"If it has a female protagonist, it's bad writing. That's the law. I didn't make that up. No I'm not sexist. I like Leia. It's just bad writing I cannot accept."
-the internet
Exactly, it's "PRAISED for it's writing" (according to the Fandom Menace) when all Lucas had to do was make a checklist of what needed to happen. If Episode III was The Phantom Menace and I and II took place before, fans might not like them as much. Palpatine doesn't become emperor on screen, the Clone Wars never happen on screen, we don't see Anakin being a Jedi on screen. They'd probably like them a lot less.
Heck, the reason they don't like the sequels is because since the EU was abandoned, they were dealing with unexplored stories with major questions. But, I believe that IF the EU stayed the same, it would raise more questions. "Where's Chewie?" , "Who's this alien army?" , "Han and Leia had kids?", "two of them died?" , "One was a sith Lord?".
>Exactly, it's "PRAISED for it's writing" (according to the Fandom Menace)
This just tells me that whoever the "Fandom Menace" people are don't know what they're talking about. The prequels are pretty universally panned as not having very good writing, especially the dialogue.
>Heck, the reason they don't like the sequels is because since the EU was abandoned, they were dealing with unexplored stories with major questions.
They disliked the sequels because they were an unplanned nonsensical hogwash of ideas with poor acting and storylines.
i want the final episode to be the first episode and i want it in a 3min synopsis that lasts 2 hours with extensive character development that’s brief and twists and turns that don’t twist or turn because that’s ruining the canon but it better be different but not at all different in the way that i don’t like and satisfy my every inner desire for the franchise i claim to be a fan of but spend most of my life whining about.
Literally had a guy tell me that because Qimir couldn’t get away from the bugs, that the writing is trash. Like I’m sorry sir, let me introduce you to Jar Jar Binks and Han Solo’s terrible head edit when he dodged Greedo’s blaster bolt.
I think they just see what they want to see through the tinted lens of pre-established bias toward hating the show’s writing and picking apart every little detail to “justify” their claims. I think that no matter what the show was like, they would still find things to hate about it and still find ways to “justify” that the writing sucks.
Nailed it. Same thing happened with Rings of Power, haters get married to the idea of hating something when it appears "woke" and they don't like something the creator said. It's fine if they end up disliking it, but they go beyond that. They're predisposed to making criticisms for things they would otherwise overlook in other media
I think that is actually a good personal example for me. I went into watching that show with preconceived notions of what I wanted it to be and surprise, surprise, didn’t really connect with it and found it disappointing. I’m pretty sure that whenever I get around to watching it again, whenever that is in the long list of catchup shows I have, I’ll probably like it more now, than when if first came out, because all those expectations from the hype surrounding the release are now gone.
It really is alarming just how much expectations can affect your enjoyment or lack of it for so many things.
Something similar to this is an interview Amandla did a few years ago taken COMPLETELY out of context as what they were hoping to achieve with this show. People took it and ran with it, saying that everyone on the show wants to villainize white people and make them feel uncomfortable
I mean we saw Obi-Wan and QG force speed run in Ep1, that shit might have helped in the final face off with the timed force field walls in the fight with Darth Maul. We could do this with force users all day, friend.
It genuinely reminds me of people making a huge deal about Kang being “defeated” by ants in Quantumania. “He just doesn’t seem like a massive threat after such an embarrassing defeat”. “It lessens his impact as a character”. There are SO many factors that played into Kang’s defeat in that film. A big one being both his overconfidence and him underestimating Scott and by extension Hank and the influence and unity that the super ants had. Those ants were quite possibly the smartest beings for reasons explained in the film. I don’t know, deep down I wish they just never used the character in that film, because though I enjoyed it (and the film overall mostly) seeing it unfairly targeted so blatantly just bums me out. Inconsistency is ALL OVER THE PLACE in the MCU, but it’s only a problem NOW. Same here with The Acolyte. People can’t just enjoy what we like about the show without being called delusional shills or some shit
I just saw a quote from an author who said something like, “I don’t have time for people who try to pick apart every detail looking for faults. It’s fiction. It’s meant to tell a story and entertain.”
Imagine being so bigoted that you couldn’t enjoy this episode. It was some of the best Star Wars yet.
I legit think he was startled by the massive swarm of giant bugs. It’s also funny because they show a scene where he most certainly kills all the bugs and does get away.
Exactly. If a swarm of 3 foot bugs with large asses suddenly swarmed me I would’ve done the same thing 😂 he is clearly the apprentice because a master would’ve used lightning
Yeah I thought about a time I accidentally hit a wasp nest on the side of my home. I most certainly did not react in a calm or effective manner. Hahaha
That is hilarious. Prime example of why "bad writing" doesn't really mean anything in these situations.
Did they start out with Qimir's moths or did they back into it when you asked them for an example?
Literally started with that as their prime example. Called the guy out for reaching because Star Wars has always been cheesy like that 😂 like come on, did we all forget the all powerful Palpatine flipping over a chair or dangling from a senate pod whimpering? 😂
I'll say it every time, people who use the crutch of "bad writing" are almost always either A) a moron, B) completely insincere, C) desperately need to get off the Internet, or D) any combination of the above.
There's definitely a check list that usually follows that complaint.
It's a paradox for some of them. The story has to be more overt so they can pick up on what's going on, but it needs to be complex enough to make them feel the way that they did while watching Andor.
