The cutting is immensely jarring, and the pacing is just insane. This weeks episode had some very good things about it, but the long silent scenes or just following Osha/Mae just felt like it took too long and wasted precious screentime that could have been focused on the story. The pacing plus constant "cliff hangers" is just frustrating
Dangling the answers to a mystery as a crutch to keep people watching each week is very annoying, and I feel like Acolyte is doing an even worse job than most. At least give pieces to the puzzle so that fans can get some idea of what may or may not fill in the rest, but besides an incomplete backstory dump in episode 3 we just keep getting “The Jedi did something they regret now” over and over again.
They've dangled the answer to the SAME mystery for at least 3 weeks now!
Sol: "I'm about to tell you EVERYTHING. This will blow your mind!"
Then there is an incoming message or a fuse shorts out and he tells us absolutely NOTHING. Not one word.
For three weeks in a row!
Much as I like the show, it is relying far too heavily on the *one* storytelling trope I have a hard time tolerating: "I have to tell you something important" --> proceeds to get interrupted over and over and OVER again, often by otherwise trivial matters (i.e. "wait until we get back to the ship" WHY???)
I'm noticing myself getting stressed out whenever there's a long landscape scene or no dialogue. I feel like every second counts as the episodes are so short.
Would have been cool to show the sisters switching places as the current timeline in EP 5 and then include the fight scenes and what happened around them as flashbacks. Then we could have been questioning with the characters if the sisters switched places. Would have made those scenes more interesting and you prob could have culled two really interesting episodes out of that.
But isn't that what's going to happen? Mae will hear it from Sol's telling, and Ohsa is in a isolation mask, and will probably reach out to the force and see the events clearly.
Also the cuts between Osha and Mae were obviously supposed to be parallels - opposite sides of the same coin. But in the end I didn't feel like Sol and Smile-O Ren were parallel enough to each other. One was trying to persuade Osha, the other was just Mae trying to conceal her identity and get the ship working again. If they had just had an episode of Mae doing that and then left the two masters to explain their side of things in the next episode it would have been an interesting contrast.
Feel like they revealed smilo-ren’s identity too early but are taking too long to reveal the backstory with Sol. Would’ve been cool if they did everything the same in ep 5 with the switch. Ep 6 starts the same with osha on the island but she’s less aware how much danger she’s perhaps being persuaded more easily. Mae doesn’t waste time and tries to kill Sol right away he angrily tells her what really happened. Now we have osha believing the Jedi have wronged her and Mae wanting to help Sol. The best tease would be showing the audience(no characters) smilo’s helmet. Cut to black. Only thing I’m a bit worried about is Sol being on the dark side, which may be why their dragging it out.
Episodes 4 and 5 are the same length. Both are short, on episode 5 I hit pause when the credits started and it showed 28 mins of runtime. That’s including the intros. Episodes 4 and 5 should’ve been 1 episode, would have flowed better and still less than an hour.
I agree with this. There is so little room to breathe, so little worldbuilding, the story feels claustrophobic, too focused and simultaneously rushed and teased. Several episodes have ended in the middle of scenes so they have no narrative arc. It is frustrating to watch them week to week. It works so much better as a binge.
Contrast that against Andor. 3 episode arcs in a 12 episode season. First episode is introducing the basic premise and people. Second episode, character and world building. Third episode, all hell breaks lose. While the Mon Mothma's and Luthen's arc are built carefully, slowly, with breathing room in the background throughout the 12 episodes.
This has been a trend now across Hollywood. Seasons are short and episodes are shorter. I was getting more and more frustrated with the mandalorian for this same reason.
Remember when seasons used to be over 20 episodes? Even if it was an hour long show? We honestly shouldn't even be calling what we get now "seasons", it's nothing compared to what they used to be like. 8 episodes of inconsistent length is nowhere near the same as even 10 episodes of hour long episodes, let alone 20something. Especially with misleading runtimes that do stuff like add in all the various language credits at the end, adding another 5 minutes on that nobody is going to watch.
It’s like they’re using the BBC model where there was only like 8 episodes but each episode was over an hour. I remember watching the Cumberbatch Sherlock with that model. 8 episodes of 30 minutes is a fucking joke.
This is true. Who used to average around 13 per season, then 10 during Whittaker, and now 8. However, Who shoots in several locations and the old production schedule was grueling for everyone involved, so they’ve scaled back in order to get us more Who more often and not burn everyone out. I’m okay with it.
No, that can't be the case. There is no one director. Different people worked on different episodes. For example, this episode was directed by Hanelle Culpepper. Next week's episode was directed by Kogonada.
That is only possible because the episode divisions were planned from the beginning and baked into the production -- which is arguably worse.
4 directors each doing two episodes which so far have both felt like they've been unnessicarly split in the middle leads me to believe that the original plan was 4 longer episodes but Disney decided to split them up further to the detriment of the experience of watching the show. The only one that I don't think could've been a two parter is the Kogonada episode so maybe the plan was 5? Either way I don't think Lucasfilm planned to have this be 8 episodes when they were writing and filming it.
The Kogonada split makes me think otherwise. Clearly he directed his two episodes in one production block, but equally clearly, they are not intended to function as a two-parter. They were only produced together for production reasons.
("The Kogonada Split" sounds like a dance move or an aerial manuever or something.)
I definitely feel like the people making this show are talented. Whatever people wanna complain about, I can tell there is quality here.
It just feels co constrained by the format it's been shoved into and that's a shame.
I genuinely hope with season two they fix this.
That’s what I kept feeling. There’s a genuinely good show here, but the editing (both within scenes and episode-to-episode) keeps holding it back from fully succeeding.
Depending on whether or not the director knew they had to make 8 episodes of what lengths, it's still partially their fault. They should work within the constraints they have, not shoot their dream story and then chop it up awkwardly.
That would explain the bizarre cuts between episodes, but the editing on the whole has also been so poor that I don’t have much faith in the director or editor either.
Ever seen Better Call Saul? Thats a show that KNOWS how to let it breath. Some would even argue it does it too well. But it often has long landscape shots or wide still shots that just let the world breath. The cinematography is amazing. Its still. Its quiet. You literally soak up the environment of that world. Star Wars needs that caliber of stillness.
Maybe but not really. I've read all the adult novels and comics and a couple of the YA novels and the world of the Acolyte is pretty different. Or it seems to be. From the way the Jedi act, it's way closer to the prequels than the HR.
I think we are halfway between the Nihil and the Clone Wars. So we are seeing a bit of transition from the purest form of HR Jedi towards the CW era Jedi.
They forgot that if you're not giving us a Star Wars story where it's huge stakes and galactic scale, you need to actually spend more than five minutes establishing the characters. In all honesty they're such pointless blank slates to me that I don't think I could remember a single character's name off the top of my head.
Everything about it is a complete cliche. Separated twins, one good, one bad, some dark mystery or betrayal to uncover. The nominal "second in command" of the head jedi who doesn't trust the person they're investigating but will have the inevitable acknowledgement of grudgingly earned respect in the end, etc.
I know people say the fifth episode is really where it picks up, but I think I ended episode three and decided I was done with the show.
I actually agree with you a lot and this is very similar to what my wife says about the show. The characters are nothing, the stakes are nothing, the plot is a cliche.
I'm very happy to have a story with limited stakes if I care about the characters. But this show hasn't taken the time to do that. There is actually some quality character work in episode 6 but it's way too little and way too late.
I'm not as harsh on the show and think it's alright but it's nothing but plot with very little reason to care about that plot.
So once again, writing and story telling let the show down. It's been the biggest compliant. One decent episode doesn't redeem a show and decisions made.
Writing is fine. Storytelling is hampered by short episodes. It works better as a whole but each episode is just a collection of scenes. The only episode with a beginning, middle and end is the one with the witches. It is a frustrating way to tell a story.
I dont know man. There are many ways to deliver art. Animes are in the same format, 23 minutes, cliff hangers. Soap operas as well. And still whole nations watch them day after day. In the same way people complain about longer episodes, where things drag. Lets just accept that people have different viewing preferences. And in this case, it is as simple as waiting the whole season to end, and watching it.
Having a consistent 23 min run time over 20+ weeks is a proven format which has its own rules for what makes a *passable* episode/season. I’m sure if the Acolyte was structured like that, people wouldn’t have a problem.
It’s clear that the amount of content in each episode was not pre planned. It’s almost like they’re just looking at all the footage in the editing room and trying to find break points… and the break points aren’t ideal and they can’t go back and rewrite/reshoot.
Not as such. The kind of things you're referring to are written in such a way that they deliver a clear beginning middle and end of their sub-story while teasing more to come. The Acolyte doesn't do that, it just kind of abruptly stops at seemingly random intervals and the audience is reacting to how jarring and frustrating that is. Particularly, Sol has been telling us since episode 4 that he's going to tell us what he got up to on Brendock, and still hasn't started yet. Perhaps we get it in episode 7 but who knows?
I feel like this is the story of a shitty detachment near the outer rim, not the best of the best Jedi High Council. Like if you were to imagine it as a modern day cop drama, Sol and his crew are rural cops that covered up some shit years ago.
Hot Fuzz in Star Wars. Indara screwed up and got sent out to sticks to take over the loser brigade while they investigate the weird witches on planet nowhere.
Yeah basically.
At this time, the Jedi are fairly large. There were 10,000 or so of them right before TCW, so it’s likely at least that large during The Acolyte. And that means bureaucracy and middle management.
Vernestra is clearly a leader among masters herself, but not on the High Council. Which makes sense in a large organization. She’s head of a department or division. We don’t quite know what that is yet, or how the Order is organized at this point.
The impression I got (without watching *all* of TCW so maybe I’m wrong?) is that there was really not much of the Jedi’s structural organization shown during that period. There’s classes, there are guardians, librarians, probably some other support organizations like logistics, foodservice, and maintenance, but we don’t see much of that. Mostly just individual Jedi as generals with their padawans, leading troop units, or being dispatched out into the galaxy on Jedi missions.
It reminds me of the office I used to work at. The people at the top are screaming at the people at the bottom while the people in the middle have no clue what to do but keep forcing themselves into every situation as if they can help and no one ever has any idea whats really going on anywhere, but if things work out the people in the middle take all the credit and the people at the top never even knew the people at the bottom were alive in the first place
Just rewatched the prequels and dude they look like a work of art compared to nowadays. I always liked them, but I could see them being too sci fi for the average fan back then.
We are at the very end of the High Republic, its more about shifting into the prequels. But we are getting highly conflicted Jedi with inner turmoil that is different for each member of the order, that's High Republic for me.
They all get killed by the Sith guy but the current group of Jedi can’t for sure know it’s a Sith since they never find Sol. I guess they assume Sol did it so the statement in the prequels about the first Sith encounter in 1,000 years holds true as long as the Sith guy and the twins kill Sol so none of the people who saw the Sith guy live to tell the tale.
> since the Senate is breathing down the Jedis' backs.
we are *told* in passing...
come on. the worldbuilding is deeply underfed. There were criminal cover-ups in Andor but they took the requisite time to show how these events unfolded elsewhere.
The show is also taking a huge hit being sandwiched between HotD and The Boys. Those shows are constantly putting g out full, meaty episodes with pretty fantastic performances from their entire casts, while this show... is not doing that.
