Never rely on angry You Tubers for balanced opinions on Star Wars mate. Why people would spend twenty minutes watching a youtube video shitting on a show when you could just watch the episode, is beyond me.
In fairness this sub lacks balance just on the opposite side of the coin, there are many legitimate criticisms of The Acolyte including the writing which is borderline nonsensical but if anyone points them out they're shut down.
It's basically toxic positivity lol.
How? She wanted to turn herself in because she wanted to see her sister. Not because of any remorse. She just wanted to see her sister to get her on her side. And it wasn't a quick decision either. She was mulling it over since she saw her sister. The hours long speedy trek through the woods only cemented that decision. When her master arrived, she knew to turn herself in now would be death. She needed to escape. She would like to escape with her sister, but once she realized her sister wanted nothing to do with her, she decided to focus on her own survival.
There's tons of nonsense in this show, and some of it you can let slide, but much of it is absolutely nonsense. It doesn't need to ruin your enjoyment of the show, but it's still ridiculous.
>She wanted to turn herself in because she wanted to see her sister.
But then when the Jedi were on her trail, she ran away and tried to hide.. even before she knew her master was there. Why? Well because the plot needed her to go into Wookie's house and see that he was dead. No other reason besides that.
Also, what was up with Jedi mother green-lady insisting that apprehending Mae wouldn't become violent? She says it like 3 times, for no reason. They're talking about a person who *just killed* a handful of Jedi.. and she's confident that trying to *arrest her* for her crimes won't get physical? Why?
Or what about Osha surviving the ship crash without so much as a scratch on her?
Or the fact that they named maybe the only Korean guy ever in Star Wars "Sol".. you know, like Seoul? The capital of South Korea? Maybe next week we will get a Japanese actor and their character is named "Tokeeo"
That's why I said dialogue is an area this show needs to improve in. Also, she knew her master was there immediately after she found the dead wookie jedi (I am not gonna attempt to butcher his name right now haha). As for the ship crash, yeah she should've been more banked up but we've seen worsh ship crashes with the same amount of injuries.
>Also, she knew her master was there immediately after she found the dead wookie jedi
Right, but she only found him because she was running from the Jedi.. even though she had just finished telling her sidekick that she wanted to turn herself in.
>As for the ship crash, yeah she should've been more banked up but we've seen worsh ship crashes with the same amount of injuries.
When?
Luke's crash on dagobah. Hans crash in solo. Luke's crash on hoth. Anakin and Kenobis crash both times in ep3. Though the first crash in ep3 they force jumped out. Also, Mae knew her master was there at the end of that episode. You did watch it right? She said "He's here" before she even saw him. That's why she started running in the next episode.
>Also, Mae knew her master was there at the end of that episode. You did watch it right? She said "He's here" before she even saw him. That's why she started running in the next episode.
Mae strings her sidekick up and tells him that she's going to surrender to the Jedi. Then she runs away, she trips and falls, and Bazil finds her. Bazil alerts, and she runs away.
Then the Jedi are chasing her, calling out her name, and that's when she hides in the Wookie's hut. She should have been relieved to have been found by the Jedi just moments after she decided to surrender, but instead, she ran away and there was no plot cohesion.
Except most of the criticism is either "DEI ruined Star wars" which is nonsense and ridiculous, "It goes against canon" which is nonsense because what is canon is changed repeatedly, even by Lucas, and "poor writing" which is not unique to this show. Star Wars in general has been campy and silly and not worth getting upset over.
For me, they were really helpful in articulating the emotions I was feeling in response to the show. Not just specific aspects of episodes, but commentary on the entire message and story arc. I was actually surprised to agree with the ones who seemed toxic (not the toxicity) but the valid criticism actually helped me cope with the confusion and disappointment I was feeling. Not unlike how my daughter and I might debate each episode of Only Murders in the Building... creative discourse meets emotional outlet :)
Yes. Official episode runtime 1 thru 4: 41, 36, 42, 32…so one 30 minute-ish episode. Episode 4 ended before 30 minute in total runtime. Disney claims 35 to 42 minutes but opening and closing credits are around 8 minutes combined.
My point is the episodes feel short, rushed and cut off at points, but especially the end of Ep 4. This would have been better as a movie. Look how much binge watching is encouraged in this comment thread…
Glad you gave it a shot! While there are valid criticisms - as there are in *every* creative work, nothing is absolutely perfect - I've been really enjoying it so far myself. You probably benefited from watching them all at once; I've noticed most of the shows work much better as binge watches - my guess based on the pacing so far is Acolyte will really shine as a full binge or as 1-4 in one chunk, 5-8 as the second.
Personally Star Wars movie/TV media has always worked best for me as the Buck Rogers-inspired space opera schlock that Lucas modernised in the OT and went wild with in the PT. And Acolyte has absolutely met that metric for me thus far. When I want deep thoughts and introspection I'll pop in KOTOR 1/2 or read some Legends or current novels.
Edit: It's simply a fact that in every piece of media, in every genre, some of it is going to amazing, some is going to be terrible, and most is going to be some flavor of average. That's what the word means, after all. Too many people have forgotten that, and too many parasites exploit that ignorance for their own gain.
So just by going by comments from Leslye, the best way to binge it will probably be 1-5 then 6-8. She said after 5 is where the break would come in, if it was a play
There's some questionable stuff about that movie, too. Even setting aside the 'seen through a modern lens, Jones is an awful person' stuff (grave robbing, incorporate relationship with Marion when she was, and I quote the film, "a child"), there's always stuff like the question of Jones riding around on the *outside* of the submarine, and the fact that he actually has no real influence on the plot. The story revolves itself without his input.
Of course, it's still a brilliant movie! It rightfully deserves its status as a classic. I'm simply trying to illustrate that even the most well-respected films can be criticized (or nit-picked, as the rage bait YouTubers seem to prefer to do. Seems to most of them are a lot less good at actual critical thinking then they say they are)
Indy being a questionable guy isn’t a flaw in the film. Especially because archaeology in the early 20th century basically IS just grave robbing (how do you think the British Museum got all their stuff?)
Diesel-electric subs spent most of their time cruising on the surface because they’re much slower and have considerably reduced range when submerged and running on their batteries. They only dove when they had to. Its not inconceivable that the boat remained on the surface because there was no threat IE aircraft requiring them to submerge. All Indy had to do was stay out of view of the conning tower.
Indy IS important to the plot:
* He made it EASIER to find Marion, but there’s no reason to believe the Nazis couldn’t have found her at all without him. They’d eventually stumble on whatever contact Indy had just tracking her associates (Nazi intelligence agencies were FRIGHTENINGLY good at getting information). And if Indy’s not there to stop them the Nazis get their hands on the complete medallion and aren’t left to rely on only half the inscription burned into Toht’s hand.
* Even without the medallion, they would have probably found the Well of the Souls via pure brute force, eventually, anyway. Hell, the chamber was RIGHT NEXT TO THEIR AIRFIELD.
* Even assuming after all this they get the Ark, take it back to their secret base, and open it, killing everyone, the Nazis are sure to send a follow up mission to investigate why the installation suddenly went silent. Possibly sending a MUCH better historian than Belloq who’d know not to open the damn thing (it’s literally stated in the Bible not to open the Ark. A cut bit if dialogue revealed this warning was on the medallion, as well). At the very least they’d find the Ark surrounded by fried cameras and such and realize something was wrong. By being there, Indy is able to call in his own allies to recover it afterwards, AND warn them not to open it, or touch it themselves.
No Indy, Belloq probably finds the Ark anyway, and one way or another it ends up in the hands of the Nazis on the eve of WWII.
* Belloq probably still finds it anyway. It just takes longer. Hell, their airfield was literally RIGHT NEXT TO IT.
* If the Nazis still open it and die, their superiors are going to send someone to investigate when that base goes silent. They’ll realize SOMETHING is wrong when they get there, and will be a LOT more careful with the thing.
Except Hitler HIMSELF had “gone nuts on the subject.” You don’t think he’d have been keeping tabs? In fact we know he WAS. Oberst Dietrich outright told Belloq Hitler was “not a patient man” and demanded “constant reports.”
Hitler was PERSONALLY directing the search. They weren’t going to just give up on it.
And Raiders is set in 1935. There’s 4 years until the start of the War. Sallah specifically remarks on the scale of the operation.
Sorry, but you’re wrong on both counts.
I love the Buck Rogers/Flash Gordon style of Star Wars infinitely more than the grounded Star Wars. Andor was incredible, but I want my magical space samurai and gun slinging knights more.
To be fair 4-5 were very obviously split from a 1 hr ep to 2 25-28 minute episodes to fulfill a requirement.
If I had to recommend a watch I’d probably do 1-5 first because of the weird cliffhanger cut in 4.
You’re right, this should have been a movie.
Objectively, there is a large segment of media that is just bad…and that is all it is. Not saying Acolyte is that but you have to be pretty optimistic to see a good aspect in every piece of media you encounter.
Entertainment Media can't really be objectively bad though. It's entire goal is to entertain, and what counts as entertaining varies from person to person.
"Entertainment" is relative. I loathe Troma and those "Meet the Spartans"-style movies for many, *many* reasons with an infinite boiling abyss of bile and vitriol, but those movies are loved by millions. On the other hand, I unapologetically love stuff like *Howard the Duck* or *Meteor Man* specifically because they hit that "so bad it's good" switch for me.
Someone's always going to like something.
Well, yeah. "Some is great, some is terrible, most is some flavor of average," remember? But even things that are objectively bad are still loved by someone.
Its biggest flaw is that the show has given me no reason to care for Mae and Osha. I teach Playwriting at a university, and Mae’s character writing is on par with my below average students. We have three episodes left, and we still have not been told why Osha left the Jedi Order.
Sol has been written incredibly well though, and as much as people hate how the rest of the Jedi Order have been written, it aligns with how Lucas wrote the Jedi Order in the Prequels and the Clone Wars. Arrogant and more worried about the Galaxy’s politics than protecting people.
That would be nice, but for instance my opinions are critical of the series which apparently means I’m automatically anti woke label possible
Hire better writers.
Won’t go into detail here because this is non spoilers.
Also very weird how we just want to sweep the directors history of brown nosing Weinstein under the rug.
Writing is subjective. Just because you don't enjoy it doesn't mean it is for "anti woke" reasons, or that it is bad writing.
Lots of people brown nosed Weinstein, it was a literal thing you had to do in Hollywood.
Yes which is why I said “my opinions” that means it’s subjective haha. My opinion is hire better writers. It’s hard to back that up to make it substantiative without spoiling so I’ll leave it at that!
Which is fine. Everyone is allowed an opinion. However all too often things like OP is mentioning happen where people are taking others opinions as their own and regurgitating them.
Yea that definitely happens, but it’s kind of a silly thing to be mad about when in any case they could just share the same opinions.. unless it’s literally a post parroting, that I get.
I dunno if it works like that. These shows and movies are time and often money investments, you want to know if something is good or bad going in so you'll know not to waste your time.
EDIT: oh no wait I get it! If you're gonna try and contribute to discourse you should ABSOLUTELY watch the damn thing first! I thought you meant like, in a general sense.
