I'll also note that in recent months, the franchise has TWICE spent multiple episodes building up a mysterious masked villain, only to kill them off without ever taking the mask off.
There's some great ideas in there that could have a show all to themselves but they've ditched them to do a standard (and not interesting) 'find the person and stop them' plot.
The only ideas we’ve seen are a coven who can make force babies: clearly the byproduct of an embittered Clone Wars/Empire Strikes Back Fan who thinks she knows Star Wars who thinks she knows Star Wars better than the actual creator
Good, engaging stories have interesting characters whose decisions drive the plot. The relatability of those decisions is what immerses the audience and makes us care
I think what you are talking about is the Japanese filmmaking concept of "Ma" or the moments between action that allow for contemplation and reflection. It doesn't have to be done with dialog but great examples of that can be found in the films of Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith and are a big part of what sets them apart and makes them special. The Studio Ghibli films are full of such moments of course.
It's funny the way you bring up "show" and "tell" because what was a little grating to me for the first two episodes. They would "show" and then two scenes later they would "tell" while two characters were talking. Part of it was 1st episode problems, it wasn't as bad in the 2nd ep, but it made me weary. This episode made me feel like there was connective stuff missing with Mae, and I think you're right. No casual convo that would fill in character w/o being about the plot, thanks that helps!
0:54 Definitely the right approach... there's one detail/scene from this episode that is a massive example of people being terminally online to the point where I've had to mute the character's name to make the argument stop, and to make matters worse it's motivated toxic people to go after Wookieepedia members for decisions made by the writers.
This is starting to lose me too. I don't care about lore either (if anything, I like that it's adding new stuff!) but I'm not invested in the characters, the dialogue is nothing new, the plot is unpredictable but misses opportunities in order to do so. It's such as shame because unlike the Star Wars fandom, I really wanted to like this! I want to see more Star Wars shows divorced from the Skywalker Saga or the Clone Wars but this just isn't coming together. I will keep going because that cliffhanger did perk me up and I'm VERY curious to see how they pull of a lightsaber duel after doing hand-to-hand combat so well but it needs to pick up or else I'm going to write it off.
It's to short that's the problem, each episode is short, the series is short and while it's the same length as others the other shows could rely on background and nostalgia even andor could as we know him a bit and we know the empire, but unless you have delved into high republic it's a new era and the lack of world building it is struggling massively.
@@kirkdarling4120 but the seasons were not, which gave more room to tell story, and like i said the timeline is well known so it could also rely on people knowing who the empire vader and others were.
I'm really curious to hear your thoughts on the flammable stone fortress this coven of witches decided to set up shop in, because that's right about where this show lost me. Even disregarding the explosion seen inside the fortress, you can actually see the fire spread from cloth curtains to solid stone ground with absolutely no explanation as to how that's possible. I have many other issues with it but that was when I gave up on these writers.
I feel like what frustrates me about the show is not that it's ~lore-breaking~ but ~lore-confirming~. More than anything, The Acolyte feels like it doubles down about the worst aspects of George Lucas' conception of the Jedi from the prequels. I loved Rebels in part because Rebels mostly ignored those aspects of lore which restricted the scope for storytelling.
@@stevena.7022 The Bendu, the one in the middle. He's kinda fun. Mostly I appreciate that Kanan never harps about how Ezra needs to detach, or so forth. The balance that matters is the balance within, and it can take many forms.
Except the Bendu doesn’t confirm balance like a lot of grey Jedi fans push for He’s simply an entity that’s totally on the sideline: basically his story confirms that not making a choice is HUGE choice Grey Jedi are not a thing, nor could they ever be: the light side of the force is merely the force while darkness is a bastardization The idea of a grey force user who can kill in anger and hold down a romantic relationship and wield “both sides of the force”, all without consequence: that’s an oxymoron and it goes against the basis of the lore and the universe
@@KRobinson-ko1ne the only part of that which isn't greek to me is "Lack of a choice is making a choice." This whole 'grey jedi' stuff is beyond me, there's this entire fan mythology lore world that I find alien to my experience of Star Wars. My point is this: when stories about Jedi are more like Kanan and Ezra, there's a lot more space for interesting stories. When Jedi are about being detached and unemotional, there's far less scope for interesting stories. Or go back to ESB/RotJ. The entire point of Luke's interaction with Yoda is that Luke was right to go save his friends on Cloud City, right to find the good in Vader. That's a great foundation for telling interesting stories. But with how Book Of Boba Fett* Luke interacts with Grogu, it's like he's saying Yoda was right, despite the entire point of the original trilogy being that Yoda was wrong. It's a characterization decision that makes it harder to tell compelling stories about Jedi. When the shows and movies lean into detached Jedi, the Jedi stories become uninteresting. When they mostly ignore that prequel characterization and show folks trying to do good as best they can, flaws and attachments and all, Jedi stories are actually kind of cool. I really couldn't care less about fan theories on grey Jedi. * A lot of TBOBF is great. Hallucinogenic nose lizards, droid speeder trains, the candy apple red Mods, the rancor vs droidekars: great goofy fun. Love that.
