to see a Luke reminiscent of the OT, despite the setbacks he'd suffered, but instead we're given a broken-down quitter. I think they were tying to Yoda-fy Luke, but they just it took the wrong way. Even in his exile, Yoda had still not given up, and I think Johnson missed that Luke should have been a version of Old Ben instead. It's all in the way you write them, as Luke could have been this heroic figure right from the moment Rey first met him, not the guy who casually tossed away the Youngling Slayer 9000 for an attempt at audience giggles. (I did cackle a little.)

This is the average Disney storyline for Male hero characters. They have to make them appear extra weak and failed and frail so their female replacement seems stronger and smarter. It’s the same thing they keep rehashing from Starwars in The Obi show and The sequels and Indiana Jones and even Willow. Even the Hulk and Nick Fury and Hawkeye felt like they were going down those paths. They literally be that storyline way too much and haven’t thought of a better way to make a really great aged wise master that hasn’t fallen into depression and self loathing.

The original Trilogy had a wise master in Ol Ben Kenobi that had some regrets, but definitely wasn’t totally depressed and filled with self hatred. He had good spirits and was an uplifting character 

[Hikuro]

According to the rumor mill which I always take with a grain of salt cause it always involves Kathleen Kennedy being fired and yet nothing happens, Bob Iger and the board at Disney are rolling out a massive termination list at Lucas Film that already included the entire marketing team for the Acolyte. While the official numbers haven't come out from the Neilson ratings it's supposed that after episode 1 viewership dropped 75% over the course of the remaining 7 episodes. Other terminations will span around the visual effects and set design departments. Supposedly this 200+ million dollar series has been another colossal failure and loss for Disney adding on to their recent years of horrible Marvel films and they're getting really tired of it, and hearing the frustration from the fans over the woke status quo its trying to produce and not really being asked for except from the woke crowds. 

Personally, I just want star wars to go back to being star wars.......go back to movies, maybe a game once in a blue moon. I don't need a bunch of mediocre 6-8 episode streaming content related shows, animated stories, and all that jazz. I want them to take their time to flesh out a really good narrative with visuals that don't look cheap anymore. I wanna sit down with a bucket of 20 dollar popcorn and a 10 dollar soda and be going, "WOW!" for the first time since the early 2000's with this universe.

[Thom]

I don't proscribe to 'woke' being the problem. As just an example, in Alien, the guys were making some pretty bad mistakes, with Ripley being a voice of reason. If it wasn't 'woke' then, why is it 'woke' now? IMO, It's bad story ideas, lack of planning and bad writing.. A good exercise is to imagine all the genders flips, Rey being a man, Kylo being a woman and so on.

Now, would it still suck? Sadly, yes.

1 hour ago, Hikuro said:

... massive termination list at Lucas Film that already included the entire marketing team for the Acolyte. ... Other terminations will span around the visual effects and set design departments....

So, three departments that have absolutely nothing to do with story, writing and acting., And two of which actually excelled..,

Edited July 20 by Thom

[pengbuzz]

11 hours ago, Thom said:

Luke was just done dirty! They knew audiences wanted to see a Luke reminiscent of the OT, despite the setbacks he'd suffered, but instead we're given a broken-down quitter. I think they were tying to Yoda-fy Luke, but they just it took the wrong way. Even in his exile, Yoda had still not given up, and I think Johnson missed that Luke should have been a version of Old Ben instead. It's all in the way you write them, as Luke could have been this heroic figure right from the moment Rey first met him, not the guy who casually tossed away the Youngling Slayer 9000 for an attempt at audience giggles. (I did cackle a little.)

But, if they had kept Jyn and Cassian alive at the end of R1, that would been a movie I would watch over and over again. Instead, I've only seen it all the way through the one time. I don't like the main characters being killed off, though I certainly recognize the weight inherent in that sacrifice. I'm just more for hopeful/happier endings not just for the movies but for the characters themselves.

I agree:

1) All they succeeded in doing to Luke mas making him a dark parody of himself and undoing most everything he had done to save the galaxy in the OT.

2) They killed off all of the Rogue One protagonists. I don't see what was so "sacrificial" about Jyn and Andor being microwaved  on a beach by the Death Star's blast. All it says to me is: "ha ha, you can't run fast enough, you suck!" They got out of the citadel, but were basically screwed by the fact they had no transport other than their feet.

You may as well put on their memorial:

"Here lies Andor Cassian and Jyn Erso (or the particles that used to be them); our car done run outta gas."

Seriously... who says they couldn't have gotten away and the rest of the universe believed they had died?

Anyways, sorry. Rant over folks. I'll hyperdrive back to my workbench now:

[electric indigo]

Really makes you wonder why they keep running into the same wall & not see the writing on it...

Here's something I stumbled upon re. Andor's numbers:

 

 

[Thom]

14 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

I agree:

1) All they succeeded in doing to Luke mas making him a dark parody of himself and undoing most everything he had done to save the galaxy in the OT.

2) They killed off all of the Rogue One protagonists. I don't see what was so "sacrificial" about Jyn and Andor being microwaved  on a beach by the Death Star's blast. All it says to me is: "ha ha, you can't run fast enough, you suck!" They got out of the citadel, but were basically screwed by the fact they had no transport other than their feet.

You may as well put on their memorial:

"Here lies Andor Cassian and Jyn Erso (or the particles that used to be them); our car done run outta gas."

Seriously... who says they couldn't have gotten away and the rest of the universe believed they had died?

Anyways, sorry. Rant over folks. I'll hyperdrive back to my workbench now:

They had Luke make some really bad, uncharacteristic choices.

And hey, cool little fighter you got there!😉

[tekering]

13 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

From the reports I've seen, the series has the lowest viewership of any Disney+ Star Wars series except Andor

ScreenRant reports viewership for The Acolyte is significantly less than half of Andor.