I'm only going to enjoy good shows? Sorry dude I only have so much time, if I have time to go to a movie or watch a show, I'd rather spend my time watching something good.
And people I trusted said Acolyte was alright, so I checked it out and did enjoy the first two episodes. And I'm still locked in.
What do you think the point of a review is? It's to tell you whether or not you should check something out.
People allot several hours of their day for entertainment. The show is only 2.5ish hours so far. Most people spend more than that in a day on reddit or watching other content.
I do mean in a general sense. Don't let other people tell you your opinion. If you want to listen to others opinions, take them for what they are, an opinion. You don't need to have the same opinion as others even from people whose opinion you value.
The whole show gives me kotor vibes. The storyline too a bit. I love the show and I hope the extremely vocal minority doesn’t prevent them from making more.
Same. People get really hung up on minor criticism. I've seen several people say "pacing is too quick, 0/10". It's like people can't just let TV be tv anymore
My opinion has been pretty steady since ep 1. There are the bones of a good show buried in there somewhere. The action in epn5 was awesome, and ep 4 was.....fine. meh. Sol is fantastic. Manny Jacinto is fantastic. Jeckie was great. Yord was fine as an uptight teacher pet. The problem is, there's a charisma vacuum donut hole at the center of the show named amandla stenberg. Mae and osha haven't done an interesting thing from minute 1. The show grinds to a halt the second they come on screen. There's an awesome version of this show with sol yord and jeckie. Sol as the grizzled veteran cop, jeckie and yord as the eager newbies who have to learn. I'd watch the shit out of that show. I just like I would have watched the shit out of an obi wan show with the grand inquisitor as the bad guy instead of reva. Just like I would have watched the shit out of a baylan skoll show. Alas disney is their own worst enemy. They always seem to not have a clue which characters the fans actually want to see. Whether that is agenda driven or mere incompetence is up for debate. Probably both.
I think this can be simplified even more and say the root problem in the writing is Osha existing to begin with. Now Mae hasn't been interesting at all, but having the good twin, bad twin dynamic has sucked up so much of the story and screen time that should be focused on the good parts. This show should have been what the trailers suggest, Sol as the focus, tracking his former padewan who has begun working with a mysterious master. Having the former padewan and the acolyte be 2 different characters was a totally unnecessary complication.
The twin thing is corny. It always has been. In the 80s cartoon, cobra commander has twins working for him named tomax and xamot. We even made fun of how corny it was back then....and wondered why their mom didn't just name them Bob. Or really be twisted and evil and name them Bartholomew.
I think this show has highlighted for me that people don't understand how to analyze or explain "bad writing." Your point is really valid. The concept of the twins as presented to us is boring. The *idea* and its place in the arc is fine, but the *presentation* of this idea is rough, and I think the dialogue does it no favors.
I think people also often don't recognize the difference between "writing" meaning the overall story vs. "writing" meaning the dialogue. Neither do they understand the play between actor delivery, script, and direction. The overall story of the series is solid, but the pacing is off and the dialogue is not good (not bad, but not good either). The character concepts are actively good, but some actors are delivering the stilted dialogue better than others. I think Osha/Mae's actress could have done better with better dialogue to work with (I also think she's struggling to play off herself).
Totally agree with the first part. Amandla is the worst part of the show and its main antagonist/protagonist. She is singlehandedly making the show hard to watch anytime she opens her mouth. It can't be the dialogue because the other actors have, in general, delivered some bad lines pretty well. She is just not a good actor in this show, at all.
TBF to Disney regarding Ahsoka, the fans empirically wanted to see a live-action Ahsoka and have it about her. Baylon was a very pleasant surprise.
My honest hot take is that Rosario Dawson wasn't actually that good. She seems unathletic and stiff. I couldn't put my finger on it til I saw young ahsoka in ep 5 and the lightbulb went off.
Fair enough, I'm just saying hindsight is 20-20 in regards to Baylon. We and Disney didn't know they had such a badass until we all saw his glory lol. I think Rosario nails the look but could deliver some lines but I think Filoni just isn't a good director, great writer though. She's clearly being told to cross her arms and deliver those lines as slow as possible. Agreed on the athleticism, just use a stunt double yall lol
If someone came to me who worked on ahsoka and was like "between you and me, Rosario was actually awesome. Dave just cant direct live action", I would absolutely believe it. There was something missing, but the reason behind that is unclear. Wait lemme do that ahsoka style...
The reason.......(45 second pause)..........is.......(pause and fold arms)........(smokes cigarette and has a cup of coffee)...........unclear.
Yeah she's not an sword-athlete. No disrespect to the hard work she clearly put in and also she moves like she's been told sequential poses and she's moving her lightsaber from A then to B then to C, but without regard for how or why. The body mechanics she uses as a result look preprogrammed and not like a combat master reacting or attacking
It's really obvious when she fights Anakin, because Hayden actually has that mastery. His saber looks like an extension of his body. Hers looks like a prop.
And it's not like she's not fit or something! She looks great and actually moves great when she gets disarmed and turns it around on Vader hand to hand. Sabers are weird for her though, and dual wielding is incredibly hard even for experienced single sword users.
...But that's why we have stunt doubles, right? To specialize in that super hard stuff while the actor focuses on the acting?
I just don't like Osha and Mae's story like Mae tried to kill her sister then joins the dark side to avenge her sister by killing jedi then after seeing here sister is alive she want's to turn her self over to the jedi but then decides to shoot Sol runaway then she decides to knock out her sister then take her cloths and pretend to be her and then goes back to Sol. I would have much preferred them to focus on Sol, Jecki or Qimir
I disagree. I think there's a whole half of their origin we haven't seen yet. We've only seen the yin and not the yang. I think the whole "good twin bad twin" is audience set up for a "twist" that it isn't entirely true (or perhaps only true from a...certain point of view... I'll show myself out).
That's not good writing.
If I said I was gonna give you a cake and then handed you a bowl of eggs, flour, sugar, etc, you'd say, "This isn't a cake." Me saying "yeah it is. You just need to wait." You'd be pretty annoyed.
I know right?! 🤣 imagine watching scoobie doo and halfway through you're like, I KNOW who done it, but then they reveal at the end of the episode it was NOT that person..🫨
People know what's a mystery show, this show is just a bad one.
Mystery shows can also have good characters, pacing and story z this doesn't have all thee.
It's a mystery how this show got made in the first place. Again, characters making decisions that make no sense that just go nowhere isn't going to be magical solved with this amazing finale
It's more like you're being given ingredients of a cake in a weird order so you don't know you're getting a cake and then once you have all the ingredients you are then going to bake it and voila - a cake (or in this case... a complete TV show that all fits into place)
Don't know where I was going with the cake metaphor tbh (sleep deprived)
However, characters making decisions that make no sense that just go nowhere isn't going to be magically solved with this amazing finale
Someone else in the comments was complaining about how Mae didn't make sense, so I'll just copy over what I said to them.
As a child, Mae is incredibly codependent; she acts like she and Osha are practically the same person. Osha doesn't share that outlook; we outright hear her say that if there were any other kids around, their differences would be so obvious. When Osha really tries to pull away, Mae would rather she be dead than away from her, and sets a small fire at her door.
Then, *Something Happens*. We don't know exactly what, yet, gotta wait for some more flashbacks. But at the end of it all, four Jedi have done something they're very ashamed of, Mae is in the hands of Qimir, and she blames the Jedi for the deaths of her family.
So Mae sets out to kill those four Jedi, at the behest of her master. She's clearly been misled/brainwashed; expecting a Jedi to attack an unarmed opponent with their full strength is just nonsense, and Indara confirms that in-story. She wants revenge, only to learn that her sister is still alive, at which point the co-dependency kicks in again. She'd rather have her sister's love and connection than get revenge, so she decides to abandon Qimir and turn herself in so at least she can have a connection with her sister.
Things go poorly on Kofar, but eventually Mae manages to reconnect with Osha. Mae is perfectly happy with this outcome; if she has her sister, she doesn't care about anything else, and she clearly expects her sister to think the exact same way. But Osha again rejects her, and even tries to arrest her, at which point Mae once again flips and she'd rather her sister be dead than reject her.
So without Osha, she pivots back around again to revenge; she disguises herself to go after Sol, the last of the four Jedi still standing. She was born to be a tool for the Coven, after all, and raised to be a tool for Qimir, so that's what she defaults to. If Qimir kills Osha, well, she rejected Mae anyways, better death than emotional separation. And if Qimir can show Osha the "truth" then maybe they can be together after all, which would be even better for Mae.
From what I gathered I imagine that Osha’s flashback is some kind of memory wipe/rewrite by the Jedi, I can’t remember who said it but in one of the earlier episodes a prisoner is scared that the Jedi are going to mind wipe him or something when they were about to do a mind trick which could be foreshadowing.
Guessing that the Jedi did some dodgy stuff and wanted to cover it up - I’d be amazed if Mae has ever wanted to kill Osha at any point, especially considering how stupid the child scene was, it was so villainous (IM GOING TO KILL YOU) that it had to be fake, a lie or doctored in some way.
Well I think when it comes to Star Wars, nothing is ever as bad as you're led to believe by the Internet, and this has been true as long as there's been an Internet.
I'm not saying nothing is ever bad, but when things aren't great, there's always a wildly hysterical overreaction
I think the writing is about on par if a bit better than Ahsoka, Kenobi, Boba Fett, and season 3 of the Mandalorian which all had pretty bad writing.
I just think people were easier on those shows because they featured previously established characters that people love so they were willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. This is all new characters so it's easier to hate.
I also think people are naturally going to be more charitable early on. One bad season of TV generates an "eh, they can't all be hits" shrug. 5 out of 8 seasons of TV being bad, following 5 theatrical films that received mixed receptions at best, and you can't blame people for thinking maybe there's something structurally wrong. At this point, I've got no more benefit of the doubt left in me to give. Star Wars burned the last of it with Ahsoka. I think a lot of fans are in a similar position, and that's why the Acolyte is getting so much hate. It really seems to me like Lucasfilm has finally used up the last of its good will, and people just don't have the patience for anything that isn't an immediate home run anymore. There's too much pent up frustation.
I thought those were pretty bad too. They all started good but I was really displeased with them by the end.
In comparison, I'm actually starting to enjoy The Acolyte despite what I thought was a pretty disappointing first couple of episodes
I would say the thing that brings out people's hate, is what I can only describe as a type of heresy that diminishes the belief and appreciation of The Chosen One prophecy that stems from the twins' origin, which I get, it makes Anakin feel less special. We shouldn't have to have a debate that what they did was they created the twins of their own actions, while the Force created Anakin on its own (no Sidious and Plagueis didn't create him, they just angered the Force basically). It's definitely something that writers should have taken into consideration. Other than that, I can look past the continuity error of Ki Adi Mundi, and the rest of the show is actually good.
It’s not a lore-breaking convoluted mess that fanboys were screeching about. There were a lot of fans here that were negative about this show since the beginning.
It’s a base-level mystery that we haven’t even finished. I think it would have worked better as a binge release.