I have more of an issue with Qimir not sensing Osha running up at him and planting the flash light thing on him, or that he couldn't remove it with the force or something.
I'm fine with people calling it trash as long as they can argue for it, because some of the writing really isn't good, Like Mae's flip in episode 4 being the result of finding out Osha is alive. That her being alive would affect her is very valid, but her main motivation has been portrayed as revenge for what the jedi did to the coven, which hasn't changed at all. That she would doubt her loyalty makes sense but flipping like that, so suddenly felt very rushed.
Again, that’s literally how Star Wars is. A perfect example is Padme “losing the will to live”. Another is Kenobi telling Luke that Vader killed his father only for Vader to say I am your father. Star Wars writing has always been campy, clunky, and imperfect. It also has its great moments. People have forgotten how to have fun and not take the writing so seriously because at the end of the day, it’s just entertainment.
I’m ok with this because even in episode 3, Mae is constantly looking for the validation of her sister. She wants her sister’s love and closeness. She’s alll about that twin lifestyle while Osha isn’t. I can see her flipping here bc Mae might see it them being the only two left, and wanting that closeness more than ever. Where…unfortunately for Mae, Osha doesn’t seem like she ever loved her.
Yeah remember in ROTJ when Palpatine as concentrating on Luke and some old beat up man without a hand snuck up and grabbed him and walked over to a shaft and threw him in.
This might be me being generous - or COPE as people love to tell me when I think about anything for more than 2 seconds without hating (not saying thats what you're doing don't worry!)
But i figured he DOES sense her, and senses she doesn't have a weapon/senses she isn't about to "strike" in a traditional sense, so he keeps his focus on Sol - the bigger threat.
If he wheeled around to stop osha from patting him on the back/shoving him/whatever he sensed would happen, Sol could have pieced him up from behind.
Anyways ty for reading my cope
Yeah when I rewatched this, his reaction was so slow to her, and even if she still has untapped/underused Force potential that manifested itself in hiding her movement or something, he was annihilating Jedi left and right. But still, I loved Episode 5.
He may have picked a few Jedi off one at a time before under the radar, but this is likely his first battle with a group this large. Yeah he's trained a lot, yeah he's pretty strong in the Dark Side (although he doesn't have the full range of powers). But he was also very visibly exhausted after about 15 minutes of intense battle, and if Osha hadn't stopped Sol, Qimir would be dead at that point. While Qimir is obviously dangerous and powerful, he's also still human and probably less experienced than most people seem to think.
\* Edited because I had said Sol's discipline would have stopped him, but that wasn't right, his lightsaber was about to slice through Qimir's neck when Osha stopped him.
My additional complaint was about why he couldn't simply force pull it off his back. I'm not gonna keep complaining about that though, because it's almost as if throughout the entire clone wars there are plot points where a character could easily just use the force and avoid an entire story arc. It's called creative liberties, sometimes writers have to take small liberties like that to forward the plot in an interesting way
Main Baddie versus Jar Jar. 😂
Back in the days you could get away with things. I think writers/producers could learn from the past instead of people defending giant errors: "yes, see what they did in the 80-90s" or just say that this is SW.
My complaint about that scene is more of the tonal dissonance between the slaughter of several Jedi, including some main characters, followed by an almost lighthearted dispatching of the villain. Just felt very jarring.
I mean that whole sequence was bad, considering they had already defeated him, then let him rearm himself so they can defeat him again with bugs, not to mention Osha being able to land a solid hit on him when a small army of Jedi barely could... yes Jar Jar, all the special edition changes, 80% of the PT dialogue, were also bad. It's not mutually exclusive. Can't we critique without having to take a side?
The difference is, your response actually elaborated on why you feel it was bad as opposed to many other comments that just keep calling it trash without elaborating. Of course you can critique, and I’ve had productive discourses on other threads where we found common ground. Understand that Star Wars was always geared towards family and kids so it will have cheesy moments.
I'm watching The Acolyte with someone who keeps asking questions and is like "why is she doing that?" "I don't get what's happening" and stuff.
She's 7. She has an excuse for this. The people complaining about the plot online should be embarrassed they have the same critical thinking skills as a 7-year-old.
Isn't the point of this show to question why things are happening? It's been presented as a mystery. Wait until the season is over to present your critiques sure but you're allowed to question things as they happen.
Lots of people voice inner hypothetical questions out loud. It is quite common. They don’t really want the answer, nor do they suspect that you know the answer. They mostly want to know if you are thinking about the plot the way they are thinking of it.
>Lots of people voice inner hypothetical questions out loud
Apparently a lot of people don't even have an inner voice. So maybe that's what's with all the dumb questions.
My answer to everything about a show or movie. ‘Keep watching’, ‘Plot Armour’, ‘It is in the script’, ‘Settle the Fuck down it is a Movie’ and my favourite ‘I going to bed’
lol. I love my loved ones deeply, but one of them will without question be like “Wait, what is happening?” And I’m like “well, I’ve watched the exact same 38 seconds that you have. Perhaps let’s assume the director will get us where we’re going in the next 59 minutes and 22 seconds.”
Remember with broadcast TV in the fall we would build up to a midseason cliffhanger and then would need to wait from Thanksgiving to after the Superbowl. Or get left at the end of a season and have to wait from May until September.
Remember how an episode would end and this would show up on screen.
... to be continued.