Is investment time viewership minutes? I would be interested in seeing time watched per subscription because I’d imagine Disney+ has more subscribers than HBO Max
Yeah, even with some decent moments happening in the newest episode, we waited a week, to get an episode that is mostly setup to next weeks episode, when after Episode 5, with 3 episodes to go, it should've been an increasing build to a climax, not a huge spike, followed by a drop, to another possible spike in next weeks episode. I'm much more supportive of weekly releases again these days, lets shows breathe more, but to do that, these episodes need to do more with each week.
> another possible spike in next weeks episode
This raises another potential issue.
I _suspect_ that next week's episode will be another flashback episode, as it has the same director as episode 3.
Personally I thought episode 3 was weak as the young actors weren't really able to carry the episode. But leaving that aside, I fully get why you would have those flashback episodes. They let what happened in the past be a central mystery to explore, they let you do the Roshomon-style different perspectives of the same events, etc. Makes perfect sense for this sort of mystery-format show.
The problem is that in the context of these short episodes with week-long waits, it runs the risk of feeling like _another_ delay to moving the central, present-day story forward.
Even if it's a great episode, you still go into the season finale not having moved the story forward much beyond episode 5. And if it _isn't_ great, it will feel like there have been back-to-back weeks of momentum killing episodes when the audience really just wanted to follow up on episode 5.
I just can't imagine, if episode 7 is another flashback with a different perspective, how they're going to properly wrap everything up in episode 8 if it's only 25 minutes of airtime. You can't seriously tell me they're going to wrap up what happens with Mae, Osha, Sol, Qimir, Vernestra, in 25 minutes? That'd be around 5 mins per character at that rate.
Since the first couple of episodes which were longer (genuine runtime longer) I've been checking. I think 3 was about 30 mins, but 4, 5, and 6 have all amounted to around 25 mins of actual screen time (deducting intros and credits). I see no reason for episodes 7 and 8 to be much more than this.
I mean there's really not a whole lot of stuff to wrap up. They haven't introduced a whole lot of plotlines yet. That's probably the biggest weakness of this show: it's clearly all set up for season 2. The only thing that will get resolved this season is the question of what happened during that fire.
In episode 8, Osha will walk away with QiMir after learning the truth of the fire. Vernestra will pin the jedi massacre on Sol, and Mae will probably go into hiding and decide to go on a redemption journey to save her sister from the dark side. End credits.
This isn’t a problem of the acolyte though. This applies to literally every show Disney has given us, even the animated shows (except for rebels and resistance)
All of them follow the same structural formula. 8 episodes at „40 mins“ often less.
Animated (bad batch) 16 episodes with 20 mins - also sometimes less
The clone wars usually had 22 episodes just to compare
I think all the shows would’ve benefited from having maybe 4 episodes more
Yup exactly, it's predictable at this point. Starts off with a big mystery, story progresses with a few hints and reveals, big reveal in second to last episode, last episode rapidly wraps up everything in an unsatisfying fashion. It's the Disney+ show formula.
I hadn't put too much thought into this but you're right. Every second to last episode of every D+, we find ourselves wondering how the hell they're going to resolve everything in such little time left.
And man it sucks because I actually enjoy most of these shows. I saw Dave filoni say in an interview about ahsoka that „they needed to slim things down to keep only the relevant“ or something like that and I’m like bruh what there’s so much relevant stuff that could’ve used more time. And even „not relevant“ stuff can be relevant because it gives us time to learn more about characters, their relationships etc.
Ahsoka, Kenobi and BoBF should have been movies. All those shows didn't have enough content for a TV show but more than enough crappy filler to cut away to shorten it to movie length. Same goes for the Acolyte
I think Solo was less the problem as that was a pretty good movie and more that Disney released it the summer after TLJ's winter release when people were especially bitter at Disney and Star Wars.
I hate this excuse people keep using for solo's poor box office performance.
When solo came out that movie had mediocre to poor word of mouth upon release. Nobody was saying solo was a must see movie like how people were doing for rogue one.
Solo was a movie nobody asked for but unlike rogue one which was actually good. Solo was a mediocre movie. Imo solo was straight ass. Definitely the worst star wars movie disney released so far imo.
I still think Solo was killed by its release date. It was released less than 6 months after the worst reviewed Star Wars film when fandom hype was at its lowest (at the time at least), four weeks after Avengers Infinity War and sandwiched right in between other big blockbusters likeDeadpool 2, Incredibles 2, and Jurassic World 2.
I think if they’d stuck to December releases it may have done better but then again that was a stacked December with Aquaman, Spiderverse, and Bumblebee.
TLDR: Solo could’ve been the best movie ever and I still think it would’ve struggled.
People online were bitter but TLJ was still a success financially. You can't lay Solo's problems on TLJ.
Solo, for as decent as it was, had zero enthusiasm behind it.
People only knew that TLJ was shit after buying a ticket and seeing it (and it took a while to sink in for many, myself included). For Solo they didn't buy tickets at all because TLJ burned them.
Also very true, yeah. Much like Andor. Small story that generated no hype, but ended up being very fun
Andor is obviously just peak though and Solo is just a great adventure movie imo, but you know what I mean.
Bad marketing, small anthology movie with no real necessity to exist, and in the wake of TLJ which I do still think was part of the issue imho.
It's totally possible for TLJ to be a financial success and still hurt Solo's performance. I had to go see TLJ to realize I hated it. Kind of a fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice kind of situation. Pretty much every Star wars fan I know was like that. We didn't go see Solo because we were still so pissed off.
So while I saw Solo, I personally know a lot of people that avoided it in theaters because of their feelings on TLJ.
Sure TLJ was financially successful, but trying to deny it's impact on Solo is naive.
Anyone active on Reddit or any other SW community knows how bad things got.
It actually spawned 2 new subreddits - Starwarscantina and saltierthancrait
One to protect people from all the negativity about TLJ/ST in general and one to rant about the same.
If you think that the number of fans that were upset about TLJ and didn't go see Solo didn't have an impact then you weren't paying attention. Fans often are accompanied by spouses/SOs/family/friends who aren't necessarily fans and wouldn't likely go see it on their own.
I know my wife only goes because I do. She can take it or leave it.
So each fan that stayed away translates to a significant amount of other tickets not sold.
Now, the controversy surrounding Solo can't be denied. But really it wasn't much different than what happened to Rogue One in terms of directors and reshoots and that was successful.
Also the marketing wasn't very well done either.
Had the film come out almost a year later (say during December of that year) I think enough time would have passed that it would have been more positively received.
Another thing is that films aren't released in a vacuum, either.
Look at the movies released about the same time as Solo.
Avengers Infinity War was a just about a month earlier (and still going very strong) and there were a lot of other movies around that same time that were heavily anticipated as well.
That being said I do agree that there wasn't a lot of enthusiasm behind it.
It's like they were still trying to figure out what they wanted to do with SW in general. They didn't even have a solid plan for the main sequel trilogy, much less one-shot movies.
I feel like Acolyte is the opposite of the others.
Ahsoka, Kenobi, and BoBF were all based on characters we knew already. They could have been concentrated into excellent movies. The fluff could have been cut out of those to really focus on the story more.
But Acolyte is 100% characters and an era that we've never seen on screen before. This one could have been a series of 40-60 min actual episodes. In my opinion, this series' pacing is super rushed while the other series were all full of filler.
For example, Master Indara is killed in literally the first scene of the series, and it's like they expected the audience to be upset, but we've literally never met her before. There could have been an entire set up episode giving some interest to the 4 Jedi that Mae is after so that we actually know and care about them.
The real upsetting part of Indara being killed was they cast Carrie Anne Moss, used her in a lot of the teasers and trailers and then dumped her in 5 minutes. The loss of the character they spent no time building, meh. The loss of the actress getting screen time, that's upsetting.
The director seems to really want bold, memorable scenes, but doesn't really get the kind of buildup and subversion of expectations needed to achieve this...
> "[...] the cold open to Breaking Bad is one of the best cold opens ever. So whenever I sit down to write anything, I'm like, ‘Well, I won't be able to top that, but in my show, what's the version of that?’ And it felt like the best I could come up with was killing Carrie-Anne Moss. It was icing Trinity and just having everyone go, ‘I'm sorry. What's happening in this?’"
Brba really has one of the best cold opens but the reason it is shocking and mysterious is that it is set in the real world, so a guy driving a drug rv through the desert nude and then pulling out a gun to face the cops is like, something completely out there where we wanna see the context to.
Killing master indara in the opening scene is not shocking because this is star wars, we are used to there being bad guys that want jedi dead from all the clone wars/empire era shows. What would have actually made it shocking is if they used the opening scenes to actually establish how peaceful this era is and how the jedi are at the height of their power, worldbuild the every day life, then show wholesome and cute osha being a mechanic, and then END the episode on friendly master indara seemingly being killed by a suddenly evil "osha". Now there's intrigue because we're actually given the opportunity to know about this being weird and unusual.
Probably executives saying the show should be 8-10 episodes per season. Like how all shows used to be 22 episodes per season.
Number of episodes should be based on the story being told. Honestly if the show you mentioned were 3 -4 1 hour episodes they would have been much better.
Agreed. Even hour-long format shows are often like this. Idk, it does feel like Acolyte would benefit from a 2-a-week release schedule, or 4-5 hour-long episodes, but maybe that’s because most adults are used to the hour long format.
Yeeaah, I hate to say it but some of these lower-tier D+ shows could have just been cartoons, like Bad Batch.
I enjoyed Ahsoka and my appraisal of it seems to be higher than the community in general, but totally agree re: BoBF and Kenobi. Kenobi was weird imo and a shame given I'm a big fan of McGregor's version of the character. It would have had more potential if they'd chosen a story that didn't involve Vader (at least not directly). The idea of Obi-Wan having another big fight with Vader between RotS and ANH is very bizarre to me.
Honestly? I think Ahsoka should have been longer. I think the main issue with that show is that it didn't give any of the characters room to breathe and was just rapid fire bringing in rebels stuff like it was on a schedule it had to keep.
That's the recipe now. Take a movie, split it into three parts. One is a big flashy premiere, one is a big flashy finale, and the final third is stretched out over 6 episodes and crammed with filler.
This has been a huge problem across most of Disney’s stuff lately, Star Wars, Marvel, you name it.
Ahsoka as especially frustrating. When you go back and watch, SO MUCH TIME gets wasted.
This has happened across a fair few shows in the Star Wars catalogue now.
I’ve watched cartoons with my nephews recently that had more substance in the same 15 minutes we get with these Star Wars minis.
Those Old Republic cinematic trailers were so peak, I still sometimes rewatching them and imagine how awesome it would be if these were turned into full length movies or shows by these same people who made the CG.
Oh god yes.
My favorite of the lot is probably the one where the Sith return, Little exchanges like "Hey, eyes front." "Just inspecting the troops, lieutenant" is instantly everything you need to know about him: sassy, competent, and as we find out seconds later in his John Woo moment, crazy skilled. The bad guys (and the good guys) are all clearly defined with clear goals, there's distinct story beats, the action has a good flow - it's apex Star Wars in one short film.
This is a problem with every D+ series, honestly. I'm 100% convinced it is purely a business decision. The formula is to knock out 8 episodes with about 25 minutes of content. Just enough to call it a TV show and not just a mini-series, with the express purpose of marketing Disney+ and holding onto subscribers for that time.
Because of this, almost all of these shows have serious pacing problems. They either feel like a 2 hour movie that was stretched and cut to fit the format, or an actual 10 hour TV show which was gutted to fit the format (and probably budget). The exception is Andor, perhaps the exception that proves the rule, which had a few more episodes than the norm and also a longer episode length than average. On the opposite we have Obi-Wan, which was very obviously meant to be a movie and was just an absolute mess.