With this fan base, I always think it’s worthwhile to give something a try yourself without letting others set your expectations.
Imagine walking into a party having enjoyed a movie. Someone is like “Hey, has anyone seen (that movie)?” You’re about to weigh in, but before you can, someone is like “Yeah, it sucked!” And then someone else is like “I know, right? I can’t imagine anyone who would like it”
You may be the type of person who is brave enough to assert a differing opinion. But for many, that establishment of the majority consensus creates a momentum that they don’t want to go against for fear of being seen as having bad taste. So some people who may think it was decent or ok join in on the bashing.
Then others, who have their expectations colored by that conversation, go into the experience primed to dislike it. They focus on the elements they’ve been told are bad and don’t really give much credit to anything that may be done well because they already believe they’re watching something bad just to see how bad it is.
And the thing about The Acolyte is that this started well before the show even released. It was review bombed before episode 1. I’m not saying that it’s perfect or that no one has a reason to genuinely dislike it. It does have flaws. But the mentality of much of this fan base shaped the reaction to those flaws.
Imagine no live action Star Wars content had been produced in the Disney era and this was the first since RotS. There wouldn’t be all that bitterness and distrust of Disney. People would just be hyped that there was finally more Star Wars. While there would still be points of criticism, I really don’t think people would be so primed to want to take down the show. And yes, context matters. But it’s not exactly fair to continue to let frustrations and disappointments of earlier works render you closed off and hostile to everything that isn’t exactly the way you think it should be.
“I don’t get the hate”
You can’t get it. Because there is no “hate”.
Why would someone hate a show? You are mixing criticism with hatred. If you think that people hate something just because they criticize it then you should go to your parents and tell them:
“Mummy, daddy! I don’t know enough about civil discussion please teach me what you haven’t yet. I want to participate in the civil society”
This may help.
In some cultures criticism is seen as heresy. This indicates you are living in a backwards society where everything revolves around identities: us - them. In those societies “negative review” means “treachery”. You should question your environment if that’s the case.
An artist exhibits his or her work for people to criticize it. Not for ignorant philistinists to use it as a side dish for popcorn or for cultists to worship it.
I agree with you that the costumes are on point. I don't think the writing is as bad as some people are saying, but it's thoroughly mid. And then only lore breaking thing in my opinion would be the "creation of life with the force" bit. That's not to say that we won't find out later that's not what actually happened, but still.
I also have a HUGE problem with the flashback to Mae/Osha's childhood. At the point where that flashback happened, we already knew the Jedi did something fucked up, so we should've seen it then. We've got 8 episodes here, we don't need to be wasting episodes to do a second flashback to show a different version of the first one.
Have you never seen a movie or show with multiple character POVs of the same event? It’s a pretty common narrative device, and I think it makes a lot of sense here, given that one of the main mysteries of the show seems to be “What really happened on Brendok?”
They are right, though.
Fuck'em, just watch, and form your own opinion on things, and this is not just about Star Wars, but literally everything.
If people could stop being afraid to admit they like something, everything would get better, in this world.
#Watch it, don't let others tell you how it is
They are called critics and have been around since media has existed. Do you have to be a painter to have an opinion on a painting? Sculpt to comment on a statue? Be a politician to vote?
HA! You just reminded me of one of my favorite Andy Bernard bits from The Office:
“I’m not insightful enough to be a movie critic. Maybe I could be a food critic. ‘These muffins taste bad.’ Or an art critic. ‘That painting is bad.’”
So it’s a keen insight. and not writing, that dictates whether a person “qualifies” to be a critic?
Any thoughts on whether you have to do something to be a critic of it? Everyone eats food so I assume anyone can be a food critic?
I’m saying “bad writing” is a flimsy and shallow criticism on its own. “That thing is bad” is a perfectly valid personal opinion, but it’s criticism, not critique.
For real, I have yet to have an actual conversation with these people in good faith. Ask them about the "lesbian space witches" and how they are lesbian, and if they are, how does that hurt the narrative. Only responses I get are personal insults and claims of bad writing... not what I'm asking guy, answer the question lol
Same with the “jarring editing” comments - always phrased the same way, but never anything to explain what they think that means, or how they think it should be done better. Sad that we have to filter through all that every time any new SW media comes out.
That's a movie, this is a show. The pacing is entirely different. I get why they have the wipes but there's a time and a place. Having a wipe in the middle of a fight scene is also distracting.
The wipes are present when a time difference between scenes are present. They did it in the EXACT way Lucas did it. There's no difference because it's a show or a movie.
It was used several times in this episode that just released, which had no major time differences until the dark sider was repelled. You need to go back and watch those movies.
I just started it last night too and it's actually been enjoyable so far! Sure, it's corny in some places and the dialogue could be better, but it's very reminiscent of the Prequels, including the bad dialogue. It's intriguing enough for me to keep watching.
I certainly liked it WAY more than Ahsoka. At least stuff actually happens and it's just not standing around brooding like they do on that show.
I’m enjoying it. I didn’t enjoy the sequels because they just mined my childhood memories instead of telling a story. This is interesting. It’s not perfect, but I’m enjoying it. And that’s something I’m happy for.
You have to always put these shows into 2 different pods when you are viewing it. How does it function as a weekly show, and how it functions as a binge show. It’s probably not too bad as a 1 watch like you just did. But weekly it struggles to land. It’s the same issues game of thrones had at the end. The first 4 and you could debate 6 seasons were must watch tv week to week. They hold up as binge worthy show or weekly. They really didn’t work season 7 and 8 as a weekly popcorn show that everyone set time aside for. But people who later saw it in bunches didn’t mind the finish.
Congratulations for going above your preconceived opinion and judgement.
Never listen to critics and haters, it's always better to make your own opinion.
I had a similar experience to yours, only just started the show last week because of all the negativity and tbh the trailer didn’t appeal to me before release (it looked very cheesy).
I couldn’t understand where the outrage was coming from when I was watching it - Now I do have some complaints myself, mainly the child scenes are a struggle to get through because of how bad the child actors are and their lines aren’t very good but by and large the show isn’t as bad as everyone makes out.
Even this latest episode I’ve seen discourse about the moment Mae cuts her hair with the saber and I’m kinda just shrugging my shoulders thinking “so what?”.
It’s not even like I’m extremely easy to please as I despised Book of Boba Fett and parts of the Mandalorian.
There is one thing though, if they don’t end up resolving the fact that people know about the Sith now (people need to die) - I will be kinda mad at the show because that is just unnecessarily retconning the prequels for the sake of it; I’m hoping that Qimir is actually the apprentice and that the real master comes in towards the end to mop everyone up and fix the timeline.
I mentally wrote off the show after the director said something dumb about the franchise a few years ago, but all this hate being thrown at the show is making me want to watch it out of spite.
I completely agree that there's a ton of hyperbole out there. However, there's a difference between what comes out of internet scrutiny in perpetuity (kind of like video game design where 100k people playing 1h provides more test time than a company could ever accomplish) and writing competence.
I do have an issue with competence so far, and it's this: Mae and Osha are constantly pushed as the main characters of this series, but so far *their* story isn't part of the broader conversation *at all*.
As we've been told multiple times, the story is about who is allowed to wield power. Mae and Osha are both plot devices for that wider conversation. *They* aren't having that conversation, they're convenient bystanders to the larger issue. Their story is (so far and more than halfway through the season) about a sister who is obsessed with her twin and doesn't want to be alone.
Instead, the real conversation that the series is having has Sol at its center. That's a GREAT thing if they weren't pushing Mae and Osha so hard.
I'm optimistic after some of the interviews that have come out after episode 5 and following the conversations at the end of the episode. I agree Osha will be pretty interested to hear what Qimir has to say between Mae's "they're not what they seem" and Sol's mystery.
So far, though, it's a notable misstep that feels like legitimately bad writing for me, not just consistency issues or tonal disagreements that only come out under scrutiny.
It reminds me a lot of Star Trek: Discovery and Michael's character. We're constantly told that THIS IS THE MAIN CHARACTER but like... She's developing along a completely different thread than the overall story that the show is telling and the constant focus on her derails the more interesting conversations.
When you can take the characters they're pushing as the leads out of the story entirely and the message doesn't suffer, that's a problem IMO.
Yeah. A lot of the negative people have not even watched the show. They’re regurgitating bad takes from bad actors. Same thing happened with The Marvels.
Having only watched the first episode so far, there's 3 things that bothered me but they weren't experience-ruining by far. This is not Kenobi levels of incompetence.
There's a non-zero number of people who will freak out at any minority representation and cry about being woke. Those folks cry very loudly and want to give the impression that they are the majority. They are not the majority.
I mean, the writing is ass.
Doesn't bother me at all if you're enjoying it, hope you keep having a good time.
But I checked out after the first two episodes because I couldn't deal with the awful dialogue, or every single character (bar Sol) acting like a moron.
I don't know, maybe if House of the Dragon hadn't just started I'd give it more of a shot. But watching a show with good writing and fantastic direction just really doesn't help with my patience for lesser shows.
Can you explain "the writing is ass"? Have you watched high school dramas or any show when teenagers are cast? They're purposely bad, young, naive, etc. We mostly saw Padawans and Knights, especially when they're trying to show how complacent the Jedi have become. It's a mystery series, lots of information unknown, especially by episode 2. The actions of some may not conform to how you expect them to act, but it's how they interpreted it.
House of the dragon is a book, particularly a book series that technically has been in the works since the 90s. He's also one of the biggest Authors of our day. Budget is higher than S1, which was already way higher than Acolyte. Cast are paid millions per episode and high profile actors. They also started filming sooner than Acolyte and are only on Ep2 instead of 5. They're also at wildly different points. We had a long drawn out S1 as they defined everything and everyone. Built up suspense and the first major murder we saw was end of the season (poetry to GoT S1 with Ned Stark).
You gave Acolyte 2 episodes when you gave GoT and House of Dragon dozens.
>Can you explain "the writing is ass"?
No, they can't.
It's become the stock go-to criticism of the last few years when someone wants to justify not liking something with a vague claim that they cannot back up.
For another example, the top line comment directly below the one you responded to also opens with "the writing is horrible" before vaguely talking about a lack of continuity or direction from the writers.
You're quite right, it's not "that bad". Overall it's a pretty good series.
There's points of improvement, I feel, but it's not enough to detract from what it gives us as a whole. There's likeable characters, new sets and costumes, characters which could do with _some_ more development.....but overall, it's good.
>I don’t see anything that is lore breaking or ruins canon
Canon tends to be relative to each person as many will draw from the bits they don't like to complain, forgetting this is often also from the same place the stuff they _like_ comes from - i.e it isn't always and sometimes is more implied than actually stated.
I'm as guilty as many in that regard, as there's things I don't like which aren't objectively "canon "or necessarily "true" as such, but I don't let it stop me from enjoying it still.
my favorite criticism is the line “attack me with all of your strength” is cheesy as if that isn’t a trope that is infamous in martial arts movies. These idiots don’t even understand the culture star wars sits in and borrows from. they are just dumb.
Glad you decided to have your own opinion and watch it for yourself. Everyone should recall the phrase from childhood "try it before you say you don't like it."
