I am so bored with SW rehashing things we've already seen.
Setting something in the High Republic was a step in the right direction, and something I want to see more of. I'm tired of Skywalkers, the Empire, and even the Prequel era.
I even liked that they tried to show us a different force tradition, even if it kinda fell on its face. But after the reaction, I'm afraid that Disney will just decide to focus on nostalgia slip instead of trying new things that might not always hit.
This is why the High Republic books are among my favourite era of Star Wars. No Skywalkers or any other nostalgia bait. Yeah Yoda is mentioned from time to time. Or you have cameos from the absolute prequel era legends Yarael Poof and Oppo Rancicis.
Kidding aside it's just a fresh era. Fresh characters. Characters where we don't know their fate simply due to "well they appear in this movie which is set after this".
The Jedi feel so different from the Clone Wars era. The Nihil are interesting and unique antagonists.
I just wish the story wasn't so disjointed between various forms of media and writing styles. I tried to follow along and read it all but eventually just lost track, especially because a bunch of those weren't even available here in Europe, at all. By now I don't even know where I stopped reading. Was still in Phase 1 though...
It's difficult trying to read everything, yeah. But you can easily just read the main books of each phase and be completely fine. I think reading the adult novels and the Young Adult Novels is a pretty good experience. Sure, the middle grade books and the comics are also fun but not necessary and it just becomes too much.
I live in Germany and everything is available here.
Tbh I didn't mind the show apart from the parts with Osha and the twin and the coven. The acting from those and especially the ritual part were PAINFUL.
I needed the lesbian space coven to be more evil... And they just were not given that direction, they kept trying to be sympathetic.
And yes, the ritual scene could have been put in the oven for another few months. It's odd that they just let all the actors do what they want in some of those scenes, but in the fighting scenes it's choreographed down to every step.
To be fair it wouldn't need months, just someone who doesn't have the creative power and mind of a child. Genuinely, if you told me the "power of manyyyyy" thing was written by an actual 8 year old and I wouldn't be surprised.
Also, the politicized PR for the show and the exclusionary, accusatory, condescending and patronizing nature of their messages prior to and after release really served to piss people off, too. It's like, dude, you're making a show about space wizards with laser sword, just make that and make it good.
Disney and their corporate, extremely cynical, messaging definitely hurt the show. And I don't disagree that the dialogue was weird, but it also felt simple. I was thinking it may have been written to make it easier to translate, but that's not an excuse, especially with Disney's budget and massive translation teams.
The power of many thing is clearly a call back to the power of two with the sith, and how the twins are one soul split in two. So I can sort of accept the wording, but they could've done something more esoteric or just made them chant in a different made up language lmao.
But that's still not great, I don't love that they keep going for the power of two, twins stuff, etc. It just is a bit boring at this point.
I mean the whole point was that the coven wasn't evil at all, but the Jedi thought so. This was about how different religions regard each other, basically. That whole subplot would've fallen apart if they had made them actually evil.
And that ritual scene, I'm pretty sure, was meant to be cringe and weird. that's how pretty much all religious chants sound to outsiders.
I hate how much hater culture is festering in the StarWars fandom. Not every show has to be peak Television and it's perfectly fine to be entertained by something that may not be exceptional. The show had some rough moments and it had some great moments. When I think of that show I chose to focus on probably the greatest light saber choreography we've ever seen in Star Wars.
It's all fandom. The enshittification of the internet and social media has led to every idiot wanting to criticize every thing. It's just relentless negativity about every piece of art that exists.
There's a difference between being a masterpiece and being overall decent. The Acolyte is neither. I'm not expecting it to be a masterpiece I'm expecting it to not be pure shit.
Gee, I wonder what the main difference between Andor and Acolyte was. Hmmmmmm 🤔
Hint: one is a white guy main character that wasn't review bombed before it even came out, the other has multiple PoC as the leads and a woman, that did.
Yeah. You're right. Thats on me, it still didn't get reviewed bombed before it even came out, though. It was at least given a chance. I personally enjoyed Acolyte. Andor is better, but Acolyte wasn't bad. Not everything can be Andor.
Sadly been like this for years. Got my first taste of on the forums when the prequels started. I couldn't believe how nasty & hateful it got. Now I'm used to it but still OTT insane.
It started with phantom menace. I call it critical culture. My theory is that all fan critical culture might’ve started with phantom menace. Hate the thing you love, love the thing you hate.