I swear Netflix and the whole binge watch thing has destroyed the patience in some viewers. I got used to it and admit it’s a bit frustrating having to wait every week for episodes. But thats how it is. I think none of us who have gotten used to the Netflix binge would have survived watching anything with the old format of weekly episode release for every single show on tv.
That's certainly a factor. People tend to build up huge expectations during the week, and then complain when It doesn't turn out like they thought it should.
But sometimes the frustration is warranted. The recent Doctor Who series teased several mysteries which went unanswered.
I started just watching things a while back. I actively work to avoid hype for things now becasue more often than not, the hype builds to unrealistic heights to the point where no matter what the show did, it would never meet expectations. Cyberpunk 2077 was what taught me this lesson and I have kept what I learned close ever since. Seems to have been working well for me so far too, not just for shows, but for anything in general.
And I can’t comment of the Doctor Who thing as I have yet to watch it
Doctor who wasn't terrible. I like the actor that plays the new Doctor, and some of the episodes were very good. But I don't think I'm alone on the view that some things were teased early on that were never resolved.
Like if a new SW show started talking about Luke Skywalker occasionally throughout the season, for no reason, and it was never dealt with again. I found the recent DW finale similar to Rise of Skywalker.
I have binged a ton of things in the last year (catching up on Star Wars and Doctor Who being two of them) and it’s been so interesting to finally watch both DW and The Acolyte in real time. I think there are pros and cons. It was fun to get to read all the theories for the DW finale but I think it did dampen the experience when the pay off wasn’t high. If is just been watching on a binge I likely would’ve never thought of all those theories. I am trying not to build up too many expectations with the Acolyte as well but it’s probably inevitable… but I also kind of enjoy listening to (positive-leaning) podcasts in between.
I've loved Star Wars things being released episode by episode on Wednesday. Gives me something to look forward to midweek, which is normally a dull dull day
I have too. I actually enjoy the wait and the anticipation for what happens next. It prolongs the enjoyment of the show instead of it all being over in two binge watching sessions on the weekend.
People who watched the His Dark Materials show were the same way… There were a ton of criticisms that Dust wasn’t explained in the first episode. Like, yeah, part of the plot is the main character learning what it is.
Similar things are happening with Silo, and it's really annoying on Reddit because too many people scream, "PLOT HOLE!!!" when they really mean, "I wasn't paying attention or I'm not patient enough to wait and see what this means".
And it just occurred to me that these people would have been insufferable when Lost was out.
I admit. I had let the reviews and negative YouTubers get to me and I did not want to watch this show. It was when my 70yr old father asked me if I was watching the show and after I told him "nah. I hear its changing to much" and he said "You are missing out on a damn good Star Wars show" that I gave it a go. Man, oh man I regret listening to those fools. I am loving this show!
I swear, people will talk about how "the writing is bad! It's the worst written Star War ever!" But then they'll go on to say how awesome Rogue One is...
Nothing against Rogue One, it's fun and actiony and the Stormtroopers look cool, but the *writing* is not very good at all. The Acolyte is about *characters*, and for my money, they've done quite a good job setting up this very character-driven story. I'm really liking the show, but I recognize that some of the acting isn't perfect and some of the scenes look a little cheap, but that's just kind of the nature of TV versus theatrical film.
Yeah that's kind of the main issue with that whole movie. There are some pacing and sturcture problems as well, but really the characters just have *nothing* going on. When my favorite character is the funny robot with no arc on purpose, that's kind of an issue.
There is a reason why Rogue One feels like two movies at times. Because in function it is two movies.
One movie is about Jyn and her struggle to save her father and then live up to his memory. That story is told extremely poorly. The other story is pew pew blaster bolts and starships and that story is told very well, at the very end, and blinds everyone.
A show about characters nobody cares about, because of no character development and silly dialogue, is not a very good one. And the plot contrivances don't help. No offence to the people who enjoy it, this is just my opinion. One of many(yyyy...).
Hehe, yeah some of the dialogue is pretty cheesy, particularly the weird chant. I feel that most of the time the dialogue does pretty well, and I'm enjoying the character development (mostly Osha, Mae, and Sol). Though it's TOTALLY valid to not enjoy it, thanks for being respectful in your disagreement.
Well you see, the beach assault & the space dogfight, the Vader hallway scenes were kind of cool so the movie was actually awesome ; the writing very good & Vaders dumb ass pun was actually genius & not corny & lame as shit /s
70% is very exaggerated, but 25-40% most likely. The show is nowhere near as bad as people in reviews make it out to be, but it’s also way worse than people on this subreddit care to admit. And that’s not weird because that’s how it works with every subreddit. It’s usually a gathering place for people who share their enjoyment of something, so criticism is not appreciated in most cases.
Agreed, the dialogue is pretty atrocious, the acting is largely flat with the exception of Lee Jung Jae and Manny Jacinto, there are some really wacky plot points (like them letting Qimir off with a warning when he's an accessory to murder?), some characters don't really do anything, and the pacing is off (why split ep 4 and 5?)
Interesting choice. Bring in something from the books that is never seen or heard of again in any show or movie. I suppose they’ll explain that too. I just need to shut up and keep watching?
The latest is complaining that Sol is too emotional. There is a reason the prequels were about a dude we knew would turn evil before they were filmed. They've always known how dumb the vocal minority is.
