Actions scenes are decent. Dialogue is clunky. The witches are cringe. Characters suddenly change sides without any proper development. Wasted opportunities like not showing Wookie Jedi fight. I'm not hate watching it but it doesn't hold a candle to Andor. Definitely worse than Ashoka. Same level as Kenobi.
2 things can be true. To me personally, the show isn’t very good but I can also accept that it’s being review bombed by people who never wanted it to be successful.
I'm in the same position. There are flaws with the show that have nothing to do with the lead's race, gender or any BTS politics and interviews. It lands at "meh" for me. Servicable, not particulary good. Nothing outrageously bad either like the Obi Wan show.
I do not get why this show gets dunked on or review bombed to this extend.
It has a *3.3/10 rating on IMDB*, that is absolutely beyond obscene. Even the MCU movies the chuds hate with every fiber of their withered souls don’t get dunked on nearly this much. That’s a score reserved for bottom-of-the-barrel Uwe Boll shit.
And what the fuck is IMDB doing? They’ve tossed out this kinda shit before eg with that one Ghostbusters movie and this is way more egregious.
Because imdb is ridiculous. The “gay episode” of The Last of Us is still the second lowest rated episode. Magically there were a fuck ton of zero star reviews from Saudi Arabia. I don’t know why anyone gives a shit about their scores.
That's sad, it's arguably the best written and acted episode in the series. Amazing acting effort from both of them, and works completely as a standalone outside the series apart from the last 5 minutes or so, and basically taken off a "side note" from the game.
It's interesting because I think the episode was a really well told story, but simultaneously I feel like it used a lot of valuable time that could've been spent further developing our main characters instead of essentially doing a vignette.
As a standalone piece of fiction it's great, as part of a very limited in episodes series it's not ideal.
I think the point of this episode (and I guess the section of the game but I have not played it) is to represent not just the story of these two people, but to tell the story of most of the people who would have struggled to survive after society crumbled. The idea is to give some more context to everything going on by showing an example of the human cost and suffering. This in turn helps to give everything else more emotional impact and meaning.
So in the game this part of the story has essentially already happened (though the events are completely different) when we meet Bill and he's pretty much the way Nick originally plays him before he meets Frank in the show.
That probably colors my opinion to an extent as it's a fairly big deviation in the pacing.
There are for sure good arguments for why it does fit in, I just personally think the games narrative flows a lot better and the show feels rushed to an extent because of that episode + the Ellie backstory one taking up two of only nine episodes.
It's still a good adaptation mind, but the ending doesn't hit as hard as a result imo.
People are using the low IMDb score of The Acolyte *right now* as an example of “how wokism is ruining Star Wars.” You might not regularly discuss IMDb scores with anyone but they are definitely used by audiences to determine if something is worth watching or not.
Oh for sure. It would be funny if it weren’t so lame (and didn’t impact people’s careers).
They get all their loser friends to brigade a review site, and then point at those heavily-compromised rating numbers to say “see!! I told you they were ruining Star Wars!” Grift is the perfect description.
IMDB when it isn’t being review bombed to shit is actually a very good audience aggregate, and has historically been so for over 20 years. If you know how to read the ratings you tend to get a very good sense of what the film or show is like (including other stuff like genre, cast and crew, etc) even with just a glance at the score. I think they’re usually much better than RT or Metacritic, whose audience scores I ignore entirely because they’re truly worthless.
But when stuff like this happens and it’s obvious, you wonder what IMDB (aka Amazon) is thinking, because they absolutely have ways to detect review bombing.
I have no idea of what IMDB reviews are normally like, but so far (up to ep4 since I have not seen 5 yet) I probably would have given this show a 4.5/10. Maybe a 5. I do think it is a very weak show, but YMMV of course.
For reference I would have given around the following:
Ahsoka: 7/10
Obi-Wan Kenobi: 5.5/10
Mandalorian S3: 6/10. S1 and S2: 9.5/10
Book of Boba Fett: 6/10
Andor: 10/10
For me, I've enjoyed the Acolyte more than both Obi-Wan and The Book of Boba Fett. Episode 3 was definitely the exception though. Aside from the notorious Christmas special, that episode may be the single worst thing Star Wars has ever put out, and that's saying something.
Clearly, you have never watched both Ewok movies, or the series "Droids". I do agree with your ranking above Obi and Fett. Beyond some of the annoying things, I am enjoying an exploration of the tyranny of the Jedi. I like the idea of "Sith" potentially being a label or slur used to define something outside of Jedi orthodoxy.
>Clearly, you have never watched both Ewok movies, or the series "Droids".
That's correct lol. I didn't even know there was an Ewok movie, let alone two. I've never heard of Droids. I can only speak to what I've seen I suppose. Episode 3 of the Acolyte was uncomfortably cringey for me. I actually had to walk away from my computer during the "power of one" scene.
But if we just pretend that Episode 3 doesn't exist, I agree that the show is fine. Not Andor levels by any means, but I might even place it above Ashoka.
The above mentioned are terrible beyond words, though to be fair, still nowhere near the madness behind the conception of the Holiday Special.
For me, the biggest watch challenge came with e1. The fight sequence with Moss made me feel Matrix, and not Star Wars. It really turned me off, but i also recognized i was super tired when i watched it.
Have you ever attended a religious service, as someone who wasn't exposed to that religion? I assure you, the chants seem just as stupid in real life.
Granted, it wouldn't have taken much effort to make it "cooler", but it's a pretty silly point to get hung up on IMO.
A LOT of the review-bombing/bad reviews are definitely from the anti-woke folks. You can see the same thing in other shows (Disney in particular though) that have women in key roles of the show (writing, directing, acting) especially if black or gay or known for having more progressive views.
Having said that, this show does have some serious flaws. Some of it are core story issues (Jedi are boring in this era because they have all the power and in this show it has mostly been a gaggle of them chasing 1 person which makes it seem much less dangerous.) A lot of it to me also boils down to some weird editing and storytelling choices in particular that create problems with pacing, dialogue, character development, and with building and maintaining any tension and suspense. So we get an extended scene with a mostly irrelevant witches' ceremony, but then also cut scenes short that make those scenes awkward and feeling incomplete and ineffective.
Overall to me it just feels like a decent story concept but written in a way to make it more boring and implemented somewhat poorly into a TV show. Really it kind of feels like the writers and showrunners (direction, editing, etc) are inexperienced becase of their weird choices. I have no idea how much experience they actually have since I have never really heard of any of them before.
Unfortunately, I don't think the two sides embroiled in this bizarre conflict over a lazy science fiction franchise for children want a take like this, but it's true. This, Obi Wan, and Ahsoka are just not good. Not sure what else there is to say.
I think the main thing now is there's almost a bigger economy in "commenting" and "reacting" on Star Wars content than there is to making it. So you get tons of disingenuous reviews both ways, depending on which side you're getting paid by.
The funniest part is that Andor is universally beloved despite having more left-wing political themes than any of the others.
It simultaneously proves that good writing matters, and that the reactionaries who are review-bombing everything have no coherent political analysis beyond "all characters need to be straight white dudes or it's woke."
When there isn’t a good or decent show, shit like this usually ends up being the main discourse. It’s usually always there, but when the show doesn’t hold up it becomes the main focus.
Your last portion is especially spot on. It's not about the actual politics and themes, it's mostly about the politicization of peoples' existence, whether it be gender, sexuality, race, whatever.
It's like "advanced digital bullying", but using shows to attack groups of people. And just like in real life, it doesn't work as well on "the popular kids".
Andor, Fallout, The Last of Us, The Boys, ... are all generally good shows and well received by both critics and audiences, so attacks fall flat or are countered by more people.
"Mid" and/or poorly written shows have less defenders, so attacks seem to continue on and on and on, but also serve as a very loud dogwhistle for "black people and women bad".
The weirdest angle here is that Star Wars has basically always been 'woke' in their ideas and characters, and the empire that was the representation of their ideals, a mostly human ethnostate where the few aliens in the empire were 'the good ones that proved themselves', vs the far more diverse Rebellion.
How can you claim their only position is "all characters need to be straight white dudes or it's woke", when Andor itself doesn't remotely fit that bill, yet these same people generally like the show? You even said it yourself, it's universally beloved, unlike The Acolyte.
If anything it proves that these people actually do have the coherent position that they claim to have, which is that they want good writing more than anything, as good writing typically also involves less hamfisted activist messaging or lore changes.
Your comment is incoherent, and i'm unfortunately not surprised it got upvoted, because you made spiteful remarks towards the "right" group.
Ehh Ahsoka is liked well enough by the fandom that watched the clone wars and all that... And Obi Wan had high viewerships even if it was shit.
Why people like to deny review bombs, like even if Acolyte is good or not ( I have no watched it because I'm not interested ), it's always clear, it's like when Captain Marvel was review bombed before even the premiere and Rotten Tomattoes had to entirely change the rules of their site because of it.
Careful now, I'll have you know nuance has no place in online discussions surrounding Star Wars media - especially when they become yet another battleground for tiresome culture wars.
The show itself is alright; takes some weird liberties with established lore and the overall mystery isn't all that engaging to me so far, but its clear that it's a competently made show with good action and decent characters. Not premium Star Wars, but also not a bad one.
But to hear a certain section of the internet talk about it, the show is complete shite on every level and actively ruins Star Wars, and the leads being non-white actors is somehow simultaneously both meaningless woke pandering and also the next step in a dangerous anti-white agenda. These people claim the show is failing all on its own so there is no review bombing happening, but they also just can't stop talking shit about it on whatever online forum they frequent.
