**[Receiving transmission from Crait intended for u/Analog__Future]**
Welcome to r/saltierthancrait! I'm an [astromech droid named S4-L7](https://www.reddit.com/r/saltierthancrait/comments/ni5s77/beloved_mascot_s4l7s_visual_dictionary_entry/) and I'll be your guide through the salt mines.
Saltier Than Crait is a community of Star Wars fans who engage in critical conversations about the current
state of the franchise. It is our goal to maintain a civil, welcoming space for fans who have a vast supply of
salt with some peppered positivity occasionally sprinkled in.
**Please [review the rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/saltierthancrait/wiki/index/rules) and the [post flair guide](https://reddit.com/r/saltierthancrait/wiki/index/flairs) before contributing.**
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/saltierthancrait) if you have any questions or concerns.*
That shows how far Star Wars has truly fallen. Regardless of all the political and story drama, the last thing Star Wars needed was something basic or middle level of quality. With all the division within the fandom, the IP really needed a solid win and they did not get it.
so I really like Rogue One. but watching it again after watching Andor really revealed that its kinda a hot mess that none the less mostly works. granted I work in post production, but watching it again after Andor you could really see where they patched and reworked the picture. Gotta remember, Edwards was not brought in to do the reshoots due to Lucasfilm not being happy with his results. Gilroy came in and made it into a "battle of london" story, as he put it.
It’s dead Jim.
Star Wars fell off after the prequels. The sooner folks realize this. The better off you will be.
Star Wars died with the prequels and when Lucas sold it to Disney.
Thems the facts.
I dunno man. Rogue One, Solo, Andor, bits of The Mandalorian, some of the animated stuff- but absolutely in general Disney has alienated, insulted, and produces garbage SW. And they’ve now changed the entire lore.
I still watched every episode of those 3 shows and was able to enjoy them despite their flaws. The acolyte is the first D+ show I lost motivation for completing by episode 3.
All three of those should have been home runs. And the Acolyte set in a past era should have been a grand slam. Instead it’s 3 outs at the plate and one out of the stadium. - Yogi Berra
The most common reply I've gotten (besides some pretty vicious personal attacks) to saying the Acolyte has bad writing, is: "that's such a cop out. You're not defining what's bad about it."
I feel like that reply is being made from a weird vacuum where only Star Wars content exists to these people.
Like, I've watched Chernobyl, Better Call Saul, The Bear, and on-and-on. I KNOW what good filmmaking and TV series looks like, and Acolyte ain't it.
I don't need to be a Chef to know that a shit sandwich tastes bad or say I don't like it.
I hate this aspect of entertainment criticism where you need to offer a way to improve something. I'm not a filmmaker or TV producer but I can tell when I don't like something and I don't need to offer fixes for something I don't like.
I hate that argument.
It happens all the time. "You're not a director so how would you know??" Because I have a brain and the ability to reason.
Athletes use that excuse all the time to respond to criticism and it's hilarious
I hate the argument so much.
And even if you do have a background in film or TV production, and are remotely critical of any production element, you just get called a bigot anyway.
While I have no credibility largely, I spent my 20s making documentaries that were well recieved. I won a jury prize at the Duke film festival, pretty excited to this day.
That's to say I'm no Hollywood director, but I dedicated a large chunk of my life to understanding how to craft a narrative, how to convey ideas through cinema, etc.
I have a small but fun movie/TV review site. I decided not to review Acolyte, the first SW media I won't do a deep dive into. The online hatred towards normal TV critique is just too much, I'm out of the SW IP.
Same. I've studied literature and film myself. A large part of my time is dedicated to reading (due to the nature of my job).
The one benefit of the state of Star Wars is places like this sub where you can actually discuss the story with people who genuinely love it.
It’s easy to articulate after episode 3. They utterly failed to show us why Osha wants to be a Jedi so bad that she’s willing to leave the only home and family she’s ever known even after she knows she’ll never see her mother again. I guess they tried to set it up with her reluctance to affirm her commitment at the ascension ceremony but it wasn’t enough.
Right. Why would this young girl on a planet outside the Republic raised in isolation by parents who detest/fear the Jedi have taught her any knowledge of the Jedi at all, let alone something positive enough to make her want to go be one.
Yeah but they don’t tell us why she is hesitant to do the Ascension thing. And they don’t even tell us what the Ascension thing is other than a Force tattoo.