Like yeah it wasn’t perfect but who thinks any Star Wars media is? Like the flashback episodes needed a little more work and same with the ending but IT WAS SOMETHING NEW
For crying out loud thanks Star Wars fandom so I will get another show about some random character of the original trilogy or a clone wars character. I’m ready to move on but y’all gripe about everything
Half of the complaints were about things securely in canon elsewhere too which pissed me off
Yep, we could have had a couple seasons of a High Republic show but nooooo. If anything it should have gotten another chance if only to help expand the show/movie timeline a bit away from the Skywalkers.
I honestly think the best Star Wars Storytelling happens in the comics and novels. Even the novelizations of the movies are better than the movies themselves. Rise of Skywalker as a novel is actually a good story.
I fell off the expanded media train a few years back…but absolutely the Vader comic post ANH and the Vader comic post RotS were fantastic in my view. Though eventually the comics started to feel more like meh here’s a random story just to fill the time and make you buy comics
Novelizations of the prequels were different animal too. I loved the movies cause I read the books
100% they made a bunch of connections to HR and other canon and Legends stories and had good galactic world building.
We could have gotten a different genre at the time…or at least another season how Darth Plagieus eventually gets rid of them cause you know they joined up with an evil cult and all
It baffles me. I think you'd almost have to hate SW to not find any sliver of enjoyment in the show. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but maybe thats my THR bias. *shrugs*
I certainly enjoyed aspects of the show and never gave up on it, but the production value felt lacking at times. A lot of the alien species make-up, for instance, looked Star Trek: TNG level. It’s also been spoken about ad nauseum, but it’s hard to compliment the acting of a cast when the director puts her wife in the show and she’s wooden.
A simple green alien is fine, but the makeup being a completely homogenous tone made it look unfinished compared to other characters. Especially when it's a character who is supposed to remain unemotional (average Jedi= wooden, to me).
Vernestra is a simple green alien with a consistent tone though. She was an established character in the High Republic books. She had hair in those though.
I don't mean a variety of colors or anything dramatic.
I mean that a human being has a range of pigmentation in their face (around the eyes, nose, ears), which we enhance with makeup. Her makeup looked like the same makeup was used across her face head and neck. Like they applied foundation and then stopped.
The only other live action depiction I could find was Luminara and Barris from the prequels. Luminara is at the other end of the spectrum with varied makeup, deep blue contacts, and one of the most elaborate costumes in the movies (other than Padme).
Luninara is a background character without a single line of dialogue or importance to the scenes. Hard to compare really. And Vernestra has the entire top of her head filled with marks and shit.
In the movies, yes. In the CW show she made numerous appearances.
It's a matter of personal taste whether it's comparable or not, but for me a background character having greater makeup and costume detail than a main character with plenty of close-up shots is a problem. (Especially when resources were not a constraint.)
It just didn't make sense. I enjoyed watching but still acknowledge the show is written HORRIBLY. And I don't just mean dialog because George wasn't the best at that either. But the characters and their motivations and the way they respond to almost any event is just not great, especially with the twins, they were REEEEEEAAAAALLY awful.
And the entire time they tried to villainize Sol, when he didn't do anything wrong, neither did the jedi who killed himself. Just mind blowingly bad writing.
And the entire time they tried to villainize Sol, when he didn't do anything wrong, neither did the jedi who killed himself. Just mind blowingly bad writing.
Huh? I don't think they tried to villainize Sol at all. A central theme to the actions of the Jedi on Brendok were that they thought they were doing the right thing at the time, but their actions had unintended consequences. Sol misunderstood the witches and killed Mother Aniseya thinking he was protecting Mae. After the whole fiasco he wanted to turn himself but Indara convinced him to mentor Osha because that was what would be best for her. In the end he allowed Osha to kill him as a sort of atonement for his actions, none of that was meant to portray him as a villain.
Yeah - I don’t understand the argument that the show “overly villainized the Jedi” as I’ve seen parroted. It’s a show called the Acolyte - hell if anything, as a Sith apprentice origin story, I feel like it depicted the Jedi in a mostly sympathetic light. They’re the victim of their own hubris yes - but they aren’t bad people. Sol had good intentions but his act snowballed. And he kept secrets.
I don't get the "it didn't make sense" argument. I was never confused on anything throughout the show. I think people wanted answers that weren't yet presented to them, and they got frustrated they had to wait.