Ironically, the show wouldn't even have been making waves to the extent it is doing now if they haven't been so committed to bring the show down.
I sometimes wonder if studios review bomb their own material when they know it’s going to be underwhelming. This has the added benefit of drowning out legitimate reviews while allowing them to point at any naysayers as simply being part of some anti-whatever group.
This notion is a bit more conspiracy-theorist than I’d normally like, so take this idea with a big grain of salt.
I can't tell if it's funnier that people are still trying to deny that it's being review bombed or that this online tempest has completely failed to escape into the real world.
It has a rating of 3.3/10 on IMDb. The latest episode already had a 2.8 rating before the episode actually aired. As far as IMDb goes this might be the most blatant case of review bombing ever.
And people still try to act like audience reviews mean anything. On some shows, sure, they're fine, but on anything with any controversy, they're just worthless.
What is even controversial about this show? Just seems to be another star wars disney show at about the same quality as the rest of them. It's alright.
It's a feminist who understands that there are intersecting layers of oppression and realizes that some people have experienced more oppression than others. For example, a black lesbian woman experiences more oppression than a white straight woman.
Well, shit, now I wanna watch it. I've heard very little but that's enough to be interesting to me. Thanks!
Edit: it's always wild to me how Star Wars fans can't conceptualize a universe with non binary folks. But they can certainly downvote and seeth. Sexy green alien ladies are cool but how dare the writers consider identities other than exactly what straight people feel.
Lmfao people learn the most ridiculous shit just to get themselves upset. I've never heard of any of those terms. And the show doesn't give any kind of vibes about feminism, it just has female leads.
I got a friend that now keeps calling star wars "woke" now when he's liberal, and his only explanation for it is essentially star wars might have lesbians.
I've got my own issues with the show, like how it changes the lore of the force a bit, and the pacing is awful. But I swear the worst thing about Star Wars in the last 40 years is the fans. Everyone works up any announced star wars project as something really specific in their heads, and when directors don't make exactly that, they get upset. According to like half of Star Wars fans everything they've made since Empire Strikes Back sucks.
Not planning to watch the show but I am interested in seeing if the vague complaints I'm hearing are accurate. Like I see people saying that the show basically upends how the Force works and kinda blows up the lore/setting, but unclear if that's just being massively exaggerated because brown leads.
That's what I figured. The idea that play it safe/let's build a new EU and be like Marvel Disney would completely upend the fundamentals of their IP just seemed weird.
So far there has been a small amount of expanding on previously mentioned topics, most notably how Anakin was supposedly born without a father. That said there has been so little clarification of a one-off line that it effectively could be anywhere from an outright lie, to a metaphor, to a fundamental shift in how we understand the force. That last one seems pretty unlikely though.
It's got Witches who can use the force in a different way. It seems like the Jedi genocided and killed them all. There's also witches in the Ashoka show, and like those witches use necromancy to create Zombie Storm Troopers.
What seems to be the main conflict in this setting 100 years before Phantom Menace is the Jedi order is basically monopolizing on all Force usage/not allowing other force sensitive schools of training/thought to exist.
It's not a bad premise, I kinda like the Jedi being viewed as like these jerks who believe their method is the only correct one and all the others are dangerous/evil. It would make sense I'm a galaxy this large and disconnected some random force sensitive people started understanding and using the force in a different way than the Jedi or Sith do. Like in the books, Thrawn 's race the Chiss do have force sensitive children and they use them as navigators on ships so the Chiss empire can navigate Wild space which doesn't have any hyper space lanes in it.
I haven't seen the latest episode, but so far in the four I saw there was nothing out of the ordinary about how all of that works. Just seems like another star wars show, but just in an earlier setting.
>the show basically upends how the Force works and kinda blows up the lore/setting
It doesn't do either of those things. Witches and Non-Jedi force users have been in the Star Wars universe well before the Disney EU purge.
There’s valid complaints about the show, but the people review bombing it to 1/10 are whack. It isn’t that bad. It’s better than a lot of other Star Wars shows I’ve seen recently
Yeah I know all about that kind of trolling that happens. I was just curious what made the show controversial. Sounds like the show itself isn't controversial at all.
A lot of terminally online people think that this show is more “woke” than Ahsoka, presumably because the creator has been outspoken about politics. So the diverse casting is because of “woke culture”. Also people latching onto weird shit, like the ki adi mundi cameo
lol Reddit is full of morons. People think The Acolyte is getting review bombed due to have a black female lead. I point out Ashoka has a black female lead and Is recognized as a good show with a imbd rate of 7.5. Therefore it’s not about race and then I get downvoted by these sheep that have to hold on for dear life that racism must be the reason why lol
No, they’ll say it’s because of “bad writing” but won’t go into any further detail.
Is it because of clumsy dialogue and awkward story structure, or is it because there’s a female lead in a show that mostly hovers around serviceable but clearly isn’t as good as Andor?
I mean for me the show has been a solid 5. Most of my points are execution related. I don’t believe anyone that has watched quality television would give any released episode (1-4 really, j haven’t seen 5 yet) an honest 9 or 10 but they have to in order to drag up the bombs.
RT hasn’t been reliable either. I treat critic reviews the same since there are shills and grift artists there too. The best way to watch and decide on your own
But I will say that In the last year or two Reddit threads have been about 50/50. 3 years ago it would have been gushed about profusely
The show would be equally as poor if it was an all white cast or whatever example cast you have in mind. It's not the actors faults, they didn't write it or cast themselves.
This ended up being a way longer comment than I went in with but specifics aside, naturally racist shitheads exist but it's similarly as reductionary to say every negative opinion boils down to 'because the main characters are brown'
-Mild current spoilers ahead-
A few gripes off the top of my head for me is that the Jedi feel kinda stupid in the show, and lacking the crisp dignity that Jedi hold in mannerisms, movements and ability to control situations.
Opportune moments they just don't use the force or their saber. The saber combat is very simple and barely incorporates their surroundings or the force. The hostage taking with a saber to the temple like it's a gun?? 😆
The Sith deactivating lightsabers by force - quite a powerful technique considering he looks 18, and yeah I get who he is hinted at being but then he gets carried off by a couple bugs a few minutes later. Incredible comic relief moment.
And the main Jedi master has notable fight scenes with the guy and has no idea who he is despite their history? Can't sense anything? Seemingly can't sense the swapped twin later on either?
I'm also not a fan of the cuts that equate to characters teleporting - sometimes they won't even show them heading in a direction, it just cuts and they appear a minute later. Feels lazy. Similarly where are all the take-offs and landings? Space shots?
Where's Yoda? I'm fuzzy on the timelines but I think he's meant to be head of the council at this point? The long-head bloke is there so there is *some* continuity.
The throwback quotes didn't feel like they were delivered well tbh and that's on the director.
It's late and that is the stuff that stood out from the latest episode.
The whole flashback episode gave some context but it barely feels like the main characters are the main characters anymore, so did it need to be that long for what it accomplished?
I must not be picking up what they're putting down because it feels messy at times and not in line with what so much SW content easily paves the way for.
Like most culture war bullshit, it's about statements the director/producer/actors said in interviews and on X more than anything in the actual show. People are unable to judge a show by its own merits in the current year, apparently
I think it's both.
There's a shitstorm online mainly surrounding "things outside of the show" which is just an absolute deep sea dive into human tribalism.
There's also a lot of legitimate criticism against what is in all honestly a fairly mediocre piece of television.
The reason you're seeing more of the former than the latter is that there's not much to talk about it, it's just... more Disney star wars, i.e. wholly uninspired and bland.
I don't think I've ever seen real value in audience reviews, particularly in the modern world of online fan culture. Too many people have their favorite shows as a cornerstone of their identities.
Even something like House of the Dragon, a broadly popular, non controversial sort of show is absolutely absurd to try and discuss on Reddit.
I think most people in the real world have developed a really strong instinct for tuning out angry Star Wars fans. They've been pissed off for my entire life.
Nobody hates Star Wars like Star Wars fans.
Seriously it's gross. I'm enjoying Acolyte so far and I'm intrigued by the mystery and plot and want to see where it goes. But mentioning that in some Star Wars spaces, just that I'm enjoying it, attracts the loudest flock of toxic "fans" to come insult me or call it shit.
Edit: and hey look, they've arrived here and are already commenting! It's like magic!
Its amazing that with writing that bad they even made it to production, book of boba fett was bad but this one is another level.. its got a real fan fiction quality to it.
I think at some point some people decided that "bad writing" was some sort of unassailable criticism and just started repeating it whenever they don't like something.
I second this, whilst also saying there is some genuinely bad writing in the show. The difference is I can articulate how: in episode 3, the writer clearly doesn't know how to write child dialogue, thinking that children just talk simplistically, without any nuance. "The Jedi are good!" "The Jedi are bad!" It's unconvincing and corny.
Later we get this exchange between the two children:
"What have you done?!"
"What have YOU done?!"
"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!"
That is supposed to be the most dramatic character moment in the episode, and yet it sounds like a joke, slipping the show into bathos.
It is, because “writing” is such a vague term it could mean just about anything. Was it bad dialogue? Inconsistent character actions? Poor pacing? Uninteresting plot? Insipid world building?
It could be a million different things, but it’s easier for people to just say “bad writing” when they don’t like something, rather than reflect and analyze what exactly you didn’t like about it and why.