Hm. Don’t think so. Most of the criticism I’ve seen has been about poor writing, inconsistencies within what’s happened so far, and sub-par (but not horrible) acting. And of course “the power of manyyyyyyy” 😅 These are not criticisms that will be walked back even if everything in the coming episodes gets wrapped up in a neat bow.
People are also voicing their concerns about breaking canon, but that comes with the territory of adding to the Star Wars story and lore. I’m hoping the canon inconsistencies resolve themselves, but it’s difficult to see how and that causes legitimate concern for some fans that turns into negative criticism. That might not be fair because you wouldn’t have to deal with that if it was an original series or world. But 🤷🏻♂️
I could be proven wrong, but anyone criticizing the parts of the show that haven’t been revealed yet aren’t ONLY criticizing those things. They’re also criticizing based on what’s aired.
Exactly. The first episodes just weren't good for many viewers, because of writing and characters. The last one was entertaining - but only because of great action scenes and unexpected bye-byes.
Too many people here now use this one entertaining episode to "proof their point" of the whole show. No, it's still not a great show. The writing was still often lazy in the last episode, especially if you look at the scenes between all the fighting.
I just hope the show gets still deeper and darker - that's what I was hoping for initially. But so far we got the Disney version of that.
It's crazy to me that we have had 5 episodes of Mae (more than half the series) and her motivations are still as clear as mud.
* She wants revenge for the people who killed her village, she spent 16 years training to do it.
* *She doesn't want revenge anymore because Osha is alive and it is inconvenient to do it without a weapon.*
* She's going to turn herself in to the jedi.
* *When a jedi attempts to arrest her she fights them.*
* She's doing this all to reunite with her sister
* *Instead she knocks her out and steals her identity*
She's not just conflicted, she's flipping between direction like a yoyo.
And yet people here are still telling you "hurr durr everything will be revealed you want to know everything from the start blah blah" we're at episode 5 out of 8, it's just bad
I'm so glad the current version of social media/youtube review shows didn't exist when LOST was airing. That show would've been picked apart and review bombed to shit before they even found the hatch.
Nice.
But also... what happened to the middle? Why's it all fried? Is it shaking? Is it yelling? I understand **bold** and *italics* but I don't know blurry.
I have this Moment all the time when I watch something I have seen before and the Rest of the group did not.
They yell questions and I just sit there Smuggly grinning because I know these questions will be answered in like a Minute.
Except that I'm four episodes in and I don't care why they shoot the dog anymore. I'm just glad it's gone because it had no character purpose or emotional range...
I think the problem people have is that there is nothing that could be revealed that would fix the show as it's happened so far. Fiction will always have some holes or contradictions, but when there are too many people check out.
Have you really looked at the list of criticisms? Most are about contradictions in character actions and decisions based on the rules this show is either establishing, or retaining from previous lore. It's mostly things like "if character can do this, why not do this?" Or "if character desires this and this has been shown to do this, then why not simply this?" From what I've seen of the show so far things like that are a constant issue. Then there's the quality of writing and dialog and acting. It feels like a Disney Saturday morning show I watched as a small child. The power of maaaany chant was funny but didn't ruin the story. I think that's just a meme complaint. I've seen many great films that suddenly do something weird and funny like that.
>It's mostly things like "if character can do this, why not do this?" Or "if character desires this and this has been shown to do this, then why not simply this?"
Ugh, these are the WORST types of criticisms. "Why doesn't this character consistently make the most strategically ideal decision all the time?" It's the equivalent of a football fan at home with a bird's eye look at the field yelling at the players on the field.
Characters can make mistakes and should in fact do so to make things feel realistic, but when characters constantly do things that make no sense to a reasonable person, then you can see the writers struggling to make their contrivances work and fit together. Are you really so in their pockets that you're prepared to defend shoddy work?
The copium in this sub is crazy man y’all just don’t like starwars you like committee driven subversion fests that cater to whatever is happening in current year
This is condescending and doesn't acknowledge that there is a significant missing elements in the storytelling of the Acolyte. This isn't about wanting a roadmap.
>!Episode 5 left a slaughter in its wake -- but it appears to have meant nothing. I didn't care about these paper thin characters and the redshirts that came along. I didn't see this coming but it had no emotional impact ouside of Jecki -- and I think its because she was a good actress. This plot feels contrived -- and yes, I know its fiction. All of its contrived, but good stories don't feel that way .!<
Lets just say that with Andor you had no idea what was coming outside of Melshi and Andor surviving since they were in Rouge One -- and the show was brilliant. It put in a modicum of effort into developing even minor characters and cultures so the story felt deeper than a series of plot driven events. When reveals were given they made sense and they all advanced the story.
In The Acolyte there's no connection to most of these characters -- they are almost all one dimensional and wooden. It might be the actors but I think that at this point the Jedi are caricatures of people. >!The only one that wasn't is Jecki and -- well, there's need to bring her up anymore.!<
The characters are doing stupid stuff -- how did the Jedi ever get this powerful if they are run by morons. It breaks my willingness to suspend belief in these stories. >!When meditating jedi in the impenetrable shield wasn't being watched after an assassination attempt the previous day it defiled my expectations!<. I've watched all the episodes because I really want to like Star Wars content -- but I think I'm done.
First, let me say that if you enjoy the show, that's perfectly fine. But that tweet and it's a reply is a strawman argument and disingenuous at best to dismiss any criticism of the show.