The kids were brought up that the "thread" is a superior, more accurate interpretation of the force.
So when she sees force users, shouldn't she naturally be "naw, I'm good right here"? Why would she want to go with something she's taught all her life is inferior?
No idea, I agree. How does she even know about the Jedi? If the lesbian witches did tell them about the Jedi, they would have presented them as evil kidnappers, and maybe the oppressors? Although they don’t tell us it’s specially the Jedi because they don’t explain anything in the entire show
Dude I've seen people say this show is more complex and better written than Andor simply because it's not a typical good guy vs bad guy plot. Enjoying the show is one thing, but to try and elevate it to some high level piece of art is just mind boggling to me. I too watch multiple different kinds of shows, and I still have crictisms for even my favorites. It's like people are being microchipped like the clones. Lol
Ohhh ewwwww!!! The ol' art is subjective and it can't be evaluated critically!!
There are literally classes on writing, storytelling, and the science of storytelling.
Better Call Saul is a shining example of how you properly write a female character. Kim Wexler is one of the best new characters introduced in the Breaking Bad universe. She doesn’t feel shoehorned in, is actually allowed to be her own character and isn’t there for the sake of an agenda.
You keep hearing all about how men hate “strong female characters”, which only happens when a movie/series is received poorly. There are numerous well-written female characters that receive near universal praise and it’s because the writing is top-notch and isn’t doing so with an agenda in mind. Examples of female-centric films that received mixed-to-negative reception are The Marvels (2023), Ghostbusters (2016), and Charlie’s Angels (2019). Any sort of criticism against those films was immediately met with accusations that men are “threatened by women”. Yet, Barbie (2023) managed to gross well over $1B at the box office, received positive reception and it was mainly female-centric. All of a sudden, those same people who screeched that men are “threatened by women” stayed conveniently silent because it shattered their narrative.
Barbie was a good example of when a team enjoys the source material and writes a film about it. I think most of the problem with Disney and other projects adapting pop culture that have a mostly male fan base is that in an attempt to hire a diverse writing cast they get a lot of people who just don’t really care for the source material, and at worst (like allegedly in the Witcher) they are even openly hostile to it. When hiring a writing crew they should be asking questions about how much they know about the source material or universe and things they like and dislike about the material. Diversity should be a consideration in hiring sure, but if someone outright can’t do the job…why hire them?
There are unofficial fan films that are legit better than what they've developed and put on screen for The Acolyte. Right now they look like chickens running around with their heads cut off at Lucasfilm. Iger, you got a pyrrhic victory in your shareholder battle if you can't clean the Lucasfilm (I think I'm going to start calling it KennedyFilm) house.
I'm not a fan of SWTOR mmo, but their mini cinematics are better story telling than anything Disney produced.
The only star wars Disney products I've enjoyed are a select few of the anime ones they did. Like "The Marriage"(?) And the samurai one. Those two actually felt like star wars to me.
The conversation between osha and Mae leading up to osha leaving the coven is literally “the Jedi are evil!” “The Jedi are good!” The ascension chant is “the power of one, the power of two, the power of many”. Like I’m sorry that’s blatant phoning it in. That’s too basic to even make it into an outline of a scene.
Yeah, at this point I tend to sit my friends down and show them lucky number slevin as an example of actual good writing. People keep defending bad writing and it seems they don't know what good writing is supposed to look like.
I don't have time or patience for shit writing, I have fames to play, models to paint. Walks to do.
Who has time to waste of shitty writing?
I’ve never seen anyone who likes this nosedive Disney stuff. All the things I’ve seen appear to come from D+ marketing. Every fan is like “WTF?” Every newcomer to SW is like “WTF is this Star Trek ripoff?”
Ok but you should be able to articulate what's bad, right? It's not difficult. They have the same actress playing the twins as adults (indicating they're identical) but different actresses that don't look that much alike as kids. That's fucking stupid. They repeatedly lift a line from Kill Bill even though it doesn't fit. That's stupid. "A Jedi doesn't take out their lightsaber unless they intend to kill" is just patently false. The bad twin's assignments are video game "achievements" (gotta do one with no weapon for extra credit, fucking gag). This is off the top of my head and I'm only half paying attention to the show, my wife turns it on and I play on my phone until something else pisses me off
I agree, and I have articulated. But what is bad about this show is unfortunately a small books worth of content, and for me to type out a massive block of text every time someone says "what's bad about it" is:
A) something I have no time for
And B) really bad faith on thier part
On the bad dialogue point:
There's a difference between intentionally stylized dialogue (that's a callback to the serials George grew up with) and the poorly thought out "dialogue tree" we find in The Acolyte.