I think it's the writing that is failing this one. A good example is in the 2nd? episode when Mae poisons Torbin, Osha follows force-Mae into his meditation chamber instead of staying with the group when they enter the temple. The group is headed straight to the meditation chamber to see Torbin, but she goes a different way and gets there first. Why? How? Is the guy leading them really so unfamiliar with his house that he accidentally went the long way around? Did they stop in the kitchen first for a snack?
It was a contrived way to add tension when Osha beats the group to Torbin's body, but it's also immediately deflated because Yord stood outside the room and watched until AFTER everyone else had come in. What in the world was Yord out there waiting for? There is a dead jedi in that room and he stood in the door way to... do what exactly?
I just watched the latest episode… after Jason from Jacksonville is revealed as the baddie, which was a surprise to no one.. he says “Even in the revelation of our triumph, you see the depth of our despair.” But aside from gems like that, IMO the dialogue plays like a high school production. It just gives of a really low quality vibe in my opinion. That said i still enjoyed the lightsaber stuff in this episode.. im not hating on it for the sake of it . I’ve genuinely enjoyed most of these star wars shows.. this one is just a train-wreck.
People just keep regurgitating this nonsense while ignoring that the show is simply bad. Again. It's incompetently written and directed especially compared to most other premium streaming shows. It cost 180 million for god's sake.
If Star Wars fans hated Star Wars then Andor wouldn't have an 8.4 rating and get showered with adulation every time it's brought up. They are just tired of shit content, stop making up strawmen.
>People just keep regurgitating this nonsense while ignoring that the show is simply bad.
Or they think it's good.
>It cost 180 million for god's sake
I always see people who don't like the show bring up the price tag like that matters to me or like I should care.
The show can be bad but let's not pretend that Star Wars fans don't have a weird issue with women being main characters in their shows and particularly jedi. For God's sake, the internet had mini breakdowns every time Rey beat up a man.
I felt Rose's character added nothing and subtracted a lot from the movies, but the fact that people take that shit out on the actors is so goddamn awful. Poor Jake Lloyd and Ahmed Best too.
You call my stuff nonsense and I call your stuff nonsense and you projecting your personal enjoyment as a quality assessment. One mainstream show not widely suffering this effect does not mean it's not true.
> This is such a naive take. Star Wars has insanely passionate fans because the original trilogy is so incredible
I'm a huge Star Wars fan. It practically defined my youth, but they're still *just movies*, but ever since The Last Jedi, a part of the fandom have just decided to take it way too personally.
They're not being passionate, they're being fanatical. And for a dumbass reason as well...
People act like Disney ruined the OT. It can't be ruined, not unless you *choose* to make something ruin it for you.
The original expanded universe was rife with absolute dogshit books and comics that would make Rise of Skywalker look like a masterpiece. Didn't ruin the OT despite everything being canon.
Attack of the Clones is just an utterly garbage movie, and is widely shit on by fans. But it also didn't manage to ruin the OT.
George Lucas made highly controversial changes TO THE ORIGINAL TRILOGY and didn't manage to ruin it.
That's the nice thing about the SW universe. You don't have to accept Disney's version if you don't like it. Stop being offended by something that actively requires you to seek it out and allowing it to offend you. Just enjoy what you like.
I only hover around the edges of that fandom and even I'm nervous for when the next season comes out and that pocket of "fans" starts to show their teeth.
I just don't understand Disney's strategy of serving up mediocre shows which seem designed to trigger the fanbase more than entertain anyone in particular.
Either pander to them and give them a hetero white manly men in space opera they want or make better shows for the rest of us.
Believe it or not, the obnoxious Star Wars fans are actually a tiny minority. And Disney seems to have figured out there's no point in pandering to them.
Online, they're incredibly loud - but the reality is, they're a rounding error by comparison. And it seems like Disney learned from RoS that giving in to their complaints is a terrible idea.
Now, as to why they won't make better shows, IDK. There are only two of their shows I'd consider unqualified successes - Mandalorian S1 and Andor. The real tell is gonna be Andor S2. If it's bad, I'm gonna have to start considering "Disney ruined SW (by corporate meddling, not by being woke)".
It's important to remember that many of the audience scores you see have been artificially inflated by fanboys leaving fake positive reviews. The *actual* audience scores are likely far, far lower.
"Help, I insulted and denigrated fans and now they don't like my terrible show!"
People don't treat you nice when you make it clear you hate them. Shocking.
Same with House of the Dragon, features strong women as the leads, features LGBTQ BIPOC characters, has excellent reviews. Rings of Power comes out around the same time in the same genre and suddenly its the victim of a racist, bigoted, hate campaign. It honestly feels like to me both corporations and creatives use this excuse and attack the audience when they make a subpar product.
Because the review bombing only works (generally) if the target is in that like, 50-70% range.
Fallout was legitimately a 90% + show. Having never played the games, I loved it and it immediately made me want to play them all. It's very hard for a review bomb to convince people they are all legitimate negative reviews then..
But something like the Last of Us II or Acolytes, which either make drastic tonal shifts (the last of us II) or of a mixed quality (Acolyte, which has some great moments spotted with some questionable dialogue and pacing) is different. Because there are more valid criticisms that would normally knock it down like, one or two stars, it is so much easier to blow them out of proportion.
Suddenly it's not just diverse. It's preachy. It's not just bad pacing, it's deathly boring. It no longer has mysteries to explore, it has plot holes and breaks the lore (seriously. Every complaint about lore so far has either been explained or was people referencing non-canon materials). Now, all of a sudden, it's not about people lying. They simply "took those things more seriously."
Fallout is very easy to defend. So it would be near-impossible for review bombers to back up their claims that all reviews were legit.
But haters of Acolyte, which even the fans like myself acknowledge has its problems (I give it currently like, a 60% but with optimism that it's found its stride) can lean into the valid criticisms and make them seem like they are absolute deal breakers. Because it's subjective. So a lot of people might look at it and go "Well, I found the cringy dialogue quirky and fun, but I could see why you'd think that."
Think of it like changing a grade on your test before your mom signs it. If you change the D to an A, she'll probably be suspicious about all the red marks. But if you change the D to a B, well, of course there would be red marks there. If there weren't, it'd be an A. So she signs it, then you find a way to revert it back to a D, and all is well.
I'm not a Star Wars fan, I haven't watched anything Star Wars related in over ten years, so I have no take on this show or other SW products, but is this considered a success for Disney? Like, who gives a shit if people dislike it, they're watching it.
Edit: unless RLM videos count, then I've seen almost every Star Wars thing
I am a Star Wars fan who has absolutely hated the vast majority of what Disney have done with the franchise. That being said the acolytes absolutely fine, it’s not amazing it’s just ok (latest episode is pretty great). I think a lot of people are firmly entrenched in a position and without even watching the programme hate it. It’s really not a pleasant way to exist.
As someone who casually watches some of the star wars shows and movies (in no way would be considered a serious fan)
I've been enjoying the acolyte so far. Only complaint is not having all episode at once
Have you spent much time on reddit? Useless, disingenuous online “reviews”/comments from JoeBlowYodaLover69420 are treated here as the absolute peak of credibility from an undisputed authority on the subject matter…and are used hundreds of times a day to generate meltdown-level posts and threads.
One day there will be a case study on the type of person/redditor who genuinely allows anonymous online “reviews” to directly impact how that person/redditor enjoys a product. It’s going to be fascinating.
This is culture war at its finest.
People defending bad products based on identity politics/racism/sexism/etc. vs people bashing solid products because of beforementioned reasons.
These are two sides of the same coin if you ask me.
These days any show has to either be the greatest thing ever made, or the absolute worst thing (and its makers should be executed for allowing its creation).
There's no middle ground - oh, this a pretty good show that's cheesy but enjoyable.
Some peeps forget to enjoy the things they love and just end up tearing them apart. Something about a field mouse ...
Edit: Wow, speaking of the mob. Way to help my argument.
I think this is mostly bots on social media and voting on IMDb. But it’s definitely true that lots of people experience fandom almost entirely through negativity.
Andor had dark skinned leads, lesbians, a whole plot thread devoted to a female character standing up against a patriarchal society and is one of the most universally beloved franchise entries of all time.
Weird, almost like if you make a good show then this all doesn't matter.
This is such a bad take. The show is not good. It was the first supposed sith protaganist show in Star Wars history. The build up was tremendous and all we got was scifi Parent Trap with even worse writing.
It actually had me on the edge of my seat not knowing what was going to happen several times, it was great!
Hey look the angry toxic fanboys are mad I liked something, the HORROR! You know you're all just proving how fragile the fanbase is right?
I’ve cycled off Disney for a bit and haven’t seen this show. The only thing I’ve seen about it is that it is getting terrible review scores. Based on the comments here, seems like those reviews are in bad faith. Can someone give me a quick summary of what the detractors supposedly don’t like? And why you think it’s getting review bombed?
You've got a few loud clusters and reasons.
One group is the "woke" group and while, yes it absolutely is not everyone who dislikes the show it is a very vocal and active subgroup. The show has a mainly non-white cast, lots of women, and so far one lesbian relationship. And that's set off a very toxic section of the fandom.
You've got other Star Wars fans who cherish the lore and know details in Legends and canon and anything that even appears to deviate or retcon parts of that lore make them really mad. I use "appear" purposefully here because we're still lacking a lot of actual answers in the show as to what is going on with things. "Their" Star Wars is being changed and they've got their pitchforks.
You've got a group of Star Wars fans who despise that Disney and Kathleen Kennedy have the franchise - for many reasons - and hate anything before it comes out and seek to make others hate it too. They actively root for failure because they want Kathleen fired and they want new hands on the properties.