[Hikuro]

1 hour ago, Thom said:

I don't proscribe to 'woke' being the problem. As just an example, in Alien, the guys were making some pretty bad mistakes, with Ripley being a voice of reason. If it wasn't 'woke' then, why is it 'woke' now? IMO, It's bad story ideas, lack of planning and bad writing.. A good exercise is to imagine all the genders flips, Rey being a man, Kylo being a woman and so on.

Now, would it still suck? Sadly, yes.

So, three departments that have absolutely nothing to do with story, writing and acting., And two of which actually excelled..,

I think it's bad writing overall that makes a female character or lead look terrible. Now using Ripley as an example, guys making all the really bad mistakes, yes and no. Ripley was not a strong female character in the beginning and had to be developed, which even by the end of ALIEN she still was scared out of her mind breaking into borderline hysteria. However, the writing and acting was so good and the situation believable that helped pull it off and made her a likable character. Same with Sarah Connor....she was a no body meek woman who had to develop into what she would later become. Thus both characters after a period of time become stand up characters. 
Acolyte along with many other movies aren't following that formula really at all. They're just trying to make all these characters badasses from the get go versus focusing on development to me. 
I know they're looking at Leslye Headland right now and trying to decide if she should be allowed to continue or push it onto someone else if they want to pursue a season 2. That I think is also Dave Filoni's decision being the creative lead in Star Wars right? He's probably having chats with Iger and Kennedy about some stuff I'm sure. 

Now as for these departments, it's not just those, there are others that were involved in the project and previous projects who are getting an axe. I don't know if I heard it accurately but it sounded like a couple hundred employees or more were going to get the hammer dropped not only cause of how badly this project  and others have gone lately  but to help with cost cutting, granted they're not gonna recoup a 200 million loss by cutting employees, but it's also getting rid of supposedly weak links in the chain in hopes of doing better quality work. Bob Iger I know has said he wants to move away from streaming and go back to making movies, and I think he's right. 

Like I said before, I take a lot of this stuff with a grain of salt, every failed film suddenly shakes the core of the company and heads are supposedly gonna roll but nothing ever happens. I wouldn't be surprised in this case either. People have been clamoring for Kennedy to be fired I think since TLJ and nothings happened. 

[Big s]

Sounds like they’re firing the wrong teams. The writing and directing teams are the major problem here and in all of Disney’s current projects. 

2 hours ago, Thom said:

I don't proscribe to 'woke' being the problem. As just an example, in Alien, the guys were making some pretty bad mistakes,

I remember a certain male team mate that constantly advocated for putting the guy back in cryostasis and just going home. That one decision could’ve saved the entire crew. Ripley also was just a frail character to begin with. She may not have been super built, but she also never did anything that seemed out of character. She acted like a lady that had been stuck with a bunch of sailors, but always seemed to respect her fellow crew. Current Disney likes to take the female character that has an appearance that they’ve never done a days labor and all of a sudden they’re ultra badass. Not only that , but giving them the attitude to talk down to hero characters that have been doing far more for far longer with greater sacrifices.

as far as the sequel trilogy, I kinda give it a bit of a pass since Rey had known how to fight with pole arms and had to scavenge and live on her own in a harsh environment. I also kinda give OSHA a similar pass since she had learned dark side skills as well as Jedi skills before she was abandoned. But here they had that definitely had some extreme pandering going on. But even with that cringe, the show could’ve been saved with good writing and direction. I don’t really think the actors were at fault and I also don’t think the sets were terrible and the effects were alright for a streaming series. There was an interesting concept here, but it wasn’t flushed out well and they didn’t know how to tell an 8 episode story. 

keeping dead Jedi dead was a good concept that the other recent shows didn’t know how to do and still remains as a highlight of this show. Thank you Jecki for doing what needed to be done and allowing a meme to murder you 

Edited July 20 by Big s

[kajnrig]

Woke this, woke that. It misses the mark about as much as if I were to say it sucks because of the Nazi imagery. It's just bad writing. It's very simple.

The characters in this show aren't Mary Sues. That's the term you're looking for, "Mary Sue." Not "woke." The characters who are overpowered, whom everybody likes, who usurps the Chosen One title from the "deserving" character. Tellingly, they're a symptom of bad writing, not wokeness. They existed a long time before "woke" came into being, and they'll be plaguing fiction of all kinds long after it leaves the zeitgeist.

But the female characters here aren't that. They're not inexplicably powerful, they don't break the pre established canon, none of that. They're also just bad writing.

Edited July 20 by kajnrig

[pengbuzz]

Looking forward to the day when "woke" describes the effects of a cup of coffee.

Edited July 20 by pengbuzz

[Seto Kaiba]

12 hours ago, Thom said:

Luke was just done dirty! They knew audiences wanted to see a Luke reminiscent of the OT, despite the setbacks he'd suffered, but instead we're given a broken-down quitter. I think they were tying to Yoda-fy Luke, but they just it took the wrong way. Even in his exile, Yoda had still not given up, and I think Johnson missed that Luke should have been a version of Old Ben instead. It's all in the way you write them, as Luke could have been this heroic figure right from the moment Rey first met him, not the guy who casually tossed away the Youngling Slayer 9000 for an attempt at audience giggles. (I did cackle a little.)

It's no different to the treatment every characters from any "Expanded Universe" setting... and this phenomenon is by no means limited to Star Wars.

Canon characters are dragged back into "the action" again and again and put through more and more trauma and suffering until everything remotely likeable or interesting about them has been worn away and they're left a hollowed-out caricature of who they were when their story actually ended.  Then, and only then, are they allowed to die... and in some settings even death doesn't get them off the hook and they get dragged back to the world of the living to suffer more.  Any happy ending will be overridden as long as there is any demand for the character.