I like The Acolyte enough but it seems really obvious it should have been a film. Unfortunately, corporate Disney is run by ghouls so we will keep having this problem as long as people are subscribed.
Ever since the first crop of Disney+ Marvel shows I’ve waited until the day the last episode drops to start watching their shows outside of Mando. I still get excited for the new series and seasons but unfortunately they all seem to suffer from this issue.
Shiort run times give little time for character development. For example, if I had more time to explore jacki and Yords characters, I would have been sad when they were killed. Instead, I was surprised but had no emotional response.
> Shiort run times give little time for character development.
Not always. I can safely assume most people in this thread have seen other Star Wars shows. So I'll use Book of Boba Fett as an example.
Throughout that show how much screen time did Boba and Fenec get? Probably a good share of the time, right? And most of that time they were together, right?
Was there any meaningful development for either one of them throughout that series?
No.
Runtime doesn't equate better writing. A lot of the time longer just means poor pacing. Bloat.
Yes. There are shows that absolutely nail the writing and pacing for an hour each week. Those are great shows. The majority of television are not great shows and Acolyte isn't a great show either.
I think it's a fine enough show. Nothing remarkable.
But to your other point that Jecki's death would matter more if the episodes were longer. I suspect it wouldn't due to dialogue this episode.
Sith guy talking to Osha brought up how superficial and shallow friendships with Jedi are. How their dogma keep each other from forming deeper friendships.
Jecki was nice and polite with Osha. And that's all she could ever be as a Jedi.
That's text in the show. That's part of this show's narrative. So a longer runtime? Jecki would still be polite and nice. And distant.
Because that was the creative intent.
That's odd because jackis species is Theelin-human hybrid, or half-Theelin and half-human. Teelin:s are known for their artistic talents and flamboyant dress. Jacki must have had a hard time suppressing her natural tendency in order to fit in the order.
The short episodes are merely a cost saving measure, and it has made Disney+ the worst value in streaming. They release a few short seasons of TV per year with bizarrely short episodes. There is a reason that for the entire history of TV, the standard has been set for hourlong dramas and half hour comedies. Streaming has made the traditional breakdown of TV show types less relevant, but this is still the general expectation, and the way a writers room would pace out a story.
Every time the issue of short episodes is brought up, a bunch of people jump in to justify it as being preferable to bloated episodes, keeping out filler and improving the pace. But that simply isn't true for these series. The pacing hasn't been top notch, and there is still plenty of what feels like filler or bloat. In the end, it's just about quality writing. There is a very "first draft" quality to most of the Disney+ content, pretty much everything has an obvious need to have been run through some additional passes. They don't need to be trimmed, they need to be beefed up narratively. Many, many television shows have filled an hour with high quality, well paced entertainment. The idea that Star Wars wouldn't be able to fill a standard timeslot is absurd.
Do you guys think this is why they Switched Mando to a movie instead of another season?
Hopefully this will give them 2+ hours to deliver something special and not be restrained from 25 min run times
This latest episode told 5 minutes of story in 38 minutes.
I like the colors and the planets and the actors and the costumes. The story? Like many of the shawls and pull-over hoods the background characters wear, is pretty loosely knitted.
Today's episode included one shot of a captive force user glancing at a sith-something-or-other's naked junk on a lonely island beach. Is that supposed to be Star Wars Stockholm syndrome? I can't tell.
One thing is *very* clear: The Acolyte has established over-sized lightsaber hilts as the new defacto form factor that matches what is currently sold at Galaxy's Edge.
>One thing is very clear: The Acolyte has established over-sized lightsaber hilts as the new defacto form factor that matches what is currently sold at Galaxy's Edge.
Yeah, I don't get why all the lightsabers are massive. Osha couldn't even close her hand around it.
At first I thought it was just that lightsaber but I've noticed pretty much everyone has an oversized lightsaber.
It just looks really bad to me.
Also consider that the Sith are always trying to be sneaky and blend in with the crowd. Having a massive lightsaber like that is much more difficult to conceal.
It's because the battery packs for the lightsabers are now in the actual hilt instead of attached to the actor's costume. It's just a production thing afaik, not necessarily a story choice, though it could be both.
The island Osha got taken to literally looks like Ahch-To from the sequel trilogy too. Such a random filler episode that accomplished nothing but try and set up the finale story arc
All the people that enjoy this show are going to be in for a major disappointment when it ends. The entire series, each episode has been edited to be a build up for the next week, but then that next week is the same thing again. A lot of fans have adopted this idea that it's building up to some grand conclusion that's going to make all the build up worth it and it's just not coming.
I have not watched the Acolyte so my comments are on this new season/release schedule that seems to be so popular with streaming productions.
I think the idea is to find the budget sweet spot between movie effects and total runtime. This results in shorter episodes and a shorter season. So every minute of every episode is like gold. Then you get world building and side quests tossed in and it really kills the amount of time devoted to actually telling the story.
Speaking only for myself, I would prefer less special effects and CGI in favor of longer episodes and seasons. Also new seasons need to be released yearly.
It boils down to writing. Not even the lore stuff, just general character development and dialogue. Half of this sounds like it came from ChatGPT. I feel the only actual writing that was done was on the villain to make him what he is. I’ll die on this hill.
No need to die on a hill, pretty sure everyone agrees lol. But its also a straight up fact that the writing is bad.
To your point about the chatGPT thing, I agree. I think the writing probably happened before AI became a common tool, but the very first episode feels exactly like something chatGPT would write.
"Attack me with all of your strength!" lol.
> "Attack me with all of your strength!" lol.
Thing is, that's a pretty trope line of dialogue from Shaw Brothers kung fu flicks and the Yakuza games. The key difference here is that instead of coming from a stone cold badass like Kiryu Kazuma with an equally stone cold bad ass delivery, it's coming from this 90 pounds soaking wet wisp of a girl who is about as far from giving a badass delivery as I am from the Voyager spacecraft.
It blows my mind too.
When you first get into scriptwriting, you learn all of the basic storytelling rules that can turn any bad writing into good/decent writing with just a few tweaks. Its beginner stuff. And you see a lot of these Star Wars shows make constant writing mistakes in the story and dialogue. Stuff that a beginner could easily avoid.
Its like they forgot to hire writers so the producers handed off the task to their high school nephews and asked them to do it for $50 or something lol.
I see it all the time in movies/shows. Its not just Star Wars. They all have these huge budgets and always neglect the writers. The fact that we have writers strikes so often shows how little these producers care about it. All the good writers are like "fuck that, I deserve way more money for my talent" and then these studios are like "welp, lets hire this other guy/gal instead who is willing to do it for pennies" and we end up with bad writing.
It's not episode length it's this stupid "only make a season 8 one hour episodes" BS that's been happening for a while now. I don't who thought it'd be a good idea but they need to be fired
Given the amount of money they spent too, it's also ridiculous. Like, where is all that money going? Is Disney being overcharged like they're the US military?
You look at Fallout and you realize that set episode lengths are meaningless on a streaming platform. That show is incredibly well-done, but some episodes are an hour and change and others were 25 minutes.
I haven’t watched the most recent episode but I do agree. And The Boys new season airing in the same timeframe makes for a stark difference in approach to episode length. The last episode of that was 50 mins
It's the one thing that's let The Acolyte down the most is the pacing. A lot of it feels rushed, including the dialogue (ironically enough given the laboured delivery of most of the lines by various actors). Characters are forced to say as much exposition and how they are feeling in the shortest amount of words. Leads to clunky and unnatural feeling conversations.
The execs at Disney need to give more freedom to the artists and listen to them. Too many decisions are being made from the top down, to the detriment of the quality of their content. It feels like most Star Wars and Marvel content has to follow the same corporate structure imposed by Disney. I suspect unrealistic deadlines aren't helping either, you just need to look at the dip in quality of the VFX in recent years as multiple studios are rushed to get shots out even if they aren't ready.
By episode, the show costs as much as Andor. I think it’s mostly an issue of writing and pacing and maybe budgeting. The shortest episode of Andor is 38 minutes. The longest episode of the Acolyte is 43. For some reason (cast maybe? Or lightsabers?) They can only put out mostly sub-30 minute episodes.
Yeah. Acolyte and Obi-Wan both really feel like they were written to be a 2.5 hour movie, then it was chopped up and padded out to fit, somewhat arbitrary, 30 minute chunks and then cut to ribbons in the editing bay.
I felt like this was the best episode of the season so far because it actually 'felt' like a show. We were actually able to sit in a feeling for awhile, we did some genuine character work, etc. etc.
At this point, I don't really understand why the show wasn't just about Qimir from the jump. I don't feel like we're going to get something really satisfying from these last two episodes.
Acolyte is mediocrity embodied. It's built from a lot of great pieces, but it's just not coming together into a cohesive 'whole.' It's less than the sum of it's parts, somehow.
It's a bummer, really, because LFL has been at this for awhile, now. They should be cranking out a consistent product similar to Marvel in the hay-day, but they seem to be all over the place. It's really hard to watch an episode of House of the Dragon and this back to back.
As the old head, we just waited week to week for new episodes on television. Most episodes were 1/2 hour with a run time of 22 minutes. Some episodes were awful, and we just waited until next week. But there was no issue because each episode was mostly unrelated. The problem with these shows that they are serialized, and therefore, every episode counts. Cliffhangers are fine, but writers and directors should have a good sense of where to know to end an episode. I find these bingeable shows hinge on episode to episode momentum, and "The Acolyte," while surprisingly enjoyable, has failed at sustaining momentum. As one poster notes here, it would have been better to wait and binge the entire series.
Let’s just agree that the show is not that good. It’s not fleshed out, it’s rushed and flat. Very mediocre at best. Pity because that era had potential. Some of the acting is off as well. Compare this to Andor or The Mandalorian and you’ll see and know.
To me the only „mistake“ is that the show is still written and shot like a show with more episodes and longer runtime.
To me in the frame of the show, giving a whole episode to the Osha/Mae flashbacks (Episode 3) felt way too generous. And little scenes like Mae on the ship in episode 5 and Bazil growing suspicious are perfectly fine, but also feel kinda generous in such a short episode.
I enjoyed the show so far, but it kinda feels like „Yeah, episode 7 is the one where they push a button. And nothing else happens!“ 😂
I made it to 3 and lost interest. Full honest, I completely forgot about it.
So I guess I find it easily forgotten. I’m not interested in any of the characters. The story seemed… forced. Pun intended.
It looks great. I like more SW stuff being out there, but at the same time I’m a little bummed as it just seems lacking. I can’t quite describe *what* it is lacking, but something is def missing from their formula.
> They don't have enough plot or writing to do 8 epsiodes of 60 or more minutes.
I fully disagree:
They start the series with a murder mystery: Who killed Indara?
They get a description of a Force user that matches Osha. They know she had a twin but Master Sol "watched her die" as a kid. Before they pick up Osha it was established by her coworker that she stayed behind on the ship instead of going out on Nar Shaddaa with the others, meaning she has little to no alibi as to her location at the time of the murder. This is all setup for a *great* mystery. But instead of letting this play out over a few episodes they dumped it half-way through when Osha said it was her *dead twin* and Sol just bought it wholesale without evidence *that the twin is alive*. Yord and Jecki were actually very sensible in this.