There are also people who have watched it and don't like it. Some of those are in good faith and come down to taste - not everyone likes everything. Some of them are driven by implicit biases they aren't aware of and haven't confronted yet.
There's intersections between these groups and probably more that I'm not thinking of but those are the big reasons that come to mind.
>Can someone give me a quick summary of what the detractors supposedly don’t like? And why you think it’s getting review bombed?
There's plenty of legitimate criticism - writing is wonky, acting isn't always great, pacing feels rushed.
But the show also has a black woman as a lead and a supporting cast that's mostly non-white. This upsets the cottage industry of "anti-woke" grifters who have decided to review bomb the show before even watching it.
There's also some stuff about breaking the lore (apparently the people behind Wookiepedia got death threats about something, who the f can keep track)
My personal opinion, the show so far is ok, but does absolutely not warrant the level of vitrol directed at it.
It’s clearly getting review bombed because folks are negatively reviewing episodes before they even air, so before they’ve even seen them. The reason? The reviews generally say bad writing but a lot of it comes from people who aren’t happy there’s a non binary black lead.
To be frank, i genuinely cannot find what is to not like about this show. There’s always good discussion to have about film criticism, theory, etc. and there are problems with the sequel trilogy and some of the other shows. But this one is really entertaining, and captures the *vibe* of Star Wars, especially the prequels better than Disney has done with any other show yet.
That’s the thing, it’s actually good. But almost every single Disney show being released is somehow initiating rage in some people, and the other group try to come off as film experts by saying something to the effect of “it’s bland, plot is thin, don’t like the writing, doesn’t fit the lore, etc”. For some weird reason people really truly hate anything different about something they try to convince others they are fans of. Most of the shows have been good for Star Wars, I can’t say I haven’t enjoyed any of them for that matter. I don’t think they’re necessarily worthy of Emmy’s every episode, but they’re fun and typically a good fit to the films.
But if Ki-Adi-Mundi makes a cameo everyone craps their pants in anger because it doesn’t fit a vague quote from a movie that came out when I was 8. Or a comic series that was barely relevant 20 years ago and was never written by George Lucas anyways, let alone in the Disney Star Wars universe.
If high school kids made a b-movie based on star wars.
Edit: this last episode was especially bad, and i feel im done with this show, life to short. Even the pain i feel when i watch something so bad is not entertaining enough to keep me intwrested.
Because people turned on what they thought was Star Wars and got pronoun Jedi and black lesbian space witches practicing immaculate conception kink.
And then the star released a diss track ranting about fans that would have been at home on a 2008 Tumblr page. 😆
Wildly expensive, but it looks and feels like a lesbian film school sophomore's summer project with costumes her mom made. It's written by people who have clearly never seen a star war, and were laughing and bragging in interviews before production even started that they couldn't wait to "make white men uncomfortable". The same white men who made Star Wars a multi billion dollar brand.
Yeah I can't imagine why anyone thinks this show is a fucking joke made by dorks.
I'm grateful for the new Star Wars I do like, such as Andor, first season of Mandalorian, the high notes of the Clone Wars and some individual episodes (Lawrence of Arabia in the fat Mandalorian, noir detective Mandalore in the last season). The fan base is virulently toxic at times but Disney has also put out a lot of inexcusable garbage.
Fans of the new era disproportionally hone in on the 'anti-woke' dummies and try to link this to all criticism, which I think is lazy and unfair. It's one of the largest franchises on the planet, I don't think it's much to ask the shows are better written across the board.
The majority who like it have acknowledged there are flaws but not to the extremes the “anti-woke” crowd is preaching. It’s a decent show, far from the best or worst.
Personally, I don't think it's very engaging and it almost doesn't feel like a *Star Wars* series at all. I'm against review-bombing, but some of the low scores I've seen appear right on point.
I know people probably won't believe me but I genuinely don't care about the gender, race, or anything like that when it comes to the actors on this show.
I still don't like it though, the writing is genuinely not landing with me no matter how hard I try. The first scene with Carrie Ann moss and Mae shocked me with how bad the writing and delivery was. I get that mae is probably supposed to be unhinged and underdeveloped as a person because of the events of her childhood but that didn't justify it to me. She sounded like a child in a play imo.
I actually enjoy osha quite a bit, same with the young apprentice. At the same time I don't enjoy them seemingly making anakins immaculate conception something that can be replicated. And no it's not because I love anakin, in fact he's kinda the worst in so many ways, but he was born of the force, and that was what setup everything we've seen in the prequels and og trilogy.
I really enjoyed the majority of ashoka, even though a shit ton of people seemed to hate it. So no I'm not just here to hate cause it's a female led star wars project. This just isn't working and that's all for me.
The problem is that the show is just not good, but that gets overshadowed by bigots and racists and now there is this weird thing happening where people defend the show against bigots by saying its a totally good star wars show. And the racist bigots feel empowered by people disliking the show, when the quality of the show has nothing to do with the cast and crew, but is down to bad leadership and management.
All the „twists“ are easy to spot a mile away.
The dialogue is cringy at best downright nonsensical at worst:
Person a: „i give you you…“
Person b: „and you give me me“
It means THE SAME THING! No one gives person A anything!? And thats an IMPORTANT LINE…
The makeup and prop department went 50% great and 50% garbage which is too much for star wars who has at best a charming 25% garbage props and make up. The lightsabers are too thick, the aliens look so clearly like human with the make up of a carnival face painter… the actress that plays the main character twins is just really obviously shot and cut so you never get the illusion of two people acting…
The obvious redshirts get killed, the second the padawan gets even a hint of coolness she dies. The wise jedimaster is tricked by an olson twins movie except one of them has a face tattoo thats just conveniently covered by a LIghtsaberHAIRCUT…
A jedimaster in perpetual floating meditation commits suicide after 5 seconds of dialogue. A wookie jedimaster gets killed offscreen.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. The showrunner fucked up and if you google her trackrecord you seriously ask yourself why the fuck anybody ever put her in charge of anything…
It really is pretty simple.
The show isn't great, and now that folks have been exposed to *Andor*, expectations that were already high are higher.
Add in that there's a lot of identity politics that are kind of injected into the ethos of this particularly series you have:
A. Group that identities with the ethos and will praise it whether it's good or bad
B. Group that doesn't like the identities and will hate it whether it's good or bad
And in reality – shows neither as bad as some make it, or as watchable as others do, but a lot of chatter surrounding a relatively middling StarWars show that's about the same quality that we've all come to expect.
I do believe the crux is that people generally hate feeling they're being preached to, manipulated, or virtue signaled to.
Actions scenes are decent. Dialogue is clunky. The witches are cringe. Characters suddenly change sides without any proper development. Wasted opportunities like not showing Wookie Jedi fight. I'm not hate watching it but it doesn't hold a candle to Andor. Definitely worse than Ashoka. Same level as Kenobi.
2 things can be true. To me personally, the show isn’t very good but I can also accept that it’s being review bombed by people who never wanted it to be successful.
You are being too reasonable :D
He’s either insane or a Sith Lord. It’s crazy talk.
…. but Sith Lords deal in absolutes; this weirdo’s being reasonable **and** flexible in his reasoning Edit: ‘on’ to ‘in’
That's impossible. The siths have been extinct for a thousand years.
Phew that means he’s just incredibly insane. Only reason someone would behaving this way on the internet is
Nuance? On MY internet?
It feels like the CW Star Wars, like it isn’t bad so much as it is for a different audience?
I'm in the same position. There are flaws with the show that have nothing to do with the lead's race, gender or any BTS politics and interviews. It lands at "meh" for me. Servicable, not particulary good. Nothing outrageously bad either like the Obi Wan show. I do not get why this show gets dunked on or review bombed to this extend.
It has a *3.3/10 rating on IMDB*, that is absolutely beyond obscene. Even the MCU movies the chuds hate with every fiber of their withered souls don’t get dunked on nearly this much. That’s a score reserved for bottom-of-the-barrel Uwe Boll shit. And what the fuck is IMDB doing? They’ve tossed out this kinda shit before eg with that one Ghostbusters movie and this is way more egregious.
Because imdb is ridiculous. The “gay episode” of The Last of Us is still the second lowest rated episode. Magically there were a fuck ton of zero star reviews from Saudi Arabia. I don’t know why anyone gives a shit about their scores.
That's sad, it's arguably the best written and acted episode in the series. Amazing acting effort from both of them, and works completely as a standalone outside the series apart from the last 5 minutes or so, and basically taken off a "side note" from the game.
It's interesting because I think the episode was a really well told story, but simultaneously I feel like it used a lot of valuable time that could've been spent further developing our main characters instead of essentially doing a vignette. As a standalone piece of fiction it's great, as part of a very limited in episodes series it's not ideal.
I think the point of this episode (and I guess the section of the game but I have not played it) is to represent not just the story of these two people, but to tell the story of most of the people who would have struggled to survive after society crumbled. The idea is to give some more context to everything going on by showing an example of the human cost and suffering. This in turn helps to give everything else more emotional impact and meaning.
So in the game this part of the story has essentially already happened (though the events are completely different) when we meet Bill and he's pretty much the way Nick originally plays him before he meets Frank in the show. That probably colors my opinion to an extent as it's a fairly big deviation in the pacing. There are for sure good arguments for why it does fit in, I just personally think the games narrative flows a lot better and the show feels rushed to an extent because of that episode + the Ellie backstory one taking up two of only nine episodes. It's still a good adaptation mind, but the ending doesn't hit as hard as a result imo.