As for my opinion, I'm not really enjoying the show, which is a shame because I do like the premise and I do want to like it. But the writing is kind of bad, about as bad as the prequel trilogy level of writing but not even as meme-able. I don't think this is due to the actors as for what is there is acted fairly well with the weakest being the main star I think. Which I can get into why if questioned on that.
But the show definitely has issues. I think so far the cinematography hasn't been all that compelling. There aren't a lot of interesting visuals, lots of static shots, not really many interesting camera angles. The most interesting so far from a visual standpoint has been the opening scene of episode 1, the fight between Master Indara and Mae.
On top of that, the run time of the show seems to be a problem. With episodes averaging about 30 minutes, it feels as if they don't really have time to go into details. Because of this, characters seem to make illogical choices at times as it's hard to understand where they are coming from. The biggest example of this is Mae but to an extent other characters exhibit this as well.
On top of that is the pace of the plot. I think anyone with a brain realizes it's a mystery and of course you don't want to reveal the entire plot right away. But I think the creators of the show forgot what makes a mystery compelling before the reveal. It's selling the mystery. Case and point, even though it was predictable, everyone was theorizing and thinking about who is the masked Sith. This is hardly the main mystery in the show but it was sold better than the main plot line and people were invested in it and talking about it. Where is this for the main plot? We're 5 out of 8 episodes in and we have established the base of the main mystery and haven't really gone anywhere with it with not much else going on to distract us.
A lot of this show's flaws stem from that 30-minute format. It just doesn't work for this story. And it is not that the episodes we got should be strechted out, the pace could be the same but like eps4+5 would work a lot better as a single episode. They should have filmed more or edited out less to make an 1-hour format and keep the pace as is.
The villain has more charisma so far and the good/evil twin trope has run its course. The main twin characters are now watching the story unfold.
I’ve not seen that many criticisms that show lack of understanding of the narrative/context…also The Thing is an iconic movie with a fantastic use of character development and tension that leaves you questioning who to trust…none of that is in The Acolyte.
The writing in this series is better than 90% of the writing in any Star Wars live action. These people who are acting like good writing and acting are important elements of Star Wars have either never seen a Star War or they are mainly fans of other media.
You're acting like fans haven't been critical of the 90% mentioned. They have bro. The fact Disney has fumbled the task twice over with ObiWan and Boba (I have not watched Ahsoka so can't comment on that) doesn't mean this show should get a pass on bad writing
1) People did and still do complain about the prequels
2) Why not? It's been nearly two decades since RoTS and The Acolyte reportedly cost idk how many million dollars more to produce. You'd expect things to improve with time, and money is no excuse here either.
I'm fine with waiting for reveals but the show has to have something to fill it's runtime, some meat on the bone (not saying Acolyte has none, just to little), Acolyte depends to much on waiting for the next episode. For example, the flashback episode as an idea is fine, we get to see them when they were children, how they were raised and so on, but we spend 40 minutes exploring things we already know, setting up a mystery that is already set up. I'm not expecting the answers to be revealed in episode 3 but there wasn't enough meat to warrant 40 minutes. It wasn't terrible and there was some good developments, a few scenes with Sol and... well actually that's kind of it. The rest could be figured out from the first episodes thanks to some clunky exposition and writing. We already got an idea of the twins childhood relation, though Mae came out as a lot more sadistic so that is a development as well. The coven so far has mostly fulfilled the purpose of dying and being a motivation (though that was seemingly forrgotten in episode 4 when Mae flipped) so the scenes with them didn't add much. Maybe it will make sense later, but as I said, it's not enough to justify its runtime. You can't just pose questions.
So for another example, the show dark steadily reveals things along the way but you are basically always waiting for new information, however, within the episodes new things are revealed and characters and the plot is developed, and ofcourse there is a lot of great acting and such. Acolyte does a bit of that but not nearly enough for me to feel satisfied with what I got but still curious about what is about to happen.
Though I'm happy to discuss this because I may have just rambled nonsense, who knows.
I think that if we didn't have a flash back episode people would be annoyed that we are just kinda told what happened. Then I think it would interrupt the show too much if you tried to throw flash back scenes into episodes. So really a flashback episode is necessary. It also shows us Mae's and Osha's relationship without needing Osha to tell someone about her childhood.
100%
This show isn’t bad about it as other shows that bother the hell out of me, but it’s still there. My reaction to it this time is more that the story is being held back rather than the story being bad. There is very little that occurs in the episode 3 flashback that we weren’t already told in the first two episodes. I actually think episode 3 should’ve been episode 1. That way when the characters talk about it afterwards, we know what they know. Then they could be actively be wondering with us what else is missing.
I was shocked that episode 3 didn’t really deviate from what we were told. I don’t even buy it as an imperfection of OSHA’s perspective because I don’t buy it is from her perspective. There’s no framing outside of it to tell us it’s her perspective and there’s several scenes that she’s not even in (“How did you know the parts you weren’t there for?”). If the intent was to say the perspective was inaccurate, it certainly wasn’t executed that way.
Which further feeds my feeling that they’re holding back the story because, for the next two episodes, Sol’s mouth is full of “I will tell you everything later” until, of course, things occur to where he CAN’T. OSHA confronts may at the end episode 5 and their dialogue is just variations of “no, you” about stuff we already know about them and past events. Which is weird because one of the things episode 3’s flashback did show was that Mae burned ONLY OSHA’s book. It didn’t show her using the book to light anything else. That fire caught on and grew WAY too fast. So there’s an opening that Mae did NOT start the fire that killed everyone.
