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Have you seen the acolyte? Their anger is justified.
Have you seen the Acolyte? I’m convinced that the people angry about it aren’t really the big Star Wars fans that they claim to be, because there’s absolutely nothing in the Acolyte so far that hasn’t been done (or taken further) in the EU.
The Acolyte is a pretty mid show, it has some promise but has been a 6/10 show so far. Better than Book of Boba Fett for sure.
The majority of the criticisms I have seen are just typical fragile little white boys getting angry that they have to share their toys. The other criticisms that I have seen are pretty deliberately obtuse (budget too high) portray extreme lack of media literacy (how fire do that) or are just ignorant of the wider star wars lore (why they make jedi bad? why they call force thread?)
There are genuine criticisms that can be made about The Acolyte, but all of the usual suspects crying about how it’s “cringe” that a witch coven is in Star Wars and uses magic powers without a buddhist monk aesthetic, before switching topics to ramble about some completely unrelated right-wing talking point.
Ironic you say that because it's proven that the actors and staff of The Acolyte (and some in the Kenobi series as well) never saw a bit of star wars and have no basic knowledge of the property.
So it is an issue that fans complain how badly written the Acolyte is for the budget, even if they only heard about it from others or seeing clips, but it is no issue the cast and staff don't know a single thing about Star Wars lore but do force their own mind-canon of star wars on the fans ... ?
See, this kind of comment just proves how absolutely nonsensical the majority of the criticism is. Actors and crew members don’t need much, if any, familiarity with Star Wars to act and produce good Star Wars content, and writers don’t even need much beyond a casual familiarity. Do you think Lawrence Kasdan had an encyclopaedic understanding of SW when he wrote Empire? It’s a nothingburger complaint that people only make when they don’t actually have a coherent argument. Want to criticise the writing? Critique the actual text of the movie, not the credentials of the author.
Anyone who is making hay over the budget of Acolyte is explicitly a fool. There have been three episodes released. The fourth episode might be the most spectacular episode of television ever created for all these people know. Again, it’s a total nothingburger. It’s the kind of thing you talk about when you don’t actually have any substantial criticisms to make.
No you're right, the actors don't have to, but then they ALSO don't need to spout falsehoods about starwars like "Star Wars never had strong females", or 'Anakin blew up the Death star" like it was gospel ... as an actor for an IP if you don't know anything about it just say so and don't make toxic comments just to rile up people.
The actor playing the inquisitor in Kenobi said he knew nothing of star wars ... I don't recall anyone really flaming him personally for that (but the character was put through the wringer in writing).
I brought that up because if they don't know anything about SW, why did Lucasfilm put them out on the interviews to spout as much nonsense as possible? That is plain wrong.
Interestingly, the creator of Andor was not even a SW fan but he properly read up on the material and did not let himself be used for someone else's agenda by giving empty headed interviews.
Lawrence Kasdan had George Lucas beside him .... The crew of The Acolyte have someone next to them who is almost saying George Lucas shouldn't be Star Wars' creator.
If the writers don't know what entails star wars ... then why get upset if star wars fans don't recognize star wars in the product? It's not a magical faerie dust the Disney team sprinkles over it post production. No matter how much they'd like that. A good writer studies its subject and writes about it with passion, if neither are done you get drivel like "the power of one, shallala, the power of two, mulalala, the power of thr'many-y"
Final point, if they boast the outrageous 180M (movie!) budget, and up to epsode 3 out of 8 (at ~30 minutes a pop) it gives you that, it does not bode well for the rest of the show and it's a bad thing once again no one higher up pulled the brake on this... In you calling the complainers a fool (oops toxicity seeping in!), you absolutely miss the point, what is shown now is not up to the quality deserving such a budget, not even 30% at $60Million... but dividing it per episode would make you say it's unfair too because each episode has different effects etc. Even reviewing the series per episode is a no-no then because one can't see the whole series ... so reasoning with you on that is moot.
Other flopped SW series had far less of a budget to work with, and with more budget for the Acolyte it promised a lot, but the team still put out subpar writing ... again ... and it is the again that people are upset about. So I will quote someone: "Who is more foolish, the fool, or the one following him?" ... The people complaining are definitely not accepting the budgetary worth of the series so far.
In all, it is clear the people having heart for the IP are on the wrong side of the fence and their points and passions declared unsubstantial by the selfcentered other side.
But I bet if it does turn out to be amongst the best SciFi we have seen in a while there will be plenty of praise and no more complaints about the budget, anyone remember Andor?
Somehow I don't see it happening this time. <cough>Rebel Moon<cough>
Can’t find a source for the “star wars never had strong females” thing, so I can’t really respond to that. Could you share who said that at least?
As for the Anakin death star thing, when you watch the interview, it’s clearly just a young actor in Star Wars getting excited talking about Star Wars and misspeaking, it’s not a big deal. Getting Luke and Anakin mixed up is literally a meme because it happens so commonly. He clearly enjoys Star Wars even though he may not be a mega fan or whatever.
Actors will always do interviews about their role in upcoming shows and movies and it’s mega common for them to not to be star wars fans. You’ll often hear them say stuff like “I wasn’t really a fan before I got this part, but I love it now” in those interviews. These kinds of criticisms are often not being made in good faith, they’re being made to push a right-wing narrative, so they just cherry pick quotes and make a ton of hay about absolutely nothing.
Don’t you feel some cognitive dissonance about the Acolyte being different from other Star Wars works while also liking Andor… which is different from Star Wars works? What makes the Coven cringe but the dude with the hammer in Andor cool? Because a lot of the criticisms I’ve seen just straight up hate women, it’s hard to accept that isn’t a big reason for all the hate that the Acolyte has received. Maybe also because right wingers got some representation in Syril.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the coven’s chant. This is one of the many things which expose people as not being the huge star wars fans they claim to be, because they are making it clear that they haven’t watched Clone Wars or read any of the books/comics. The Dathomiri nightsisters (which were a major inspiration for the coven in acolyte) also use chants to focus their powers. Jedi meditate and use mantras to focus their powers. It’s pretty much a self-own to call it “not star wars enough”. If someone is making that claim, they’re not star wars enough to realise that, if anything, it’s kinda overdone.
If I told you that in June 2024, I spent $50,000, but you only saw what I did for the first week, you’d be asking “how did you spend $50,000 in a month on food?!” but then in the third week I revealed that I bought a car but you didn’t see it yet, you might feel a little foolish for jumping to conclusions, mightn’t you?
A show having a high budget has absolutely never been considered a bad thing until someone could use that as a means to complain about women. That’s what it just keeps coming down to. Really poorly thought out, bad faith arguments being made by people who don’t want to come out and tell the truth - they don’t like that there are women in the show, or non-white people, or portrayals of vaguely LGBTQ+ vibes. It’s just stereotypical reactionary crap, and I’m really sorry that you have fallen for it.
But there is hope. There is a Star Wars character who realised that he was on the wrong side, who refused to allow the evil authoritarian regime to continue unopposed. I don’t know if you are strong enough to follow their example, but I hope you are, for your sake. Anger, hate, fear - these things are the path to the dark side, and once you allow yourself to be seduced by it, forever will it dominate your destiny.
I am sure that there is good in you. I hope it doesn’t take a traumatic experience for you to find it within yourself and turn away from the dark.
The Acolyte is the best series since Andor, but that isn't saying much. I think 6/10 is far to generous and given the pattern these shows follow, it's only going to get worse.