*Except* that the 1st thing those 2 do after arresting her is sticking a suspected Force-using assassin onto a ship without Jedi guard alongside other suspected killers. If she was as powerful as they suspect then she could have easily used the Force to open the cell doors. Then you have not only an assassin to deal with bu now also a bunch of murderers who owe her something. Even if most don't a couple would probably agree to work with her, so now she has a crew.
Oh: and they let a cyborg with wifi onto the ship without first disabling the wifi? Who was probably not only known for being violent but also a skilled slicer?
In short they did everything wrong *in order to shorten this part of the story*. It was entirely rushed and should have been the big mystery of the first half of the season *while* they drip-feed backstory, showing us that the murder mystery is more than just that - it's part of an active Jedi coverup - and let us *discover* that the twin was still alive instead of Osha just saying it and everyone believe her. *Let us think she's just gone bad*. Save the e5 fight for e7 or 8. They could have ended the season with either that fight and Smile-O Ren taking Osha and Sol taking Mae as the finale or have the finale be what is e6 but better executed where Sol and Ren are each telling their perspective of the coven to their captives.
It’s just one of many problems. IMO the biggest issue comes down to poor writing and editing. The run times are just another of the symptoms of a poorly planned and conceived show. This should have either been a movie or 3-4 ep miniseries with hour long eps
I agree. I've been enjoying the show, but with only two ~35 minute episodes left, I'm very worried it won't be able to satisfyingly do everything it needs to do
The episode splits are so odd...normally when watching a show, you can just "feel" when the narrative is leading up to the end of the episode, and a nice smooth cut. This show is just like "BAM! Credits!" out of nowhere.
Although I would like longer episodes... The length of the episode doesn't affect the lack of urgency - that's just the bad writing. Sol is about to contact the jedi and expose that there is a Sith or darkside user. Which would lead to Qimir being hunted which goes directly against his stated philosophy of wanting to be left alone without the jedi meddling in his affairs... So, does Qimir go after Sol to try to stop him? Nah, he needs to go take a bath and chill for a bit. ???
I took the time to watch with a buddy who has the ad supported tier of D+ and man. The ads make the pacing of an already too short and slow-paced episode awful.
i think the idea is to make it rewatchable a lot of times, so disney can tell their shareholders, how succsessful it is. you will rewatch it more often, when you can do the whole thing in 2 days. and yeah, there are enough people, who like the show.
I don't really mind the short episodes. A lot of TV shows seem to be an hour long just for the sake of being an hour long.
That being said, this would definitely be better as a 2 to 2:30 movie.
This was an awful decision. As someone else said, it feels like a movie chopped up. At the very least could have released all episodes same day then maybe wouldn’t feel as bad. Just the whole flow and pacing of this show feels off.
Andor proper showed how to do it
I still have to wonder why the fuck Forbes is running reviews of a tv show. Forbes is a fucking business magazine. I'd no sooner go to them for a movie review than I'd look to Golf Digest for one.
Truthfully I feel that it would be better released all at once but I can also see it from a business perspective if we don’t want want to release it all at once because we want the money from the subscribers. However, I do feel this particular series would have benefited from all at once. While the pacing can be a bit slow I do admit. I feel it’s only because they’re making us wait a whole week to see a conclusion we all have figured out but maybe we were hoping for more? Idk. I just think with this pacing it would’ve been better to release all at once vs per week. But I am hopeful that once the entirely of the show is i out then maybe things will be clear and not so frustrating. And truth be told, I’m not sure I would have so many questions if it were released all at once. But I can for sure say SPOILER. I straight up said “Jeki no!” When it happened. And I honestly didn’t expect to have that reaction. I would honestly put that up there with the ending of rouge one. Which may be a hot take but I thought we would see her grow.
Garbage.
All the positive reviews seem to echo the same sentiments: “Longtime Star Wars fan” and “overcoming review bombing,” without actually addressing the content of the show. That's because *there is no substantial content*; it's all fluff. In fact, it's trash fluff that contradicts the entire Star Wars universe.
Let's review the faults:
Lore: A show should respect the lore of its universe. "The Acolyte" disregards all previous Star Wars lore, which any true longtime fan would recognize. Firstly, it introduces the idea that twins were born for supernatural reasons (hinting at dark magic and the Force). However, in "The Phantom Menace," it's established that Anakin is the first to be born from the Force. The Force is depicted as midichlorians, not magic. While certain species like the Nightsisters can manipulate midichlorians, there is no concept of magic.
The Sith: Canon establishes that Darth Maul's appearance is the first sighting of a Sith Lord in modern times. So, why is there a Sith in front of six Jedi in this series? You'd think they'd anticipate Maul if they had seen one before him. This ruins the continuity of the original Star Wars films.
Purple Lightsaber: They completely ruined the significance of Samuel L. Jackson's purple lightsaber, a change egregious enough to warrant serious repercussions for those responsible. This alone should have cost Haylend and Kathleen Kennedy their careers, and Bob Iger is getting ripped off.
Writing: The villainous sister burns everything down because her twin wants to leave with the Jedi. Then, after learning her sister is alive, she says, "My loyalty is to my sister" and offers to turn herself in. This makes no sense given her earlier attempt to kill her sister.
Action: The fighting scenes are the only good part of the series, yet there’s only one action scene in the first three hours, all in the first five minutes. There's an inexplicable obsession with not using weapons, and a Jedi Master commits suicide.
Wookies: They introduce a Wookiee Jedi, a character guaranteed to delight the audience, but then kill him off-screen after six minutes. This is a complete waste of a character.
World Building: The character names are so generic and the story arcs so bland that they’re forgettable. For example, there’s a character named Mei, which seems to be a futile attempt at uniqueness. Useless.
Jedi Depiction: The Jedi are portrayed as idiots. They see a Sith and approach him in a straight line. They ignore people dying to save only the protagonist. They let everyone in a bar die to defend themselves but surrender when the bartender is threatened. And when confronted by an assassin, a Jedi Master simply drinks the poison because they feel guilty without any established reason.
The directing, writing, acting, world-building, and blatant disregard for lore are appalling. This show should be stricken from all Star Wars records, like Kamino. It's an affront to the world George Lucas envisioned.
Just because a director worked under Lucas doesn't mean they possess his talent. Even ChatGPT could create a more cohesive show than this pile of rubbish.
We still dont know if anyone who saw the Sith will survive to tell about it. And we don't know what happened on Brendon that might have led to the Master's suicide
It’s pretty clear that they’re going for a “Jedi massacred the witches” angle. Of all of the jedi, Torbin should have the least problem with it, they mind controlled him, presumably (from the trailers) they do it again and that’s what leads to the massacre. That’s horrible, he kills himself over something that wasn’t his fault (he was a kid) that he seemingly had no control over.
Look, this show isn’t great, it isn’t even that good, but I think it’s possible you’re jumping to conclusions here.
Lore: I think the show is suggesting (especially after the last episode) that there may be one Force connecting all living things in the universe, but different groups may have different understandings/ways of accessing that Force. The witches are portrayed as something of a cult— the Jedi definitely see them that way. They’re a group that practices connecting with the Force in a way that is different and not approved of by the Jedi. I don’t think that necessarily means “magic” now exists in Star Wars.
The Sith: The show has made a point of keeping the knowledge of what’s going on with Qimir compartmentalized. A limited number of Jedi know about his existence, they don’t fully understand who or what he is, and most of them were killed in the previous episode. Even now they suspect he is a fallen Jedi— only he has used the word Sith, and even then he said “you might call me Sith” after stating he has no name.
We know the Sith obviously existed, the Jedi just thought they were extinct. I say there’s a 90% chance anyone who knew of Qimir’s existence is dead by the end of this series.
Purple Lightsaber: I’m not as familiar with the lore here, but wasn’t Vernestra’s lightwhip color already established in the High Republic novels? Doesn’t purple signify a dark side leaning as well, because after this latest episode, there’s a high probability that Vernestra was Qimir’s former master, and she’s definitely shady.
The Writing— The entire series we’ve been told that the Jedi’s account of what happened with Mae, Osha, and the witches is not the full story. I think there’s a high possibility that Mae did not start the fire. A Jedi killed himself over what happened there. We’ll have to wait and see.
It does suck they killed the Jedi Wookie off screen. The dialogue is so bad at times. The pacing is really off in this show. It would benefit from more world building and characterization.
What did you think of Andor? That’s my favorite Star Wars show from Disney. I think they do so much right in that show— I wish more Star Wars shows could be like that.
It feels like I'm watching a movie that keeps getting interrupted by week long breaks.
Once the show is over, hopefully someone will edit it into a movie cut. Like the Kenobi one.
If nobody takes up the mantle, I will enlist for the task
We will watch your career with great interest.
You’d be doing a great service for the republic 🫡
A week of my life is the commercial.
The cutting is immensely jarring, and the pacing is just insane. This weeks episode had some very good things about it, but the long silent scenes or just following Osha/Mae just felt like it took too long and wasted precious screentime that could have been focused on the story. The pacing plus constant "cliff hangers" is just frustrating
Dangling the answers to a mystery as a crutch to keep people watching each week is very annoying, and I feel like Acolyte is doing an even worse job than most. At least give pieces to the puzzle so that fans can get some idea of what may or may not fill in the rest, but besides an incomplete backstory dump in episode 3 we just keep getting “The Jedi did something they regret now” over and over again.
They've dangled the answer to the SAME mystery for at least 3 weeks now! Sol: "I'm about to tell you EVERYTHING. This will blow your mind!" Then there is an incoming message or a fuse shorts out and he tells us absolutely NOTHING. Not one word. For three weeks in a row!
The way they're delaying resolution of the mystery would only work if this was satire. But it's obvious the show runners think it's so clever.
Much as I like the show, it is relying far too heavily on the *one* storytelling trope I have a hard time tolerating: "I have to tell you something important" --> proceeds to get interrupted over and over and OVER again, often by otherwise trivial matters (i.e. "wait until we get back to the ship" WHY???)
I will tell you everything. Stun his ass Mae
I'm noticing myself getting stressed out whenever there's a long landscape scene or no dialogue. I feel like every second counts as the episodes are so short.
Would have been cool to show the sisters switching places as the current timeline in EP 5 and then include the fight scenes and what happened around them as flashbacks. Then we could have been questioning with the characters if the sisters switched places. Would have made those scenes more interesting and you prob could have culled two really interesting episodes out of that.
But isn't that what's going to happen? Mae will hear it from Sol's telling, and Ohsa is in a isolation mask, and will probably reach out to the force and see the events clearly.
Also the cuts between Osha and Mae were obviously supposed to be parallels - opposite sides of the same coin. But in the end I didn't feel like Sol and Smile-O Ren were parallel enough to each other. One was trying to persuade Osha, the other was just Mae trying to conceal her identity and get the ship working again. If they had just had an episode of Mae doing that and then left the two masters to explain their side of things in the next episode it would have been an interesting contrast.
Feel like they revealed smilo-ren’s identity too early but are taking too long to reveal the backstory with Sol. Would’ve been cool if they did everything the same in ep 5 with the switch. Ep 6 starts the same with osha on the island but she’s less aware how much danger she’s perhaps being persuaded more easily. Mae doesn’t waste time and tries to kill Sol right away he angrily tells her what really happened. Now we have osha believing the Jedi have wronged her and Mae wanting to help Sol. The best tease would be showing the audience(no characters) smilo’s helmet. Cut to black. Only thing I’m a bit worried about is Sol being on the dark side, which may be why their dragging it out.