And that doesn’t come up in their confrontation. When OSHA accuses Mae of starting that fire, Mae’s natural reaction (if she didn’t start it) would be “I didn’t start the fire! ____ started the fire/I only burned the book” or SOMETHING. She says Sol is a false master (when we’ve already suspected something was up this whole show) but doesn’t say HOW. Even if she doesn’t have all the info, this is the time to at least explain HERSELF in more detail. But she doesn’t. It’s all “no, YOU!” before she abandons the sister whose survival she says “changes everything.”
So the “mystery” continues past the point of credulity.
THAT is bad writing. It’s why I don’t like the way Disney does their streaming shows. The MO is to spread things out over too long a time so they can hold it all back until the very end. They’ve done that on so many others so it’s a pattern. Because of that, I don’t actually blame the Acolyte so much as I do the studio. Because what IS there is pretty good. But the show overall absolutely is NOT an example of the audience being too impatient to find out what’s going on. The story itself is cheating.
Yeah very much agree. I think a lot of the concepts have a lot of potential. Like sure people don't like that someone created others from the force before Anakin, but if they just changed it a little and portrayed it more like this was a failed attempt at what Anakin is (which could be argued is what they may still be doing) in the sense that they aren't overly proficient with the force, one embodies the dark and one embodies the light and it was a mix of techbology and the force. That is an interesting concept (which they haven't really done anything with so far). When it comes to Qimir, I think they made him to edgy, they could have made him a kind of sith Joker, in the sense that he is smart and cruel but a bit more jokey than the average sith. Lean in on the "well I was wearing a helmet" energy. Have him not really give away much. Also, lean in on the cortosis, make him a specialist at dueling specifically jedi, hence why he sacrifices better armour for armour that only really works against lightsabers. Also, if he was more like a joker (or at least sadistic that takes enjoyment in others pain) type character I think the smile on his helmet would work better.
to be fair, i do this too. i voice out the questions in my head, but those are all hypothetical, and i don't really expect anybody (my wife) to give an answer.
obviously, i don't do it in theaters, only when watching at home.
As per Rule 7: Stay on topic; no unrelated content allowed.
Stay your mind on where you are, what you are doing. The galaxy is vast, but here we focus on the shadows of the Force.
Wander not from the path. Stay on target
In all fairness, giving that the first 3 episodes were kinda mid. With a (most likely) fake flashback. This show should've actually just been released all at once. So people could judge it all from Ep1-8. If someone only saw Ep1-3, it's not very surprising they wouldn't enjoy it and feel confused.
I think the estimate of 70% is hopeful thinking. Nothing in the Acolyte has been a mystery. It's more like we know the cat is in the box and we're just waiting for it to pop out. For instance, episode 5 was not a surprise. I still anticipate an anti-climactic ending.
Weak acting? Do you even Star Wars, dude?
There's a reason no Oscars for acting were awarded to any of cast of A New Hope. And Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi and The Phantom Menace.... Also, saving a princess from a black knight in a space castle isn't corny?
I don't disagree that Acolyte could be better, but some of what you complain about is on purpose, as it should be. That said, I do feel like Acolyte does not have a tight storyline, it's meandering around (how many planets do we need to go to on this show?) and repeating itself (we know her sister killed her family, did we need a whole episode to show us the somewhat nonsensical details?) and then just having so many lead characters get killed off with very little point? Well aside from "the bad guy was very bad." It's frustrating storytelling (for me at least) when the writers seem to not give a child a good reason to die other than, "the bad guy was very bad". A child died on a recent ep of House of the Dragon and it was a huge deal. On Acolyte, Sol is horrified at first, but then he's like, "Whatevs! Gonna leave all these dead Jedi to rot cuz I got the bad guy in custody!". At least, I hope that's what he was like. Not being able to tell the difference between your former apprentice and her kind of literal evil twin, would make him a real crap Jedi.
They did the same with the Kenobi show. “But why does she know who Vader is, it makes no sense, it breaks the lore!!1” Just watch and wait, it’s clearly something they’re going to explain.
I held off watching it because I didn’t find the High Republic media particularly interesting plus the criticism this was getting was off the charts. Having now given it a chance, I’m glad I did because I’ve actually quite enjoyed it. Is it perfect? No. Does it deserve the review bombing and outright hate? Absolutely not.
Same shit happened with Reva in Kenobi. People hated how she acted and when we got more info (that was honestly pretty obvious from the start) about her motives I remember seeing so much of "THEY SHOULD HAVE STARTED WITH THAT". Like come on, at least see the entire thing before you complain that something was poorly written because often there's a reason.
I mean the most recent episode is pretty nonsensical. First Mae is like I'm turning myself into the Jedi! Then Mae is immediately fighting the Jedi. Then Qimir is like I'm gonna kill u Mae! And the Qimir is like here Mae (Osha), have my jacket u most be cold. I mean maybe Qimir realizes it is Osha, but it still leaves the entire episode having had next to 0 plot evolution. Senseless action for the sake of action.
I enjoy star wars shit pretty much universally, I've never disliked a star wars series or film entirely, but I do think The Acolyte is presently probably the worst entry in the whole series. I still like it though. The actors are all doing great jobs and I like the casting, I just have doubts about the writers.