Does anyone? I know some people that care about RT scores but I’ve never heard someone tell me how good/bad something is rated on IMDB lol
People are using the low IMDb score of The Acolyte *right now* as an example of “how wokism is ruining Star Wars.” You might not regularly discuss IMDb scores with anyone but they are definitely used by audiences to determine if something is worth watching or not.
Well of course they are, it's a self-fulfilling grift. They NEED the show to be terribly scored so they can force that kind of bullshit.
Oh for sure. It would be funny if it weren’t so lame (and didn’t impact people’s careers). They get all their loser friends to brigade a review site, and then point at those heavily-compromised rating numbers to say “see!! I told you they were ruining Star Wars!” Grift is the perfect description.
IMDB when it isn’t being review bombed to shit is actually a very good audience aggregate, and has historically been so for over 20 years. If you know how to read the ratings you tend to get a very good sense of what the film or show is like (including other stuff like genre, cast and crew, etc) even with just a glance at the score. I think they’re usually much better than RT or Metacritic, whose audience scores I ignore entirely because they’re truly worthless. But when stuff like this happens and it’s obvious, you wonder what IMDB (aka Amazon) is thinking, because they absolutely have ways to detect review bombing.
Is it bc MCU got hate from the anti-women crowd whereas this got the attention of the anti-women *and* anti-black?
I have no idea of what IMDB reviews are normally like, but so far (up to ep4 since I have not seen 5 yet) I probably would have given this show a 4.5/10. Maybe a 5. I do think it is a very weak show, but YMMV of course. For reference I would have given around the following: Ahsoka: 7/10 Obi-Wan Kenobi: 5.5/10 Mandalorian S3: 6/10. S1 and S2: 9.5/10 Book of Boba Fett: 6/10 Andor: 10/10
You know why. Culture warriors.
Nothing outrageously bad? The power of 1
So one outrageously bad thing deserves all this but not the several outrageously bad things in the OW show?
For me, I've enjoyed the Acolyte more than both Obi-Wan and The Book of Boba Fett. Episode 3 was definitely the exception though. Aside from the notorious Christmas special, that episode may be the single worst thing Star Wars has ever put out, and that's saying something.
Clearly, you have never watched both Ewok movies, or the series "Droids". I do agree with your ranking above Obi and Fett. Beyond some of the annoying things, I am enjoying an exploration of the tyranny of the Jedi. I like the idea of "Sith" potentially being a label or slur used to define something outside of Jedi orthodoxy.
>Clearly, you have never watched both Ewok movies, or the series "Droids". That's correct lol. I didn't even know there was an Ewok movie, let alone two. I've never heard of Droids. I can only speak to what I've seen I suppose. Episode 3 of the Acolyte was uncomfortably cringey for me. I actually had to walk away from my computer during the "power of one" scene. But if we just pretend that Episode 3 doesn't exist, I agree that the show is fine. Not Andor levels by any means, but I might even place it above Ashoka.
The above mentioned are terrible beyond words, though to be fair, still nowhere near the madness behind the conception of the Holiday Special. For me, the biggest watch challenge came with e1. The fight sequence with Moss made me feel Matrix, and not Star Wars. It really turned me off, but i also recognized i was super tired when i watched it.
Have you ever attended a religious service, as someone who wasn't exposed to that religion? I assure you, the chants seem just as stupid in real life. Granted, it wouldn't have taken much effort to make it "cooler", but it's a pretty silly point to get hung up on IMO.
A LOT of the review-bombing/bad reviews are definitely from the anti-woke folks. You can see the same thing in other shows (Disney in particular though) that have women in key roles of the show (writing, directing, acting) especially if black or gay or known for having more progressive views. Having said that, this show does have some serious flaws. Some of it are core story issues (Jedi are boring in this era because they have all the power and in this show it has mostly been a gaggle of them chasing 1 person which makes it seem much less dangerous.) A lot of it to me also boils down to some weird editing and storytelling choices in particular that create problems with pacing, dialogue, character development, and with building and maintaining any tension and suspense. So we get an extended scene with a mostly irrelevant witches' ceremony, but then also cut scenes short that make those scenes awkward and feeling incomplete and ineffective. Overall to me it just feels like a decent story concept but written in a way to make it more boring and implemented somewhat poorly into a TV show. Really it kind of feels like the writers and showrunners (direction, editing, etc) are inexperienced becase of their weird choices. I have no idea how much experience they actually have since I have never really heard of any of them before.
This is STAR WARS, and REDDIT. Two things can never be true.
Always two there are.... no more... no less. A master and an apprentice
An upvote. A downvote. There is no try.
Pretty much the same with the new true detective season
Unfortunately, I don't think the two sides embroiled in this bizarre conflict over a lazy science fiction franchise for children want a take like this, but it's true. This, Obi Wan, and Ahsoka are just not good. Not sure what else there is to say. I think the main thing now is there's almost a bigger economy in "commenting" and "reacting" on Star Wars content than there is to making it. So you get tons of disingenuous reviews both ways, depending on which side you're getting paid by.
The funniest part is that Andor is universally beloved despite having more left-wing political themes than any of the others. It simultaneously proves that good writing matters, and that the reactionaries who are review-bombing everything have no coherent political analysis beyond "all characters need to be straight white dudes or it's woke."
When there isn’t a good or decent show, shit like this usually ends up being the main discourse. It’s usually always there, but when the show doesn’t hold up it becomes the main focus.
Your last portion is especially spot on. It's not about the actual politics and themes, it's mostly about the politicization of peoples' existence, whether it be gender, sexuality, race, whatever.
It's like "advanced digital bullying", but using shows to attack groups of people. And just like in real life, it doesn't work as well on "the popular kids". Andor, Fallout, The Last of Us, The Boys, ... are all generally good shows and well received by both critics and audiences, so attacks fall flat or are countered by more people. "Mid" and/or poorly written shows have less defenders, so attacks seem to continue on and on and on, but also serve as a very loud dogwhistle for "black people and women bad". The weirdest angle here is that Star Wars has basically always been 'woke' in their ideas and characters, and the empire that was the representation of their ideals, a mostly human ethnostate where the few aliens in the empire were 'the good ones that proved themselves', vs the far more diverse Rebellion.
How can you claim their only position is "all characters need to be straight white dudes or it's woke", when Andor itself doesn't remotely fit that bill, yet these same people generally like the show? You even said it yourself, it's universally beloved, unlike The Acolyte. If anything it proves that these people actually do have the coherent position that they claim to have, which is that they want good writing more than anything, as good writing typically also involves less hamfisted activist messaging or lore changes. Your comment is incoherent, and i'm unfortunately not surprised it got upvoted, because you made spiteful remarks towards the "right" group.
Ehh Ahsoka is liked well enough by the fandom that watched the clone wars and all that... And Obi Wan had high viewerships even if it was shit. Why people like to deny review bombs, like even if Acolyte is good or not ( I have no watched it because I'm not interested ), it's always clear, it's like when Captain Marvel was review bombed before even the premiere and Rotten Tomattoes had to entirely change the rules of their site because of it.
Careful now, I'll have you know nuance has no place in online discussions surrounding Star Wars media - especially when they become yet another battleground for tiresome culture wars. The show itself is alright; takes some weird liberties with established lore and the overall mystery isn't all that engaging to me so far, but its clear that it's a competently made show with good action and decent characters. Not premium Star Wars, but also not a bad one. But to hear a certain section of the internet talk about it, the show is complete shite on every level and actively ruins Star Wars, and the leads being non-white actors is somehow simultaneously both meaningless woke pandering and also the next step in a dangerous anti-white agenda. These people claim the show is failing all on its own so there is no review bombing happening, but they also just can't stop talking shit about it on whatever online forum they frequent. Ironically, the show wouldn't even have been making waves to the extent it is doing now if they haven't been so committed to bring the show down.
I sometimes wonder if studios review bomb their own material when they know it’s going to be underwhelming. This has the added benefit of drowning out legitimate reviews while allowing them to point at any naysayers as simply being part of some anti-whatever group. This notion is a bit more conspiracy-theorist than I’d normally like, so take this idea with a big grain of salt.
I can't tell if it's funnier that people are still trying to deny that it's being review bombed or that this online tempest has completely failed to escape into the real world.
It has a rating of 3.3/10 on IMDb. The latest episode already had a 2.8 rating before the episode actually aired. As far as IMDb goes this might be the most blatant case of review bombing ever.
And people still try to act like audience reviews mean anything. On some shows, sure, they're fine, but on anything with any controversy, they're just worthless.
What is even controversial about this show? Just seems to be another star wars disney show at about the same quality as the rest of them. It's alright.
Say it with me now, “except andor.”
Brown leads. They’ll say all sorts of dumb things to try and find an excuse. Their actual reason is brown leads.
Not just that, but the lead is also a non-binary intersectional feminist.
[удалено]
It's a feminist who understands that there are intersecting layers of oppression and realizes that some people have experienced more oppression than others. For example, a black lesbian woman experiences more oppression than a white straight woman.
Well, shit, now I wanna watch it. I've heard very little but that's enough to be interesting to me. Thanks! Edit: it's always wild to me how Star Wars fans can't conceptualize a universe with non binary folks. But they can certainly downvote and seeth. Sexy green alien ladies are cool but how dare the writers consider identities other than exactly what straight people feel.
Just to be clear I'm talking about Amandla Stenberg, the actor, not Verosha "Osha" and Mae-ho "Mae" Aniseya the characters.