We have spent about 99mins with the characters in "present day" aka excluding episode 3. Which for being 50% of the way through the season, just is not enough to do what they're trying to do.
My problem with this show at least for me, is that these are the dullest Jedi I’ve ever seen. I’m not talking about having a lightsaber battle at every turn. It’s about having personalities, for God’s sake. I don’t care about lore, and I rather see Jedi with lots of flaws than cardboard cutouts. Even Obi-Wan in the prequels and Clone Wars was stern, a rule follower in general, but occasionally willing to bend, had a dry sense of humor, and was never dull. The Jedi of Clone Wars were led in a direction that resulted in their downfall. They were more complex, nuanced characters both as a group and as the few individuals that were highlighted. When Ahsoka walked away from the Jedi in Clone Wars, in one of the most powerful scenes in all of Star Wars, I understood why. It felt earned. Granted, Clone Wars had a lot more episodes per season, even if they were about 20 minutes, but they made good use of that time. As did Rebels. While the story in Acolyte is interesting, I’m not finding myself invested in it. I saw a promo that says episode 5 is the “can’t miss” one. We’ll see. It’s too obvious who the guy in the mask is, mostly because…it’s obvious. I would be surprised if it turns out to be someone else. I’ll be putting my socks on to watch episode 4 and if they’re not knocked off, I’m out.
See also Dr Who s14. Shorter series just mean less character building, less opportunities to flesh out the story, strengthen the relationships and you end up with a bunch of people you don't really care about.
Im sad to see all the comments and stuff. I'm loving this. I live for this sort of thing. All the jedis and stuff. last episode was definitely a bit of a low point but I really enjoyed learning more about the twins. but this episode I liked a lot. My only single complaint about this episode is not seeing more of the Wookie. i 100% agree that i wish we had more episodes/length of episodes and some just downtime to get to know people better though!
It starts to feel like this was written as a bunch of cliffhangers and then a first draft was added to connect these: f.ex. cool Wookiee Jedi, can't wait to see him in action, oh ,he's killed off-screen. This episode has a great build-up and cliffhanger, but I really expect next episode to be a flashback and we'll skip to after the fight in the following episode... On the other hand, I would like another flashback to what happened with the coven, but now from Mae's POV and showing that Osha is the 'evil' twin.
The show clearly has a bunch of problems. Headland said in an interview that a lot of it is based in fan fiction that she wrote when she was younger, and that’s what a lot of this feels like.
Echoing a lot of my feelings in this video. I liked the opening scene of the first episode, some other moments throughout the following episodes, and especially some of the ideas set up and slightly explored...but this episode kind of didn't get there. I do feel like I barely know most of these characters (oddly, I think I could predict Master Sol's actions the best out of anyone), but Mae is especially an enigma, even if I do like that she shifts her goals here - it demonstrates that her motivations weren't just "hate of the Jedi" but more "manipulated revenge for the death of her sister" so taking away that reason (especially with her sister being with those she thought her enemy) takes the wind out of those sails. Definitely could've been setup and rolled out better, but I liked the general thrust. This episode of all released so far (so 4 of...8, I think?) definitely feels the most like certain other Disney+ Star Wars shows (Obi-Wan, Book of Boba), falling into some of their pitfalls. I do think time is definitely a major factor, whether it's squashing a larger story into too few episodes, or even in this episode, simply rushing through this beat. That is well elucidated in this video, hitting upon that lack of time to "get to know" characters - yes, we get some character and such in these "plot relevant" discussions, but we could use a bit more. Thinking about it, it feels like this show is following Obi-Wan's setup of putting more of that "getting to know a character" stuff near the beginning and then once the plot is truly kickstarted, going "no more time for character, focus on plot, gotta keep going". Agreeing on that aspect of the "Mystery of the Master", particularly with the mask (although I wouldn't be surprised if he metatextually has that mask mostly because that's a fixture of Star Wars villains, like Darth Vader and Kylo Ren, even the Fetts, Revan, and Nihilus), but that also feels like another part where their rush through plot has let them down: the mystery would work better if we had a few people we might suspect and might actually feels some way about them being revealed as the Master, but we don't know/care about most anyone (let alone any of the prospective reveals) for that to work *because* it hasn't spent much time on any characters. That said, I don't think we need entire conversations or scenes without plot-related things...they just need more to it than just plot, we're getting fairly barebones too often.