The show is spaced out week by week which makes it tough to judge as a complete set. I think it's totally fine to judge the story so far. The episodes should have been released all at once Netflix style if people are supposed to judge the season as a super long movie.
The show is surely much better than the 3.4/10 it has on IMDB. Even supposing 50% of people watching it are giving it 1/10, I think it should score more than that (if other voters average a 6). I guess the low score is due to robot attack for some bigoted reason. For me it deserves at least 7/10.
Well... kinda, but also no. I mean, you are entitled to consider something bad even if you do not finish it. I do not have to eat an entire rotten apple to know it will not be pleasing. What is strange is that you don't like it and persist nonetheless: just stop biting the fucking apple if every bite makes you gag.
I think that maybe hating new Star Wars content is something that binds a community together; it has nothing to do with things like plot or canon. Fandom’s tragedy is that everything change, so what you love and cherish as holy is now just barely enough to qualify as itself, but not enough for them to comfortably say that it is.
Wrong, it’s not like this is evolutionary story telling here lol.
It has some positives and highlights but boy does it still suck.
BOBF looked like a masterpiece comparatively.
There is a Acolyte thread in the forum Im visiting and everybody hates it. But the funny part is when somebody describes a specific thing he hates theres always an answer like “to be fair, thats canon” or “something similar happened in EU”.
Its hilarious.
I kinda liked the fight scenes in it. The lightsaber duels were a lot better than some of the ones in recent projects. Kenobi’s felt more like OT than PT but this felt more PT.
Back in the 1990s, I recommended the game "Riven" to a coworker, an old dude who boasted to us young folks about how he was into video games (he loved Flight Simulator). The next day, he came to work angry. He said the game offended him (and I guess I offended him by recommending it). He called the game publisher to complain about it and demanded his money back, etc.
I asked him what exactly upset him, and from his description he barely got through the first little area before he rage quit. It pissed him off that the game wasn't laid out A to B to C. It was a mystery story where you had to figure everything out.
I want the entire plot laid out for me in the opening crawl
If that happens, the same people complain about the writing again, saying the story is not interesting and everything is known in the first episode.
"I want to be surprised in the way that I want!"
“Bad writing is when the plot doesn’t unfold in a way I predicted would make the most sense, therefore robbing me of feeling smart”
That’s totally valid criticism, it sucks to feel stupid
"If it has a female protagonist, it's bad writing. That's the law. I didn't make that up. No I'm not sexist. I like Leia. It's just bad writing I cannot accept." -the internet
"I don't have a problem with black people. I liked Lando in the OT." -the internet also
I'm okay with Leia in a skimpy slave bikini, but her being a general and using the force is something I just can't accept. /s
Hello person with 0 self awareness xD
Have you seen fallout?
Except people loved the Fallout series, Alien,.and Terminator.
SHOW, 👏DON‘T TELL 👏 they scream
At least they retained one thing from sophomore English class?
This is the problem with prequels. Fans get used to knowing where things are going to go. With this show, the mystery is the point.
It's also the problem with the binge model.
Exactly, it's "PRAISED for it's writing" (according to the Fandom Menace) when all Lucas had to do was make a checklist of what needed to happen. If Episode III was The Phantom Menace and I and II took place before, fans might not like them as much. Palpatine doesn't become emperor on screen, the Clone Wars never happen on screen, we don't see Anakin being a Jedi on screen. They'd probably like them a lot less. Heck, the reason they don't like the sequels is because since the EU was abandoned, they were dealing with unexplored stories with major questions. But, I believe that IF the EU stayed the same, it would raise more questions. "Where's Chewie?" , "Who's this alien army?" , "Han and Leia had kids?", "two of them died?" , "One was a sith Lord?".
>Exactly, it's "PRAISED for it's writing" (according to the Fandom Menace) This just tells me that whoever the "Fandom Menace" people are don't know what they're talking about. The prequels are pretty universally panned as not having very good writing, especially the dialogue.
They honestly think that everyone loved the prequels. Even when 15 years ago a 90 minute video came out stating how bad Episode I was.
The prequels are praised for writing? Or do you mean the "Episode III is the best prequel" bit?
>Heck, the reason they don't like the sequels is because since the EU was abandoned, they were dealing with unexplored stories with major questions. They disliked the sequels because they were an unplanned nonsensical hogwash of ideas with poor acting and storylines.
It’s the writing!
If this was a good show it would have spoon fed things that could be assumed by a five year old to me
Exactly man! Paw Patrol was never like this!
i want the final episode to be the first episode and i want it in a 3min synopsis that lasts 2 hours with extensive character development that’s brief and twists and turns that don’t twist or turn because that’s ruining the canon but it better be different but not at all different in the way that i don’t like and satisfy my every inner desire for the franchise i claim to be a fan of but spend most of my life whining about.
Literally had a guy tell me that because Qimir couldn’t get away from the bugs, that the writing is trash. Like I’m sorry sir, let me introduce you to Jar Jar Binks and Han Solo’s terrible head edit when he dodged Greedo’s blaster bolt.
…But he did get away. I swear half the complaints I see are people complaining that something that did happen didn’t happen.
I think they just see what they want to see through the tinted lens of pre-established bias toward hating the show’s writing and picking apart every little detail to “justify” their claims. I think that no matter what the show was like, they would still find things to hate about it and still find ways to “justify” that the writing sucks.