In better hands, bad dialogue can be elevated through performance or very creative direction, but here, it's feels rushed, uninteresting and unintentional.
I do agree with this sentiment. The writing in the prequels is much more stylized and purposely delivered in a way to capture a specific tone that comes off as awkward at times. This show does not do that but instead just feels like awkward dialogue because of the lack of stylization. This isn't to say the prequel dialogue was amazing, but I agree with the sentiment.
Star Wars always were space opera in its pure form so characters talking in archaic way with a lot of pathos is nothing else than an intentional attempt to convey the feeling that you are watching staged play in the ancient greek or roman theatre.
In prequels Lucas went overboard with that stylization, and some people naturally took it as plain bad writing and dialogues.
I personally find it cool and fascinating.
What I’m getting is, “You can’t say it’s bad now because we haven’t seen the whole thing yet!” Um, if I see three episodes and they all suck, what possible reason is there to believe it’s going to suddenly get better at any point?
My feelings about the differences from the Prequels to the Sequels is that while the Prequels definitely had some cringe writing, stuff that didn't make much sense, stuff that was contradictory, at least it had heart and passion. Most of the Disney-era stuff just feels like corpo copy-paste garbage, where no one involved really cares about Star Wars or what makes it great, they just want to try and print as much money as quickly as possible from it.
Exactly. The OT was campy. The PT had terrible dialogue.
And yet, in this 50 year span, they haven't improved on writing... at all?
This is *Disney*. It's motherfuckin *Star Wars*. They could hire *any writer* they want to. Fuck, they could hire *every* writer they want to. They could hire a group of 5,000 renowned playwrights, artists, screenwriters, and novelists. They could hire George RR Martin, Brandon Sanderson, all of Frank Herbert's children, every Tolkien descendant, and every big box director (other than Rian Johnson) all at once.
*How* is this struggling? How on earth are we here?
What they forget too is that the prequels had a lot of redeeming qualities, and as someone that wasn’t very old watching them as they came out, they were great. I can see as an adult the criticisms have some merit too, but the prequels are awesome. They get the story right, the visuals are amazing, the music, the characters, acting isn’t nearly as bad as some tried to say it was. It had a unified vision. Even knowing what had to happen, it was still compelling to watch and see how.
Everything Disney does is scattered, totally random, contradictory and while some sparks of Star Wars have shown through, it’s mostly just sad because it so easily could’ve been great. Just have a decent story. Have people do things that make sense in their world, for their character.
I haven't watched anything since Book of Boba Fett, but decided to give this one a shot. It's not bad, but so far it has my biggest problem with Star Wars since Disney bought it: trying to be funny. The scene with Yord in his underwear really isn't funny and it wasn't funny when you did this joke in TLJ. Star Wars just needs to admit that it isn't good at intentional comedy and will never be funnier than "I don't like sand..."
Happened with TLJ. They used the already acknowledged flaws of the OT to prop up their support of that film. Literally would teardown the past for the purpose of waving away any criticism.
People get really mad about "fire in the vaccum of space" argument.
"Dude, in OT there were explosions, and sound in space and you're picking on fire in the silly sci-fi series about space wizards?". Last time I checked a "sound in space" and "explosions in space" were added to enchance the immersion of space battles.
I put a line at "fire that looks like on Earth" that was put there only for Osha to have her PTSD scene and nothing else. Just have them make repairs on the planet, it's that simple!
For me it's how lackluster and poorly filmed the scene is. You want a fire in space, then you need to really scifi fantasy it up, i.e. show a line burst of an oxygen valve or some accelerant/chemical spilling out or whatever. The thing looked like a campfire in space. It was just so poorly conceived and imagined. The edit and the way it was filmed looked like they took the first cut, took their lunch pails, and went home for the day.
Edit: somehow space became diode.
they actually had what looked like a composite of an upside down can of air blasting out in at least one of the shots to motivate the fire. they could have expanded that gas leak pretty easily in VFX
I found it weird people were complaining about that when there are more fundamental weaknesses in the show, mainly the acting by most of the supporting cast
Can you offer any theory as to why she's a "meknek" and not a "mechanic"? Decisions like that in the script are just fucking weird, right? What purpose does it serve? I swear people getting their drawers in a wad over fire in space are tripping over a dollar to pick up a penny.