I really don't think 8eps is long enough for a satisfying season of TV if it's going to have episodes that are sub 40mins of actual show. Andor while 12eps gave us time to get to know the characters and made proper use of its structure. Some eps are quite short in that too. But it just works so much better. I'm still enjoying the show its just got lots of pacing issues lol.
Do you think being a fan of Doctor Who has made it easier to not care too much about lore? Because with Doctor Who the best you can hope for is for individual episodes to be internally consistent.
I actually liked this episode, but I’m solely focused on the millions of incremental baby steps the show is taking to get to a Jedi Vs Sith rumble. Ultimately, I don’t think anything could come close to what I’m imagining.
I’m glad more people are admitting that while the Acolyte has an interesting premise, the writing, character development and dialogue is just…not good. It had nothing to do with breaking lore and disliking it doesn’t automatically make you a bigot, the vast majority of people who haven’t been enjoying The Acolyte have very real issues with the quality of the show, especially since it has a budget of $180 million (more than the budget for Dune 2!). Overall it just feels like filler so far - no real character development, jarring/overly simplistic storytelling and just objectively poor/undercooked writing. It’s unfortunate because I think the vast majority of people desperately want these SW shows to be good, but each one seems to be more underwhelming than the last. I have nothing against Leslye Headland, but as I’ve seen many times in the past, when someone with little to no directing/writing experience is given a massive project, it rarely turns out well and with each passing episode, this is seeming to be the case with The Acolyte. It’s not because Leslye a bad director or writer - the magnitude of the project just requires a certain level of experience which she just hasn’t had yet. I’m sure she’ll learn a lot from creating and directing this series and she’ll go on to develop some great movies/shows, but it’s just unfortunate that The Acolyte has to suffer as a result of the writer/director not having enough experience to fully execute on a project of this magnitude. Ideally, an up and coming director chosen for a major project like this would have at least a few indie projects under their belt like in the case of Peter Jackson leading up to Lord Of The Rings. At the very least, Disney/Lucasfilms can use this as a learning experience when building out the team for their next SW project. This doesn’t mean they can’t take a chance on someone like Leslye Headland, but hopefully they will have the forethought to also include someone with writing/directing experience to help ensure that the team can effectively make their vision a reality.
I've been enjoying this show since the start and been enjoying it for what it is. The point of any media is to entertain, and I am having fun with this show. This is my favourite episode so far. While it ain't Andor in tension, this was a tense episode. A double race to the same goal from two sides and approaches, with good character beats all around. As an author, I can look past wooden dialouge and acting. But as someone who, unlike what the show wants me to see, with the bad guys as good and the good guys as bad, and rather see the bad guys as bad, and the good guys as good, as the framing still remains that, I cheered when Mae decided to turn, because the narrative succseded in telling me and her it was the right thing tod. And I felt dread and shock at The Starnger's apperance at the end.
How can you look past wooden dialog and acting _as a writer?_ That's like a mechanic "looking past" shoddy work by another mechanic or a surgeon "looking past" shoddy work by another surgeon. Especially when we're talking about writers given these extremely high-budget projects. If anything, professional criticism of their work should be even more pointed.
Star Wars has never been good at telling us anything about the characters other than their function in the plot. Rebels probably did the best job of it, with the Ghost crew, but even that was pretty surfacy. Villains have certainly never been given any depth and at this point, Mae is still a villain.
This episode was just awful, nothing happened, they're pretending that there's bonds between our characters when there aren't, and for some reason the only one that noticed that there's bugs in the trees is the person who is supposed to be cut off from the force
I'm glad I'm not the only one with the same reaction to Mae flipping. You put it into words perfectly - we are not given enough about Mae's background to either understand her or believe the flip. In fact, what we have seen makes it seem less sensible for her to do that. I found this episode the worst so far and full of too many wooden lines and plot contrivances. The tease at the end is the only reason I can see people having a positive response to the episode. Truthfully, aside from a horror-style introduction to the master, I found the ending silly. From Osha being tossed aside like a ragdoll (seriously, watch it in slow-mo), to the way the Jedi begin to confront their enemy. I also was annoyed the Wookie Jedi was just killed off-screen and we have never been giving any development to his character.
I think this is as many episodes as I lasted with the Mandolorian. Episodic Star Wars may not be for me. I tried real hard because of all the rampant sexism i saw against it.
A problem here is that it's _not_ episodic. A good episodic series would give us a complete A plot (beginning, build-up, crisis, denouement) in each episode with a continuing B plot in the background. A good continuing plot series would just give more episode emphasis to the continuing plot line, with each episode still having the feeling of a beginning, build-up, crisis, and denouement. This isn't a new concept...it was perfected in magazine serials a hundred and fifty years ago in the Charles Dickens era.