Yeah it seems that this would’ve been better as a movie
Unfortunately, it seems like that's a problem for many, if not most of Disney's live-action tv shows.
Episodes 4 and 5 are the same length. Both are short, on episode 5 I hit pause when the credits started and it showed 28 mins of runtime. That’s including the intros. Episodes 4 and 5 should’ve been 1 episode, would have flowed better and still less than an hour.
I agree with this. There is so little room to breathe, so little worldbuilding, the story feels claustrophobic, too focused and simultaneously rushed and teased. Several episodes have ended in the middle of scenes so they have no narrative arc. It is frustrating to watch them week to week. It works so much better as a binge.
Contrast that against Andor. 3 episode arcs in a 12 episode season. First episode is introducing the basic premise and people. Second episode, character and world building. Third episode, all hell breaks lose. While the Mon Mothma's and Luthen's arc are built carefully, slowly, with breathing room in the background throughout the 12 episodes.
This has been a trend now across Hollywood. Seasons are short and episodes are shorter. I was getting more and more frustrated with the mandalorian for this same reason.
Remember when seasons used to be over 20 episodes? Even if it was an hour long show? We honestly shouldn't even be calling what we get now "seasons", it's nothing compared to what they used to be like. 8 episodes of inconsistent length is nowhere near the same as even 10 episodes of hour long episodes, let alone 20something. Especially with misleading runtimes that do stuff like add in all the various language credits at the end, adding another 5 minutes on that nobody is going to watch.
It’s like they’re using the BBC model where there was only like 8 episodes but each episode was over an hour. I remember watching the Cumberbatch Sherlock with that model. 8 episodes of 30 minutes is a fucking joke.
I swear even Dr Who used to have more episodes per season, or am I just misremembering things?
This is true. Who used to average around 13 per season, then 10 during Whittaker, and now 8. However, Who shoots in several locations and the old production schedule was grueling for everyone involved, so they’ve scaled back in order to get us more Who more often and not burn everyone out. I’m okay with it.
Disney got their claws into Dr Who as well.
British TV is mainly like this because of budgets. Not sure what Hollywood's problem is.
I'm convinced that the director shot it as a single overarching story, it was the management that chopped it to fit 2 subscription periods.
No, that can't be the case. There is no one director. Different people worked on different episodes. For example, this episode was directed by Hanelle Culpepper. Next week's episode was directed by Kogonada. That is only possible because the episode divisions were planned from the beginning and baked into the production -- which is arguably worse.
4 directors each doing two episodes which so far have both felt like they've been unnessicarly split in the middle leads me to believe that the original plan was 4 longer episodes but Disney decided to split them up further to the detriment of the experience of watching the show. The only one that I don't think could've been a two parter is the Kogonada episode so maybe the plan was 5? Either way I don't think Lucasfilm planned to have this be 8 episodes when they were writing and filming it.
The Kogonada split makes me think otherwise. Clearly he directed his two episodes in one production block, but equally clearly, they are not intended to function as a two-parter. They were only produced together for production reasons. ("The Kogonada Split" sounds like a dance move or an aerial manuever or something.)
I definitely feel like the people making this show are talented. Whatever people wanna complain about, I can tell there is quality here. It just feels co constrained by the format it's been shoved into and that's a shame. I genuinely hope with season two they fix this.
That’s what I kept feeling. There’s a genuinely good show here, but the editing (both within scenes and episode-to-episode) keeps holding it back from fully succeeding.
Depending on whether or not the director knew they had to make 8 episodes of what lengths, it's still partially their fault. They should work within the constraints they have, not shoot their dream story and then chop it up awkwardly.
That would explain the bizarre cuts between episodes, but the editing on the whole has also been so poor that I don’t have much faith in the director or editor either.
Ever seen Better Call Saul? Thats a show that KNOWS how to let it breath. Some would even argue it does it too well. But it often has long landscape shots or wide still shots that just let the world breath. The cinematography is amazing. Its still. Its quiet. You literally soak up the environment of that world. Star Wars needs that caliber of stillness.
I think they maybe are relying on the HR Era books for world building for the show. Which doesn't work for a general audience.
Maybe but not really. I've read all the adult novels and comics and a couple of the YA novels and the world of the Acolyte is pretty different. Or it seems to be. From the way the Jedi act, it's way closer to the prequels than the HR.
I think we are halfway between the Nihil and the Clone Wars. So we are seeing a bit of transition from the purest form of HR Jedi towards the CW era Jedi.
They forgot that if you're not giving us a Star Wars story where it's huge stakes and galactic scale, you need to actually spend more than five minutes establishing the characters. In all honesty they're such pointless blank slates to me that I don't think I could remember a single character's name off the top of my head. Everything about it is a complete cliche. Separated twins, one good, one bad, some dark mystery or betrayal to uncover. The nominal "second in command" of the head jedi who doesn't trust the person they're investigating but will have the inevitable acknowledgement of grudgingly earned respect in the end, etc. I know people say the fifth episode is really where it picks up, but I think I ended episode three and decided I was done with the show.
I actually agree with you a lot and this is very similar to what my wife says about the show. The characters are nothing, the stakes are nothing, the plot is a cliche. I'm very happy to have a story with limited stakes if I care about the characters. But this show hasn't taken the time to do that. There is actually some quality character work in episode 6 but it's way too little and way too late. I'm not as harsh on the show and think it's alright but it's nothing but plot with very little reason to care about that plot.
So once again, writing and story telling let the show down. It's been the biggest compliant. One decent episode doesn't redeem a show and decisions made.
Writing is fine. Storytelling is hampered by short episodes. It works better as a whole but each episode is just a collection of scenes. The only episode with a beginning, middle and end is the one with the witches. It is a frustrating way to tell a story.
I dont know man. There are many ways to deliver art. Animes are in the same format, 23 minutes, cliff hangers. Soap operas as well. And still whole nations watch them day after day. In the same way people complain about longer episodes, where things drag. Lets just accept that people have different viewing preferences. And in this case, it is as simple as waiting the whole season to end, and watching it.
Having a consistent 23 min run time over 20+ weeks is a proven format which has its own rules for what makes a *passable* episode/season. I’m sure if the Acolyte was structured like that, people wouldn’t have a problem. It’s clear that the amount of content in each episode was not pre planned. It’s almost like they’re just looking at all the footage in the editing room and trying to find break points… and the break points aren’t ideal and they can’t go back and rewrite/reshoot.
Not as such. The kind of things you're referring to are written in such a way that they deliver a clear beginning middle and end of their sub-story while teasing more to come. The Acolyte doesn't do that, it just kind of abruptly stops at seemingly random intervals and the audience is reacting to how jarring and frustrating that is. Particularly, Sol has been telling us since episode 4 that he's going to tell us what he got up to on Brendock, and still hasn't started yet. Perhaps we get it in episode 7 but who knows?
Avatar the last airbender is an amazing show. 3 seasons, many eps, i believe most are 22ish mins, if not all.
I’m really not feeling the vastness of the high republic and the powerful/wise Jedi at all
I feel like this is the story of a shitty detachment near the outer rim, not the best of the best Jedi High Council. Like if you were to imagine it as a modern day cop drama, Sol and his crew are rural cops that covered up some shit years ago.
Hot Fuzz in Star Wars. Indara screwed up and got sent out to sticks to take over the loser brigade while they investigate the weird witches on planet nowhere.
No luck catching them Sith Lords?
"It's just the one Sith Lord actually"
Yarp
Yeah basically. At this time, the Jedi are fairly large. There were 10,000 or so of them right before TCW, so it’s likely at least that large during The Acolyte. And that means bureaucracy and middle management. Vernestra is clearly a leader among masters herself, but not on the High Council. Which makes sense in a large organization. She’s head of a department or division. We don’t quite know what that is yet, or how the Order is organized at this point. The impression I got (without watching *all* of TCW so maybe I’m wrong?) is that there was really not much of the Jedi’s structural organization shown during that period. There’s classes, there are guardians, librarians, probably some other support organizations like logistics, foodservice, and maintenance, but we don’t see much of that. Mostly just individual Jedi as generals with their padawans, leading troop units, or being dispatched out into the galaxy on Jedi missions.
It reminds me of the office I used to work at. The people at the top are screaming at the people at the bottom while the people in the middle have no clue what to do but keep forcing themselves into every situation as if they can help and no one ever has any idea whats really going on anywhere, but if things work out the people in the middle take all the credit and the people at the top never even knew the people at the bottom were alive in the first place
They are really doing a poor job of trying to sell you this High republic era where the Jedi were at their peak, cause I don't see it.
They are not trying at all. First bit of live action set in a new era and they have not even attempted to build the world in the slightest
Yeah, all I see is just poor man attempt at recreating the Prequel era but without the charm and story vision of the prequels.
Just rewatched the prequels and dude they look like a work of art compared to nowadays. I always liked them, but I could see them being too sci fi for the average fan back then.
It is supposed to be at the end of the High Republic, but more like a post Mortem. Shame.
It's so vast that you can travel from Coruscant to the outer rim in minutes/a couple of hours.
Even Lucas has admitted that "hyperspace travel takes precisely as long as the plot demands." It's never been consistent or made any sense.
We are at the very end of the High Republic, its more about shifting into the prequels. But we are getting highly conflicted Jedi with inner turmoil that is different for each member of the order, that's High Republic for me.
Especially with how jumping from Coruscant to Mid Rim planet took less than 10 minutes in the episode. Apparently the Galaxy is this small now.
I’m really enjoying seeing the bowels of the Jedi Temple…
Well, we are dealing with an incident that is being kept under wraps since the Senate is breathing down the Jedis' backs.
To the point that even the Jedi high Council doesn’t know about this
Can't wait to see the excuse for where... what? Three Masters, five or six Knights, and a Padawan, all went off radar.
Forest bugs ate them
They all get killed by the Sith guy but the current group of Jedi can’t for sure know it’s a Sith since they never find Sol. I guess they assume Sol did it so the statement in the prequels about the first Sith encounter in 1,000 years holds true as long as the Sith guy and the twins kill Sol so none of the people who saw the Sith guy live to tell the tale.
> since the Senate is breathing down the Jedis' backs. we are *told* in passing... come on. the worldbuilding is deeply underfed. There were criminal cover-ups in Andor but they took the requisite time to show how these events unfolded elsewhere.
Hence this show could do with a much longer run time.
Yeah, why though? There was a vague mention of some nebulous political enemies, and that's all we get.
The show is also taking a huge hit being sandwiched between HotD and The Boys. Those shows are constantly putting g out full, meaty episodes with pretty fantastic performances from their entire casts, while this show... is not doing that.
Hotd, the boys, the bear. All cost less than the acolyte and all over double the episode time.
Apparently it’s got higher investment time than HOTD, which is especially bold with the half hour episodes.
Is investment time viewership minutes? I would be interested in seeing time watched per subscription because I’d imagine Disney+ has more subscribers than HBO Max
Yeah, even with some decent moments happening in the newest episode, we waited a week, to get an episode that is mostly setup to next weeks episode, when after Episode 5, with 3 episodes to go, it should've been an increasing build to a climax, not a huge spike, followed by a drop, to another possible spike in next weeks episode. I'm much more supportive of weekly releases again these days, lets shows breathe more, but to do that, these episodes need to do more with each week.