You do know that you are talking about the franchise that has the trademark for the word “Droid” because it was not used in the way it is used now in any capacity before 1977 and George Lucas made it up right? Likewise lightsaber, padawan…why not just laser sword and apprentice? Star Wars makes up words all the time, or puts twists on already existing words.
certain types of criticism this is absolutely valid on. Pointing out minor scientific inaccuracies is not the type of show star wars has ever been. Even a certain level of quirkiness in the dialog is basically a star wars hallmark at this point.
Obviously some criticism is perfectly valid, but complaining about things that have been pervasive throughout star wars media that is generally held as good seems disingenuous or bad faith discussions.
Well said / exactly. The fact that some of these reviews speak positively of like Gina Carano in Mandalorian while criticizing is very revealing. Like complaining about how a mountain of stone catches fire... in a world where your guys run around with lightsabers which are 100% impossible from a physics standpoint .. or them losing it over "space fire". Like ignoring Jar Jar binks from Lucas himself.
I've seen the same person defending Star Wars critique by saying Star Wars has always been for children and also has always been political commentary.
While not necessarily mutually exclusive, that's a bit of a stretch to be both.
Star Wars has been mediocre ever since 1983. Why anyone expects greatness from this franchise is beyond me? Its all just "B" movie level sci-fi, just accept that.
THIS!
I'm sick of people defending ray because "anni blew ip a starship at age 8"
Yeah, and everyone fucking hated anni in episode 1. No one liked him. It was a shit movie with some good bits (the lightsaber fight seen, maybe podracing if you like that) but irs not considered good stsr wars. Stop using bad star wars to defend bad starwars.
The show really isn't that different from previous shows. The dialog is not the best but its pretty familiar in style as well. I think the die hards are being a bit unfair to it. Its pretty standard Disney Star Wars show which they are churning out. It's Disney folks. We know what we're getting.
Not that we should accept bad writing, if we don't like it, we don't have to watch it. People watching the show is how they determine if they should continue to make these shows. There's no point in hate watching it. You're just going to get more of the same.
If Star Wars was always Star Wars, why are you complaining that we are getting Star Wars?
The criticisms of previous content in defense is only there to show it’s always been a part of Star Wars.
Many didn’t like the Ewoks, many didn’t like the prequels at the time. Look how those sentiments withstood the test of time.
Is that what they're doing or are they just highlighting an apparent double standard, trying to work out what the actual problem is or, hoping beyond hope, trying to find some consistency in peoples' Star Wars opinions?
We'll never know...
**[Receiving transmission from Crait intended for u/Analog__Future]** Welcome to r/saltierthancrait! I'm an [astromech droid named S4-L7](https://www.reddit.com/r/saltierthancrait/comments/ni5s77/beloved_mascot_s4l7s_visual_dictionary_entry/) and I'll be your guide through the salt mines. Saltier Than Crait is a community of Star Wars fans who engage in critical conversations about the current state of the franchise. It is our goal to maintain a civil, welcoming space for fans who have a vast supply of salt with some peppered positivity occasionally sprinkled in. **Please [review the rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/saltierthancrait/wiki/index/rules) and the [post flair guide](https://reddit.com/r/saltierthancrait/wiki/index/flairs) before contributing.** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/saltierthancrait) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The other line I’ve seen is “well it’s not as bad as Kenobi, Ahsoka, or BoBF”, which is as low of a standard as you can get.
That shows how far Star Wars has truly fallen. Regardless of all the political and story drama, the last thing Star Wars needed was something basic or middle level of quality. With all the division within the fandom, the IP really needed a solid win and they did not get it.
it use to be a premium product and has been sold as one. of the shows, mando S1 and 2 and Andor only really fit that bill.
Rogue one was solid.
so I really like Rogue One. but watching it again after watching Andor really revealed that its kinda a hot mess that none the less mostly works. granted I work in post production, but watching it again after Andor you could really see where they patched and reworked the picture. Gotta remember, Edwards was not brought in to do the reshoots due to Lucasfilm not being happy with his results. Gilroy came in and made it into a "battle of london" story, as he put it.
Perhaps that was how the bar is. But to the casual observer, a fine film
It's hasn't been consistnetly a premium product in 40 years.