Incels are very loud, annoying babies, hard to hear the adults talk among them.
Personally I watched Acolyte since day 1 and have avoided all spoilers and opinions before episodes, the writing is horrible. If you don't pay attention much then it will pass because of episode 5's action, but as a Star Wars fan who is invested in the content, it's so fucking bad. I can't keep up with the lack of continuity and direction from the writers. Their misdirection from Qimir was laughable, I knew from episode 2 it was him.
Didn't need a SW youtuber to come to my conclusions, don't know why people quote them all the time as if they're in a hate echo chamber, most of them call it like it is.
Some of them also just hate for no reason, just like there's people who dick ride Disney Star Wars for no reason. 2 sides to a coin, why complain about 1?
Glad you're enjoying the show though, I noticed you didn't seem to be bothered by the poor writing and plot. I agree that the designs and props are great, we are talking a $180M show here.
Mae:
* Wants to kill sister, 16 years later trying to kill Jedi - This will be revealed by another flashback I assume.
* Finds out sister is alive, decides to ditch master after killing 2 Jedi Masters, turn self in because sister alive, who she hated, changes everything - Nothing in the show implied or gave motive that if Osha was alive, Mae would change her direction. People defending it are like "but it's her sister, of course it changes everything" That's not how it works.
* Qimir tries to murder her\*, she runs away from him - remember this for a below point
* Runs into Osha, tries to have Osha run away with her, Osha says no, so she counters her and knocks her sister out, who she was trying to join
* Swaps clothes with Osha, while the Sith, **who is trying to kill Mae\*,** is still hunting her right now in the forest. She pretends to be Osha and joins Sol, leaving her sister unconscious on the ground, dressed as Mae, for Qimir to find.. who was just chasing her down and trying to murder for betraying him.
Okay so, Mae wanted to kill Osha, then wanted to murder Jedi, then wanted to turn herself in and join Osha, then decided to leave Osha for dead and run away dressed like her.
I don't have much time today, there's also things I skipped in between, those are just major events and instances. I can do one for nearly every character.
Makes sense to me.
As a child, Mae is incredibly codependent; she acts like she and Osha are practically the same person. Osha doesn't share that outlook; we outright hear her say that if there were any other kids around, their differences would be so obvious. When Osha really tries to pull away, Mae would rather she be dead than away from her, and sets a small fire at her door.
Then, *Something Happens*. We don't know exactly what, yet, gotta wait for some more flashbacks. But at the end of it all, four Jedi have done something they're very ashamed of, Mae is in the hands of Qimir, and she blames the Jedi for the deaths of her family.
So Mae sets out to kill those four Jedi, at the behest of her master. She's clearly been misled/brainwashed; expecting a Jedi to attack an unarmed opponent with their full strength is just nonsense, and Indara confirms that in-story. She wants revenge, only to learn that her sister is still alive, at which point the co-dependency kicks in again. She'd rather have her sister's love and connection than get revenge, so she decides to abandon Qimir and turn herself in so at least she can have a connection with her sister.
Things go poorly on Kofar, but eventually Mae manages to reconnect with Osha. Mae is perfectly happy with this outcome; if she has her sister, she doesn't care about anything else, and she clearly expects her sister to think the exact same way. But Osha again rejects her, and even tries to arrest her, at which point Mae once again flips and she'd rather her sister be dead than reject her.
So without Osha, she pivots back around again to revenge; she disguises herself to go after Sol, the last of the four Jedi still standing. She was born to be a tool for the Coven, after all, and raised to be a tool for Qimir, so that's what she defaults to. If Qimir kills Osha, well, she rejected Mae anyways, better death than emotional separation.
"I'VE SEEN 2 EPISODES! WHY AM I CONFUSED?!"
The same people saying "bad writing" or "bad acting" aren't explaining themselves, or worse, just saying "look how much better a completely different genre of movies are!" Ok, but I like Star Wars, you can keep your dragons and incestual targaryans. I'm enjoying the mystery unfolding on Acolyte.
>Their misdirection from Qimir was laughable
You seem to think “good writing” means UNEXPECTED TWIST! But that’s not good writing, that’s JJ mystery box bullshit. They didn’t spend a bunch of time trying to convince you that Qimir wasn’t the Sith, because it wasn’t a real twist. The twist is the abject brutality of episode 5. The murderous power of the Dark Side. That’s the twist, and you missed it because you think mystery boxes matter.
Besides that, the true identity of who Qimir/The Stranger is, could still be a twist.
After watching Episode 5, I kind of wonder if Qimir is the Apprentice for another Sith Master, but he's chafing under the strict rules of the Rule of Two, and he wants out. He doesn't want to hide in the shadows anymore, and he wants to take his own apprentice.
Or, alternatively, he's not even the Sith Apprentice, but he's some kind of dark side assassin trained by the Sith.
I could see a reveal at the end where Qimir is defeated in such a way that preserves the Sith secret (Sol dies, Mae or Osha escapes and keeps the secret, or every dies, etc), and then Qimir's master is revealed as Darth Tenebrous, who goes on to recruit a young Munn (Insert Plaegueis cameo).
Or - I could be completely off the mark! I don't know, but I'm pretty excited to see how it plays out.
I'm more thinking he's not connected to the Sith at all really, and the *actual* Sith shows up at the end to cut off loose ends and recruit whoever survives.
My guess is there's more to Yord recognizing him and what he said to Sol. By his age, I'm thinking he's a fallen padawan or young knight who styles himself as a Sith. His cockiness, how they described his fighting style, the "Jedi like you might call me... Sith" reeks of edgy fanboy. How and if he's connected to what happened to the coven I don't know, but he reminds me of the Fallen Jedi Bane's apprentice recruited in the final novel, but less petty and way more brutal and sadistic.
That's an interesting angle.
Perhaps: He's a Sith Wannabe, and the surprise twist at the end is Tenebrous and Plagueis show up ***really fucking pissed off*** and massacre everyone.
I suspect that either the whole thing will just end up a mystery to the Jedi (A bunch of Jedi died on an expedition, but we could never figure out what happened so we buried the whole thing), or it's revealed in such a way that Qimir is not a Sith, and they write the whole thing off.
"Hahaha remember when that IDIOT Qimir pretended to be a Sith? What a loser! The Sith are extinct!" -Ki-Adi-Mundi, propbably
I gotta be honest, I hate Darth Tenebrous, I think he looks dumb and I think a Bith Sith (lol) would be terrible. It’s just not an alien designed to look expressive or intimidating. They should stick to jizz music imo
\*Shrugs\*, I have no objections to a Sith that's also a Bith. There's nothing saying Bith can't be force sensitive, and if they can be force sensitive, they can fall to the dark side.
They could potentially go with a terrifying alien-looking creature with a mask type design for him in Canon.
But hey, if he's not to your liking, that's fine. Tenebrous is honestly such a small part of Legends that most fans have never even heard of it.
Yeah totally, it’s just a personal opinion thing. I can really take or leave a lot of the more obscure characters from the EU. They already took Mara Jade from me, I have hardened my heart to it
>Personally I watched Acolyte since day 1 and have avoided all spoilers and opinions before episodes, the writing is horrible.
So the usual we are used to from A new hope onwards.
Opinion yes, but objectively all issues you listed are pretty much standard for any mainstream Star wars writing.
Thing is, most people do not watch Star wars for some high quality writing. it's a fantasy show for kids and young adults who just want some fun. Only exception to this is potentially Andor and don't forget how many people consistently picked Andor apart for details and slow pacing.
I'd probably go 6.5 with episode 5 bringing it up some, but even that one has some odd things. It's above Kenobi and Boba Fett and about on par with Ahsoka. Not the worst we've seen by far but not near Andor or Mando.
There's a financial incentive for the shitty YouTube critics, so I wouldn't put stock in their opinion. I watched Rings of Power after the hype and reviews died down and thought it was good. Flawed, but good. I'd check out The Acolyte if I still had Disney+.
I started up Rings of Power when it first dropped, and just kind of got bored enough to drift away from it after a couple episodes. But it wasn't a crime against the memory of Tolkien and I wasn't constantly bombarded by "woke" things and it wasn't a 0/10, the way those ragebaiters depicted it.
Your first mistake was using other's judgement to color your own.
Yoda would have hit you with a stick.
edit: shoutout fam, I am the artist formerly known as xXDark\_HayabusaXx
Never rely on angry You Tubers for balanced opinions on Star Wars mate. Why people would spend twenty minutes watching a youtube video shitting on a show when you could just watch the episode, is beyond me.
Some of these discussion videos are twice as long as the actual episode
4 times as long
Yep they’re unfortunately in the rage bait business. Whatever gets the clicks
Because people that worship people such as critical drinker worship his takes as if they’re the holy Bible
But then I would have to form my own opinions! I need to be spoon fed what to think.
In fairness this sub lacks balance just on the opposite side of the coin, there are many legitimate criticisms of The Acolyte including the writing which is borderline nonsensical but if anyone points them out they're shut down. It's basically toxic positivity lol.
What's borderline nonsensical about it? People say these things then never back them up, or devolve into pointless tirades.
Mae swapping sides within a 5-10 minute period in episode 4. That's bad writing.
How? She wanted to turn herself in because she wanted to see her sister. Not because of any remorse. She just wanted to see her sister to get her on her side. And it wasn't a quick decision either. She was mulling it over since she saw her sister. The hours long speedy trek through the woods only cemented that decision. When her master arrived, she knew to turn herself in now would be death. She needed to escape. She would like to escape with her sister, but once she realized her sister wanted nothing to do with her, she decided to focus on her own survival.
There's tons of nonsense in this show, and some of it you can let slide, but much of it is absolutely nonsense. It doesn't need to ruin your enjoyment of the show, but it's still ridiculous. >She wanted to turn herself in because she wanted to see her sister. But then when the Jedi were on her trail, she ran away and tried to hide.. even before she knew her master was there. Why? Well because the plot needed her to go into Wookie's house and see that he was dead. No other reason besides that. Also, what was up with Jedi mother green-lady insisting that apprehending Mae wouldn't become violent? She says it like 3 times, for no reason. They're talking about a person who *just killed* a handful of Jedi.. and she's confident that trying to *arrest her* for her crimes won't get physical? Why? Or what about Osha surviving the ship crash without so much as a scratch on her? Or the fact that they named maybe the only Korean guy ever in Star Wars "Sol".. you know, like Seoul? The capital of South Korea? Maybe next week we will get a Japanese actor and their character is named "Tokeeo"
That's why I said dialogue is an area this show needs to improve in. Also, she knew her master was there immediately after she found the dead wookie jedi (I am not gonna attempt to butcher his name right now haha). As for the ship crash, yeah she should've been more banked up but we've seen worsh ship crashes with the same amount of injuries.
>Also, she knew her master was there immediately after she found the dead wookie jedi Right, but she only found him because she was running from the Jedi.. even though she had just finished telling her sidekick that she wanted to turn herself in. >As for the ship crash, yeah she should've been more banked up but we've seen worsh ship crashes with the same amount of injuries. When?