Spoiler

Like what the Star Trek Relaunch did to Captain Janeway.  She and her crew were ostracized for having missed the Dominion War, she was relieved of duty, made a suspect in a Borg-related plague outbreak, assimilated by the Borg and made into a Borg Queen to lead an attack on Earth like Picard was, killed, resurrected by the Q and told that every version of her in the multiverse was fated to die horribly, and promptly ordered to f*** off back to the Delta Quadrant.

Disney's writers knew that they had to pull a Happy Ending Override to have a story after Return of the Jedi, so that part came to the story naturally.  They just did the rest out of order so the legacy characters could pass the torch to the next generation, with every intention of going back and spending years lovingly filling in the details of all of the abuse, misery, and suffering that broke them in comics, novels, games, etc.

It's why I'm glad my boy Cassian got an end to his story that precludes any of that nonsense.  I don't have to see him dragged back again and again until everything that made him likeable or interesting is gone.  He got to go out with dignity, having sacrificed himself to struck a MASSIVE blow against the Empire that would ultimately lead to its defeat.

It's a shame The Acolyte's writers couldn't bother to show similar creative integrity and tie off the stump of their mediocre story... they just had to try to bait a sequel.

 

 

3 hours ago, Hikuro said:

According to the rumor mill which I always take with a grain of salt [...]

The grain of salt necessary to take that one seriously is so large the finale of The Last Jedi is set on it.

Godwin's Second Law is very much in play, with respect to the reliability of its source. 🤣

 

 

3 hours ago, Hikuro said:

Personally, I just want star wars to go back to being star wars.......go back to movies, maybe a game once in a blue moon. I don't need a bunch of mediocre 6-8 episode streaming content related shows, animated stories, and all that jazz. I want them to take their time to flesh out a really good narrative with visuals that don't look cheap anymore. I wanna sit down with a bucket of 20 dollar popcorn and a 10 dollar soda and be going, "WOW!" for the first time since the early 2000's with this universe.

This, I agree with.  Part of what's made Star Wars so appear to underperform is that the market has been oversaturated since Disney bought it.   With a new movie or series every year, Star Wars has lost its sense of occasion.  The release of a new Star Wars movie used to be an occasion.  A momentous event.  So much has come out for it lately that news about a new Star Wars title falls into the "another bloody" category, as in "it's another bloody Star Wars".

That oversaturation of the market is definitely hurting some of these shows.  All The Acolyte really had to sell itself on was that it wasn't set in close proximity to the original trilogy.

 

 

2 hours ago, Thom said:

So, three departments that have absolutely nothing to do with story, writing and acting., And two of which actually excelled..,

Let's be honest, it's not even the acting... it's the direction.  

You can have the best actors in the world, but if the writing and direction is garbage you're going to get a garbage performance.

 

 

47 minutes ago, tekering said:

ScreenRant reports viewership for The Acolyte is significantly less than half of Andor.

ScreenRant can't seem to make up its mind when it comes to The Acolyte's performance... though at least they acknowledge that measuring the performance of direct-to-streaming shows is an inexact science at best or completely counterintuitive at worst.

A few days ago they ran a piece using data from Reelgood which put The Acolyte at the second most successful series in terms of online engagement.  About two weeks ago they ran a piece based on the Nielsen numbers from the premiere which suggested The Acolyte was the second worst series in terms of viewership.

We'll probably have to wait for Disney's Q3 or Q4 earnings calls to learn how Disney actually views The Acolyte's performance.

 

 

1 hour ago, Hikuro said:

Acolyte along with many other movies aren't following that formula really at all. They're just trying to make all these characters badasses from the get go versus focusing on development to me. 

To be honest, I don't think this is an entirely reasonable argument.  

There's nothing necessarily wrong with having a character have experiences from before their role in the story starts.  If a character is a police officer or a soldier for instance, the audience can reasonably assume they know their way around firearms and probably know how to fight.  If they're just Joe Average, like Ellen Ripley or Sarah Connor, then yes they need to show their development into a badass because those credentials have to be built up.

It's a failure of writing, really.  You can establish that a character has qualifications without having to show them developing those qualifications.  It just has to be done in a way that it's intuitively understood by the audience.  If you don't establish that, and write a hypercompetent protagonist, there's a word for that: "Mary Sue".

I'd give The Acolyte passing marks in this area, because one of the first things we learn about Osha and the thing that makes her a suspect initially is that she was an ex-padawan who washed out of the Jedi Order.  Having established that part of her personal history makes it explicable that she knows how to fight, how to use a lightsaber, and how to make use of the Force.  Mae, for her part, is also relatively quickly established to have been training under "the Master" for quite some time so her badassery at introduction is also not unreasonable.  

[Roy Focker]

56 minutes ago, Big s said:

Sounds like they’re firing the wrong teams. The writing and directing teams are the major problem here and in all of Disney’s current projects. 

Haven't read everyone's comment yet but these are often the people who are to blame most of the time.  They too are also at the mercy of any limitations that LFL and Disney places on them. Marvel movies have different writers and directors but are still all the same because they have to work within the established formula.  Some writers and directors like those on Andor were allowed to have more freedom.  Others are clearly following the instructions. Disney tends hire talented people who do have enough pull fight them for more creative freedom.  Think how much Andor would have sucked if they were told to consult with Filoni to make sure it fits in with the rest of the shows.

[azrael]

4 hours ago, Hikuro said:

According to the rumor mill which I always take with a grain of salt cause it always involves Kathleen Kennedy being fired and yet nothing happens, Bob Iger and the board at Disney are rolling out a massive termination list at Lucas Film that already included the entire marketing team for the Acolyte.

Marketing teams are easy to layoff.

Hollywood is just participating in the same layoff-craze other industries are doing. I mentioned before streaming services were licensing more shows recently rather than making their own because it was a cost-cutting move. Cutting marketing teams, production crews for productions you aren't making anymore, etc. are just part of the process. The money just isn't coming in like it did in the 2010s. I've seen a number of comments about "where's the entertainment industry jobs?". More layoffs are coming. Disney is just participating. 'Gotta please the shareholders.