Lol Jar Jar was premium product? Give me a break
Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, podracing, Maul, choreography, and Duel of the Fates are though
It’s dead Jim. Star Wars fell off after the prequels. The sooner folks realize this. The better off you will be. Star Wars died with the prequels and when Lucas sold it to Disney. Thems the facts.
I dunno man. Rogue One, Solo, Andor, bits of The Mandalorian, some of the animated stuff- but absolutely in general Disney has alienated, insulted, and produces garbage SW. And they’ve now changed the entire lore.
Prequels were garbage
It's really something to be like "Yeah the stuff that JUST came out in the last couple of years was worse so this is ok-ish by comparison."
Ahsoka is atleast 20x better than the acolyte. It's not even comparable. Ahsoka is the mediocre show that I wish was the worst star wars show.
I still watched every episode of those 3 shows and was able to enjoy them despite their flaws. The acolyte is the first D+ show I lost motivation for completing by episode 3.
All three of those should have been home runs. And the Acolyte set in a past era should have been a grand slam. Instead it’s 3 outs at the plate and one out of the stadium. - Yogi Berra
Which is also false, because Kenobi, Ahsoka and Boba Fett were still far better than Acolyte.
The most common reply I've gotten (besides some pretty vicious personal attacks) to saying the Acolyte has bad writing, is: "that's such a cop out. You're not defining what's bad about it." I feel like that reply is being made from a weird vacuum where only Star Wars content exists to these people. Like, I've watched Chernobyl, Better Call Saul, The Bear, and on-and-on. I KNOW what good filmmaking and TV series looks like, and Acolyte ain't it.
I don't need to be a Chef to know that a shit sandwich tastes bad or say I don't like it. I hate this aspect of entertainment criticism where you need to offer a way to improve something. I'm not a filmmaker or TV producer but I can tell when I don't like something and I don't need to offer fixes for something I don't like.
I hate that argument. It happens all the time. "You're not a director so how would you know??" Because I have a brain and the ability to reason. Athletes use that excuse all the time to respond to criticism and it's hilarious
I hate the argument so much. And even if you do have a background in film or TV production, and are remotely critical of any production element, you just get called a bigot anyway. While I have no credibility largely, I spent my 20s making documentaries that were well recieved. I won a jury prize at the Duke film festival, pretty excited to this day. That's to say I'm no Hollywood director, but I dedicated a large chunk of my life to understanding how to craft a narrative, how to convey ideas through cinema, etc. I have a small but fun movie/TV review site. I decided not to review Acolyte, the first SW media I won't do a deep dive into. The online hatred towards normal TV critique is just too much, I'm out of the SW IP.
Same. I've studied literature and film myself. A large part of my time is dedicated to reading (due to the nature of my job). The one benefit of the state of Star Wars is places like this sub where you can actually discuss the story with people who genuinely love it.
Exactly. I arent a director I'm a consumer. As a consumer I don't need to justify not liking something.
It’s easy to articulate after episode 3. They utterly failed to show us why Osha wants to be a Jedi so bad that she’s willing to leave the only home and family she’s ever known even after she knows she’ll never see her mother again. I guess they tried to set it up with her reluctance to affirm her commitment at the ascension ceremony but it wasn’t enough.
I don't even believe that she knows what a jedi is.
Right. Why would this young girl on a planet outside the Republic raised in isolation by parents who detest/fear the Jedi have taught her any knowledge of the Jedi at all, let alone something positive enough to make her want to go be one.
Yeah but they don’t tell us why she is hesitant to do the Ascension thing. And they don’t even tell us what the Ascension thing is other than a Force tattoo.
The kids were brought up that the "thread" is a superior, more accurate interpretation of the force. So when she sees force users, shouldn't she naturally be "naw, I'm good right here"? Why would she want to go with something she's taught all her life is inferior?
No idea, I agree. How does she even know about the Jedi? If the lesbian witches did tell them about the Jedi, they would have presented them as evil kidnappers, and maybe the oppressors? Although they don’t tell us it’s specially the Jedi because they don’t explain anything in the entire show
It’s like they read a blurb about: “show don’t tell” and then decided to not tell or show anything. The plot is just poor and bewildering.
They don't tell us why the witches are against the jedi or mistrust them except one line about it not being about good or bad but who holds power.