See I actually really liked episodes 1,2, and 4. Sorry to jump on the episode 3 hate wagon but it was just all over the f-ck*n place (dialogue and acting were disastrous, random sh-t was just HAPPENING for the sake of moving the story from Point A to Point B. I'm not even against Star Wars having a jazz-hands flashmob scene provided that its WELL DONE, which that wasn't). But in Episode 4 I was like "Okay, we're back on track! Good!" Over all, Acolyte is the new Phantom Menace. Its a mixed bag but I think its strengths outweigh its weaknesses.
If you hate women being in Star Wars or being leaders, you're not a Star Wars fan. All the women in it either ran the senate or a rebellion, so there's no slouches there. If you're cool with women being in it but don't like the direction, you're still allowed to have an opinion. It's like there's a religious fanatically devoted fan base," not in religion like real churchy temple one," but fanatical about the force, history, lore. Then they wanna come in and rewrite thier holy texts, tell them that's how it was, or we didn't have any other source material, when it wasn't & yes they did and label everyone a red hat for knowing what happened for the 50 years and start an inquisition with anybody who calls them out on the basics, & label them as phobic ist heretics. They're starting a holy war that's killing off the fan base faster than the crusades. Most are just gone and not coming back. I loved Fallout. 5 times the women of color and the leads mom is in a relationship with one who's in charge of the wastelands largest army battling Vaultec who's run by a woman of color. They contributed to lore in that series and didn't contradict it and genuinely wrote a heros arch. The acolyte decided to add critical characters to the story that weren't even born yet and wrecked the plot of the prequels. Now the sith are back, and they're pulling a parent trap on us. Fire burns through blast doors and stone floors. The thread isn't something you wield, then immediately start wielding it. The power of one isn't as strong as the power of 2 except when their mom wields it and that cringe 80s performance art is an insult to paganism. Light sabers we're literally important to distinguish between force users and timelines. Now, it's just aesthetics. They steal from legends and claim no sorce material. They failed at carrying the story or progressing in it, and then want to call anyone who calls them out as phobic ists. That's literally every response from them publicly. Leslye Headland & Kathleen Kennedy need to go. There's comes a point where you have to tell people to get off the couch with ur muddy af shoes. Like we can all chill on the couch, but ur killin' it for 90% of the people at it right now. Even if they want to say the negative reviews are fake, it would have more views to back that up that claim. I love Star Wars, but it's just getting worse every time they air something or say something about the fans because they messed up. It's all going to be gone. It won't have a chance to inspire the next generations, and it's only alienating the ones that came before. I don't want that to happen, but there's no moving forward with it if the captains can't sail. Don't let it continue to be a Titanic failure.
I’m honestly surprised you like this. I think the first two episodes were meh, and this one and the last one were just plain terrible. From every basic level.
I'm not really much of a Star Wars fan, I dip in and out of stuff, haven't seen any of the cartoons and have only seem some of the TV shows, I preferred this to the last episode, but I'd probably say I'm only watching this series at all because of Abi Thorne and if it turns out Disney put out a press release to say it's their first show with a trans actress in and then she's only got four lines and cannot be seen in crowd scenes then I'm going to be annoyed. I should probably go and watch your review of episode three shouldn't I? But it really did feel like it killed the momentum and this week was struggling to restart a stalled story. My assumption is that the masked figure is one of her lesbian witch moms wearing a helmet for reasons that don't make much sense in-universe but really just so it can be removed at some point for a surprise.
I'll also note that in recent months, the franchise has TWICE spent multiple episodes building up a mysterious masked villain, only to kill them off without ever taking the mask off.
I think I like the general ideas more then the show itself
There's some great ideas in there that could have a show all to themselves but they've ditched them to do a standard (and not interesting) 'find the person and stop them' plot.
it kinda feels like theres so many ideas they have but cant find a way to put them in a way that works at least for me
I feel this way about most D+ shows I’ve seen. (Mostly just Star Wars and MCU, but nevertheless)
The only ideas we’ve seen are a coven who can make force babies: clearly the byproduct of an embittered Clone Wars/Empire Strikes Back Fan who thinks she knows Star Wars who thinks she knows Star Wars better than the actual creator
@@KRobinson-ko1ne I liked the coven stuff I just wish they'd flesh out the concept more
Good, engaging stories have interesting characters whose decisions drive the plot. The relatability of those decisions is what immerses the audience and makes us care
No I get your points. We do need a moment just to sit with them and understand them.
The name of the test for characterization should be called the “My Dinner With Andre” test.
Intriguing
I think what you are talking about is the Japanese filmmaking concept of "Ma" or the moments between action that allow for contemplation and reflection. It doesn't have to be done with dialog but great examples of that can be found in the films of Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith and are a big part of what sets them apart and makes them special. The Studio Ghibli films are full of such moments of course.
It's funny the way you bring up "show" and "tell" because what was a little grating to me for the first two episodes. They would "show" and then two scenes later they would "tell" while two characters were talking. Part of it was 1st episode problems, it wasn't as bad in the 2nd ep, but it made me weary.
