S01.E08: The Acolyte

[DoctorAtomic]

No, I meant the last shot of this series is Palpatine's birth. That's it.

If Plageuis is pulling the strings with Smilo, and we've never heard of these people before, we could guess Osha, Mae, and him get got somehow, so then he's looking for a new Acolyte. Birth of Palpatine. Fade to black. 

 

 

[bethy]

I found the series as whole disappointing. I mean, is it even a "twist" at this point to have it turn out that the good guys are the bad guys and the bad guys are the good guys? It's not a new concept anymore from a story-telling perspective in our cynical age, and I could see it coming from the moment it came out that the Jedi were hiding something about what had happened. 

I'm not saying that the Jedi should be perfect, but it's sad to me that the current tendency in Star Wars shows/movies (admittedly I haven't watched all the animated shows or read any of the books) is to undermine the heroic aspects of the Jedi. 

It makes me think of this quote from C.S. Lewis "Since it is so likely that children will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage. Otherwise you are making their destiny not brighter but darker."

 

[DoctorAtomic]

I've said the same. I call it deconstruction of the Jedi. I think they made a mistake of not having at least one Jedi just decent. Doesn't even have to be your typical "good guy/lady". 

I think killing off the padawan was a mistake because she could have been that character. She was too young for Brendock, so she's 'clean' in a sense. She was striking up a friendship with Osha, so her going all choke and killing Sol and riding out with Smilo would have had a far more dramatic impact. 

I wouldn't say the bad guys ended up being the good guys though. 

To be fair, if you're looking at Clone Wars or Rebels, those characters were good. Ahsoka made Maul her bitch, and she would have more than justified slicing him up, but she still just arrested him in the end. Hera and Kanan are both completely good and decent too. 

I've also said deconstructing Jedi as an organization is fair, but when you're saying they're all fundamentally corrupt just isn't accurate. 

[paigow]

The next spinoff should be JCIS: Coruscant 

[baldryanr]

5 hours ago, bethy said:

I'm not saying that the Jedi should be perfect, but it's sad to me that the current tendency in Star Wars shows/movies (admittedly I haven't watched all the animated shows or read any of the books) is to undermine the heroic aspects of the Jedi. 

This seems to be a very modern train of thought across multiple franchises - maybe our good guys (Starfleet, superheroes, the Jedi) kind of suck, and there's a line between they're not perfect to wow, what a bunch of assholes. Heading too far into asshole territory is just going to piss people off - why should we be rooting for any of these characters AND why are you saying the group I admired is corrupt and has a rapidly diminishing number of good qualities?

[Grimnar]

18 hours ago, baldryanr said:

This seems to be a very modern train of thought across multiple franchises - maybe our good guys (Starfleet, superheroes, the Jedi) kind of suck, and there's a line between they're not perfect to wow, what a bunch of assholes. Heading too far into asshole territory is just going to piss people off - why should we be rooting for any of these characters AND why are you saying the group I admired is corrupt and has a rapidly diminishing number of good qualities?

I agree with this. It is okay to show that Jedi had their faults but going too far, we will end up that everyone will be saying "good ridance" about Order 66.

Like with the senator, I assume that we were supposed to agree with him that Jedi need control in case Jedi goes rogue(Anakin) but at same time we should ignore that Palpatine as politician became dictator without much resistance from Senate.

[paigow]

Movies with foregone conclusions - e.g. Titanic - need to create compelling victims / survivors / villains. Unfortunately, Acolyte failed to do that with longer running time.

The Witches were victims - or did they have a diabolical plan to conquer other planets or incite rebellion against the Republic? Insufficient data.

Vernestra is exactly like the CIA bosses in the Bourne Universe - screw up, find scapegoat, keep job.

That character needs a credible protagonist to bounce off. If the audience actually wants Clive Owen to kill Matt Damon, then the writers need to do revisions.

[Sarah 103]

On 7/20/2024 at 5:24 PM, paigow said:

The next spinoff should be JCIS: Coruscant 

I would watch that. I actually wish that is what this series was-the Jedi investigating a suspicious dark side user or users as the main focus of the series. 