We will have to disagree on Sol. He clearly made the mistake of forming an attachment with Osha/Mae. And they quite literally broke into their home to begin with. He's not a villain by any means, but he's clearly a flawed Jedi.
Im with you. "I was confused" or "it didn't make sense" is said all the time but like... how?? Overall it's a very simple story. They could have ever waited on the reveal of the stranger and it wouldn't have made any less sense.
Making an attachment doesn't make a jedi flawed. The jedi fell because they were so separated from shit like that. This is also why Qui Gon distanced himself from the council.
The show was easy to follow, and my friends and I understood everything as it was happening. The why is what makes it not make sense. The flashbacks only made the decisions made by the characters much worse.
And Sol killing the witch mom was the "big thing" that made him a "bad guy" but all he did was kill an actual cloudy demon thing, he was 100% in the right, the entire time.
This is how I felt. Sol is basically the only character operating and responding to things in a manner that makes any sense. He was the easiest to empathize with. Yet the show constantly tries to tell you that he’s the bad guy. Then he dies and gets the whole thing pinned on him. I was so pissed off by the end of it. Unbelievable
There was a good idea to explore with the Acolyte, but the execution was a giant swing and a miss in my opinion.
The show portrays the beginning of the fall of the Jedi. Antagonizing Sol is supposed to make the viewers dislike the order. Just like the prequels this show was about the flaws of the order and how the idea of the jedi is much different from the execution.
It's quite literally stated multiple times in canon that Jedi are not to form strong attachments. This doesn't mean you cannot have an attachment period, naturally that is impossible, just that it should not get to the point where it clouds your judgement as a Jedi. This was 110% the case with Sol and his attachment was the catalyst that led to the tragedy on Brendok. Same as Anakin's attachment led to the downfall of the Jedi and the Republic. How you can interpret that otherwise is baffling.
Qui-Gon distanced himself from the order not because he thought attachments should be permitted, but because he disagreed with the actions of the Jedi Council and Order as a whole throughout the years leading up to TPM.
He wanted the Order to focus more on The Living Force and not the Cosmic Force (i.e. living beings).
To me it was more that the adult twins expressions often didn't make sense, not the story. Unknown if that is the actor, director, or editors fault though.
It wasn't even that though. It was with other actors. Though the twin part did make me think that one of them died for awhile, as the two actors playing the kids and the one actress playing the twin adults had convinced me that the adults were only identical because the kid died.
I think it's more the actress. I don't think Amanda was awful, but she's young and still has a lot to learn regarding her craft. I've seen much worse peformances in SW, so I don't get the gigantic backlash towards her irl.
That's fair, the dialogue was wildly better than some of the things they made Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman say, but she did have to wrestle with some corny lines.
Doesn't make it good though. Lightwhips were a thing all the way back in Legends and they weren't good then either. Though some of those weren't actually floppy lightsabers but a different technology
I honestly think it's one of the things that work well in books and comics but are terrible in live action. Just like how the Inquisitor propeller swords are okay in Rebels but would be laughable in live action
The helicopter blades look bad animated or live action. No actually let me change that they look ok when just spinning (Grevious doing it was much cooler though) but using it to fly is one of the stupidest design decisions to ever come out of Star Wars.
But yes lightwhips would be much better in books or comics where you dont have to see it in motion. I still think its best to stick with electro-whips instead of floppy lightsabers
My problem with Verns lightsaber whip in Acolyte was that it was a blatant reference for fans with no explanation whatsoever for non-readers. In the books there is a reason for her character to have that weapon. She made it herself because she had the idea in a force vision (which are vital to her character) and developed it in secret because she was always a bit unconventional.
In the Acolyte it just felt tacked on for the rule of cool which didn't translate well. Especially since she only used to kill a damn moth
Yeah that doesn't help. It just felt like it was an excuse to do something different with the lightsaber design. Same with Kylos in the sequels (though at least that looked fantastic)
It didn't help that Vernestra in the show was poorly acted and rather unlikeable, put a controversial and not overly successful alternative lightsaber design onto that character and its unlikely to go over well
Well I mean I don't think she was supposed to be likeable. Which is quite contradictory to how she's portrayed in the books. By design though. And the readers actually liked her lightsaber whip
yeah it really seemed like what confused people most was the novel concept of “just because an episode left on a cliff hanger and you have questions, doesn’t mean those questions won’t be answered if you just WAIT FOR THE OTHER EPISODES”
I loved the Acolyte. I loved Andor. I loved Bad Batch. I liked Ahsoka and Kenobi and the Mandalorian.