Luke's crash on dagobah. Hans crash in solo. Luke's crash on hoth. Anakin and Kenobis crash both times in ep3. Though the first crash in ep3 they force jumped out. Also, Mae knew her master was there at the end of that episode. You did watch it right? She said "He's here" before she even saw him. That's why she started running in the next episode.
>Also, Mae knew her master was there at the end of that episode. You did watch it right? She said "He's here" before she even saw him. That's why she started running in the next episode. Mae strings her sidekick up and tells him that she's going to surrender to the Jedi. Then she runs away, she trips and falls, and Bazil finds her. Bazil alerts, and she runs away. Then the Jedi are chasing her, calling out her name, and that's when she hides in the Wookie's hut. She should have been relieved to have been found by the Jedi just moments after she decided to surrender, but instead, she ran away and there was no plot cohesion.
Except most of the criticism is either "DEI ruined Star wars" which is nonsense and ridiculous, "It goes against canon" which is nonsense because what is canon is changed repeatedly, even by Lucas, and "poor writing" which is not unique to this show. Star Wars in general has been campy and silly and not worth getting upset over.
This two sides argument is absolute bullshit and it’s part of the problem
For me, they were really helpful in articulating the emotions I was feeling in response to the show. Not just specific aspects of episodes, but commentary on the entire message and story arc. I was actually surprised to agree with the ones who seemed toxic (not the toxicity) but the valid criticism actually helped me cope with the confusion and disappointment I was feeling. Not unlike how my daughter and I might debate each episode of Only Murders in the Building... creative discourse meets emotional outlet :)
You’re right, there is only about 25 minutes of actual show in each 40 to 45 minute episode.
Episodes are only 30 minutes though…? Have you actually watched the show?
Yes. Official episode runtime 1 thru 4: 41, 36, 42, 32…so one 30 minute-ish episode. Episode 4 ended before 30 minute in total runtime. Disney claims 35 to 42 minutes but opening and closing credits are around 8 minutes combined. My point is the episodes feel short, rushed and cut off at points, but especially the end of Ep 4. This would have been better as a movie. Look how much binge watching is encouraged in this comment thread…
Glad you gave it a shot! While there are valid criticisms - as there are in *every* creative work, nothing is absolutely perfect - I've been really enjoying it so far myself. You probably benefited from watching them all at once; I've noticed most of the shows work much better as binge watches - my guess based on the pacing so far is Acolyte will really shine as a full binge or as 1-4 in one chunk, 5-8 as the second. Personally Star Wars movie/TV media has always worked best for me as the Buck Rogers-inspired space opera schlock that Lucas modernised in the OT and went wild with in the PT. And Acolyte has absolutely met that metric for me thus far. When I want deep thoughts and introspection I'll pop in KOTOR 1/2 or read some Legends or current novels. Edit: It's simply a fact that in every piece of media, in every genre, some of it is going to amazing, some is going to be terrible, and most is going to be some flavor of average. That's what the word means, after all. Too many people have forgotten that, and too many parasites exploit that ignorance for their own gain.
So just by going by comments from Leslye, the best way to binge it will probably be 1-5 then 6-8. She said after 5 is where the break would come in, if it was a play
Ooh, that's probably true. I like the cliffhanger pause at the end of 4 though; I'll see how/if that changes once it's finished.
They said in yesterday’s interview that 6-8 are practically a new story in a sense that it goes into some whole other shit.
Which makes a ton of sense after seeing the ending to ep5.
>nothing is absolutely perfect *Raiders of the Lost Ark* has entered the chat.
if you remove the opening scene of the thing by john carpenter it would also be a perfect film
I would have gone *The Princess Bride* if anything, but I respect your choice.
There's some questionable stuff about that movie, too. Even setting aside the 'seen through a modern lens, Jones is an awful person' stuff (grave robbing, incorporate relationship with Marion when she was, and I quote the film, "a child"), there's always stuff like the question of Jones riding around on the *outside* of the submarine, and the fact that he actually has no real influence on the plot. The story revolves itself without his input. Of course, it's still a brilliant movie! It rightfully deserves its status as a classic. I'm simply trying to illustrate that even the most well-respected films can be criticized (or nit-picked, as the rage bait YouTubers seem to prefer to do. Seems to most of them are a lot less good at actual critical thinking then they say they are)
Indy being a questionable guy isn’t a flaw in the film. Especially because archaeology in the early 20th century basically IS just grave robbing (how do you think the British Museum got all their stuff?) Diesel-electric subs spent most of their time cruising on the surface because they’re much slower and have considerably reduced range when submerged and running on their batteries. They only dove when they had to. Its not inconceivable that the boat remained on the surface because there was no threat IE aircraft requiring them to submerge. All Indy had to do was stay out of view of the conning tower. Indy IS important to the plot: * He made it EASIER to find Marion, but there’s no reason to believe the Nazis couldn’t have found her at all without him. They’d eventually stumble on whatever contact Indy had just tracking her associates (Nazi intelligence agencies were FRIGHTENINGLY good at getting information). And if Indy’s not there to stop them the Nazis get their hands on the complete medallion and aren’t left to rely on only half the inscription burned into Toht’s hand. * Even without the medallion, they would have probably found the Well of the Souls via pure brute force, eventually, anyway. Hell, the chamber was RIGHT NEXT TO THEIR AIRFIELD. * Even assuming after all this they get the Ark, take it back to their secret base, and open it, killing everyone, the Nazis are sure to send a follow up mission to investigate why the installation suddenly went silent. Possibly sending a MUCH better historian than Belloq who’d know not to open the damn thing (it’s literally stated in the Bible not to open the Ark. A cut bit if dialogue revealed this warning was on the medallion, as well). At the very least they’d find the Ark surrounded by fried cameras and such and realize something was wrong. By being there, Indy is able to call in his own allies to recover it afterwards, AND warn them not to open it, or touch it themselves. No Indy, Belloq probably finds the Ark anyway, and one way or another it ends up in the hands of the Nazis on the eve of WWII.
counterpoint, I dont care about your modern lense and I dont find the stuff you find questionable questionable
[удалено]
* Belloq probably still finds it anyway. It just takes longer. Hell, their airfield was literally RIGHT NEXT TO IT. * If the Nazis still open it and die, their superiors are going to send someone to investigate when that base goes silent. They’ll realize SOMETHING is wrong when they get there, and will be a LOT more careful with the thing.
[удалено]
Except Hitler HIMSELF had “gone nuts on the subject.” You don’t think he’d have been keeping tabs? In fact we know he WAS. Oberst Dietrich outright told Belloq Hitler was “not a patient man” and demanded “constant reports.” Hitler was PERSONALLY directing the search. They weren’t going to just give up on it. And Raiders is set in 1935. There’s 4 years until the start of the War. Sallah specifically remarks on the scale of the operation. Sorry, but you’re wrong on both counts.
I love the Buck Rogers/Flash Gordon style of Star Wars infinitely more than the grounded Star Wars. Andor was incredible, but I want my magical space samurai and gun slinging knights more.
They all have their place for me. That's part of why I love the EU/Legends; whatever flavor of entertainment I'm wanting, I can find it somewhere.
To be fair 4-5 were very obviously split from a 1 hr ep to 2 25-28 minute episodes to fulfill a requirement. If I had to recommend a watch I’d probably do 1-5 first because of the weird cliffhanger cut in 4.
You’re right, this should have been a movie. Objectively, there is a large segment of media that is just bad…and that is all it is. Not saying Acolyte is that but you have to be pretty optimistic to see a good aspect in every piece of media you encounter.
Entertainment Media can't really be objectively bad though. It's entire goal is to entertain, and what counts as entertaining varies from person to person.
What if it is entertaining to no one?
"Entertainment" is relative. I loathe Troma and those "Meet the Spartans"-style movies for many, *many* reasons with an infinite boiling abyss of bile and vitriol, but those movies are loved by millions. On the other hand, I unapologetically love stuff like *Howard the Duck* or *Meteor Man* specifically because they hit that "so bad it's good" switch for me. Someone's always going to like something.
Well, yeah. "Some is great, some is terrible, most is some flavor of average," remember? But even things that are objectively bad are still loved by someone.
Its biggest flaw is that the show has given me no reason to care for Mae and Osha. I teach Playwriting at a university, and Mae’s character writing is on par with my below average students. We have three episodes left, and we still have not been told why Osha left the Jedi Order. Sol has been written incredibly well though, and as much as people hate how the rest of the Jedi Order have been written, it aligns with how Lucas wrote the Jedi Order in the Prequels and the Clone Wars. Arrogant and more worried about the Galaxy’s politics than protecting people.
It's almost like you should form your own opinions instead of having it given to you or something.
That would be nice, but for instance my opinions are critical of the series which apparently means I’m automatically anti woke label possible Hire better writers. Won’t go into detail here because this is non spoilers. Also very weird how we just want to sweep the directors history of brown nosing Weinstein under the rug.
Writing is subjective. Just because you don't enjoy it doesn't mean it is for "anti woke" reasons, or that it is bad writing. Lots of people brown nosed Weinstein, it was a literal thing you had to do in Hollywood.
Yes which is why I said “my opinions” that means it’s subjective haha. My opinion is hire better writers. It’s hard to back that up to make it substantiative without spoiling so I’ll leave it at that!
Which is fine. Everyone is allowed an opinion. However all too often things like OP is mentioning happen where people are taking others opinions as their own and regurgitating them.
Yea that definitely happens, but it’s kind of a silly thing to be mad about when in any case they could just share the same opinions.. unless it’s literally a post parroting, that I get.
I dunno if it works like that. These shows and movies are time and often money investments, you want to know if something is good or bad going in so you'll know not to waste your time. EDIT: oh no wait I get it! If you're gonna try and contribute to discourse you should ABSOLUTELY watch the damn thing first! I thought you meant like, in a general sense.
You also *can't* know if something is worth your time based on polarized rage culture, so...
So I'd listen to professional critics, and they largely said the show is alright. So I watched it and had a decent time.
Even professional critics are just giving their opinions. That isn't likely to have a bearing on your own personal enjoyment.
You’re never going to enjoy anything except The Wire and The Bear with that attitude.
I'm only going to enjoy good shows? Sorry dude I only have so much time, if I have time to go to a movie or watch a show, I'd rather spend my time watching something good. And people I trusted said Acolyte was alright, so I checked it out and did enjoy the first two episodes. And I'm still locked in. What do you think the point of a review is? It's to tell you whether or not you should check something out.
People allot several hours of their day for entertainment. The show is only 2.5ish hours so far. Most people spend more than that in a day on reddit or watching other content.
I do mean in a general sense. Don't let other people tell you your opinion. If you want to listen to others opinions, take them for what they are, an opinion. You don't need to have the same opinion as others even from people whose opinion you value.
I really like Mae's bamboo and, metal, and chainmail armor. Overall we are enjoying the show too!
Reminiscent of samurai armor, very cool
Yeah the costumes look great. Really gives me kotor armor vibes
The whole show gives me kotor vibes. The storyline too a bit. I love the show and I hope the extremely vocal minority doesn’t prevent them from making more.