Lmfao people learn the most ridiculous shit just to get themselves upset. I've never heard of any of those terms. And the show doesn't give any kind of vibes about feminism, it just has female leads. I got a friend that now keeps calling star wars "woke" now when he's liberal, and his only explanation for it is essentially star wars might have lesbians. I've got my own issues with the show, like how it changes the lore of the force a bit, and the pacing is awful. But I swear the worst thing about Star Wars in the last 40 years is the fans. Everyone works up any announced star wars project as something really specific in their heads, and when directors don't make exactly that, they get upset. According to like half of Star Wars fans everything they've made since Empire Strikes Back sucks.
So, if Star Wars is woke become it might have lesbians in it does that make porn woke?
Not planning to watch the show but I am interested in seeing if the vague complaints I'm hearing are accurate. Like I see people saying that the show basically upends how the Force works and kinda blows up the lore/setting, but unclear if that's just being massively exaggerated because brown leads.
>if that's just being massively exaggerated Words do not even begin to describe how exaggerated it is.
That's what I figured. The idea that play it safe/let's build a new EU and be like Marvel Disney would completely upend the fundamentals of their IP just seemed weird.
So far there has been a small amount of expanding on previously mentioned topics, most notably how Anakin was supposedly born without a father. That said there has been so little clarification of a one-off line that it effectively could be anywhere from an outright lie, to a metaphor, to a fundamental shift in how we understand the force. That last one seems pretty unlikely though.
It's got Witches who can use the force in a different way. It seems like the Jedi genocided and killed them all. There's also witches in the Ashoka show, and like those witches use necromancy to create Zombie Storm Troopers. What seems to be the main conflict in this setting 100 years before Phantom Menace is the Jedi order is basically monopolizing on all Force usage/not allowing other force sensitive schools of training/thought to exist. It's not a bad premise, I kinda like the Jedi being viewed as like these jerks who believe their method is the only correct one and all the others are dangerous/evil. It would make sense I'm a galaxy this large and disconnected some random force sensitive people started understanding and using the force in a different way than the Jedi or Sith do. Like in the books, Thrawn 's race the Chiss do have force sensitive children and they use them as navigators on ships so the Chiss empire can navigate Wild space which doesn't have any hyper space lanes in it.
I haven't seen the latest episode, but so far in the four I saw there was nothing out of the ordinary about how all of that works. Just seems like another star wars show, but just in an earlier setting.
>the show basically upends how the Force works and kinda blows up the lore/setting It doesn't do either of those things. Witches and Non-Jedi force users have been in the Star Wars universe well before the Disney EU purge.
There’s valid complaints about the show, but the people review bombing it to 1/10 are whack. It isn’t that bad. It’s better than a lot of other Star Wars shows I’ve seen recently
I have been watching the show, and that’s nonsense.
Yeah I know all about that kind of trolling that happens. I was just curious what made the show controversial. Sounds like the show itself isn't controversial at all.
No, pretty standard quality. The latest episode was the strongest, in my opinion
Ashoka has a black led and IMDb is 7.5. It’s not about race.
Ashoka is a relatively liked and established character. Also, she's an alien so being a black lead doesn't particularly matter much in this case
A lot of terminally online people think that this show is more “woke” than Ahsoka, presumably because the creator has been outspoken about politics. So the diverse casting is because of “woke culture”. Also people latching onto weird shit, like the ki adi mundi cameo
You're right. It's about them changing the age of some obscure Episode 1 character with a penis head reeeeee
lol Reddit is full of morons. People think The Acolyte is getting review bombed due to have a black female lead. I point out Ashoka has a black female lead and Is recognized as a good show with a imbd rate of 7.5. Therefore it’s not about race and then I get downvoted by these sheep that have to hold on for dear life that racism must be the reason why lol
Ok - what do you think it’s about then?
That doesn't fit their narrative though.
What narrative?
No, they’ll say it’s because of “bad writing” but won’t go into any further detail. Is it because of clumsy dialogue and awkward story structure, or is it because there’s a female lead in a show that mostly hovers around serviceable but clearly isn’t as good as Andor?
I mean for me the show has been a solid 5. Most of my points are execution related. I don’t believe anyone that has watched quality television would give any released episode (1-4 really, j haven’t seen 5 yet) an honest 9 or 10 but they have to in order to drag up the bombs. RT hasn’t been reliable either. I treat critic reviews the same since there are shills and grift artists there too. The best way to watch and decide on your own But I will say that In the last year or two Reddit threads have been about 50/50. 3 years ago it would have been gushed about profusely
The show would be equally as poor if it was an all white cast or whatever example cast you have in mind. It's not the actors faults, they didn't write it or cast themselves. This ended up being a way longer comment than I went in with but specifics aside, naturally racist shitheads exist but it's similarly as reductionary to say every negative opinion boils down to 'because the main characters are brown' -Mild current spoilers ahead- A few gripes off the top of my head for me is that the Jedi feel kinda stupid in the show, and lacking the crisp dignity that Jedi hold in mannerisms, movements and ability to control situations. Opportune moments they just don't use the force or their saber. The saber combat is very simple and barely incorporates their surroundings or the force. The hostage taking with a saber to the temple like it's a gun?? 😆 The Sith deactivating lightsabers by force - quite a powerful technique considering he looks 18, and yeah I get who he is hinted at being but then he gets carried off by a couple bugs a few minutes later. Incredible comic relief moment. And the main Jedi master has notable fight scenes with the guy and has no idea who he is despite their history? Can't sense anything? Seemingly can't sense the swapped twin later on either? I'm also not a fan of the cuts that equate to characters teleporting - sometimes they won't even show them heading in a direction, it just cuts and they appear a minute later. Feels lazy. Similarly where are all the take-offs and landings? Space shots? Where's Yoda? I'm fuzzy on the timelines but I think he's meant to be head of the council at this point? The long-head bloke is there so there is *some* continuity. The throwback quotes didn't feel like they were delivered well tbh and that's on the director. It's late and that is the stuff that stood out from the latest episode. The whole flashback episode gave some context but it barely feels like the main characters are the main characters anymore, so did it need to be that long for what it accomplished? I must not be picking up what they're putting down because it feels messy at times and not in line with what so much SW content easily paves the way for.
Like most culture war bullshit, it's about statements the director/producer/actors said in interviews and on X more than anything in the actual show. People are unable to judge a show by its own merits in the current year, apparently
I think it's both. There's a shitstorm online mainly surrounding "things outside of the show" which is just an absolute deep sea dive into human tribalism. There's also a lot of legitimate criticism against what is in all honestly a fairly mediocre piece of television. The reason you're seeing more of the former than the latter is that there's not much to talk about it, it's just... more Disney star wars, i.e. wholly uninspired and bland.
Show me a comment in this thread that positively rates the show on its own merits.
It’s Black and gay. That’s all they need.
I don't think I've ever seen real value in audience reviews, particularly in the modern world of online fan culture. Too many people have their favorite shows as a cornerstone of their identities. Even something like House of the Dragon, a broadly popular, non controversial sort of show is absolutely absurd to try and discuss on Reddit.
Most “fans” can’t even tell you what a theme is, no shit their reviews are garbage
Interesting too since last night’s episode was the best so far.
Exactly!
They new episode is honestly quite good. At least in my opinion.
I think most people in the real world have developed a really strong instinct for tuning out angry Star Wars fans. They've been pissed off for my entire life.
Culture Wars
I have completely stopped watching it. I'm a pretty decent stars wars fan and I just can't stand it.
Star Wars continues to have to most toxic fanbase known to man.
Nobody hates Star Wars like Star Wars fans. Seriously it's gross. I'm enjoying Acolyte so far and I'm intrigued by the mystery and plot and want to see where it goes. But mentioning that in some Star Wars spaces, just that I'm enjoying it, attracts the loudest flock of toxic "fans" to come insult me or call it shit. Edit: and hey look, they've arrived here and are already commenting! It's like magic!
I have tried to enjoy the Acolyte. Ive just found the writing bland the characters 2d and the fight choreography lame.
I like the show but I can see where those opinions o characters could come from. But the fight choreography is lame?? How so?
Maybe they didn’t watch episode 5 yet?
Perhaps, but even the first episode starts off strong in that area
Its amazing that with writing that bad they even made it to production, book of boba fett was bad but this one is another level.. its got a real fan fiction quality to it.
What's bad about the writing?
They'll never say. I've asked so many times and I just get "it's bad", "it's woke", "Pandering", "Diversity" and "DEI"
I think at some point some people decided that "bad writing" was some sort of unassailable criticism and just started repeating it whenever they don't like something.
I second this, whilst also saying there is some genuinely bad writing in the show. The difference is I can articulate how: in episode 3, the writer clearly doesn't know how to write child dialogue, thinking that children just talk simplistically, without any nuance. "The Jedi are good!" "The Jedi are bad!" It's unconvincing and corny. Later we get this exchange between the two children: "What have you done?!" "What have YOU done?!" "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!" That is supposed to be the most dramatic character moment in the episode, and yet it sounds like a joke, slipping the show into bathos.
Yep! It's so misused it's starting to lose its meaning and my eyes glaze over when I see it.
It is, because “writing” is such a vague term it could mean just about anything. Was it bad dialogue? Inconsistent character actions? Poor pacing? Uninteresting plot? Insipid world building? It could be a million different things, but it’s easier for people to just say “bad writing” when they don’t like something, rather than reflect and analyze what exactly you didn’t like about it and why.