This episode made me feel like there was connective stuff missing with Mae, and I think you're right. No casual convo that would fill in character w/o being about the plot, thanks that helps!
0:54 Definitely the right approach... there's one detail/scene from this episode that is a massive example of people being terminally online to the point where I've had to mute the character's name to make the argument stop, and to make matters worse it's motivated toxic people to go after Wookieepedia members for decisions made by the writers.
This is starting to lose me too. I don't care about lore either (if anything, I like that it's adding new stuff!) but I'm not invested in the characters, the dialogue is nothing new, the plot is unpredictable but misses opportunities in order to do so. It's such as shame because unlike the Star Wars fandom, I really wanted to like this! I want to see more Star Wars shows divorced from the Skywalker Saga or the Clone Wars but this just isn't coming together. I will keep going because that cliffhanger did perk me up and I'm VERY curious to see how they pull of a lightsaber duel after doing hand-to-hand combat so well but it needs to pick up or else I'm going to write it off.
Nothing in this show is earned. Everything is told at you, but that doesn’t make feelings grow.
It's to short that's the problem, each episode is short, the series is short and while it's the same length as others the other shows could rely on background and nostalgia even andor could as we know him a bit and we know the empire, but unless you have delved into high republic it's a new era and the lack of world building it is struggling massively.
Episodes of The Clone Wars and Rebels were just as short, but each episode gave us a complete story.
@@kirkdarling4120 but the seasons were not, which gave more room to tell story, and like i said the timeline is well known so it could also rely on people knowing who the empire vader and others were.
I'm really curious to hear your thoughts on the flammable stone fortress this coven of witches decided to set up shop in, because that's right about where this show lost me. Even disregarding the explosion seen inside the fortress, you can actually see the fire spread from cloth curtains to solid stone ground with absolutely no explanation as to how that's possible. I have many other issues with it but that was when I gave up on these writers.
I feel like what frustrates me about the show is not that it's ~lore-breaking~ but ~lore-confirming~. More than anything, The Acolyte feels like it doubles down about the worst aspects of George Lucas' conception of the Jedi from the prequels. I loved Rebels in part because Rebels mostly ignored those aspects of lore which restricted the scope for storytelling.
Is that the big force buffalo?
@@stevena.7022 The Bendu, the one in the middle. He's kinda fun.
Mostly I appreciate that Kanan never harps about how Ezra needs to detach, or so forth. The balance that matters is the balance within, and it can take many forms.
Except the Bendu doesn’t confirm balance like a lot of grey Jedi fans push for
He’s simply an entity that’s totally on the sideline: basically his story confirms that not making a choice is HUGE choice
Grey Jedi are not a thing, nor could they ever be: the light side of the force is merely the force while darkness is a bastardization
The idea of a grey force user who can kill in anger and hold down a romantic relationship and wield “both sides of the force”, all without consequence: that’s an oxymoron and it goes against the basis of the lore and the universe
@@KRobinson-ko1ne the only part of that which isn't greek to me is "Lack of a choice is making a choice." This whole 'grey jedi' stuff is beyond me, there's this entire fan mythology lore world that I find alien to my experience of Star Wars.
My point is this: when stories about Jedi are more like Kanan and Ezra, there's a lot more space for interesting stories. When Jedi are about being detached and unemotional, there's far less scope for interesting stories.
Or go back to ESB/RotJ. The entire point of Luke's interaction with Yoda is that Luke was right to go save his friends on Cloud City, right to find the good in Vader. That's a great foundation for telling interesting stories. But with how Book Of Boba Fett* Luke interacts with Grogu, it's like he's saying Yoda was right, despite the entire point of the original trilogy being that Yoda was wrong. It's a characterization decision that makes it harder to tell compelling stories about Jedi. When the shows and movies lean into detached Jedi, the Jedi stories become uninteresting. When they mostly ignore that prequel characterization and show folks trying to do good as best they can, flaws and attachments and all, Jedi stories are actually kind of cool. I really couldn't care less about fan theories on grey Jedi.
* A lot of TBOBF is great. Hallucinogenic nose lizards, droid speeder trains, the candy apple red Mods, the rancor vs droidekars: great goofy fun. Love that.
The coolest thing about this show might be that poster
We have spent about 99mins with the characters in "present day" aka excluding episode 3.
Which for being 50% of the way through the season, just is not enough to do what they're trying to do.