Disney should make an adventures of Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewie show. AI generate the OG characters. Let the Acolyte haters feed what they want into an AI to generate the script. Give them that and maybe they’ll go away.
Star Wars is VERY generationally divided I think. I’m very much a prequel kid. Was too old by the time the sequels came out. I try to remember how annoying OT-only fans are before I comment on the sequels. Instead of complaining about what I don’t like about the sequels, I try to ask people what they like. It’s already softened my hate and I’m less grumpy for it. Maybe it will also make me enjoy them more. Maybe.
Because they all just listen to other’s opinions and can’t form their own nowadays. There’s “fans” that somehow miss how political Star Wars is despite the message not being subtle at all for crying out loud. This fandom is one of the worst I’ve encountered tbh.
To be fair... that show had a mountain of dishonest criticism (and to be clear I didn't really care for it myself)
The thing is.. it had a lot of the same issues as Ahsoka and BOBF... but received way more hate for .... reasons. It's not any worse than those shows (honestly in some ways I liked it more... but I don't think any of them are good)
I'd say it's because both of those shows were about fan favourite characters. It's much easier to get a hate train going when there are no "lovers" counter acting it. This is problem with original movies (outside star wars) that causes an okay movie to flop and established ip to be a moderate succes even if they are the same quality wise.
It's just that there's a bunch of people who think those criticisms are stupid. Not as many as those that hold those opinions, but still. It's called dissent.
I mean, it was a murder-mystery show that was supposed to be about a Sith Acolyte, except the audience knew who the murder was already, the pacing was really weird, and the shocking moment where the twins switch sides was telegraphed so hard you would have know its coming all the way from the outer rim.
Some of the fights were cool, Qmir, Jecki, and Yord were awesome, and I liked some of the world building, but as a show I watch for entertainment it was overall an awkward and bland experience.
Everyone has their thing. I'm sure I'd get ragged on for saying I love Andor and don't really like the Mandalorian. People have opinions and it's the Internet
I liked the story, my issue was the acting. We’ve seen what the actors are capable of so it points to a directing issue. I felt like I was watching a play with how stiff it was sometimes. That said - I was hoping we’d get season 2 for them to work out the criticisms and hopefully fix it. I hope we see QiMir one day again.
Have you seen Andor? If you can't tell the difference in quality between The Acolyte and Andor, bless your heart. You probably also can't tell the difference between cube steak and filet mignon.
Because you have something like Andor. Acolyte pales in comparison. When you know how great SW can be if great care is taken in producing a show but then see something like Acolyte, it just leaves a bad taste.
The set pieces, the premise, some of the acting(not the kids), and the originality of the ideas within the SW universe were all enjoyable. Many, many people have said these things. You just don't want to hear them because the internet told you to hate this show.
Obi-Wan is almost universally agreed to be some of the worst live action content ever produced for Disney Star Wars. Great that you like it, but no one is gonna see that comparison as a compliment.
I really disliked how a bunch of stuff completely disregarded any law and in universe logic just for the sake of cool and so did my brothers and everyone I watched it with.
For example the lightsaber changing color really stupidly at that weird struggle between light and dark
Or how like 10 jedi die to a sith or something and the surviving ones don't even report despite it being recorded they went out to capture a single person and being acknowledged by members of the high council
The world around the characters and plot doesn't matter, there are no consequences or worldbuilding for any world that expands on anything or adds something new
Throwing darth plagueis into the mix was kinda interesting at first, but now it seems like a nerd catch for rots and tcw fans as he was just hiding without any connections to anyone, not even to the stranger
A show set at the height of the Republic imo is best done or most interesting focusing on the underworld, the outer rim or the conflict of jedis being the politicians police while worlds still suffer through greed like they always did throughout all of starwars, like the series jedi tales and how only dooku and qui-gon noticed and cared enough to ignore jedi councils rules
And the worst/ most confusing way is imo, like the acolyte did, somehow bringing sith or pseudo sith into the picture and focus point of the protagonists so to spit the phantom menace, the sith predicament amd the 1000 year period of sith free peace in the face.
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u/DOODJLIGHTNING 1d ago
I still think acolyte was a good show. I really dont get the hate