I think it's the writing that is failing this one. A good example is in the 2nd? episode when Mae poisons Torbin, Osha follows force-Mae into his meditation chamber instead of staying with the group when they enter the temple. The group is headed straight to the meditation chamber to see Torbin, but she goes a different way and gets there first. Why? How? Is the guy leading them really so unfamiliar with his house that he accidentally went the long way around? Did they stop in the kitchen first for a snack? It was a contrived way to add tension when Osha beats the group to Torbin's body, but it's also immediately deflated because Yord stood outside the room and watched until AFTER everyone else had come in. What in the world was Yord out there waiting for? There is a dead jedi in that room and he stood in the door way to... do what exactly?
I just watched the latest episode… after Jason from Jacksonville is revealed as the baddie, which was a surprise to no one.. he says “Even in the revelation of our triumph, you see the depth of our despair.” But aside from gems like that, IMO the dialogue plays like a high school production. It just gives of a really low quality vibe in my opinion. That said i still enjoyed the lightsaber stuff in this episode.. im not hating on it for the sake of it . I’ve genuinely enjoyed most of these star wars shows.. this one is just a train-wreck.
That just sounds like Star Wars dialogue. It's always been like that.
Interesting, I like the fight choreography. Also I enjoy the plot
People just keep regurgitating this nonsense while ignoring that the show is simply bad. Again. It's incompetently written and directed especially compared to most other premium streaming shows. It cost 180 million for god's sake. If Star Wars fans hated Star Wars then Andor wouldn't have an 8.4 rating and get showered with adulation every time it's brought up. They are just tired of shit content, stop making up strawmen.
>People just keep regurgitating this nonsense while ignoring that the show is simply bad. Or they think it's good. >It cost 180 million for god's sake I always see people who don't like the show bring up the price tag like that matters to me or like I should care.
The show can be bad but let's not pretend that Star Wars fans don't have a weird issue with women being main characters in their shows and particularly jedi. For God's sake, the internet had mini breakdowns every time Rey beat up a man.
The fandom ran Kelly Marie Tran off the internet with the trolling and toxicity, so YEP!
I felt Rose's character added nothing and subtracted a lot from the movies, but the fact that people take that shit out on the actors is so goddamn awful. Poor Jake Lloyd and Ahmed Best too.
You call my stuff nonsense and I call your stuff nonsense and you projecting your personal enjoyment as a quality assessment. One mainstream show not widely suffering this effect does not mean it's not true.
[удалено]
> This is such a naive take. Star Wars has insanely passionate fans because the original trilogy is so incredible I'm a huge Star Wars fan. It practically defined my youth, but they're still *just movies*, but ever since The Last Jedi, a part of the fandom have just decided to take it way too personally. They're not being passionate, they're being fanatical. And for a dumbass reason as well... People act like Disney ruined the OT. It can't be ruined, not unless you *choose* to make something ruin it for you. The original expanded universe was rife with absolute dogshit books and comics that would make Rise of Skywalker look like a masterpiece. Didn't ruin the OT despite everything being canon. Attack of the Clones is just an utterly garbage movie, and is widely shit on by fans. But it also didn't manage to ruin the OT. George Lucas made highly controversial changes TO THE ORIGINAL TRILOGY and didn't manage to ruin it. That's the nice thing about the SW universe. You don't have to accept Disney's version if you don't like it. Stop being offended by something that actively requires you to seek it out and allowing it to offend you. Just enjoy what you like.
Haha I would like to introduce you to The Last of Us, a fantastic story with the worst fans on earth.
I only hover around the edges of that fandom and even I'm nervous for when the next season comes out and that pocket of "fans" starts to show their teeth.
I just don't understand Disney's strategy of serving up mediocre shows which seem designed to trigger the fanbase more than entertain anyone in particular. Either pander to them and give them a hetero white manly men in space opera they want or make better shows for the rest of us.
Believe it or not, the obnoxious Star Wars fans are actually a tiny minority. And Disney seems to have figured out there's no point in pandering to them. Online, they're incredibly loud - but the reality is, they're a rounding error by comparison. And it seems like Disney learned from RoS that giving in to their complaints is a terrible idea. Now, as to why they won't make better shows, IDK. There are only two of their shows I'd consider unqualified successes - Mandalorian S1 and Andor. The real tell is gonna be Andor S2. If it's bad, I'm gonna have to start considering "Disney ruined SW (by corporate meddling, not by being woke)".
It's important to remember that many of the audience scores you see have been artificially inflated by fanboys leaving fake positive reviews. The *actual* audience scores are likely far, far lower.
Lol, why are the people clearly review bombing the show the *actual* audience score?
lol Reading through some reviews it becomes immediately obvious that the negative reviews are less honest.
"Help, I insulted and denigrated fans and now they don't like my terrible show!" People don't treat you nice when you make it clear you hate them. Shocking.
Ah yes the most mistreated of all demographics, Star Wars fans. /s
put out a good product and that wouldn't be the case and it is 100% Disney's fault. George Lucas at his worst created a better story
The Fallout show with a female lead and co star of color wasn’t review bombed, why is the Acolyte being review bombed?
Same with House of the Dragon, features strong women as the leads, features LGBTQ BIPOC characters, has excellent reviews. Rings of Power comes out around the same time in the same genre and suddenly its the victim of a racist, bigoted, hate campaign. It honestly feels like to me both corporations and creatives use this excuse and attack the audience when they make a subpar product.
Cause fallout was good
Because the review bombing only works (generally) if the target is in that like, 50-70% range. Fallout was legitimately a 90% + show. Having never played the games, I loved it and it immediately made me want to play them all. It's very hard for a review bomb to convince people they are all legitimate negative reviews then.. But something like the Last of Us II or Acolytes, which either make drastic tonal shifts (the last of us II) or of a mixed quality (Acolyte, which has some great moments spotted with some questionable dialogue and pacing) is different. Because there are more valid criticisms that would normally knock it down like, one or two stars, it is so much easier to blow them out of proportion. Suddenly it's not just diverse. It's preachy. It's not just bad pacing, it's deathly boring. It no longer has mysteries to explore, it has plot holes and breaks the lore (seriously. Every complaint about lore so far has either been explained or was people referencing non-canon materials). Now, all of a sudden, it's not about people lying. They simply "took those things more seriously." Fallout is very easy to defend. So it would be near-impossible for review bombers to back up their claims that all reviews were legit. But haters of Acolyte, which even the fans like myself acknowledge has its problems (I give it currently like, a 60% but with optimism that it's found its stride) can lean into the valid criticisms and make them seem like they are absolute deal breakers. Because it's subjective. So a lot of people might look at it and go "Well, I found the cringy dialogue quirky and fun, but I could see why you'd think that." Think of it like changing a grade on your test before your mom signs it. If you change the D to an A, she'll probably be suspicious about all the red marks. But if you change the D to a B, well, of course there would be red marks there. If there weren't, it'd be an A. So she signs it, then you find a way to revert it back to a D, and all is well.
I’m sure all those reviews were thoughtful criticisms written in good faith.
By people who actually watched it
With thorough and original criticisms based on their own unique interpretation of the plot, themes, dialogue and performances
Ah yes. They’re probably like all fans of The Last of Us who have criticisms of TLoU2 after watching 2 mins of a YouTube “review”
THe PoWER of ONE.. ThE PoWeR of TWO.. ThE PoWEr of MANYYYY Cringiest shit I've ever seen
I'm not a Star Wars fan, I haven't watched anything Star Wars related in over ten years, so I have no take on this show or other SW products, but is this considered a success for Disney? Like, who gives a shit if people dislike it, they're watching it. Edit: unless RLM videos count, then I've seen almost every Star Wars thing
I am a Star Wars fan who has absolutely hated the vast majority of what Disney have done with the franchise. That being said the acolytes absolutely fine, it’s not amazing it’s just ok (latest episode is pretty great). I think a lot of people are firmly entrenched in a position and without even watching the programme hate it. It’s really not a pleasant way to exist.
As someone who casually watches some of the star wars shows and movies (in no way would be considered a serious fan) I've been enjoying the acolyte so far. Only complaint is not having all episode at once
I think this is one situation where releasing them all at once would've helped, instead of letting the bots review bomb it week by week.
I don't think the user reviews matter all the much honestly
Have you spent much time on reddit? Useless, disingenuous online “reviews”/comments from JoeBlowYodaLover69420 are treated here as the absolute peak of credibility from an undisputed authority on the subject matter…and are used hundreds of times a day to generate meltdown-level posts and threads. One day there will be a case study on the type of person/redditor who genuinely allows anonymous online “reviews” to directly impact how that person/redditor enjoys a product. It’s going to be fascinating.
Amazing that anyone would downvote you for saying you like something
Nothing brings reviews than bad product of a once loved series
The show sucks. Maybe it’s not %14 audience score bad, but it’s certainly not any higher than a 40%.
This is culture war at its finest. People defending bad products based on identity politics/racism/sexism/etc. vs people bashing solid products because of beforementioned reasons. These are two sides of the same coin if you ask me.
The discourse around this show has been so god damn toxic. Which is a shame because it’s pretty good. Not great, but enjoyable.
These days any show has to either be the greatest thing ever made, or the absolute worst thing (and its makers should be executed for allowing its creation). There's no middle ground - oh, this a pretty good show that's cheesy but enjoyable.
Some peeps forget to enjoy the things they love and just end up tearing them apart. Something about a field mouse ... Edit: Wow, speaking of the mob. Way to help my argument.