My problem with this show at least for me, is that these are the dullest Jedi I’ve ever seen. I’m not talking about having a lightsaber battle at every turn. It’s about having personalities, for God’s sake. I don’t care about lore, and I rather see Jedi with lots of flaws than cardboard cutouts. Even Obi-Wan in the prequels and Clone Wars was stern, a rule follower in general, but occasionally willing to bend, had a dry sense of humor, and was never dull. The Jedi of Clone Wars were led in a direction that resulted in their downfall. They were more complex, nuanced characters both as a group and as the few individuals that were highlighted. When Ahsoka walked away from the Jedi in Clone Wars, in one of the most powerful scenes in all of Star Wars, I understood why. It felt earned. Granted, Clone Wars had a lot more episodes per season, even if they were about 20 minutes, but they made good use of that time. As did Rebels.
While the story in Acolyte is interesting, I’m not finding myself invested in it. I saw a promo that says episode 5 is the “can’t miss” one. We’ll see. It’s too obvious who the guy in the mask is, mostly because…it’s obvious. I would be surprised if it turns out to be someone else. I’ll be putting my socks on to watch episode 4 and if they’re not knocked off, I’m out.
The importance of filler
Preach!
See also Dr Who s14. Shorter series just mean less character building, less opportunities to flesh out the story, strengthen the relationships and you end up with a bunch of people you don't really care about.
Yeeeees! Unleash your hate! Feel the Power!
Im sad to see all the comments and stuff. I'm loving this. I live for this sort of thing. All the jedis and stuff. last episode was definitely a bit of a low point but I really enjoyed learning more about the twins. but this episode I liked a lot. My only single complaint about this episode is not seeing more of the Wookie.
i 100% agree that i wish we had more episodes/length of episodes and some just downtime to get to know people better though!
It starts to feel like this was written as a bunch of cliffhangers and then a first draft was added to connect these: f.ex. cool Wookiee Jedi, can't wait to see him in action, oh ,he's killed off-screen.
This episode has a great build-up and cliffhanger, but I really expect next episode to be a flashback and we'll skip to after the fight in the following episode...
On the other hand, I would like another flashback to what happened with the coven, but now from Mae's POV and showing that Osha is the 'evil' twin.
Yep, more contrived Disney~ content that reeks of excessive cynical corporate/executive tampering. Another conceptually strong premise compromised.
This was a good take, thanks!
May's easy resolution to betray her "Master" makes him look weak.
The show clearly has a bunch of problems. Headland said in an interview that a lot of it is based in fan fiction that she wrote when she was younger, and that’s what a lot of this feels like.
I want to like The Acolyte. I REALLY do. But thr show is seriously confusing and I hate that the Jedi are cops!
What were the Jedi in the prequels films? Were they cops back then?
@@Thed538dhsk They were ambassadors and arbitrators.
@@nmichaelmurphy in attack of the clones aren't they like soldiers?
The way I look at Jedi is that they are Warrior Monks in space.
@@Jidcruz1 but what does that mean? I know George said that but does that mean they are a religious militia or some might say a militarized cult?
the reveal is its Carrie-Anne Moss
no steel …etc
I sense ep 5 is the season finale , and then the show is going to work to ep 5 from Mae side
The show has 8 episodes
So we have essentially seen half the show so far
You have a very lovely smile!
You're right, she looks beautiful!
You look like someone who would love this show. So if they can’t get you locked in, who else is left???
Echoing a lot of my feelings in this video. I liked the opening scene of the first episode, some other moments throughout the following episodes, and especially some of the ideas set up and slightly explored...but this episode kind of didn't get there. I do feel like I barely know most of these characters (oddly, I think I could predict Master Sol's actions the best out of anyone), but Mae is especially an enigma, even if I do like that she shifts her goals here - it demonstrates that her motivations weren't just "hate of the Jedi" but more "manipulated revenge for the death of her sister" so taking away that reason (especially with her sister being with those she thought her enemy) takes the wind out of those sails. Definitely could've been setup and rolled out better, but I liked the general thrust.
This episode of all released so far (so 4 of...8, I think?) definitely feels the most like certain other Disney+ Star Wars shows (Obi-Wan, Book of Boba), falling into some of their pitfalls. I do think time is definitely a major factor, whether it's squashing a larger story into too few episodes, or even in this episode, simply rushing through this beat. That is well elucidated in this video, hitting upon that lack of time to "get to know" characters - yes, we get some character and such in these "plot relevant" discussions, but we could use a bit more. Thinking about it, it feels like this show is following Obi-Wan's setup of putting more of that "getting to know a character" stuff near the beginning and then once the plot is truly kickstarted, going "no more time for character, focus on plot, gotta keep going".
Agreeing on that aspect of the "Mystery of the Master", particularly with the mask (although I wouldn't be surprised if he metatextually has that mask mostly because that's a fixture of Star Wars villains, like Darth Vader and Kylo Ren, even the Fetts, Revan, and Nihilus), but that also feels like another part where their rush through plot has let them down: the mystery would work better if we had a few people we might suspect and might actually feels some way about them being revealed as the Master, but we don't know/care about most anyone (let alone any of the prospective reveals) for that to work *because* it hasn't spent much time on any characters. That said, I don't think we need entire conversations or scenes without plot-related things...they just need more to it than just plot, we're getting fairly barebones too often.