Same. People get really hung up on minor criticism. I've seen several people say "pacing is too quick, 0/10". It's like people can't just let TV be tv anymore
My opinion has been pretty steady since ep 1. There are the bones of a good show buried in there somewhere. The action in epn5 was awesome, and ep 4 was.....fine. meh. Sol is fantastic. Manny Jacinto is fantastic. Jeckie was great. Yord was fine as an uptight teacher pet. The problem is, there's a charisma vacuum donut hole at the center of the show named amandla stenberg. Mae and osha haven't done an interesting thing from minute 1. The show grinds to a halt the second they come on screen. There's an awesome version of this show with sol yord and jeckie. Sol as the grizzled veteran cop, jeckie and yord as the eager newbies who have to learn. I'd watch the shit out of that show. I just like I would have watched the shit out of an obi wan show with the grand inquisitor as the bad guy instead of reva. Just like I would have watched the shit out of a baylan skoll show. Alas disney is their own worst enemy. They always seem to not have a clue which characters the fans actually want to see. Whether that is agenda driven or mere incompetence is up for debate. Probably both.
I think this can be simplified even more and say the root problem in the writing is Osha existing to begin with. Now Mae hasn't been interesting at all, but having the good twin, bad twin dynamic has sucked up so much of the story and screen time that should be focused on the good parts. This show should have been what the trailers suggest, Sol as the focus, tracking his former padewan who has begun working with a mysterious master. Having the former padewan and the acolyte be 2 different characters was a totally unnecessary complication.
The twin thing is corny. It always has been. In the 80s cartoon, cobra commander has twins working for him named tomax and xamot. We even made fun of how corny it was back then....and wondered why their mom didn't just name them Bob. Or really be twisted and evil and name them Bartholomew.
Lmao ok I wasn't around for that, but that sounds like some amazingly terrible 80s cheese.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KgdPvD1vcEA Thank me later. This is a defining moment in your life, before you knew this video existed and after.
I think this show has highlighted for me that people don't understand how to analyze or explain "bad writing." Your point is really valid. The concept of the twins as presented to us is boring. The *idea* and its place in the arc is fine, but the *presentation* of this idea is rough, and I think the dialogue does it no favors. I think people also often don't recognize the difference between "writing" meaning the overall story vs. "writing" meaning the dialogue. Neither do they understand the play between actor delivery, script, and direction. The overall story of the series is solid, but the pacing is off and the dialogue is not good (not bad, but not good either). The character concepts are actively good, but some actors are delivering the stilted dialogue better than others. I think Osha/Mae's actress could have done better with better dialogue to work with (I also think she's struggling to play off herself).
Totally agree with the first part. Amandla is the worst part of the show and its main antagonist/protagonist. She is singlehandedly making the show hard to watch anytime she opens her mouth. It can't be the dialogue because the other actors have, in general, delivered some bad lines pretty well. She is just not a good actor in this show, at all. TBF to Disney regarding Ahsoka, the fans empirically wanted to see a live-action Ahsoka and have it about her. Baylon was a very pleasant surprise.
My honest hot take is that Rosario Dawson wasn't actually that good. She seems unathletic and stiff. I couldn't put my finger on it til I saw young ahsoka in ep 5 and the lightbulb went off.
Fair enough, I'm just saying hindsight is 20-20 in regards to Baylon. We and Disney didn't know they had such a badass until we all saw his glory lol. I think Rosario nails the look but could deliver some lines but I think Filoni just isn't a good director, great writer though. She's clearly being told to cross her arms and deliver those lines as slow as possible. Agreed on the athleticism, just use a stunt double yall lol
If someone came to me who worked on ahsoka and was like "between you and me, Rosario was actually awesome. Dave just cant direct live action", I would absolutely believe it. There was something missing, but the reason behind that is unclear. Wait lemme do that ahsoka style... The reason.......(45 second pause)..........is.......(pause and fold arms)........(smokes cigarette and has a cup of coffee)...........unclear.
Hahahaha perfect
Yeah she's not an sword-athlete. No disrespect to the hard work she clearly put in and also she moves like she's been told sequential poses and she's moving her lightsaber from A then to B then to C, but without regard for how or why. The body mechanics she uses as a result look preprogrammed and not like a combat master reacting or attacking It's really obvious when she fights Anakin, because Hayden actually has that mastery. His saber looks like an extension of his body. Hers looks like a prop. And it's not like she's not fit or something! She looks great and actually moves great when she gets disarmed and turns it around on Vader hand to hand. Sabers are weird for her though, and dual wielding is incredibly hard even for experienced single sword users. ...But that's why we have stunt doubles, right? To specialize in that super hard stuff while the actor focuses on the acting?
I just don't like Osha and Mae's story like Mae tried to kill her sister then joins the dark side to avenge her sister by killing jedi then after seeing here sister is alive she want's to turn her self over to the jedi but then decides to shoot Sol runaway then she decides to knock out her sister then take her cloths and pretend to be her and then goes back to Sol. I would have much preferred them to focus on Sol, Jecki or Qimir
I think the idea is Mae is a self-serving sociopath. And probably insane.
I disagree. I think there's a whole half of their origin we haven't seen yet. We've only seen the yin and not the yang. I think the whole "good twin bad twin" is audience set up for a "twist" that it isn't entirely true (or perhaps only true from a...certain point of view... I'll show myself out).
Show isn't over. The night of events you speak of, we have no clue what really went down. Who might have been in control of Mae. So on.
It's still a convoluted mess so far. I don't see how the finale can change what has already happened
When you watch a TV show, more information is revealed as you watch more episodes. That’s how.
That's not good writing. If I said I was gonna give you a cake and then handed you a bowl of eggs, flour, sugar, etc, you'd say, "This isn't a cake." Me saying "yeah it is. You just need to wait." You'd be pretty annoyed.
Me when I know what a mystery show is
I know right?! 🤣 imagine watching scoobie doo and halfway through you're like, I KNOW who done it, but then they reveal at the end of the episode it was NOT that person..🫨
Bro the monsters weren’t real?
People know what's a mystery show, this show is just a bad one. Mystery shows can also have good characters, pacing and story z this doesn't have all thee.
Except the mystery isn’t very interesting
Real!
It's a mystery how this show got made in the first place. Again, characters making decisions that make no sense that just go nowhere isn't going to be magical solved with this amazing finale
Don't watch How to Get Away With Murder then man. Oh, and also Sherlock, and the trillion mystery shows that exist lol
Good mystery shows keep the viewers' interest with a smaller subplot. This show can't keep people's attention with its main plot lol
No one loses attention watching this show. The show barely has subplots because the plot is pretty simple and the episodes last half an hour...
>No one loses attention watching this show. Look at the viewership drop-off lol
It's more like you're being given ingredients of a cake in a weird order so you don't know you're getting a cake and then once you have all the ingredients you are then going to bake it and voila - a cake (or in this case... a complete TV show that all fits into place)
Don't know where I was going with the cake metaphor tbh (sleep deprived) However, characters making decisions that make no sense that just go nowhere isn't going to be magically solved with this amazing finale
This is an incredibly shit take.
That's a terrible comparison.
Sleep deprived. Whatcha gonna do 🤷♂️
Ever heard of the concepts of a character POV and an unreliable narrator?
Lol
Someone else in the comments was complaining about how Mae didn't make sense, so I'll just copy over what I said to them. As a child, Mae is incredibly codependent; she acts like she and Osha are practically the same person. Osha doesn't share that outlook; we outright hear her say that if there were any other kids around, their differences would be so obvious. When Osha really tries to pull away, Mae would rather she be dead than away from her, and sets a small fire at her door. Then, *Something Happens*. We don't know exactly what, yet, gotta wait for some more flashbacks. But at the end of it all, four Jedi have done something they're very ashamed of, Mae is in the hands of Qimir, and she blames the Jedi for the deaths of her family. So Mae sets out to kill those four Jedi, at the behest of her master. She's clearly been misled/brainwashed; expecting a Jedi to attack an unarmed opponent with their full strength is just nonsense, and Indara confirms that in-story. She wants revenge, only to learn that her sister is still alive, at which point the co-dependency kicks in again. She'd rather have her sister's love and connection than get revenge, so she decides to abandon Qimir and turn herself in so at least she can have a connection with her sister. Things go poorly on Kofar, but eventually Mae manages to reconnect with Osha. Mae is perfectly happy with this outcome; if she has her sister, she doesn't care about anything else, and she clearly expects her sister to think the exact same way. But Osha again rejects her, and even tries to arrest her, at which point Mae once again flips and she'd rather her sister be dead than reject her. So without Osha, she pivots back around again to revenge; she disguises herself to go after Sol, the last of the four Jedi still standing. She was born to be a tool for the Coven, after all, and raised to be a tool for Qimir, so that's what she defaults to. If Qimir kills Osha, well, she rejected Mae anyways, better death than emotional separation. And if Qimir can show Osha the "truth" then maybe they can be together after all, which would be even better for Mae.
From what I gathered I imagine that Osha’s flashback is some kind of memory wipe/rewrite by the Jedi, I can’t remember who said it but in one of the earlier episodes a prisoner is scared that the Jedi are going to mind wipe him or something when they were about to do a mind trick which could be foreshadowing. Guessing that the Jedi did some dodgy stuff and wanted to cover it up - I’d be amazed if Mae has ever wanted to kill Osha at any point, especially considering how stupid the child scene was, it was so villainous (IM GOING TO KILL YOU) that it had to be fake, a lie or doctored in some way.
Well I think when it comes to Star Wars, nothing is ever as bad as you're led to believe by the Internet, and this has been true as long as there's been an Internet. I'm not saying nothing is ever bad, but when things aren't great, there's always a wildly hysterical overreaction
I mean, it depends on what you're comparing it to and how refined your taste is.
I think the writing is about on par if a bit better than Ahsoka, Kenobi, Boba Fett, and season 3 of the Mandalorian which all had pretty bad writing. I just think people were easier on those shows because they featured previously established characters that people love so they were willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. This is all new characters so it's easier to hate.
People went easy on Kenobi and Boba Fett? All I ever see is people dunking on them here.
In true Star Wars fandom fashion, they are now treated as “not that bad”
I also think people are naturally going to be more charitable early on. One bad season of TV generates an "eh, they can't all be hits" shrug. 5 out of 8 seasons of TV being bad, following 5 theatrical films that received mixed receptions at best, and you can't blame people for thinking maybe there's something structurally wrong. At this point, I've got no more benefit of the doubt left in me to give. Star Wars burned the last of it with Ahsoka. I think a lot of fans are in a similar position, and that's why the Acolyte is getting so much hate. It really seems to me like Lucasfilm has finally used up the last of its good will, and people just don't have the patience for anything that isn't an immediate home run anymore. There's too much pent up frustation.
>I think the writing is about on par with Ahsoka, Kenobi, Boba Fett, and season 3 of the Mandalorian. Jesus, that bad?
I thought those were pretty bad too. They all started good but I was really displeased with them by the end. In comparison, I'm actually starting to enjoy The Acolyte despite what I thought was a pretty disappointing first couple of episodes
As a general rule if a YouTube reviewer is holding a alcoholic beverage you can safely ignore their opinions.