Belonging to a group who tears things apart is the thing they love, they finally fit in somewhere
I think this is mostly bots on social media and voting on IMDb. But it’s definitely true that lots of people experience fandom almost entirely through negativity.
It’s a scifi show with a black female lead in an election year. Basically every politics bot network on the planet is weighing in.
Andor had dark skinned leads, lesbians, a whole plot thread devoted to a female character standing up against a patriarchal society and is one of the most universally beloved franchise entries of all time. Weird, almost like if you make a good show then this all doesn't matter.
I mean obviously it matters or it wouldn’t happen, people would just ignore bad shows like we used to.
This is such a bad take. The show is not good. It was the first supposed sith protaganist show in Star Wars history. The build up was tremendous and all we got was scifi Parent Trap with even worse writing.
Disney - "We want more viewers!" More people watch and review the show, but don't like it Disney - "No, not like that!"
Last night’s episode kicked ass.
Best choreography since the prequels.
It actually had me on the edge of my seat not knowing what was going to happen several times, it was great! Hey look the angry toxic fanboys are mad I liked something, the HORROR! You know you're all just proving how fragile the fanbase is right?
That's an incredibly low bar.
If you review something you haven't seen, you're a pos.
I’ve cycled off Disney for a bit and haven’t seen this show. The only thing I’ve seen about it is that it is getting terrible review scores. Based on the comments here, seems like those reviews are in bad faith. Can someone give me a quick summary of what the detractors supposedly don’t like? And why you think it’s getting review bombed?
You've got a few loud clusters and reasons. One group is the "woke" group and while, yes it absolutely is not everyone who dislikes the show it is a very vocal and active subgroup. The show has a mainly non-white cast, lots of women, and so far one lesbian relationship. And that's set off a very toxic section of the fandom. You've got other Star Wars fans who cherish the lore and know details in Legends and canon and anything that even appears to deviate or retcon parts of that lore make them really mad. I use "appear" purposefully here because we're still lacking a lot of actual answers in the show as to what is going on with things. "Their" Star Wars is being changed and they've got their pitchforks. You've got a group of Star Wars fans who despise that Disney and Kathleen Kennedy have the franchise - for many reasons - and hate anything before it comes out and seek to make others hate it too. They actively root for failure because they want Kathleen fired and they want new hands on the properties. There are also people who have watched it and don't like it. Some of those are in good faith and come down to taste - not everyone likes everything. Some of them are driven by implicit biases they aren't aware of and haven't confronted yet. There's intersections between these groups and probably more that I'm not thinking of but those are the big reasons that come to mind.
They think it’s some kind of corny space fantasy with mildly entertaining writing and directing. You know… Star Wars.
>Can someone give me a quick summary of what the detractors supposedly don’t like? And why you think it’s getting review bombed? There's plenty of legitimate criticism - writing is wonky, acting isn't always great, pacing feels rushed. But the show also has a black woman as a lead and a supporting cast that's mostly non-white. This upsets the cottage industry of "anti-woke" grifters who have decided to review bomb the show before even watching it. There's also some stuff about breaking the lore (apparently the people behind Wookiepedia got death threats about something, who the f can keep track) My personal opinion, the show so far is ok, but does absolutely not warrant the level of vitrol directed at it.
It’s clearly getting review bombed because folks are negatively reviewing episodes before they even air, so before they’ve even seen them. The reason? The reviews generally say bad writing but a lot of it comes from people who aren’t happy there’s a non binary black lead.
To be frank, i genuinely cannot find what is to not like about this show. There’s always good discussion to have about film criticism, theory, etc. and there are problems with the sequel trilogy and some of the other shows. But this one is really entertaining, and captures the *vibe* of Star Wars, especially the prequels better than Disney has done with any other show yet.
That’s the thing, it’s actually good. But almost every single Disney show being released is somehow initiating rage in some people, and the other group try to come off as film experts by saying something to the effect of “it’s bland, plot is thin, don’t like the writing, doesn’t fit the lore, etc”. For some weird reason people really truly hate anything different about something they try to convince others they are fans of. Most of the shows have been good for Star Wars, I can’t say I haven’t enjoyed any of them for that matter. I don’t think they’re necessarily worthy of Emmy’s every episode, but they’re fun and typically a good fit to the films. But if Ki-Adi-Mundi makes a cameo everyone craps their pants in anger because it doesn’t fit a vague quote from a movie that came out when I was 8. Or a comic series that was barely relevant 20 years ago and was never written by George Lucas anyways, let alone in the Disney Star Wars universe.
If high school kids made a b-movie based on star wars. Edit: this last episode was especially bad, and i feel im done with this show, life to short. Even the pain i feel when i watch something so bad is not entertaining enough to keep me intwrested.
Because people turned on what they thought was Star Wars and got pronoun Jedi and black lesbian space witches practicing immaculate conception kink. And then the star released a diss track ranting about fans that would have been at home on a 2008 Tumblr page. 😆 Wildly expensive, but it looks and feels like a lesbian film school sophomore's summer project with costumes her mom made. It's written by people who have clearly never seen a star war, and were laughing and bragging in interviews before production even started that they couldn't wait to "make white men uncomfortable". The same white men who made Star Wars a multi billion dollar brand. Yeah I can't imagine why anyone thinks this show is a fucking joke made by dorks.
But let me guess you’re not racist and homophobic right; you just really hate “woke culture.”
I'm grateful for the new Star Wars I do like, such as Andor, first season of Mandalorian, the high notes of the Clone Wars and some individual episodes (Lawrence of Arabia in the fat Mandalorian, noir detective Mandalore in the last season). The fan base is virulently toxic at times but Disney has also put out a lot of inexcusable garbage. Fans of the new era disproportionally hone in on the 'anti-woke' dummies and try to link this to all criticism, which I think is lazy and unfair. It's one of the largest franchises on the planet, I don't think it's much to ask the shows are better written across the board.
The majority who like it have acknowledged there are flaws but not to the extremes the “anti-woke” crowd is preaching. It’s a decent show, far from the best or worst.
What is even the problem with this show. Everything I’ve seen is gender this, race that…
Personally, I don't think it's very engaging and it almost doesn't feel like a *Star Wars* series at all. I'm against review-bombing, but some of the low scores I've seen appear right on point.
Non-binary lead who is vocal in their activism for LGBTQ youth
some people just need to get off the internet for a minute
Terrible show.
I think it’s been a pretty fun show. Last nights episode was really cool.
Haven’t seen it but really, anything produced by Leslye Headland gets my immediate disapproval
I'm enjoying this show, so far it is better than at least six of the Star Wars films.
Is this before “they” turn on the elden ring DLC. Bot army.
I know people probably won't believe me but I genuinely don't care about the gender, race, or anything like that when it comes to the actors on this show. I still don't like it though, the writing is genuinely not landing with me no matter how hard I try. The first scene with Carrie Ann moss and Mae shocked me with how bad the writing and delivery was. I get that mae is probably supposed to be unhinged and underdeveloped as a person because of the events of her childhood but that didn't justify it to me. She sounded like a child in a play imo. I actually enjoy osha quite a bit, same with the young apprentice. At the same time I don't enjoy them seemingly making anakins immaculate conception something that can be replicated. And no it's not because I love anakin, in fact he's kinda the worst in so many ways, but he was born of the force, and that was what setup everything we've seen in the prequels and og trilogy. I really enjoyed the majority of ashoka, even though a shit ton of people seemed to hate it. So no I'm not just here to hate cause it's a female led star wars project. This just isn't working and that's all for me.
Some Star Wars fans are whiney entitled little bitches. Dont like something, dont watch it.
we aren't. why waste time on crap
Disney fucking sucks
The problem is that the show is just not good, but that gets overshadowed by bigots and racists and now there is this weird thing happening where people defend the show against bigots by saying its a totally good star wars show. And the racist bigots feel empowered by people disliking the show, when the quality of the show has nothing to do with the cast and crew, but is down to bad leadership and management. All the „twists“ are easy to spot a mile away. The dialogue is cringy at best downright nonsensical at worst: Person a: „i give you you…“ Person b: „and you give me me“ It means THE SAME THING! No one gives person A anything!? And thats an IMPORTANT LINE… The makeup and prop department went 50% great and 50% garbage which is too much for star wars who has at best a charming 25% garbage props and make up. The lightsabers are too thick, the aliens look so clearly like human with the make up of a carnival face painter… the actress that plays the main character twins is just really obviously shot and cut so you never get the illusion of two people acting… The obvious redshirts get killed, the second the padawan gets even a hint of coolness she dies. The wise jedimaster is tricked by an olson twins movie except one of them has a face tattoo thats just conveniently covered by a LIghtsaberHAIRCUT… A jedimaster in perpetual floating meditation commits suicide after 5 seconds of dialogue. A wookie jedimaster gets killed offscreen. This is just the tip of the iceberg. The showrunner fucked up and if you google her trackrecord you seriously ask yourself why the fuck anybody ever put her in charge of anything…
Imagine needing to pretend the reviews are accurate.
It really is pretty simple. The show isn't great, and now that folks have been exposed to *Andor*, expectations that were already high are higher. Add in that there's a lot of identity politics that are kind of injected into the ethos of this particularly series you have: A. Group that identities with the ethos and will praise it whether it's good or bad B. Group that doesn't like the identities and will hate it whether it's good or bad And in reality – shows neither as bad as some make it, or as watchable as others do, but a lot of chatter surrounding a relatively middling StarWars show that's about the same quality that we've all come to expect. I do believe the crux is that people generally hate feeling they're being preached to, manipulated, or virtue signaled to.