At the end of the day, the bottomline, it's always about money. ALWAYS. Anyone who says otherwise is just kidding themselves.

36 minutes ago, Roy Focker said:

Disney tends hire talented people who do have enough pull fight them for more creative freedom. 

'Gotta love the data analytic-driven Hollywood movie that you can push on relatively new or unknown writers and directors who are trying to make a name for themselves in the entertainment industry.

[Mog]

The problem with Osha is that all we know is that she’s a mechanic who had some Jedi training.

Yet not once did we see her use any sort of Force skill, other than in the last episode.  

You mean to tell me she never would use the Force to shove Mae or to defend herself during any of the events that happened in this show?

Ahsoka left the Order, but it’s not like her skills magically went away.  She still could use the Force when absolutely needed.

Again, bad writing and didn’t fully flesh out to the twins’ characters.

[Big s]

30 minutes ago, Mog said:

The problem with Osha is that all we know is that she’s a mechanic who had some Jedi training.

Yet not once did we see her use any sort of Force skill, other than in the last episode.  

You mean to tell me she never would use the Force to shove Mae or to defend herself during any of the events that happened in this show?

Ahsoka left the Order, but it’s not like her skills magically went away.  She still could use the Force when absolutely needed.

Again, bad writing and didn’t fully flesh out to the twins’ characters.

Ahsoka never really stopped using her skills. Obi on the other hand was shown to go force stupid after a while when his show started.

 

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

This, I agree with.  Part of what's made Star Wars so appear to underperform is that the market has been oversaturated since Disney bought it.   With a new movie or series every year, Star Wars has lost its sense of occasion.  The release of a new Star Wars movie used to be an occasion.  A momentous event.  So much has come out for it lately that news about a new Star Wars title falls into the "another bloody" category, as in "it's another bloody Star Wars".

That’s basically Star Wats since the beginning. There was the trilogy, a holiday special, Droids ,Ewoks and a couple of odd lost on Endor movies.

 I just don’t think we’d be complaining if the stuff was good. If they gave a good product, people would watch. 

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Like what the Star Trek Relaunch did to Captain Janeway.

We used to just know her as Chainway due to that smokers rasp

[Mog]

Oh please, I'd be totally using the Force to randomly grab stuff juuuuuust out of my reach.  I don't think the Jedi po-po is gonna come calling for something so minor and trivial.

And yet, we never see Osha do one damn thing that shows any sort of Force skills.  And then magically, she's able to Force choke Sol?  Maybe if she had mentioned unlocking something or feeling more powerful after putting on Smilo's helmet I could maybe be convinced.

But AGAIN, bad writing and not enough for us to give a damn about the characters.

[Big s]

15 minutes ago, Mog said:

Oh please, I'd be totally using the Force to randomly grab stuff juuuuuust out of my reach.

Same here, but no one in Star Wars ever does it just for fun. 

 

17 minutes ago, Mog said:

And yet, we never see Osha do one damn thing that shows any sort of Force skills

I ain’t rewatching this to see if she ever did, but it’s definitely at least implied. Her sister was force choking animals as a child and both were supposed to graduate witches academy or whatever 

[Seto Kaiba]

40 minutes ago, Mog said:

The problem with Osha is that all we know is that she’s a mechanic who had some Jedi training.

Yet not once did we see her use any sort of Force skill, other than in the last episode.  

We do see her attempt to use the Force to escape her cell on the Republic prison transport in the first episode.

Like Obi-Wan in Obi-Wan, she's out of practice and can't pull it off.

We also see her reconnecting with the Force when she spends time meditating in Smilo Ren's island hideout using his Jedi-style sensory deprivation helmet.  That was what had allowed her to have the vision of Master Sol and Mae that allowed her to track them to Brendok and scare the bejeezus out of Smilo Ren.  Presumably that reconnection with the Force is also what allowed her to start using her powers consciously in the finale.

 

40 minutes ago, Mog said:

You mean to tell me she never would use the Force to shove Mae or to defend herself during any of the events that happened in this show?

Ahsoka left the Order, but it’s not like her skills magically went away.  She still could use the Force when absolutely needed.

Again, bad writing and didn’t fully flesh out to the twins’ characters.

Osha left the Jedi Order years before the events of the series and apparently did not continue to practice using her abilities after leaving the order.  It's implied she didn't leave the order voluntarily, but was more "invited to leave" for failing some kind of test.  The memory of that was clearly a traumatic one for her and that trauma may have discouraged her from continuing to exercise her abilities.  After all, Force powers seem to depend on your confidence in them as far back as Empire... and having been told that she wasn't "Jedi material" probabyl damaged her confidence in her powers immensely.

Ahsoka, on the other hand, left the Jedi Order voluntarily in protest of the kangaroo court she was subjected to.  She hesitated to use her powers immediately after her departure from the Order, but never really stopped as we see in The Clone Wars and Tales of.  Ahsoka needed to keep using her powers to survive once the Inquisition was onto her, so that kept her in practice.

That specific aspect isn't bad writing... it's two different characters who left the Jedi Order under very different experiences living very different lives.

 

 

3 minutes ago, Big s said:

That’s basically Star Wats since the beginning. There was the trilogy, a holiday special, Droids ,Ewoks and a couple of odd lost on Endor movies.

Looking at the franchise's history, there were plenty of "gap years" there... '79, '81, '82, and everything from '87-'99...

Though those early side titles do seem to slip under the radar, perhaps because of how dreadful they were.

 

3 minutes ago, Big s said:

 I just don’t think we’d be complaining if the stuff was good. If they gave a good product, people would watch.

"Good" is a subjective assessment.  As the saying goes, "one man's trash is another man's treasure" or "There's no accounting for taste."