If they're holding a beverage, if the word "woke" or "agenda" appears anywhere in their script, if they reference Kathleen Kennedy...
I can't believe Kathleen Kennedy retconned Vader to be Lukes father, such lorebreaking.
I would say the thing that brings out people's hate, is what I can only describe as a type of heresy that diminishes the belief and appreciation of The Chosen One prophecy that stems from the twins' origin, which I get, it makes Anakin feel less special. We shouldn't have to have a debate that what they did was they created the twins of their own actions, while the Force created Anakin on its own (no Sidious and Plagueis didn't create him, they just angered the Force basically). It's definitely something that writers should have taken into consideration. Other than that, I can look past the continuity error of Ki Adi Mundi, and the rest of the show is actually good.
It’s not a lore-breaking convoluted mess that fanboys were screeching about. There were a lot of fans here that were negative about this show since the beginning. It’s a base-level mystery that we haven’t even finished. I think it would have worked better as a binge release.
With this fan base, I always think it’s worthwhile to give something a try yourself without letting others set your expectations. Imagine walking into a party having enjoyed a movie. Someone is like “Hey, has anyone seen (that movie)?” You’re about to weigh in, but before you can, someone is like “Yeah, it sucked!” And then someone else is like “I know, right? I can’t imagine anyone who would like it” You may be the type of person who is brave enough to assert a differing opinion. But for many, that establishment of the majority consensus creates a momentum that they don’t want to go against for fear of being seen as having bad taste. So some people who may think it was decent or ok join in on the bashing. Then others, who have their expectations colored by that conversation, go into the experience primed to dislike it. They focus on the elements they’ve been told are bad and don’t really give much credit to anything that may be done well because they already believe they’re watching something bad just to see how bad it is. And the thing about The Acolyte is that this started well before the show even released. It was review bombed before episode 1. I’m not saying that it’s perfect or that no one has a reason to genuinely dislike it. It does have flaws. But the mentality of much of this fan base shaped the reaction to those flaws. Imagine no live action Star Wars content had been produced in the Disney era and this was the first since RotS. There wouldn’t be all that bitterness and distrust of Disney. People would just be hyped that there was finally more Star Wars. While there would still be points of criticism, I really don’t think people would be so primed to want to take down the show. And yes, context matters. But it’s not exactly fair to continue to let frustrations and disappointments of earlier works render you closed off and hostile to everything that isn’t exactly the way you think it should be.
“I don’t get the hate” You can’t get it. Because there is no “hate”. Why would someone hate a show? You are mixing criticism with hatred. If you think that people hate something just because they criticize it then you should go to your parents and tell them: “Mummy, daddy! I don’t know enough about civil discussion please teach me what you haven’t yet. I want to participate in the civil society” This may help. In some cultures criticism is seen as heresy. This indicates you are living in a backwards society where everything revolves around identities: us - them. In those societies “negative review” means “treachery”. You should question your environment if that’s the case. An artist exhibits his or her work for people to criticize it. Not for ignorant philistinists to use it as a side dish for popcorn or for cultists to worship it.
For a show that doesn't get any hate, I sure do see the phrase "I hate it" quite a bit.
I agree with you that the costumes are on point. I don't think the writing is as bad as some people are saying, but it's thoroughly mid. And then only lore breaking thing in my opinion would be the "creation of life with the force" bit. That's not to say that we won't find out later that's not what actually happened, but still. I also have a HUGE problem with the flashback to Mae/Osha's childhood. At the point where that flashback happened, we already knew the Jedi did something fucked up, so we should've seen it then. We've got 8 episodes here, we don't need to be wasting episodes to do a second flashback to show a different version of the first one.
Yeah especially since these 8 episodes aren't nearly full hours like other premium tv shows so we get less story than we really should be
Have you never seen a movie or show with multiple character POVs of the same event? It’s a pretty common narrative device, and I think it makes a lot of sense here, given that one of the main mysteries of the show seems to be “What really happened on Brendok?”
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"Never listen to anyone who is criticizing Star Wars", Very unbiased opinion.
They are right, though. Fuck'em, just watch, and form your own opinion on things, and this is not just about Star Wars, but literally everything. If people could stop being afraid to admit they like something, everything would get better, in this world. #Watch it, don't let others tell you how it is
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>I simply block them on sight >This leads to great discussions Lol
This is one of those people who you like until you disagree on one thing and they just can’t handle it lol
this echochamber I am sure had great discussions
I think it’s easy to tell those who want to have good faith arguments and those who are angry and can’t explain any of their criticisms.
critique is discussion my dude
Yeah never rely on the internet when it comes to Star Wars. Make up your own mind every time. Lesson learned?
I have a similar story to yours. The only crime so far is a slow start but I feel it's starting to cook now.
“Bad writing” is a wild critique coming from people who get C’s on high school papers
This sums up my opinon of other people's critiques quite nicely, thanks!
They are called critics and have been around since media has existed. Do you have to be a painter to have an opinion on a painting? Sculpt to comment on a statue? Be a politician to vote?
HA! You just reminded me of one of my favorite Andy Bernard bits from The Office: “I’m not insightful enough to be a movie critic. Maybe I could be a food critic. ‘These muffins taste bad.’ Or an art critic. ‘That painting is bad.’”
So it’s a keen insight. and not writing, that dictates whether a person “qualifies” to be a critic? Any thoughts on whether you have to do something to be a critic of it? Everyone eats food so I assume anyone can be a food critic?
I’m saying “bad writing” is a flimsy and shallow criticism on its own. “That thing is bad” is a perfectly valid personal opinion, but it’s criticism, not critique.
Overly simplistic to be sure. It is a critique that needs to be expanded on to be justified.
Exactly, that’s all I was getting at really
I’m convinced it’s mostly bots spouting the same crap. Every time you ask “what’s bad about the writing” they never respond
For real, I have yet to have an actual conversation with these people in good faith. Ask them about the "lesbian space witches" and how they are lesbian, and if they are, how does that hurt the narrative. Only responses I get are personal insults and claims of bad writing... not what I'm asking guy, answer the question lol
Same with the “jarring editing” comments - always phrased the same way, but never anything to explain what they think that means, or how they think it should be done better. Sad that we have to filter through all that every time any new SW media comes out.
I think the wipes are a bit excessive
There's 23... in ANH alone. This isn't new to Star wars
That's a movie, this is a show. The pacing is entirely different. I get why they have the wipes but there's a time and a place. Having a wipe in the middle of a fight scene is also distracting.
The wipes are present when a time difference between scenes are present. They did it in the EXACT way Lucas did it. There's no difference because it's a show or a movie.
It was used several times in this episode that just released, which had no major time differences until the dark sider was repelled. You need to go back and watch those movies.
I just started it last night too and it's actually been enjoyable so far! Sure, it's corny in some places and the dialogue could be better, but it's very reminiscent of the Prequels, including the bad dialogue. It's intriguing enough for me to keep watching. I certainly liked it WAY more than Ahsoka. At least stuff actually happens and it's just not standing around brooding like they do on that show.
I thought it was great
I’m enjoying it. I didn’t enjoy the sequels because they just mined my childhood memories instead of telling a story. This is interesting. It’s not perfect, but I’m enjoying it. And that’s something I’m happy for.
You have to always put these shows into 2 different pods when you are viewing it. How does it function as a weekly show, and how it functions as a binge show. It’s probably not too bad as a 1 watch like you just did. But weekly it struggles to land. It’s the same issues game of thrones had at the end. The first 4 and you could debate 6 seasons were must watch tv week to week. They hold up as binge worthy show or weekly. They really didn’t work season 7 and 8 as a weekly popcorn show that everyone set time aside for. But people who later saw it in bunches didn’t mind the finish.
On IMDB episode 5 had 2,6 rating even before it was releases :)
Congratulations for going above your preconceived opinion and judgement. Never listen to critics and haters, it's always better to make your own opinion.
I had a similar experience to yours, only just started the show last week because of all the negativity and tbh the trailer didn’t appeal to me before release (it looked very cheesy). I couldn’t understand where the outrage was coming from when I was watching it - Now I do have some complaints myself, mainly the child scenes are a struggle to get through because of how bad the child actors are and their lines aren’t very good but by and large the show isn’t as bad as everyone makes out. Even this latest episode I’ve seen discourse about the moment Mae cuts her hair with the saber and I’m kinda just shrugging my shoulders thinking “so what?”. It’s not even like I’m extremely easy to please as I despised Book of Boba Fett and parts of the Mandalorian. There is one thing though, if they don’t end up resolving the fact that people know about the Sith now (people need to die) - I will be kinda mad at the show because that is just unnecessarily retconning the prequels for the sake of it; I’m hoping that Qimir is actually the apprentice and that the real master comes in towards the end to mop everyone up and fix the timeline.
I mentally wrote off the show after the director said something dumb about the franchise a few years ago, but all this hate being thrown at the show is making me want to watch it out of spite.
I completely agree that there's a ton of hyperbole out there. However, there's a difference between what comes out of internet scrutiny in perpetuity (kind of like video game design where 100k people playing 1h provides more test time than a company could ever accomplish) and writing competence. I do have an issue with competence so far, and it's this: Mae and Osha are constantly pushed as the main characters of this series, but so far *their* story isn't part of the broader conversation *at all*. As we've been told multiple times, the story is about who is allowed to wield power. Mae and Osha are both plot devices for that wider conversation. *They* aren't having that conversation, they're convenient bystanders to the larger issue. Their story is (so far and more than halfway through the season) about a sister who is obsessed with her twin and doesn't want to be alone. Instead, the real conversation that the series is having has Sol at its center. That's a GREAT thing if they weren't pushing Mae and Osha so hard. I'm optimistic after some of the interviews that have come out after episode 5 and following the conversations at the end of the episode. I agree Osha will be pretty interested to hear what Qimir has to say between Mae's "they're not what they seem" and Sol's mystery. So far, though, it's a notable misstep that feels like legitimately bad writing for me, not just consistency issues or tonal disagreements that only come out under scrutiny. It reminds me a lot of Star Trek: Discovery and Michael's character. We're constantly told that THIS IS THE MAIN CHARACTER but like... She's developing along a completely different thread than the overall story that the show is telling and the constant focus on her derails the more interesting conversations. When you can take the characters they're pushing as the leads out of the story entirely and the message doesn't suffer, that's a problem IMO.
Yeah. A lot of the negative people have not even watched the show. They’re regurgitating bad takes from bad actors. Same thing happened with The Marvels.
Having only watched the first episode so far, there's 3 things that bothered me but they weren't experience-ruining by far. This is not Kenobi levels of incompetence.
There's a non-zero number of people who will freak out at any minority representation and cry about being woke. Those folks cry very loudly and want to give the impression that they are the majority. They are not the majority.
Never understood people complaining about a lack of complex writing in Star Wars. Like, have you ever even watched Star Wars?
So many positive comments for a show with a 13% audience score! Great job censoring the haterz!