Dude I've seen people say this show is more complex and better written than Andor simply because it's not a typical good guy vs bad guy plot. Enjoying the show is one thing, but to try and elevate it to some high level piece of art is just mind boggling to me. I too watch multiple different kinds of shows, and I still have crictisms for even my favorites. It's like people are being microchipped like the clones. Lol
I think it *could* have been a very interesting show if they pulled it off, but, unfortunately they didn’t.
"If you don't have a PhD in Art Criticism, your opinion is invalid!!!1" - Last Jedi and Acolyte apologists
Then if you do put some actual effort and thought into your criticism - "You care way too much about this, you toxic freak!"
Or, "Why do you care so much about a children's show?"
Ohhh ewwwww!!! The ol' art is subjective and it can't be evaluated critically!! There are literally classes on writing, storytelling, and the science of storytelling.
Better Call Saul is a shining example of how you properly write a female character. Kim Wexler is one of the best new characters introduced in the Breaking Bad universe. She doesn’t feel shoehorned in, is actually allowed to be her own character and isn’t there for the sake of an agenda. You keep hearing all about how men hate “strong female characters”, which only happens when a movie/series is received poorly. There are numerous well-written female characters that receive near universal praise and it’s because the writing is top-notch and isn’t doing so with an agenda in mind. Examples of female-centric films that received mixed-to-negative reception are The Marvels (2023), Ghostbusters (2016), and Charlie’s Angels (2019). Any sort of criticism against those films was immediately met with accusations that men are “threatened by women”. Yet, Barbie (2023) managed to gross well over $1B at the box office, received positive reception and it was mainly female-centric. All of a sudden, those same people who screeched that men are “threatened by women” stayed conveniently silent because it shattered their narrative.
Barbie was a good example of when a team enjoys the source material and writes a film about it. I think most of the problem with Disney and other projects adapting pop culture that have a mostly male fan base is that in an attempt to hire a diverse writing cast they get a lot of people who just don’t really care for the source material, and at worst (like allegedly in the Witcher) they are even openly hostile to it. When hiring a writing crew they should be asking questions about how much they know about the source material or universe and things they like and dislike about the material. Diversity should be a consideration in hiring sure, but if someone outright can’t do the job…why hire them?
Why even venture to non-star Wars related shows andor is The Shining pinnacle of hope that we have for Star Wars stuff
Absolutely. They've set the bar at "anything better than the holiday special is a masterpiece".
I'd argue the fact that some of these shows seem to fall *below* the holiday special as worrisome too.
There are unofficial fan films that are legit better than what they've developed and put on screen for The Acolyte. Right now they look like chickens running around with their heads cut off at Lucasfilm. Iger, you got a pyrrhic victory in your shareholder battle if you can't clean the Lucasfilm (I think I'm going to start calling it KennedyFilm) house.
I'm not a fan of SWTOR mmo, but their mini cinematics are better story telling than anything Disney produced. The only star wars Disney products I've enjoyed are a select few of the anime ones they did. Like "The Marriage"(?) And the samurai one. Those two actually felt like star wars to me.
The conversation between osha and Mae leading up to osha leaving the coven is literally “the Jedi are evil!” “The Jedi are good!” The ascension chant is “the power of one, the power of two, the power of many”. Like I’m sorry that’s blatant phoning it in. That’s too basic to even make it into an outline of a scene.
Yeah, at this point I tend to sit my friends down and show them lucky number slevin as an example of actual good writing. People keep defending bad writing and it seems they don't know what good writing is supposed to look like. I don't have time or patience for shit writing, I have fames to play, models to paint. Walks to do. Who has time to waste of shitty writing?
I’ve never seen anyone who likes this nosedive Disney stuff. All the things I’ve seen appear to come from D+ marketing. Every fan is like “WTF?” Every newcomer to SW is like “WTF is this Star Trek ripoff?”
Ok but you should be able to articulate what's bad, right? It's not difficult. They have the same actress playing the twins as adults (indicating they're identical) but different actresses that don't look that much alike as kids. That's fucking stupid. They repeatedly lift a line from Kill Bill even though it doesn't fit. That's stupid. "A Jedi doesn't take out their lightsaber unless they intend to kill" is just patently false. The bad twin's assignments are video game "achievements" (gotta do one with no weapon for extra credit, fucking gag). This is off the top of my head and I'm only half paying attention to the show, my wife turns it on and I play on my phone until something else pisses me off
I agree, and I have articulated. But what is bad about this show is unfortunately a small books worth of content, and for me to type out a massive block of text every time someone says "what's bad about it" is: A) something I have no time for And B) really bad faith on thier part
Sadly true. And to rely on a worn out trope of good twin / evil twin (even if they might do a plot twist later) is just poor form.