3 hours ago, paigow said:

Movies with foregone conclusions - e.g. Titanic - need to create compelling victims / survivors / villains. Unfortunately, Acolyte failed to do that with longer running time.

I absolutely agree with this. None of the characters in The Acolyte were really compelling. None of them were fully developed with clear consistent motivations. It felt like the series was trying to tell too many stories at once and none of them really worked.

Just when it felt like the story was coming together and it was starting to get going, the season ended. 

[paigow]

1 hour ago, Sarah 103 said:

I actually wish that is what this series was-the Jedi investigating a suspicious dark side user or users as the main focus of the series.

The lead investigator would be Master Reacher or Master Bauer

[Biggie B]

On 7/16/2024 at 10:10 PM, DoctorAtomic said:

Has anyone in Star Wars said "hell" before? Do they have that concept?

That really bothered me and took me right out of the moment. Same as when someone on Star Trek says, "Oh my god!" or "Thank god!" How does that not jump out at the writers??

[Uncle JUICE]

3 minutes ago, Biggie B said:

That really bothered me and took me right out of the moment. Same as when someone on Star Trek says, "Oh my god!" or "Thank god!" How does that not jump out at the writers??

I can forgive these little lapses, I forgave it in Empire. What I can't forgive is that ridiculous David Harewood as a senator scene. People just went ape shit for a good actor in a potentially interesting role in Star Wars, but the stuff that comes out of his mouth is absolutely laughable writing. He literally explains who he is and why he's at odds with Vern to the audience, just straight out. No nuance. 

[Sarah 103]

7 hours ago, Biggie B said:

That really bothered me and took me right out of the moment. Same as when someone on Star Trek says, "Oh my god!" or "Thank god!" How does that not jump out at the writers??

The word "hell" was used in the original trilogy, so I'm okay with the writers using it on this show. 

[DoctorAtomic]

I can only speak for myself, but it's not really a common saying in this universe, so it does stick out. Concepts of the afterlife isn't something that has really been raised.

[tkc]

On 7/23/2024 at 7:05 AM, DoctorAtomic said:

Concepts of the afterlife isn't something that has really been raised.

You're right, of course. From a certain point of view.   😉

[DoctorAtomic]

In terms of a hell, based on the discussion here. All we've seen is Jedi that become Force Ghosts. There's been nothing for 'regular people' so to speak. So, you only get an afterlife if you're m-count is high enough? They've said 'hell' maybe 7 times total. That doesn't strike me as a concept of the after life. Furthermore, Qui Gon is said to be the first that became 'one with the Force' so what did the Jedi do before that? Here, Mae says 'hell'. What did the witches consider the afterlife? 

I think it's a fair point to raise that they used the word here for impact and previously just offhand without forethought. Even with the Force Ghosts, nothing about it was ever discussed iirc, and then, all of a sudden, Yoda can make lightning. 

I never read the EU, so I don't know if it was addressed there. In Clone Wars and Rebels, it wasn't said, and when Kanan sacrificed himself, nothing was said of it afterward either.

[Sandman]

On 7/18/2024 at 4:23 AM, Chyromaniac said:

Like, who am I supposed to root for coming out of this?  The Jedi who pins a massacre on her dead friend based off little actual proof?  The Sith indoctrinator/mass murderer?  The evil twin who killed two Jedi - but couldn't decide if she wanted to take responsibility or not? 