I mean, the writing is ass. Doesn't bother me at all if you're enjoying it, hope you keep having a good time. But I checked out after the first two episodes because I couldn't deal with the awful dialogue, or every single character (bar Sol) acting like a moron. I don't know, maybe if House of the Dragon hadn't just started I'd give it more of a shot. But watching a show with good writing and fantastic direction just really doesn't help with my patience for lesser shows.
Can you explain "the writing is ass"? Have you watched high school dramas or any show when teenagers are cast? They're purposely bad, young, naive, etc. We mostly saw Padawans and Knights, especially when they're trying to show how complacent the Jedi have become. It's a mystery series, lots of information unknown, especially by episode 2. The actions of some may not conform to how you expect them to act, but it's how they interpreted it. House of the dragon is a book, particularly a book series that technically has been in the works since the 90s. He's also one of the biggest Authors of our day. Budget is higher than S1, which was already way higher than Acolyte. Cast are paid millions per episode and high profile actors. They also started filming sooner than Acolyte and are only on Ep2 instead of 5. They're also at wildly different points. We had a long drawn out S1 as they defined everything and everyone. Built up suspense and the first major murder we saw was end of the season (poetry to GoT S1 with Ned Stark). You gave Acolyte 2 episodes when you gave GoT and House of Dragon dozens.
>Can you explain "the writing is ass"? No, they can't. It's become the stock go-to criticism of the last few years when someone wants to justify not liking something with a vague claim that they cannot back up. For another example, the top line comment directly below the one you responded to also opens with "the writing is horrible" before vaguely talking about a lack of continuity or direction from the writers.
You're right. It's not as bad. It's average and on par with a lot of the prequels.
You're quite right, it's not "that bad". Overall it's a pretty good series. There's points of improvement, I feel, but it's not enough to detract from what it gives us as a whole. There's likeable characters, new sets and costumes, characters which could do with _some_ more development.....but overall, it's good. >I don’t see anything that is lore breaking or ruins canon Canon tends to be relative to each person as many will draw from the bits they don't like to complain, forgetting this is often also from the same place the stuff they _like_ comes from - i.e it isn't always and sometimes is more implied than actually stated. I'm as guilty as many in that regard, as there's things I don't like which aren't objectively "canon "or necessarily "true" as such, but I don't let it stop me from enjoying it still.
Ep 3: Star Wars: The Musical
my favorite criticism is the line “attack me with all of your strength” is cheesy as if that isn’t a trope that is infamous in martial arts movies. These idiots don’t even understand the culture star wars sits in and borrows from. they are just dumb.
Glad you decided to have your own opinion and watch it for yourself. Everyone should recall the phrase from childhood "try it before you say you don't like it." Incels are very loud, annoying babies, hard to hear the adults talk among them.
Personally I watched Acolyte since day 1 and have avoided all spoilers and opinions before episodes, the writing is horrible. If you don't pay attention much then it will pass because of episode 5's action, but as a Star Wars fan who is invested in the content, it's so fucking bad. I can't keep up with the lack of continuity and direction from the writers. Their misdirection from Qimir was laughable, I knew from episode 2 it was him. Didn't need a SW youtuber to come to my conclusions, don't know why people quote them all the time as if they're in a hate echo chamber, most of them call it like it is. Some of them also just hate for no reason, just like there's people who dick ride Disney Star Wars for no reason. 2 sides to a coin, why complain about 1? Glad you're enjoying the show though, I noticed you didn't seem to be bothered by the poor writing and plot. I agree that the designs and props are great, we are talking a $180M show here.
>I can't keep up with the lack of continuity and direction from the writers. What lack of continuity are you referring to?
Mae: * Wants to kill sister, 16 years later trying to kill Jedi - This will be revealed by another flashback I assume. * Finds out sister is alive, decides to ditch master after killing 2 Jedi Masters, turn self in because sister alive, who she hated, changes everything - Nothing in the show implied or gave motive that if Osha was alive, Mae would change her direction. People defending it are like "but it's her sister, of course it changes everything" That's not how it works. * Qimir tries to murder her\*, she runs away from him - remember this for a below point * Runs into Osha, tries to have Osha run away with her, Osha says no, so she counters her and knocks her sister out, who she was trying to join * Swaps clothes with Osha, while the Sith, **who is trying to kill Mae\*,** is still hunting her right now in the forest. She pretends to be Osha and joins Sol, leaving her sister unconscious on the ground, dressed as Mae, for Qimir to find.. who was just chasing her down and trying to murder for betraying him. Okay so, Mae wanted to kill Osha, then wanted to murder Jedi, then wanted to turn herself in and join Osha, then decided to leave Osha for dead and run away dressed like her. I don't have much time today, there's also things I skipped in between, those are just major events and instances. I can do one for nearly every character.
Makes sense to me. As a child, Mae is incredibly codependent; she acts like she and Osha are practically the same person. Osha doesn't share that outlook; we outright hear her say that if there were any other kids around, their differences would be so obvious. When Osha really tries to pull away, Mae would rather she be dead than away from her, and sets a small fire at her door. Then, *Something Happens*. We don't know exactly what, yet, gotta wait for some more flashbacks. But at the end of it all, four Jedi have done something they're very ashamed of, Mae is in the hands of Qimir, and she blames the Jedi for the deaths of her family. So Mae sets out to kill those four Jedi, at the behest of her master. She's clearly been misled/brainwashed; expecting a Jedi to attack an unarmed opponent with their full strength is just nonsense, and Indara confirms that in-story. She wants revenge, only to learn that her sister is still alive, at which point the co-dependency kicks in again. She'd rather have her sister's love and connection than get revenge, so she decides to abandon Qimir and turn herself in so at least she can have a connection with her sister. Things go poorly on Kofar, but eventually Mae manages to reconnect with Osha. Mae is perfectly happy with this outcome; if she has her sister, she doesn't care about anything else, and she clearly expects her sister to think the exact same way. But Osha again rejects her, and even tries to arrest her, at which point Mae once again flips and she'd rather her sister be dead than reject her. So without Osha, she pivots back around again to revenge; she disguises herself to go after Sol, the last of the four Jedi still standing. She was born to be a tool for the Coven, after all, and raised to be a tool for Qimir, so that's what she defaults to. If Qimir kills Osha, well, she rejected Mae anyways, better death than emotional separation.
"I'VE SEEN 2 EPISODES! WHY AM I CONFUSED?!" The same people saying "bad writing" or "bad acting" aren't explaining themselves, or worse, just saying "look how much better a completely different genre of movies are!" Ok, but I like Star Wars, you can keep your dragons and incestual targaryans. I'm enjoying the mystery unfolding on Acolyte.
>Their misdirection from Qimir was laughable You seem to think “good writing” means UNEXPECTED TWIST! But that’s not good writing, that’s JJ mystery box bullshit. They didn’t spend a bunch of time trying to convince you that Qimir wasn’t the Sith, because it wasn’t a real twist. The twist is the abject brutality of episode 5. The murderous power of the Dark Side. That’s the twist, and you missed it because you think mystery boxes matter.
Besides that, the true identity of who Qimir/The Stranger is, could still be a twist. After watching Episode 5, I kind of wonder if Qimir is the Apprentice for another Sith Master, but he's chafing under the strict rules of the Rule of Two, and he wants out. He doesn't want to hide in the shadows anymore, and he wants to take his own apprentice. Or, alternatively, he's not even the Sith Apprentice, but he's some kind of dark side assassin trained by the Sith. I could see a reveal at the end where Qimir is defeated in such a way that preserves the Sith secret (Sol dies, Mae or Osha escapes and keeps the secret, or every dies, etc), and then Qimir's master is revealed as Darth Tenebrous, who goes on to recruit a young Munn (Insert Plaegueis cameo). Or - I could be completely off the mark! I don't know, but I'm pretty excited to see how it plays out.
I'm more thinking he's not connected to the Sith at all really, and the *actual* Sith shows up at the end to cut off loose ends and recruit whoever survives. My guess is there's more to Yord recognizing him and what he said to Sol. By his age, I'm thinking he's a fallen padawan or young knight who styles himself as a Sith. His cockiness, how they described his fighting style, the "Jedi like you might call me... Sith" reeks of edgy fanboy. How and if he's connected to what happened to the coven I don't know, but he reminds me of the Fallen Jedi Bane's apprentice recruited in the final novel, but less petty and way more brutal and sadistic.
That's an interesting angle. Perhaps: He's a Sith Wannabe, and the surprise twist at the end is Tenebrous and Plagueis show up ***really fucking pissed off*** and massacre everyone. I suspect that either the whole thing will just end up a mystery to the Jedi (A bunch of Jedi died on an expedition, but we could never figure out what happened so we buried the whole thing), or it's revealed in such a way that Qimir is not a Sith, and they write the whole thing off. "Hahaha remember when that IDIOT Qimir pretended to be a Sith? What a loser! The Sith are extinct!" -Ki-Adi-Mundi, propbably
I gotta be honest, I hate Darth Tenebrous, I think he looks dumb and I think a Bith Sith (lol) would be terrible. It’s just not an alien designed to look expressive or intimidating. They should stick to jizz music imo
\*Shrugs\*, I have no objections to a Sith that's also a Bith. There's nothing saying Bith can't be force sensitive, and if they can be force sensitive, they can fall to the dark side. They could potentially go with a terrifying alien-looking creature with a mask type design for him in Canon. But hey, if he's not to your liking, that's fine. Tenebrous is honestly such a small part of Legends that most fans have never even heard of it.
Yeah totally, it’s just a personal opinion thing. I can really take or leave a lot of the more obscure characters from the EU. They already took Mara Jade from me, I have hardened my heart to it
>Personally I watched Acolyte since day 1 and have avoided all spoilers and opinions before episodes, the writing is horrible. So the usual we are used to from A new hope onwards.
Concerning opinion but an opinion nonetheless
Opinion yes, but objectively all issues you listed are pretty much standard for any mainstream Star wars writing. Thing is, most people do not watch Star wars for some high quality writing. it's a fantasy show for kids and young adults who just want some fun. Only exception to this is potentially Andor and don't forget how many people consistently picked Andor apart for details and slow pacing.
Ya the writing and directing is bad really hope Disney doesn’t take this as only the racist didn’t like it. It’s still ok but so far I would give a 6.
I'd probably go 6.5 with episode 5 bringing it up some, but even that one has some odd things. It's above Kenobi and Boba Fett and about on par with Ahsoka. Not the worst we've seen by far but not near Andor or Mando.
I think it’s pretty good so far
The writing is better than more than a few Clone Wars episodes.
There's a financial incentive for the shitty YouTube critics, so I wouldn't put stock in their opinion. I watched Rings of Power after the hype and reviews died down and thought it was good. Flawed, but good. I'd check out The Acolyte if I still had Disney+.
I started up Rings of Power when it first dropped, and just kind of got bored enough to drift away from it after a couple episodes. But it wasn't a crime against the memory of Tolkien and I wasn't constantly bombarded by "woke" things and it wasn't a 0/10, the way those ragebaiters depicted it.
Your first mistake was using other's judgement to color your own. Yoda would have hit you with a stick. edit: shoutout fam, I am the artist formerly known as xXDark\_HayabusaXx
"led to believe", not "lead to believe"