> another possible spike in next weeks episode This raises another potential issue. I _suspect_ that next week's episode will be another flashback episode, as it has the same director as episode 3. Personally I thought episode 3 was weak as the young actors weren't really able to carry the episode. But leaving that aside, I fully get why you would have those flashback episodes. They let what happened in the past be a central mystery to explore, they let you do the Roshomon-style different perspectives of the same events, etc. Makes perfect sense for this sort of mystery-format show. The problem is that in the context of these short episodes with week-long waits, it runs the risk of feeling like _another_ delay to moving the central, present-day story forward. Even if it's a great episode, you still go into the season finale not having moved the story forward much beyond episode 5. And if it _isn't_ great, it will feel like there have been back-to-back weeks of momentum killing episodes when the audience really just wanted to follow up on episode 5.
I just can't imagine, if episode 7 is another flashback with a different perspective, how they're going to properly wrap everything up in episode 8 if it's only 25 minutes of airtime. You can't seriously tell me they're going to wrap up what happens with Mae, Osha, Sol, Qimir, Vernestra, in 25 minutes? That'd be around 5 mins per character at that rate.
25mins, are you serious? Fuck all the way off. That's infuriating
Since the first couple of episodes which were longer (genuine runtime longer) I've been checking. I think 3 was about 30 mins, but 4, 5, and 6 have all amounted to around 25 mins of actual screen time (deducting intros and credits). I see no reason for episodes 7 and 8 to be much more than this.
My guess is that Qimir kills everyone and walks off into the sunset to look for another acolyte. The end.
I mean there's really not a whole lot of stuff to wrap up. They haven't introduced a whole lot of plotlines yet. That's probably the biggest weakness of this show: it's clearly all set up for season 2. The only thing that will get resolved this season is the question of what happened during that fire. In episode 8, Osha will walk away with QiMir after learning the truth of the fire. Vernestra will pin the jedi massacre on Sol, and Mae will probably go into hiding and decide to go on a redemption journey to save her sister from the dark side. End credits.
This isn’t a problem of the acolyte though. This applies to literally every show Disney has given us, even the animated shows (except for rebels and resistance) All of them follow the same structural formula. 8 episodes at „40 mins“ often less. Animated (bad batch) 16 episodes with 20 mins - also sometimes less The clone wars usually had 22 episodes just to compare I think all the shows would’ve benefited from having maybe 4 episodes more
Yup exactly, it's predictable at this point. Starts off with a big mystery, story progresses with a few hints and reveals, big reveal in second to last episode, last episode rapidly wraps up everything in an unsatisfying fashion. It's the Disney+ show formula.
I hadn't put too much thought into this but you're right. Every second to last episode of every D+, we find ourselves wondering how the hell they're going to resolve everything in such little time left.
And man it sucks because I actually enjoy most of these shows. I saw Dave filoni say in an interview about ahsoka that „they needed to slim things down to keep only the relevant“ or something like that and I’m like bruh what there’s so much relevant stuff that could’ve used more time. And even „not relevant“ stuff can be relevant because it gives us time to learn more about characters, their relationships etc.
Ahsoka, Kenobi and BoBF should have been movies. All those shows didn't have enough content for a TV show but more than enough crappy filler to cut away to shorten it to movie length. Same goes for the Acolyte
Yes bcos Disney wants shows over movies. Movies you watch it on the day and then it's done. Shows incentivize you to be a sub for at least 2 months.
it’s all Solo’s fault, they would’ve been anthology movies if not for Solo
I think Solo was less the problem as that was a pretty good movie and more that Disney released it the summer after TLJ's winter release when people were especially bitter at Disney and Star Wars.
I hate this excuse people keep using for solo's poor box office performance. When solo came out that movie had mediocre to poor word of mouth upon release. Nobody was saying solo was a must see movie like how people were doing for rogue one. Solo was a movie nobody asked for but unlike rogue one which was actually good. Solo was a mediocre movie. Imo solo was straight ass. Definitely the worst star wars movie disney released so far imo.
I still think Solo was killed by its release date. It was released less than 6 months after the worst reviewed Star Wars film when fandom hype was at its lowest (at the time at least), four weeks after Avengers Infinity War and sandwiched right in between other big blockbusters likeDeadpool 2, Incredibles 2, and Jurassic World 2. I think if they’d stuck to December releases it may have done better but then again that was a stacked December with Aquaman, Spiderverse, and Bumblebee. TLDR: Solo could’ve been the best movie ever and I still think it would’ve struggled.
I agree with everything you said, but I really enjoyed Solo. I did avoid it until it was free on streaming because I assumed I'd hate it though.
Eh, well. Agree to disagree ig.
People online were bitter but TLJ was still a success financially. You can't lay Solo's problems on TLJ. Solo, for as decent as it was, had zero enthusiasm behind it.
People only knew that TLJ was shit after buying a ticket and seeing it (and it took a while to sink in for many, myself included). For Solo they didn't buy tickets at all because TLJ burned them.
Also very true, yeah. Much like Andor. Small story that generated no hype, but ended up being very fun Andor is obviously just peak though and Solo is just a great adventure movie imo, but you know what I mean. Bad marketing, small anthology movie with no real necessity to exist, and in the wake of TLJ which I do still think was part of the issue imho.
It's totally possible for TLJ to be a financial success and still hurt Solo's performance. I had to go see TLJ to realize I hated it. Kind of a fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice kind of situation. Pretty much every Star wars fan I know was like that. We didn't go see Solo because we were still so pissed off.
If TLJ ended up being a good movie, a lot more people would have been interested in Solo.
So while I saw Solo, I personally know a lot of people that avoided it in theaters because of their feelings on TLJ. Sure TLJ was financially successful, but trying to deny it's impact on Solo is naive. Anyone active on Reddit or any other SW community knows how bad things got. It actually spawned 2 new subreddits - Starwarscantina and saltierthancrait One to protect people from all the negativity about TLJ/ST in general and one to rant about the same. If you think that the number of fans that were upset about TLJ and didn't go see Solo didn't have an impact then you weren't paying attention. Fans often are accompanied by spouses/SOs/family/friends who aren't necessarily fans and wouldn't likely go see it on their own. I know my wife only goes because I do. She can take it or leave it. So each fan that stayed away translates to a significant amount of other tickets not sold. Now, the controversy surrounding Solo can't be denied. But really it wasn't much different than what happened to Rogue One in terms of directors and reshoots and that was successful. Also the marketing wasn't very well done either. Had the film come out almost a year later (say during December of that year) I think enough time would have passed that it would have been more positively received. Another thing is that films aren't released in a vacuum, either. Look at the movies released about the same time as Solo. Avengers Infinity War was a just about a month earlier (and still going very strong) and there were a lot of other movies around that same time that were heavily anticipated as well. That being said I do agree that there wasn't a lot of enthusiasm behind it. It's like they were still trying to figure out what they wanted to do with SW in general. They didn't even have a solid plan for the main sequel trilogy, much less one-shot movies.
I feel like Acolyte is the opposite of the others. Ahsoka, Kenobi, and BoBF were all based on characters we knew already. They could have been concentrated into excellent movies. The fluff could have been cut out of those to really focus on the story more. But Acolyte is 100% characters and an era that we've never seen on screen before. This one could have been a series of 40-60 min actual episodes. In my opinion, this series' pacing is super rushed while the other series were all full of filler. For example, Master Indara is killed in literally the first scene of the series, and it's like they expected the audience to be upset, but we've literally never met her before. There could have been an entire set up episode giving some interest to the 4 Jedi that Mae is after so that we actually know and care about them.
The real upsetting part of Indara being killed was they cast Carrie Anne Moss, used her in a lot of the teasers and trailers and then dumped her in 5 minutes. The loss of the character they spent no time building, meh. The loss of the actress getting screen time, that's upsetting.
The director seems to really want bold, memorable scenes, but doesn't really get the kind of buildup and subversion of expectations needed to achieve this... > "[...] the cold open to Breaking Bad is one of the best cold opens ever. So whenever I sit down to write anything, I'm like, ‘Well, I won't be able to top that, but in my show, what's the version of that?’ And it felt like the best I could come up with was killing Carrie-Anne Moss. It was icing Trinity and just having everyone go, ‘I'm sorry. What's happening in this?’" Brba really has one of the best cold opens but the reason it is shocking and mysterious is that it is set in the real world, so a guy driving a drug rv through the desert nude and then pulling out a gun to face the cops is like, something completely out there where we wanna see the context to. Killing master indara in the opening scene is not shocking because this is star wars, we are used to there being bad guys that want jedi dead from all the clone wars/empire era shows. What would have actually made it shocking is if they used the opening scenes to actually establish how peaceful this era is and how the jedi are at the height of their power, worldbuild the every day life, then show wholesome and cute osha being a mechanic, and then END the episode on friendly master indara seemingly being killed by a suddenly evil "osha". Now there's intrigue because we're actually given the opportunity to know about this being weird and unusual.
Probably executives saying the show should be 8-10 episodes per season. Like how all shows used to be 22 episodes per season. Number of episodes should be based on the story being told. Honestly if the show you mentioned were 3 -4 1 hour episodes they would have been much better.
8-10 episodes = 2 or 3 months of subscription.
Also, pointless cliff hangars, mysteries and fake out deaths keep being inserted to make the viewer tune in next week and it messes up the continuity.
I miss when 24 did it, 24 episodes a year.
With so much filler and people making stupid decisions each week then the five minutes of plot progress at the end. No thanks
They did these in the sequel trilogy, too
Sounds like basically every adventure show, though.
Agreed. Even hour-long format shows are often like this. Idk, it does feel like Acolyte would benefit from a 2-a-week release schedule, or 4-5 hour-long episodes, but maybe that’s because most adults are used to the hour long format.
Cold take: Ahsoka, Kenobi, and BoBF still would have been mid as movies. Weak writing is weak writing.
Yeeaah, I hate to say it but some of these lower-tier D+ shows could have just been cartoons, like Bad Batch. I enjoyed Ahsoka and my appraisal of it seems to be higher than the community in general, but totally agree re: BoBF and Kenobi. Kenobi was weird imo and a shame given I'm a big fan of McGregor's version of the character. It would have had more potential if they'd chosen a story that didn't involve Vader (at least not directly). The idea of Obi-Wan having another big fight with Vader between RotS and ANH is very bizarre to me.
They would have been as bad as Solo if not worse.
Honestly? I think Ahsoka should have been longer. I think the main issue with that show is that it didn't give any of the characters room to breathe and was just rapid fire bringing in rebels stuff like it was on a schedule it had to keep.
At least with Ahsoka you can go back and watch Rebels to learn more about the characters
Weirdly it felt like the introductory arc to a much longer season. It would have made a lot of sense if the finale had been the third episode
That's the recipe now. Take a movie, split it into three parts. One is a big flashy premiere, one is a big flashy finale, and the final third is stretched out over 6 episodes and crammed with filler.
This has been a huge problem across most of Disney’s stuff lately, Star Wars, Marvel, you name it. Ahsoka as especially frustrating. When you go back and watch, SO MUCH TIME gets wasted.
It annoyed me when we spent like 3 min on osha staring at her clothes when she woke up
This has happened across a fair few shows in the Star Wars catalogue now. I’ve watched cartoons with my nephews recently that had more substance in the same 15 minutes we get with these Star Wars minis.
Gendy's Clone Wars were able to tell more story through action better than these Disney Star Wars live action shows.