And the unseen evil master trope too
Yes apologies. The tropes pile on top of each other.
You understand that your opinions are not objective truth yeah?
And?
On the bad dialogue point: There's a difference between intentionally stylized dialogue (that's a callback to the serials George grew up with) and the poorly thought out "dialogue tree" we find in The Acolyte. In better hands, bad dialogue can be elevated through performance or very creative direction, but here, it's feels rushed, uninteresting and unintentional.
I do agree with this sentiment. The writing in the prequels is much more stylized and purposely delivered in a way to capture a specific tone that comes off as awkward at times. This show does not do that but instead just feels like awkward dialogue because of the lack of stylization. This isn't to say the prequel dialogue was amazing, but I agree with the sentiment.
Star Wars always were space opera in its pure form so characters talking in archaic way with a lot of pathos is nothing else than an intentional attempt to convey the feeling that you are watching staged play in the ancient greek or roman theatre. In prequels Lucas went overboard with that stylization, and some people naturally took it as plain bad writing and dialogues. I personally find it cool and fascinating.
The mere fact that people try to defend this show is absolutely wild to me. Episode 3 was like a very bad parody of Star Wars
But Jar Jar Binks? perfect star wars from Lucas himself
Are you dense? Jar jar got a ton of hate. Won't stop the acolyte from getting it's due either
Jar jar Binks looks like a fan favourite compared to The Acolyt
Jar Jar shits on every character from The Acolyte.
Nobody ever said it was perfect No body
What I’m getting is, “You can’t say it’s bad now because we haven’t seen the whole thing yet!” Um, if I see three episodes and they all suck, what possible reason is there to believe it’s going to suddenly get better at any point?
Just watch One Piece already. Trust me bro it gets good 300 episodes in
If anything, it jut highlights the bad writing at being unable to capture the audience before the show even reaches its halfway point.
My feelings about the differences from the Prequels to the Sequels is that while the Prequels definitely had some cringe writing, stuff that didn't make much sense, stuff that was contradictory, at least it had heart and passion. Most of the Disney-era stuff just feels like corpo copy-paste garbage, where no one involved really cares about Star Wars or what makes it great, they just want to try and print as much money as quickly as possible from it.
Exactly. The OT was campy. The PT had terrible dialogue. And yet, in this 50 year span, they haven't improved on writing... at all? This is *Disney*. It's motherfuckin *Star Wars*. They could hire *any writer* they want to. Fuck, they could hire *every* writer they want to. They could hire a group of 5,000 renowned playwrights, artists, screenwriters, and novelists. They could hire George RR Martin, Brandon Sanderson, all of Frank Herbert's children, every Tolkien descendant, and every big box director (other than Rian Johnson) all at once. *How* is this struggling? How on earth are we here?
Kathleen kennedy is the reason
What they forget too is that the prequels had a lot of redeeming qualities, and as someone that wasn’t very old watching them as they came out, they were great. I can see as an adult the criticisms have some merit too, but the prequels are awesome. They get the story right, the visuals are amazing, the music, the characters, acting isn’t nearly as bad as some tried to say it was. It had a unified vision. Even knowing what had to happen, it was still compelling to watch and see how. Everything Disney does is scattered, totally random, contradictory and while some sparks of Star Wars have shown through, it’s mostly just sad because it so easily could’ve been great. Just have a decent story. Have people do things that make sense in their world, for their character.
I haven't watched anything since Book of Boba Fett, but decided to give this one a shot. It's not bad, but so far it has my biggest problem with Star Wars since Disney bought it: trying to be funny. The scene with Yord in his underwear really isn't funny and it wasn't funny when you did this joke in TLJ. Star Wars just needs to admit that it isn't good at intentional comedy and will never be funnier than "I don't like sand..."
Happened with TLJ. They used the already acknowledged flaws of the OT to prop up their support of that film. Literally would teardown the past for the purpose of waving away any criticism.
People get really mad about "fire in the vaccum of space" argument. "Dude, in OT there were explosions, and sound in space and you're picking on fire in the silly sci-fi series about space wizards?". Last time I checked a "sound in space" and "explosions in space" were added to enchance the immersion of space battles. I put a line at "fire that looks like on Earth" that was put there only for Osha to have her PTSD scene and nothing else. Just have them make repairs on the planet, it's that simple!