"Commercially successful" is an objective assessment, but does not account for actual enjoyment.

I think, to an extent, the infrequent nature of Star Wars releases shielded them from a lot of criticism they would otherwise have received.  Now that there's a new Star Wars title coming out every year, we're not getting that honeymoon phase where fans are just overjoyed to have more Star Wars and they're examining things critically from the beginning.

[Roy Focker]

Osha had some training with the Witches and with the Jedi. I'm guessing that her abilities didn't go away they just were never that strong. Mae's powers were better when they were kids because she accessed them through her dark side. Osha was the "good" twin and wasn't able to unlock her true potential. If they are the same person Osha got the more passive, timid and self-doubting traits that hindered her abilities. 

It wasn't until the last the last episode when she let the hate flow through her that unlocked her abilities. Like Yoda says the dark side is quicker and easier. 

[Thom]

4 hours ago, Hikuro said:

I think it's bad writing overall that makes a female character or lead look terrible. Now using Ripley as an example, guys making all the really bad mistakes, yes and no. Ripley was not a strong female character in the beginning and had to be developed, which even by the end of ALIEN she still was scared out of her mind breaking into borderline hysteria. However, the writing and acting was so good and the situation believable that helped pull it off and made her a likable character...

I think she was a strong character, but she deferred on crucial decisions* to her captain. Both times it was on her shoulders, when Dallas was off ship and after he had died, she was making the calls, even though there were very few at that point to make. Her arc though Alien/Aliens was done very well.

3 hours ago, Big s said:

...I remember a certain male team mate that constantly advocated for putting the guy back in cryostasis and just going home. That one decision could’ve saved the entire crew. Ripley also was just a frail character to begin with....

Yeah but *when Dallas was off ship and trying to get a sick crewman an alien pathogen on board, she was steadfast and said no. Now, that cold be strength of character, or just clinging to the Book, but in either case the story would have ended right there.

3 hours ago, Big s said:

...

keeping dead Jedi dead was a good concept that the other recent shows didn’t know how to do and still remains as a highlight of this show. Thank you Jecki for doing what needed to be done and allowing a meme to murder you 

Why do you make me laugh at poor dead Jeki?!?!

3 hours ago, kajnrig said:

...

The characters in this show aren't Mary Sues. That's the term you're looking for, "Mary Sue." Not "woke." The characters who are overpowered, whom everybody likes, who usurps the Chosen One title from the "deserving" character. Tellingly, they're a symptom of bad writing, not wokeness. They existed a long time before "woke" came into being, and they'll be plaguing fiction of all kinds long after it leaves the zeitgeist.

But the female characters here aren't that. They're not inexplicably powerful, they don't break the pre established canon, none of that. They're also just bad writing.

Exactly.

3 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

...

Disney's writers knew that they had to pull a Happy Ending Override to have a story after Return of the Jedi, so that part came to the story naturally.  They just did the rest out of order so the legacy characters could pass the torch to the next generation, with every intention of going back and spending years lovingly filling in the details of all of the abuse, misery, and suffering that broke them in comics, novels, games, etc.

...

Which just shows poor decision making for the plot. It was thirty years after, there was no need to poison-pill the OT's legacy or its characters. Life does go on after the credits role, but far too often writers go for the low-hanging fruit of drama, such as Han and Leia being estranged and Luke not willing to fight for the Good in his nephew the same way he did for his father. Luke done dirty!

3 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Let's be honest, it's not even the acting... it's the direction.  

You can have the best actors in the world, but if the writing and direction is garbage you're going to get a garbage performance.

Too true! Many great actors in the prequel trilogy, and many many,  many, wooden acting as a result of bad directing!

2 hours ago, Mog said:

The problem with Osha is that all we know is that she’s a mechanic who had some Jedi training.

Yet not once did we see her use any sort of Force skill, other than in the last episode.  

You mean to tell me she never would use the Force to shove Mae or to defend herself during any of the events that happened in this show?

Ahsoka left the Order, but it’s not like her skills magically went away.  She still could use the Force when absolutely needed.

Again, bad writing and didn’t fully flesh out to the twins’ characters.

Well, we do see her struggle trying to use it, similar to Obi-wan in his series, but I put that more because of an emotional block. I would theorize that she knew the darkness within her, but was fighting it until she learned Sol killed mother. 

 

[Big s]

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

"Good" is a subjective assessment.  As the saying goes, "one man's trash is another man's treasure" or "There's no accounting for taste."

Good may be subjective, but this show definitely wasn’t that. It’s gonna be tough to find anyone truly sad if this doesn’t get a follow up season. 

[Thom]

5 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

  Hide contents

Like what the Star Trek Relaunch did to Captain Janeway.  She and her crew were ostracized for having missed the Dominion War, she was relieved of duty, made a suspect in a Borg-related plague outbreak, assimilated by the Borg and made into a Borg Queen to lead an attack on Earth like Picard was, killed, resurrected by the Q and told that every version of her in the multiverse was fated to die horribly, and promptly ordered to f*** off back to the Delta Quadrant.

 

Not having read the Relaunch books, I have to say, I like how that handled her in Prodigy much better!

[Seto Kaiba]

2 hours ago, Thom said:

Which just shows poor decision making for the plot. It was thirty years after, there was no need to poison-pill the OT's legacy or its characters. Life does go on after the credits role, but far too often writers go for the low-hanging fruit of drama, such as Han and Leia being estranged and Luke not willing to fight for the Good in his nephew the same way he did for his father. Luke done dirty!

To be frank, I don't think it shows poor decisionmaking on the part of the writers.

What I think it shows is that Star Wars is inherently self-limiting at the conceptual level.  