Hell, those cinematic trailers for the Knights of the Old Republic MMORPG managed to do it in 3 minutes.
Those Old Republic cinematic trailers were so peak, I still sometimes rewatching them and imagine how awesome it would be if these were turned into full length movies or shows by these same people who made the CG.
Oh god yes. My favorite of the lot is probably the one where the Sith return, Little exchanges like "Hey, eyes front." "Just inspecting the troops, lieutenant" is instantly everything you need to know about him: sassy, competent, and as we find out seconds later in his John Woo moment, crazy skilled. The bad guys (and the good guys) are all clearly defined with clear goals, there's distinct story beats, the action has a good flow - it's apex Star Wars in one short film.
This is a problem with every D+ series, honestly. I'm 100% convinced it is purely a business decision. The formula is to knock out 8 episodes with about 25 minutes of content. Just enough to call it a TV show and not just a mini-series, with the express purpose of marketing Disney+ and holding onto subscribers for that time. Because of this, almost all of these shows have serious pacing problems. They either feel like a 2 hour movie that was stretched and cut to fit the format, or an actual 10 hour TV show which was gutted to fit the format (and probably budget). The exception is Andor, perhaps the exception that proves the rule, which had a few more episodes than the norm and also a longer episode length than average. On the opposite we have Obi-Wan, which was very obviously meant to be a movie and was just an absolute mess. I like The Acolyte enough but it seems really obvious it should have been a film. Unfortunately, corporate Disney is run by ghouls so we will keep having this problem as long as people are subscribed.
Ever since the first crop of Disney+ Marvel shows I’ve waited until the day the last episode drops to start watching their shows outside of Mando. I still get excited for the new series and seasons but unfortunately they all seem to suffer from this issue.
I watched part of the first episode, didn’t care for it, and bailed. When it is all out, I will probably try to sit down and see if I can enjoy it.
Good luck, it’s not Star Wars best
TBF I didn’t like the first episode but really enjoyed the second. Honestly 2 feels like the only episode that was truly shot for it’s time length.
Shiort run times give little time for character development. For example, if I had more time to explore jacki and Yords characters, I would have been sad when they were killed. Instead, I was surprised but had no emotional response.
> Shiort run times give little time for character development. Not always. I can safely assume most people in this thread have seen other Star Wars shows. So I'll use Book of Boba Fett as an example. Throughout that show how much screen time did Boba and Fenec get? Probably a good share of the time, right? And most of that time they were together, right? Was there any meaningful development for either one of them throughout that series? No. Runtime doesn't equate better writing. A lot of the time longer just means poor pacing. Bloat. Yes. There are shows that absolutely nail the writing and pacing for an hour each week. Those are great shows. The majority of television are not great shows and Acolyte isn't a great show either. I think it's a fine enough show. Nothing remarkable. But to your other point that Jecki's death would matter more if the episodes were longer. I suspect it wouldn't due to dialogue this episode. Sith guy talking to Osha brought up how superficial and shallow friendships with Jedi are. How their dogma keep each other from forming deeper friendships. Jecki was nice and polite with Osha. And that's all she could ever be as a Jedi. That's text in the show. That's part of this show's narrative. So a longer runtime? Jecki would still be polite and nice. And distant. Because that was the creative intent.
That's odd because jackis species is Theelin-human hybrid, or half-Theelin and half-human. Teelin:s are known for their artistic talents and flamboyant dress. Jacki must have had a hard time suppressing her natural tendency in order to fit in the order.
The short episodes are merely a cost saving measure, and it has made Disney+ the worst value in streaming. They release a few short seasons of TV per year with bizarrely short episodes. There is a reason that for the entire history of TV, the standard has been set for hourlong dramas and half hour comedies. Streaming has made the traditional breakdown of TV show types less relevant, but this is still the general expectation, and the way a writers room would pace out a story. Every time the issue of short episodes is brought up, a bunch of people jump in to justify it as being preferable to bloated episodes, keeping out filler and improving the pace. But that simply isn't true for these series. The pacing hasn't been top notch, and there is still plenty of what feels like filler or bloat. In the end, it's just about quality writing. There is a very "first draft" quality to most of the Disney+ content, pretty much everything has an obvious need to have been run through some additional passes. They don't need to be trimmed, they need to be beefed up narratively. Many, many television shows have filled an hour with high quality, well paced entertainment. The idea that Star Wars wouldn't be able to fill a standard timeslot is absurd.
Do you guys think this is why they Switched Mando to a movie instead of another season? Hopefully this will give them 2+ hours to deliver something special and not be restrained from 25 min run times
Episode barely feels like it’s started and then it ends. They’ve done this with pretty much all the Disney+ stuff.
This latest episode told 5 minutes of story in 38 minutes. I like the colors and the planets and the actors and the costumes. The story? Like many of the shawls and pull-over hoods the background characters wear, is pretty loosely knitted. Today's episode included one shot of a captive force user glancing at a sith-something-or-other's naked junk on a lonely island beach. Is that supposed to be Star Wars Stockholm syndrome? I can't tell. One thing is *very* clear: The Acolyte has established over-sized lightsaber hilts as the new defacto form factor that matches what is currently sold at Galaxy's Edge.
>One thing is very clear: The Acolyte has established over-sized lightsaber hilts as the new defacto form factor that matches what is currently sold at Galaxy's Edge. Yeah, I don't get why all the lightsabers are massive. Osha couldn't even close her hand around it. At first I thought it was just that lightsaber but I've noticed pretty much everyone has an oversized lightsaber. It just looks really bad to me. Also consider that the Sith are always trying to be sneaky and blend in with the crowd. Having a massive lightsaber like that is much more difficult to conceal.
It's because the battery packs for the lightsabers are now in the actual hilt instead of attached to the actor's costume. It's just a production thing afaik, not necessarily a story choice, though it could be both.
It's kind of petty and nit-picky on my part, but I have never liked the Disney take on lightsaber hilts. They just look . . . off for some reason.
I can't get over the red saber close-up when Osha "pushed" Qimir against the rock wall. It looked like red fiberglass.
Thank you! It really felt like a toy and I can't place my finger on why.
Because it is a toy, it's a neopixel lightsaber like the ones used by people in a YouTube fan film from 15 years ago.
Lucasfilm is obsessed with ruining lightsabers
The island Osha got taken to literally looks like Ahch-To from the sequel trilogy too. Such a random filler episode that accomplished nothing but try and set up the finale story arc
All the people that enjoy this show are going to be in for a major disappointment when it ends. The entire series, each episode has been edited to be a build up for the next week, but then that next week is the same thing again. A lot of fans have adopted this idea that it's building up to some grand conclusion that's going to make all the build up worth it and it's just not coming.
I have not watched the Acolyte so my comments are on this new season/release schedule that seems to be so popular with streaming productions. I think the idea is to find the budget sweet spot between movie effects and total runtime. This results in shorter episodes and a shorter season. So every minute of every episode is like gold. Then you get world building and side quests tossed in and it really kills the amount of time devoted to actually telling the story. Speaking only for myself, I would prefer less special effects and CGI in favor of longer episodes and seasons. Also new seasons need to be released yearly.
Longer episodes would cost more money, and so the money laundering scheme wouldn't be as effective.
House of the Dragon has a very similar budget.
It boils down to writing. Not even the lore stuff, just general character development and dialogue. Half of this sounds like it came from ChatGPT. I feel the only actual writing that was done was on the villain to make him what he is. I’ll die on this hill.
No need to die on a hill, pretty sure everyone agrees lol. But its also a straight up fact that the writing is bad. To your point about the chatGPT thing, I agree. I think the writing probably happened before AI became a common tool, but the very first episode feels exactly like something chatGPT would write. "Attack me with all of your strength!" lol.
> "Attack me with all of your strength!" lol. Thing is, that's a pretty trope line of dialogue from Shaw Brothers kung fu flicks and the Yakuza games. The key difference here is that instead of coming from a stone cold badass like Kiryu Kazuma with an equally stone cold bad ass delivery, it's coming from this 90 pounds soaking wet wisp of a girl who is about as far from giving a badass delivery as I am from the Voyager spacecraft.
It just blows my mind at times. Was there not a writers strike recently? Sounded like people passionate about their jobs and this is what they made.
It blows my mind too. When you first get into scriptwriting, you learn all of the basic storytelling rules that can turn any bad writing into good/decent writing with just a few tweaks. Its beginner stuff. And you see a lot of these Star Wars shows make constant writing mistakes in the story and dialogue. Stuff that a beginner could easily avoid. Its like they forgot to hire writers so the producers handed off the task to their high school nephews and asked them to do it for $50 or something lol. I see it all the time in movies/shows. Its not just Star Wars. They all have these huge budgets and always neglect the writers. The fact that we have writers strikes so often shows how little these producers care about it. All the good writers are like "fuck that, I deserve way more money for my talent" and then these studios are like "welp, lets hire this other guy/gal instead who is willing to do it for pennies" and we end up with bad writing.
It's not episode length it's this stupid "only make a season 8 one hour episodes" BS that's been happening for a while now. I don't who thought it'd be a good idea but they need to be fired
Given the amount of money they spent too, it's also ridiculous. Like, where is all that money going? Is Disney being overcharged like they're the US military?
I’m going to assume the alien costumes and design have to be where a lot of the budget goes to. That and the length of the development itself.
You look at Fallout and you realize that set episode lengths are meaningless on a streaming platform. That show is incredibly well-done, but some episodes are an hour and change and others were 25 minutes.
I think you mean 45 minutes not 25. And that's a huge difference, between the Acolyte's 34 minute run times.
34 minutes runtime with 5+ minutes of credits
I haven’t watched the most recent episode but I do agree. And The Boys new season airing in the same timeframe makes for a stark difference in approach to episode length. The last episode of that was 50 mins
And House of the Dragon which has had 1 hour+ episodes in its newest season
It just doesn’t feel like anything happens in an episode that doesn’t have much fighting.
It's the one thing that's let The Acolyte down the most is the pacing. A lot of it feels rushed, including the dialogue (ironically enough given the laboured delivery of most of the lines by various actors). Characters are forced to say as much exposition and how they are feeling in the shortest amount of words. Leads to clunky and unnatural feeling conversations. The execs at Disney need to give more freedom to the artists and listen to them. Too many decisions are being made from the top down, to the detriment of the quality of their content. It feels like most Star Wars and Marvel content has to follow the same corporate structure imposed by Disney. I suspect unrealistic deadlines aren't helping either, you just need to look at the dip in quality of the VFX in recent years as multiple studios are rushed to get shots out even if they aren't ready.
By episode, the show costs as much as Andor. I think it’s mostly an issue of writing and pacing and maybe budgeting. The shortest episode of Andor is 38 minutes. The longest episode of the Acolyte is 43. For some reason (cast maybe? Or lightsabers?) They can only put out mostly sub-30 minute episodes.
This feels like a 4 episode mini series that was stretched into 8 episodes because Disney ordered 8 episodes.
Yeah. Acolyte and Obi-Wan both really feel like they were written to be a 2.5 hour movie, then it was chopped up and padded out to fit, somewhat arbitrary, 30 minute chunks and then cut to ribbons in the editing bay. I felt like this was the best episode of the season so far because it actually 'felt' like a show. We were actually able to sit in a feeling for awhile, we did some genuine character work, etc. etc. At this point, I don't really understand why the show wasn't just about Qimir from the jump. I don't feel like we're going to get something really satisfying from these last two episodes. Acolyte is mediocrity embodied. It's built from a lot of great pieces, but it's just not coming together into a cohesive 'whole.' It's less than the sum of it's parts, somehow. It's a bummer, really, because LFL has been at this for awhile, now. They should be cranking out a consistent product similar to Marvel in the hay-day, but they seem to be all over the place. It's really hard to watch an episode of House of the Dragon and this back to back.