There's almost no one in the show who is very sympathetic, and some characters are not sympathetic at all. For me Sol comes closest. I believe Sol truly killed Aniseya by mistake, and he had no way of knowing (as far as the audience could tell) that her changing form did not represent an overt threat. The young version of Mae seemed more than a little unbalanced to me -- filled with rage at her sister's "betrayal" (i.e., wanting a choice of her own). I found it harder to feel for her. It's not just the Jedi who behaved like jerks. None of the adults told the children the truth, as far as I could tell. I still don't know why Osha agreed to be trained by Smilo (hee! -- better than the "Darth Underbite" I was working on) -- other than to take her sister's place. The motives of the Stranger (as the captions call him) are at best unconvincing, even if I find the Jedi's insistence that repression is the path to wisdom insupportable. I don't really care that he thinks he should do whatever he likes with power. That makes him a bully; it doesn't make him interesting. (The further we move away from the original trilogy, the more sure I am that no one has ever actually sat down and worked out logically what the Jedi stand for and why they train their apprentices the way they do. "Emotion is Bad" seems like a wilful misunderstanding of Buddhism, at best, and adding details like Midichlorians to give a scientific-sounding basis for Force powers feels like contempt for the audience's intelligence.)

I agree that the sisters' motivations often seemed to change as the plot required. The series could have been tightened into 3 or 4 episodes -- it felt padded and the pace was the best in the pilot episode(s).

It must be said that some of the dialogue is just amateurish here; I caught basic errors of grammar and syntax. ("Above is the stars"? Come on, writers.)

[DoctorAtomic]

I don't necessarily need to root for characters on a show, but as long as there's something interesting in some of them. And I think there was enough to keep me going. 

That said, with some distance, I think Osha is kind of a tragic figure, and they could have gone harder into this. 

Sol could have been, and maybe they were going for that, but he came off more creepy obsessive than tragic. I think they could have been an easy fix. 

[Sandman]

1 hour ago, DoctorAtomic said:

That said, with some distance, I think Osha is kind of a tragic figure, and they could have gone harder into this. 

Sol could have been, and maybe they were going for that, but he came off more creepy obsessive than tragic. I think they could have been an easy fix. 

I agree; I think both of these observations are well made. 

[call me ishmael]

5 hours ago, Sandman said:

. (The further we move away from the original trilogy, the more sure I am that no one has ever actually sat down and worked out logically what the Jedi stand for and why they train their apprentices the way they do. "Emotion is Bad" seems like a wilful misunderstanding of Buddhism, at best, and adding details like Midichlorians to give a scientific-sounding basis for Force powers feels like contempt for the audience's intelligence.)

As much as I love Star Wars I think that this is right.  After all, ANH was an homage to 30s space serials which hardly are fun because of their philosophical depth.  The whole thing was built around simple stuff. The Clone Wars cartoons were good because they were excellent kids cartoons and Ahsoka had a great coming of age story.  But the universe building outside of Andor has been pretty thin.

[Sarah 103]

4 hours ago, call me ishmael said:

As much as I love Star Wars I think that this is right.  After all, ANH was an homage to 30s space serials which hardly are fun because of their philosophical depth.

A New Hope is the previous 30-40 years of film history thrown into a blender to create an amazing cinematic smoothie; the space serials are just one ingredient. Han Solo is a mix of Rhett Butler and Rick Blaine (or any of the other Humphry Bogart characters who seem completely self-interested but end up doing the right thing at the end of the movie). Princess Leia is a mix of Hildy Johnson and any number of characters Katherine Hepburn played. (Han and Leia is screwball comedy in space; they hate each other at first but over the course of the adventure fall in love.) Jabba the Hutt is a mob boss out of an old black and white Warner Brothers movie. Jabba's Barge and the fight on it is a pirate ship out of an old Errol Flynn swashbuckler. Obi-Wan is a wizard/mentor to the hero from a fairy tale or myth. He's Merlin to Luke's Wart (before he became King Arthur). Luke is just a classic archetype. 

The Cantina is a combination of a western saloon and a sketchy jazz club. 

I think there can be pew-pew action adventure Star Wars like The Mandalorian. I think there can be more grown-up Star Wars like The Andor. 

The Acolyte, Boba-Fett, and Obi-Wan Kenobi are potentially good ideas with a horrible execution. 

Edited August 2 by Sarah 103

[DoctorAtomic]

I'd add that initially Jedi were styled as ronin at the start too. Throwing in the whole council and all that as basically civil servants wasn't the case at the start.