Star Wars is, at its core, a straightforward and simplistic tale of Good vs. Evil.  The noble and selfless Rebel Alliance rising in opposition to the unjust oppression of the evil Galactic Empire.  The Jedi, guardians of peace and justice, rising to oppose the insidious corruption and cruelty of the Sith.  Without an oppressive Evil Empire for the scrappy underdogs of Good to rail against, there isn't a story.  Return of the Jedi saw the Empire defeated and Emperor slain, meaning the story was over.  The Forces of Good had triumphed over Evil.  In order to continue the story, they needed to override the happy ending and bring back the Evil Empire in some capacity either as the return of the old Evil Empire or the rise of a new Evil Empire.  That meant that overriding the happy ending of Return of the Jedi and choosing between two awful options: set the story after the original trilogy characters died and reveal that they were unable to secure a lasting peace for the galaxy, or bring them back to pass the torch to the new generation of heroes and have to explain that the heroes who saved the galaxy in the original trilogy tried and failed to prevent the return of the Evil Empire.

Bringing back those original trilogy characters inherently meant we were going to get the jaded, miserable, burnout versions of them who'd spent most of their lives on the fight against the resurgent Empire.  People who'd lived with decades of the most corrosive stress imaginable.

They didn't do Luke dirty, they did Luke realistic.

You see shades of this in The Acolyte too.  It had to be a Good vs. Evil narrative so we have the Sith in place of the Empire, and the Brendok Jedi are all traumatized after fighting a Dark Side-worshipping cult and not only fail to prevent the rise of the Sith but actively facilitate it through their own trauma-influenced decisions.

 

2 hours ago, Thom said:

Too true! Many great actors in the prequel trilogy, and many many,  many, wooden acting as a result of bad directing!

I'd assume in The Acolyte as well.

Surely these actors could've provided a more compelling performance if everyone but Manny Jacinto hadn't been given dialog that required them to act like they were all coming down off a heavy dose of dental anesthetic.

 

 

1 hour ago, Big s said:

Good may be subjective, but this show definitely wasn’t that. It’s gonna be tough to find anyone truly sad if this doesn’t get a follow up season. 

Buddy, I don't even have to leave my house to find someone who would... it ain't me, but people who actually like The Acolyte do exist.

I can't fathom what about the series she likes, but she does.

 

1 hour ago, Thom said:

Not having read the Relaunch books, I have to say, I like how that handled her in Prodigy much better!

Do yourself a favor and continue to not have read them.  It's for the best. 👍

[Scyla]

I think a big problem (and I stated as much when the Acolyte trailer was released) is that the writers/producers can’t distance themselves from the Lucas movies.

For the new Disney Star Wars movies I think it would have been fine if the setting was in a far off sector of the Galaxy far far away where communications are unstable.

 The Senate sent Ben Solo as an envoy to explore some undisclosed accident or rumors that the Empire/Sith is reforming.

Hab Solo as a New Republic general, Luke as his master and head of new Jedi order and Leia as a Senator could give him a send off as he boards the ship to link the new generation to the old one and Ben is on his merry way to find his own adventure. I think everyone would be happy with that.

Instead they build a story around them that was set up to fail at least a portion of the fans.

And I don’t say that you can’t tell a story about Luke were he ends up in a position like in The Last Jedi but you need a dedicated movie(s) for that to believably tell that story for long time fans.

Same with the Acolyte. By linking it directly to Yoda, Ki-Adi-Mundi and the Sith they invite easy criticism by social media influencers that seem to have built a career around criticizing Disney Star Wars.

Just let it go…

… let it go, let it gooooo 

Edited July 21 by Scyla

[Thom]

I can see the criticism of the OG crew being 'broken down' or 'miserable.' We all have our highs and lows, and the lows are seen as far more 'dramatic.' (a far too over-used trope, IMO.) Two little changes could have fixed that. For Han and Leia, they should have had them still together and happy, but with Han off not just looking for the Falcon but also for any news about Ben/Kylo and Luke. Leia is still a General having retired from the Senate for the same reasons she did in the movie. And the second, Luke is in hiding/thought dead, but he's not really hiding, as he is in secret communications with Leia and is more working behind the scenes to find a way to counter Kylo's influence, and trying to find out anything he can about the mysterious leader of the First Order who just seemed to appear out of nowhere.

Rey and Finn's story is pretty much unchanged, though when Rey is captured we hear a whispering voice coaching her in her mental confrontations with Kylo Ren. An underlying plot could have been Snoke trying to pit Rey against Kylo, as both a test of his apprentice, or even as a replacement for he feels her strength is equal to Kylo's? However, after Kylo kills Han (which Ford had wanted since Empires) he is solidified as Snoke's Apprentice, Leia is heartbroken (drama) and all seems lost. Then Rey faces Kylo in the woods, and the voice we hear now is not Snoke's but Luke's. Luke felt Han's death and his attention is now focused away from Snoke, which is a good and bad thing as Snoke/Kylo now become more aware of him and that he is not dead or cowering somewhere.

Good guys rally and destroy Starkiller Base!

Also, the beam from Starkiller Base hits just one planet, not several, but it is still the one currently hosting the Senate, and the beam is a wormhole weapon, neatly short-cutting shooting half way across the known galaxy! The power to open the wormhole is powered from the planet's core.

 

Of course, reading that, a number of points have been raised before as explaining certain events, but the general gist is the same.

 

 

Edited July 21 by Thom

[Seto Kaiba]

3 hours ago, Scyla said:

I think a big problem (and I stated as much when the Acolyte trailer was released) is that the writers/producers can’t distance themselves from the Lucas movies.

[...]

Instead they build a story around them that was set up to fail at least a portion of the fans.

Why would they have thought they needed to?