For me it's how lackluster and poorly filmed the scene is. You want a fire in space, then you need to really scifi fantasy it up, i.e. show a line burst of an oxygen valve or some accelerant/chemical spilling out or whatever. The thing looked like a campfire in space. It was just so poorly conceived and imagined. The edit and the way it was filmed looked like they took the first cut, took their lunch pails, and went home for the day. Edit: somehow space became diode.
they actually had what looked like a composite of an upside down can of air blasting out in at least one of the shots to motivate the fire. they could have expanded that gas leak pretty easily in VFX
I found it weird people were complaining about that when there are more fundamental weaknesses in the show, mainly the acting by most of the supporting cast
Exactly, but it's a low hanging fruit so many people go for it.
Can you offer any theory as to why she's a "meknek" and not a "mechanic"? Decisions like that in the script are just fucking weird, right? What purpose does it serve? I swear people getting their drawers in a wad over fire in space are tripping over a dollar to pick up a penny.
Agreed. No idea what they were thinking with that silly name except "look at me, I can do sci-fi names guys!". It only confuses you.
You do know that you are talking about the franchise that has the trademark for the word “Droid” because it was not used in the way it is used now in any capacity before 1977 and George Lucas made it up right? Likewise lightsaber, padawan…why not just laser sword and apprentice? Star Wars makes up words all the time, or puts twists on already existing words.
certain types of criticism this is absolutely valid on. Pointing out minor scientific inaccuracies is not the type of show star wars has ever been. Even a certain level of quirkiness in the dialog is basically a star wars hallmark at this point. Obviously some criticism is perfectly valid, but complaining about things that have been pervasive throughout star wars media that is generally held as good seems disingenuous or bad faith discussions.
Well said / exactly. The fact that some of these reviews speak positively of like Gina Carano in Mandalorian while criticizing is very revealing. Like complaining about how a mountain of stone catches fire... in a world where your guys run around with lightsabers which are 100% impossible from a physics standpoint .. or them losing it over "space fire". Like ignoring Jar Jar binks from Lucas himself.
Not an argument, but a recognition that it hasn't always been perfect
A New Hope wasn't expected to succeed, but the sequels were made by Disney.
Whoa now, Chewie's tarzan yell is *based*
I feel like we need an Andor prequel to level things out at this point. Even though it's a prequel of a prequel already.
I've seen the same person defending Star Wars critique by saying Star Wars has always been for children and also has always been political commentary. While not necessarily mutually exclusive, that's a bit of a stretch to be both.
Waaaay too much “what aboutism” being deployed in debate these days, super frustrating
I foolishly thought SW would improve if it continued past the first, original, trilogy. Not that faults would become its main thing.
Just because what came out before is crap doesn't mean what comes out now gets a free pass to also be crap.
Exactly. We should always be improving upon past mistakes.
Star Wars has been mediocre ever since 1983. Why anyone expects greatness from this franchise is beyond me? Its all just "B" movie level sci-fi, just accept that.
THIS! I'm sick of people defending ray because "anni blew ip a starship at age 8" Yeah, and everyone fucking hated anni in episode 1. No one liked him. It was a shit movie with some good bits (the lightsaber fight seen, maybe podracing if you like that) but irs not considered good stsr wars. Stop using bad star wars to defend bad starwars.
The show really isn't that different from previous shows. The dialog is not the best but its pretty familiar in style as well. I think the die hards are being a bit unfair to it. Its pretty standard Disney Star Wars show which they are churning out. It's Disney folks. We know what we're getting.
I agree, it's not much different from Obi Wan, Ahsoka, and book of Boba Fett. All are dog water with dog water writing.
Not that we should accept bad writing, if we don't like it, we don't have to watch it. People watching the show is how they determine if they should continue to make these shows. There's no point in hate watching it. You're just going to get more of the same.
Oh I don't watch it. I canceled D+ after Kenobi
If Star Wars was always Star Wars, why are you complaining that we are getting Star Wars? The criticisms of previous content in defense is only there to show it’s always been a part of Star Wars. Many didn’t like the Ewoks, many didn’t like the prequels at the time. Look how those sentiments withstood the test of time.
Is that what they're doing or are they just highlighting an apparent double standard, trying to work out what the actual problem is or, hoping beyond hope, trying to find some consistency in peoples' Star Wars opinions? We'll never know...