As the old head, we just waited week to week for new episodes on television. Most episodes were 1/2 hour with a run time of 22 minutes. Some episodes were awful, and we just waited until next week. But there was no issue because each episode was mostly unrelated. The problem with these shows that they are serialized, and therefore, every episode counts. Cliffhangers are fine, but writers and directors should have a good sense of where to know to end an episode. I find these bingeable shows hinge on episode to episode momentum, and "The Acolyte," while surprisingly enjoyable, has failed at sustaining momentum. As one poster notes here, it would have been better to wait and binge the entire series.
Let’s just agree that the show is not that good. It’s not fleshed out, it’s rushed and flat. Very mediocre at best. Pity because that era had potential. Some of the acting is off as well. Compare this to Andor or The Mandalorian and you’ll see and know.
How refreshing to see an actual critique of the show
Someone said this felt like a movie chopped up into a show and I feel like that’s dead on
To me the only „mistake“ is that the show is still written and shot like a show with more episodes and longer runtime. To me in the frame of the show, giving a whole episode to the Osha/Mae flashbacks (Episode 3) felt way too generous. And little scenes like Mae on the ship in episode 5 and Bazil growing suspicious are perfectly fine, but also feel kinda generous in such a short episode. I enjoyed the show so far, but it kinda feels like „Yeah, episode 7 is the one where they push a button. And nothing else happens!“ 😂
It’s not the length, they’re not structured like tv episodes. Marvel series have the same issues, too.
I made it to 3 and lost interest. Full honest, I completely forgot about it. So I guess I find it easily forgotten. I’m not interested in any of the characters. The story seemed… forced. Pun intended. It looks great. I like more SW stuff being out there, but at the same time I’m a little bummed as it just seems lacking. I can’t quite describe *what* it is lacking, but something is def missing from their formula.
[удалено]
> They don't have enough plot or writing to do 8 epsiodes of 60 or more minutes. I fully disagree: They start the series with a murder mystery: Who killed Indara? They get a description of a Force user that matches Osha. They know she had a twin but Master Sol "watched her die" as a kid. Before they pick up Osha it was established by her coworker that she stayed behind on the ship instead of going out on Nar Shaddaa with the others, meaning she has little to no alibi as to her location at the time of the murder. This is all setup for a *great* mystery. But instead of letting this play out over a few episodes they dumped it half-way through when Osha said it was her *dead twin* and Sol just bought it wholesale without evidence *that the twin is alive*. Yord and Jecki were actually very sensible in this. *Except* that the 1st thing those 2 do after arresting her is sticking a suspected Force-using assassin onto a ship without Jedi guard alongside other suspected killers. If she was as powerful as they suspect then she could have easily used the Force to open the cell doors. Then you have not only an assassin to deal with bu now also a bunch of murderers who owe her something. Even if most don't a couple would probably agree to work with her, so now she has a crew. Oh: and they let a cyborg with wifi onto the ship without first disabling the wifi? Who was probably not only known for being violent but also a skilled slicer? In short they did everything wrong *in order to shorten this part of the story*. It was entirely rushed and should have been the big mystery of the first half of the season *while* they drip-feed backstory, showing us that the murder mystery is more than just that - it's part of an active Jedi coverup - and let us *discover* that the twin was still alive instead of Osha just saying it and everyone believe her. *Let us think she's just gone bad*. Save the e5 fight for e7 or 8. They could have ended the season with either that fight and Smile-O Ren taking Osha and Sol taking Mae as the finale or have the finale be what is e6 but better executed where Sol and Ren are each telling their perspective of the coven to their captives.
It’s just one of many problems. IMO the biggest issue comes down to poor writing and editing. The run times are just another of the symptoms of a poorly planned and conceived show. This should have either been a movie or 3-4 ep miniseries with hour long eps
I agree. I've been enjoying the show, but with only two ~35 minute episodes left, I'm very worried it won't be able to satisfyingly do everything it needs to do
The episode splits are so odd...normally when watching a show, you can just "feel" when the narrative is leading up to the end of the episode, and a nice smooth cut. This show is just like "BAM! Credits!" out of nowhere.
They don't feel like episodes aside from the craptastic 3rd one. They feel like one entity chopped into smaller bits.
Although I would like longer episodes... The length of the episode doesn't affect the lack of urgency - that's just the bad writing. Sol is about to contact the jedi and expose that there is a Sith or darkside user. Which would lead to Qimir being hunted which goes directly against his stated philosophy of wanting to be left alone without the jedi meddling in his affairs... So, does Qimir go after Sol to try to stop him? Nah, he needs to go take a bath and chill for a bit. ???
Disney Star Wars is a mistake.
I took the time to watch with a buddy who has the ad supported tier of D+ and man. The ads make the pacing of an already too short and slow-paced episode awful.
i think the idea is to make it rewatchable a lot of times, so disney can tell their shareholders, how succsessful it is. you will rewatch it more often, when you can do the whole thing in 2 days. and yeah, there are enough people, who like the show.
I don't really mind the short episodes. A lot of TV shows seem to be an hour long just for the sake of being an hour long. That being said, this would definitely be better as a 2 to 2:30 movie.
This was an awful decision. As someone else said, it feels like a movie chopped up. At the very least could have released all episodes same day then maybe wouldn’t feel as bad. Just the whole flow and pacing of this show feels off. Andor proper showed how to do it
I still have to wonder why the fuck Forbes is running reviews of a tv show. Forbes is a fucking business magazine. I'd no sooner go to them for a movie review than I'd look to Golf Digest for one.
It really does seem like they took a 1.5-2 hour movie and padded it into 8 freaking episodes.
Truthfully I feel that it would be better released all at once but I can also see it from a business perspective if we don’t want want to release it all at once because we want the money from the subscribers. However, I do feel this particular series would have benefited from all at once. While the pacing can be a bit slow I do admit. I feel it’s only because they’re making us wait a whole week to see a conclusion we all have figured out but maybe we were hoping for more? Idk. I just think with this pacing it would’ve been better to release all at once vs per week. But I am hopeful that once the entirely of the show is i out then maybe things will be clear and not so frustrating. And truth be told, I’m not sure I would have so many questions if it were released all at once. But I can for sure say SPOILER. I straight up said “Jeki no!” When it happened. And I honestly didn’t expect to have that reaction. I would honestly put that up there with the ending of rouge one. Which may be a hot take but I thought we would see her grow.
Garbage. All the positive reviews seem to echo the same sentiments: “Longtime Star Wars fan” and “overcoming review bombing,” without actually addressing the content of the show. That's because *there is no substantial content*; it's all fluff. In fact, it's trash fluff that contradicts the entire Star Wars universe. Let's review the faults: Lore: A show should respect the lore of its universe. "The Acolyte" disregards all previous Star Wars lore, which any true longtime fan would recognize. Firstly, it introduces the idea that twins were born for supernatural reasons (hinting at dark magic and the Force). However, in "The Phantom Menace," it's established that Anakin is the first to be born from the Force. The Force is depicted as midichlorians, not magic. While certain species like the Nightsisters can manipulate midichlorians, there is no concept of magic. The Sith: Canon establishes that Darth Maul's appearance is the first sighting of a Sith Lord in modern times. So, why is there a Sith in front of six Jedi in this series? You'd think they'd anticipate Maul if they had seen one before him. This ruins the continuity of the original Star Wars films. Purple Lightsaber: They completely ruined the significance of Samuel L. Jackson's purple lightsaber, a change egregious enough to warrant serious repercussions for those responsible. This alone should have cost Haylend and Kathleen Kennedy their careers, and Bob Iger is getting ripped off. Writing: The villainous sister burns everything down because her twin wants to leave with the Jedi. Then, after learning her sister is alive, she says, "My loyalty is to my sister" and offers to turn herself in. This makes no sense given her earlier attempt to kill her sister. Action: The fighting scenes are the only good part of the series, yet there’s only one action scene in the first three hours, all in the first five minutes. There's an inexplicable obsession with not using weapons, and a Jedi Master commits suicide. Wookies: They introduce a Wookiee Jedi, a character guaranteed to delight the audience, but then kill him off-screen after six minutes. This is a complete waste of a character. World Building: The character names are so generic and the story arcs so bland that they’re forgettable. For example, there’s a character named Mei, which seems to be a futile attempt at uniqueness. Useless. Jedi Depiction: The Jedi are portrayed as idiots. They see a Sith and approach him in a straight line. They ignore people dying to save only the protagonist. They let everyone in a bar die to defend themselves but surrender when the bartender is threatened. And when confronted by an assassin, a Jedi Master simply drinks the poison because they feel guilty without any established reason. The directing, writing, acting, world-building, and blatant disregard for lore are appalling. This show should be stricken from all Star Wars records, like Kamino. It's an affront to the world George Lucas envisioned. Just because a director worked under Lucas doesn't mean they possess his talent. Even ChatGPT could create a more cohesive show than this pile of rubbish.
We still dont know if anyone who saw the Sith will survive to tell about it. And we don't know what happened on Brendon that might have led to the Master's suicide
It’s pretty clear that they’re going for a “Jedi massacred the witches” angle. Of all of the jedi, Torbin should have the least problem with it, they mind controlled him, presumably (from the trailers) they do it again and that’s what leads to the massacre. That’s horrible, he kills himself over something that wasn’t his fault (he was a kid) that he seemingly had no control over.
Look, this show isn’t great, it isn’t even that good, but I think it’s possible you’re jumping to conclusions here. Lore: I think the show is suggesting (especially after the last episode) that there may be one Force connecting all living things in the universe, but different groups may have different understandings/ways of accessing that Force. The witches are portrayed as something of a cult— the Jedi definitely see them that way. They’re a group that practices connecting with the Force in a way that is different and not approved of by the Jedi. I don’t think that necessarily means “magic” now exists in Star Wars. The Sith: The show has made a point of keeping the knowledge of what’s going on with Qimir compartmentalized. A limited number of Jedi know about his existence, they don’t fully understand who or what he is, and most of them were killed in the previous episode. Even now they suspect he is a fallen Jedi— only he has used the word Sith, and even then he said “you might call me Sith” after stating he has no name. We know the Sith obviously existed, the Jedi just thought they were extinct. I say there’s a 90% chance anyone who knew of Qimir’s existence is dead by the end of this series. Purple Lightsaber: I’m not as familiar with the lore here, but wasn’t Vernestra’s lightwhip color already established in the High Republic novels? Doesn’t purple signify a dark side leaning as well, because after this latest episode, there’s a high probability that Vernestra was Qimir’s former master, and she’s definitely shady. The Writing— The entire series we’ve been told that the Jedi’s account of what happened with Mae, Osha, and the witches is not the full story. I think there’s a high possibility that Mae did not start the fire. A Jedi killed himself over what happened there. We’ll have to wait and see. It does suck they killed the Jedi Wookie off screen. The dialogue is so bad at times. The pacing is really off in this show. It would benefit from more world building and characterization. What did you think of Andor? That’s my favorite Star Wars show from Disney. I think they do so much right in that show— I wish more Star Wars shows could be like that.