Remember, Disney bought Star Wars lock, stock, and barrel.  Even when they encountered pushback from Star Wars fans after announcing their plans to dismiss the old Expanded Universe they didn't have any reason to think fans would reject their plans for the sequel trilogy, in no small part because those plans closely mirrored things which had been done in the Expanded Universe the fans were so ardently defending.  The New Republic was beset by the resurgent remnants of the Galactic Empire and their seemingly endless supply of planet-killing superweapons, Han Solo's son falls to the Dark Side and as a result Luke ends up living in exile, and so on.  Disney probably thought they were serving up a virtual "Best Hits" collection of Star Wars EU tropes as a very safe sort of sequel.

When that didn't work, they tried to branch out and do something new and unexpected.  When that didn't work, they resorted to writing by committee out of desperation in order to try to please everyone or at least make the largest possible number of people minimally unhappy.

The Acolyte is more of that same thought process.  The slightly tone-deaf "Let's give the people more of what they've already told us they love" followed by the realization that rote repetition of tropes doth not a story make.

 

3 hours ago, Scyla said:

Same with the Acolyte. By linking it directly to Yoda, Ki-Adi-Mundi and the Sith they invite easy criticism by social media influencers that seem to have built a career around criticizing Disney Star Wars.

It was another well-intentioned but ill-considered attempt to "give the people what they want".

They knew their audience liked the prequel-era Jedi because the viewership numbers for The Clone Wars were so good.  So they did a story set before the prequel era that could feature more of the prequel-style Jedi... warts and all.  Of course, that meant having someone to tie The Acolyte to the prequel era and thus the handful of famously old Jedi who could plausibly have been around at that point to establish direct continuity.  It's just painfully unfortunate it was the two worst possible characters for the job: Mr. "The Sith have been extinct for a millennium" who created all the fuss in the first place and the living embodiment of the Jedi order's decay into a Lawful Stupid alignment.

The tangible connection to the prequel era was a good idea from a narrative standpoint.  The selection of prominent alien Jedi masters who general audiences could be counted on to recognize from previous works is just so narrow (basically just Yoda, Ki-Adi Mundi, and Plo Koon) that the self-destructive choice was practically made for them.

(Gotta hand it to Master Mundi tho... even a hundred years before the Clone Wars he was still concerned about attacks on wookiees.  The man is nothing if not consistent.)

 

3 hours ago, Scyla said:

Just let it go…

… let it go, let it gooooo 

Does that make Kylo Ren a Disney princess... or does it make Elsa a Sith Lord?  Since she has ice powers, should we be calling her "Cryo Ren"?

These are the real question that keep the philosophers up at night. 😵‍💫

 

[Scyla]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Why would they have thought they needed to?

Remember, Disney bought Star Wars lock, stock, and barrel.  Even when they encountered pushback from Star Wars fans after announcing their plans to dismiss the old Expanded Universe they didn't have any reason to think fans would reject their plans for the sequel trilogy, in no small part because those plans closely mirrored things which had been done in the Expanded Universe the fans were so ardently defending.  The New Republic was beset by the resurgent remnants of the Galactic Empire and their seemingly endless supply of planet-killing superweapons, Han Solo's son falls to the Dark Side and as a result Luke ends up living in exile, and so on.  Disney probably thought they were serving up a virtual "Best Hits" collection of Star Wars EU tropes as a very safe sort of sequel.

When that didn't work, they tried to branch out and do something new and unexpected.  When that didn't work, they resorted to writing by committee out of desperation in order to try to please everyone or at least make the largest possible number of people minimally unhappy.

The Acolyte is more of that same thought process.  The slightly tone-deaf "Let's give the people more of what they've already told us they love" followed by the realization that rote repetition of tropes doth not a story make.

 

It was another well-intentioned but ill-considered attempt to "give the people what they want".

They knew their audience liked the prequel-era Jedi because the viewership numbers for The Clone Wars were so good.  So they did a story set before the prequel era that could feature more of the prequel-style Jedi... warts and all.  Of course, that meant having someone to tie The Acolyte to the prequel era and thus the handful of famously old Jedi who could plausibly have been around at that point to establish direct continuity.  It's just painfully unfortunate it was the two worst possible characters for the job: Mr. "The Sith have been extinct for a millennium" who created all the fuss in the first place and the living embodiment of the Jedi order's decay into a Lawful Stupid alignment.

The tangible connection to the prequel era was a good idea from a narrative standpoint.  The selection of prominent alien Jedi masters who general audiences could be counted on to recognize from previous works is just so narrow (basically just Yoda, Ki-Adi Mundi, and Plo Koon) that the self-destructive choice was practically made for them.

(Gotta hand it to Master Mundi tho... even a hundred years before the Clone Wars he was still concerned about attacks on wookiees.  The man is nothing if not consistent.)

 

Does that make Kylo Ren a Disney princess... or does it make Elsa a Sith Lord?  Since she has ice powers, should we be calling her "Cryo Ren"?

These are the real question that keep the philosophers up at night. 😵‍💫

 

In my opinion what people want is well written, well produced, well thought out, well acted movies/tv-shows.

If they don’t get that, they start nagging about minuscule little details because the overarching story is bollocks.

I don’t know what the reception of ESB was (besides people trowing a fit about Darth Vaders revelation) but I don’t assume that they nagged about how Luke had a chance of possibly defeating Darth Vader because we see him training with Yoda for five minutes on screen.

To me this is what Disney doesn’t understand, that the baseline of your project needs to be good (or they understand it and can’t deliver) otherwise people won’t like it.

Especially with a franchise that is now contaminated for the next decade.

If they want to get out of that quagmire that they produced and earn money (and fandom goodwill) Disney needs to produce quality content.

Then they can sprinkle whatever amount of  Star Wars nostalgia they deem adequate on top (or their woke agenda if you believe in such stuff ).

[Big s]

5 hours ago, Scyla said:

In my opinion what people want is well written, well produced, well thought out, well acted movies/tv-shows.

Completely agree here, although decent effects help here as well.

 

5 hours ago, Scyla said:

If they don’t get that, they start nagging about minuscule little details because the overarching story is bollocks.