It’s literally just basic “character and world building”. These mechanics are the most basic principles of story telling.
I really don't think 8eps is long enough for a satisfying season of TV if it's going to have episodes that are sub 40mins of actual show.
Andor while 12eps gave us time to get to know the characters and made proper use of its structure. Some eps are quite short in that too. But it just works so much better. I'm still enjoying the show its just got lots of pacing issues lol.
Do you think being a fan of Doctor Who has made it easier to not care too much about lore? Because with Doctor Who the best you can hope for is for individual episodes to be internally consistent.
Possibly? Except I never cared about Star Wars lore even back when all my friends in the 90s were neck deep in the Thrawn books and other extra stuff.
@@BreakRoomofGeeks Well I guess even with Star Wars there’s so much extra material now that it doesn’t make sense to be too rigid with canon/lore.
@@BreakRoomofGeeksI think we all need to remember the MST3K mantra-“just repeat yourself it’s just a show, I should really just relax.”
This show’s losing me a bit too honestly. Makes me wanna rewatch Andor.
I actually liked this episode, but I’m solely focused on the millions of incremental baby steps the show is taking to get to a Jedi Vs Sith rumble.
Ultimately, I don’t think anything could come close to what I’m imagining.
I’m glad more people are admitting that while the Acolyte has an interesting premise, the writing, character development and dialogue is just…not good.
It had nothing to do with breaking lore and disliking it doesn’t automatically make you a bigot, the vast majority of people who haven’t been enjoying The Acolyte have very real issues with the quality of the show, especially since it has a budget of $180 million (more than the budget for Dune 2!).
Overall it just feels like filler so far - no real character development, jarring/overly simplistic storytelling and just objectively poor/undercooked writing.
It’s unfortunate because I think the vast majority of people desperately want these SW shows to be good, but each one seems to be more underwhelming than the last.
I have nothing against Leslye Headland, but as I’ve seen many times in the past, when someone with little to no directing/writing experience is given a massive project, it rarely turns out well and with each passing episode, this is seeming to be the case with The Acolyte. It’s not because Leslye a bad director or writer - the magnitude of the project just requires a certain level of experience which she just hasn’t had yet.
I’m sure she’ll learn a lot from creating and directing this series and she’ll go on to develop some great movies/shows, but it’s just unfortunate that The Acolyte has to suffer as a result of the writer/director not having enough experience to fully execute on a project of this magnitude.
Ideally, an up and coming director chosen for a major project like this would have at least a few indie projects under their belt like in the case of Peter Jackson leading up to Lord Of The Rings.
At the very least, Disney/Lucasfilms can use this as a learning experience when building out the team for their next SW project. This doesn’t mean they can’t take a chance on someone like Leslye Headland, but hopefully they will have the forethought to also include someone with writing/directing experience to help ensure that the team can effectively make their vision a reality.
The only reason I thought about watching was to see Abigail Thorn, but I don't think I'll bother.
Welcome to the far right star wars fans😁
I've been enjoying this show since the start and been enjoying it for what it is. The point of any media is to entertain, and I am having fun with this show. This is my favourite episode so far. While it ain't Andor in tension, this was a tense episode. A double race to the same goal from two sides and approaches, with good character beats all around. As an author, I can look past wooden dialouge and acting. But as someone who, unlike what the show wants me to see, with the bad guys as good and the good guys as bad, and rather see the bad guys as bad, and the good guys as good, as the framing still remains that, I cheered when Mae decided to turn, because the narrative succseded in telling me and her it was the right thing tod. And I felt dread and shock at The Starnger's apperance at the end.
How can you look past wooden dialog and acting _as a writer?_ That's like a mechanic "looking past" shoddy work by another mechanic or a surgeon "looking past" shoddy work by another surgeon. Especially when we're talking about writers given these extremely high-budget projects. If anything, professional criticism of their work should be even more pointed.
What if Basil is the sith master? Or two of Basil's species? Kinda like jn scream, a pair
Star Wars has never been good at telling us anything about the characters other than their function in the plot. Rebels probably did the best job of it, with the Ghost crew, but even that was pretty surfacy. Villains have certainly never been given any depth and at this point, Mae is still a villain.
So you would like it more if it had some slice of life stuff?
This episode was just awful, nothing happened, they're pretending that there's bonds between our characters when there aren't, and for some reason the only one that noticed that there's bugs in the trees is the person who is supposed to be cut off from the force
I'm glad I'm not the only one with the same reaction to Mae flipping. You put it into words perfectly - we are not given enough about Mae's background to either understand her or believe the flip. In fact, what we have seen makes it seem less sensible for her to do that. I found this episode the worst so far and full of too many wooden lines and plot contrivances. The tease at the end is the only reason I can see people having a positive response to the episode. Truthfully, aside from a horror-style introduction to the master, I found the ending silly. From Osha being tossed aside like a ragdoll (seriously, watch it in slow-mo), to the way the Jedi begin to confront their enemy. I also was annoyed the Wookie Jedi was just killed off-screen and we have never been giving any development to his character.
Are streaming shows just starting to run their course? Maybe strikes and covid delays messing uo writers or the fact writers rooms have been gutted?
I think this is as many episodes as I lasted with the Mandolorian. Episodic Star Wars may not be for me. I tried real hard because of all the rampant sexism i saw against it.
A problem here is that it's _not_ episodic. A good episodic series would give us a complete A plot (beginning, build-up, crisis, denouement) in each episode with a continuing B plot in the background. A good continuing plot series would just give more episode emphasis to the continuing plot line, with each episode still having the feeling of a beginning, build-up, crisis, and denouement. This isn't a new concept...it was perfected in magazine serials a hundred and fifty years ago in the Charles Dickens era.
See I actually really liked episodes 1,2, and 4. Sorry to jump on the episode 3 hate wagon but it was just all over the f-ck*n place (dialogue and acting were disastrous, random sh-t was just HAPPENING for the sake of moving the story from Point A to Point B. I'm not even against Star Wars having a jazz-hands flashmob scene provided that its WELL DONE, which that wasn't). But in Episode 4 I was like "Okay, we're back on track! Good!" Over all, Acolyte is the new Phantom Menace. Its a mixed bag but I think its strengths outweigh its weaknesses.
If you hate women being in Star Wars or being leaders, you're not a Star Wars fan. All the women in it either ran the senate or a rebellion, so there's no slouches there.
If you're cool with women being in it but don't like the direction, you're still allowed to have an opinion.
It's like there's a religious fanatically devoted fan base," not in religion like real churchy temple one," but fanatical about the force, history, lore.
Then they wanna come in and rewrite thier holy texts, tell them that's how it was, or we didn't have any other source material, when it wasn't & yes they did and label everyone a red hat for knowing what happened for the 50 years and start an inquisition with anybody who calls them out on the basics, & label them as phobic ist heretics. They're starting a holy war that's killing off the fan base faster than the crusades. Most are just gone and not coming back.
I loved Fallout. 5 times the women of color and the leads mom is in a relationship with one who's in charge of the wastelands largest army battling Vaultec who's run by a woman of color. They contributed to lore in that series and didn't contradict it and genuinely wrote a heros arch.
The acolyte decided to add critical characters to the story that weren't even born yet and wrecked the plot of the prequels. Now the sith are back, and they're pulling a parent trap on us. Fire burns through blast doors and stone floors. The thread isn't something you wield, then immediately start wielding it. The power of one isn't as strong as the power of 2 except when their mom wields it and that cringe 80s performance art is an insult to paganism. Light sabers we're literally important to distinguish between force users and timelines. Now, it's just aesthetics. They steal from legends and claim no sorce material. They failed at carrying the story or progressing in it, and then want to call anyone who calls them out as phobic ists. That's literally every response from them publicly.
Leslye Headland & Kathleen Kennedy need to go.
There's comes a point where you have to tell people to get off the couch with ur muddy af shoes. Like we can all chill on the couch, but ur killin' it for 90% of the people at it right now.
Even if they want to say the negative reviews are fake, it would have more views to back that up that claim. I love Star Wars, but it's just getting worse every time they air something or say something about the fans because they messed up. It's all going to be gone. It won't have a chance to inspire the next generations, and it's only alienating the ones that came before. I don't want that to happen, but there's no moving forward with it if the captains can't sail. Don't let it continue to be a Titanic failure.
You seem like a very cool and chill person.
I’m honestly surprised you like this. I think the first two episodes were meh, and this one and the last one were just plain terrible. From every basic level.
A lightweight show compared to Andor. For me it has been clear that Torbin is the sith since ep.2
Not lore breaking? WHAT?!! ROFL
I'm not really much of a Star Wars fan, I dip in and out of stuff, haven't seen any of the cartoons and have only seem some of the TV shows, I preferred this to the last episode, but I'd probably say I'm only watching this series at all because of Abi Thorne and if it turns out Disney put out a press release to say it's their first show with a trans actress in and then she's only got four lines and cannot be seen in crowd scenes then I'm going to be annoyed.
I should probably go and watch your review of episode three shouldn't I?
But it really did feel like it killed the momentum and this week was struggling to restart a stalled story. My assumption is that the masked figure is one of her lesbian witch moms wearing a helmet for reasons that don't make much sense in-universe but really just so it can be removed at some point for a surprise.