They’re gonna complain even when it’s great. I remember watching Top Gun with a friend that was all into everything aviation and even though he loved the film, he couldn’t stop complaining about the inaccuracies while watching. The one I remember most had to do with the direction of the throttle when using the afterburners. He would bring that scene up whenever someone talked about the movie. 
I kinda feel like even if we get the greatest starwars event, it will still have something that fans will complain about. At least they won’t complain about it being the worst thing they ever saw.

[Seto Kaiba]

7 hours ago, Scyla said:

In my opinion what people want is well written, well produced, well thought out, well acted movies/tv-shows.

While that certainly is no hot take, things like "well written", "well thought out", "well acted", and "well produced" are all qualitative judgments and therefore subjective. 

This is the problem I see with almost every argument against Disney Star Wars. People say that they need to objectively do better in an aspect of the creative process which is judged almost entirely in subjective terms. It's a nonsense argument on the face of it.

There are some low level objective criteria for things like "well written", but they are very basic and only really serve to separate the completely incoherent from everything else. The kind of basic rules of storytelling that you would learn in an introduction to creative writing class... and those rules are not even the same for every genre, or every period of history.

 

7 hours ago, Scyla said:

If they don’t get that, they start nagging about minuscule little details because the overarching story is bollocks.

Fans are going to do that anyway. Analyzing all of the little details is just something fans do.

 

7 hours ago, Scyla said:

To me this is what Disney doesn’t understand, that the baseline of your project needs to be good (or they understand it and can’t deliver) otherwise people won’t like it.

"Good" is subjective. 

I'm sure Disney understands very well that the foundation of their project needs to be something that audiences will enjoy. They've been in this industry far too long to not have a very good grasp of that very simple reality of the arts. 

The very basic reality that this argument trips over is that "Good" is wholly subjective. It's entirely possible for two people to look at exactly the same thing and have two different qualitative opinions of how good it is. Disney surely thought that the story they had come up with for the sequel trilogy was going to be something that the vast majority of their audience would say was good. They misjudged what the audience wanted. I'm sure that the creators of The Acolyte believed they were bringing a good show to TV. The majority of the audience didn't agree, but there is a dissenting minority who think the show is good and because that qualitative assessment is inherently subjective neither side is wrong.

What Disney has failed to do with Star Wars is to understand its audience well enough to properly judge what the audience will consider "good". It does not help that the audience they are trying to understand is so huge that there is no general consensus to be had.

 

7 hours ago, Scyla said:

Especially with a franchise that is now contaminated for the next decade.

If they want to get out of that quagmire that they produced and earn money (and fandom goodwill) Disney needs to produce quality content.

I'm not going to get into anything that wanders into Godwin's second law territory, but the property continues to make stupendous amounts of dosh despite the drama... so in purely business terms I'm not sure they have to do anything except keep the Star Wars assembly line going.

It would help them creatively if they could develop stories that are more in tune with what their audience wants, but this is a property that's too big to fail so it's just going to continue to make money regardless because fans will still hate watch what they don't like and some will surely buy the merchandise just because of FOMO. Not to mention they will continue to reach new audiences, some of whom will surely enjoy the stories they are telling.

[Big s]

18 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

"Good" is subjective. 

I don’t really think good as that subjective. There are people that are easy to please and will enjoy the Acolyte despite its manny flaws. But those people don’t understand that there’s a difference between good and being able to enjoy something bad. There are bad things I totally love. I love Troma movies, but I will never say they’re good movies. They’re terrible and there’s nothing subjective about it, but I love watching them. There are surprisingly people that actually love Yoko Ono, but those people also need to understand that they’re enjoying something bad. Joy is what’s truly subjective and it’s absolutely ok to enjoy something that’s bad.

[tekering]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

the property continues to make stupendous amounts of dosh despite the drama...

As we've already established, that's a very difficult assertion to prove these days; in the case of Star Wars, however, there are some unique indicators that suggest otherwise.

Like the Toy Story or Cars franchises, merchandise is the primary revenue stream for Star Wars.  Streaming viewership, box-office receipts and even theme park attendance may fail to turn a profit, but as long as retail sales remain strong, the brand will remain a success overall.

Any Star Wars collector can tell you how badly Disney has damaged the brand simply by acknowledging how little merchandise is being produced and sold these days, compared to the glut of product available in 2015 (and furthermore, how much of that product ends up in the clearance bins and discount stores).  Marvel is suffering as well, but not nearly as badly as Star Wars; Hasbro has all-but given up on marketing toys to kids, and is instead focusing on selling directly to Star Wars collectors online instead.  Major retailers aren't buying, an obvious indicator that the property is in fact losing stupendous amounts of dosh.

[Big s]

1 hour ago, tekering said:

Any Star Wars collector can tell you how badly Disney has damaged the brand simply by acknowledging how little merchandise is being produced and sold these days, compared to the glut of product available in 2015 (and furthermore, how much of that product ends up in the clearance bins and discount stores).  Marvel is suffering as well, but not nearly as badly as Star Wars; Hasbro has all-but given up on marketing toys to kids, and is instead focusing on selling directly to Star Wars collectors online instead.  Major retailers aren't buying, an obvious indicator that the property is in fact losing stupendous amounts of dosh.

There’s not too many things in the acolyte that are toy worthy. Most of the characters were the dullest of the dull and the ships really were mostly non existent and that one little barely a droid and a cute fuzzy thing that wasn’t cute or even likable or particularly sane. And a wookie lacking brushable hair.

If Bandai did a character kit of Smilo, I might pick it up just for fun, and practice metal weathering 

[Chowser]

I figured they were trying to "cannonize" their thicker hilts that they sell at the workshop at disney world with the larger lightsabers.

 

I was at Disney awhile ago at the shop with one of my neopixel installed sabers with smooth swing.  I was asked to leave.  lol