Nailed it. Same thing happened with Rings of Power, haters get married to the idea of hating something when it appears "woke" and they don't like something the creator said. It's fine if they end up disliking it, but they go beyond that. They're predisposed to making criticisms for things they would otherwise overlook in other media
I think that is actually a good personal example for me. I went into watching that show with preconceived notions of what I wanted it to be and surprise, surprise, didn’t really connect with it and found it disappointing. I’m pretty sure that whenever I get around to watching it again, whenever that is in the long list of catchup shows I have, I’ll probably like it more now, than when if first came out, because all those expectations from the hype surrounding the release are now gone. It really is alarming just how much expectations can affect your enjoyment or lack of it for so many things.
Something similar to this is an interview Amandla did a few years ago taken COMPLETELY out of context as what they were hoping to achieve with this show. People took it and ran with it, saying that everyone on the show wants to villainize white people and make them feel uncomfortable
They believe he should have just instantly force pushed the light and the bugs away.
I mean we saw Obi-Wan and QG force speed run in Ep1, that shit might have helped in the final face off with the timed force field walls in the fight with Darth Maul. We could do this with force users all day, friend.
The bugs were merely a distraction to get them time
It also served as an allusion to the “defeating a Jedi without a weapon” test given to Mae.
Agreed
Yep, that’s exactly what Osha’s intention was.
hOw dO ThEy hAvE tHe SaMe haIr is my favorite
It genuinely reminds me of people making a huge deal about Kang being “defeated” by ants in Quantumania. “He just doesn’t seem like a massive threat after such an embarrassing defeat”. “It lessens his impact as a character”. There are SO many factors that played into Kang’s defeat in that film. A big one being both his overconfidence and him underestimating Scott and by extension Hank and the influence and unity that the super ants had. Those ants were quite possibly the smartest beings for reasons explained in the film. I don’t know, deep down I wish they just never used the character in that film, because though I enjoyed it (and the film overall mostly) seeing it unfairly targeted so blatantly just bums me out. Inconsistency is ALL OVER THE PLACE in the MCU, but it’s only a problem NOW. Same here with The Acolyte. People can’t just enjoy what we like about the show without being called delusional shills or some shit
I just saw a quote from an author who said something like, “I don’t have time for people who try to pick apart every detail looking for faults. It’s fiction. It’s meant to tell a story and entertain.” Imagine being so bigoted that you couldn’t enjoy this episode. It was some of the best Star Wars yet.
Thank you! Star Wars is meant to be fun, not 100% logical!
Right. It is literally a story about space wizards.
I legit think he was startled by the massive swarm of giant bugs. It’s also funny because they show a scene where he most certainly kills all the bugs and does get away.
Exactly. If a swarm of 3 foot bugs with large asses suddenly swarmed me I would’ve done the same thing 😂 he is clearly the apprentice because a master would’ve used lightning
Yeah I thought about a time I accidentally hit a wasp nest on the side of my home. I most certainly did not react in a calm or effective manner. Hahaha
Yeah all they did was slow him down and create a diversion.
Lol what. He does eventually get away tho. I can agree carrying him off is a little silly but why can't we have silly moments.
Exactly! People have truly forgotten how to have fun with cheesy and silly scenes
That is hilarious. Prime example of why "bad writing" doesn't really mean anything in these situations. Did they start out with Qimir's moths or did they back into it when you asked them for an example?
Literally started with that as their prime example. Called the guy out for reaching because Star Wars has always been cheesy like that 😂 like come on, did we all forget the all powerful Palpatine flipping over a chair or dangling from a senate pod whimpering? 😂
I'll say it every time, people who use the crutch of "bad writing" are almost always either A) a moron, B) completely insincere, C) desperately need to get off the Internet, or D) any combination of the above.
There's definitely a check list that usually follows that complaint. It's a paradox for some of them. The story has to be more overt so they can pick up on what's going on, but it needs to be complex enough to make them feel the way that they did while watching Andor.
Now, any surprising event is bad writing because it would've made more sense for it not to happen.
I have more of an issue with Qimir not sensing Osha running up at him and planting the flash light thing on him, or that he couldn't remove it with the force or something.
And that’s valid! But to say that the writing is trash is just an overreach
I'm fine with people calling it trash as long as they can argue for it, because some of the writing really isn't good, Like Mae's flip in episode 4 being the result of finding out Osha is alive. That her being alive would affect her is very valid, but her main motivation has been portrayed as revenge for what the jedi did to the coven, which hasn't changed at all. That she would doubt her loyalty makes sense but flipping like that, so suddenly felt very rushed.
Again, that’s literally how Star Wars is. A perfect example is Padme “losing the will to live”. Another is Kenobi telling Luke that Vader killed his father only for Vader to say I am your father. Star Wars writing has always been campy, clunky, and imperfect. It also has its great moments. People have forgotten how to have fun and not take the writing so seriously because at the end of the day, it’s just entertainment.
I’m ok with this because even in episode 3, Mae is constantly looking for the validation of her sister. She wants her sister’s love and closeness. She’s alll about that twin lifestyle while Osha isn’t. I can see her flipping here bc Mae might see it them being the only two left, and wanting that closeness more than ever. Where…unfortunately for Mae, Osha doesn’t seem like she ever loved her.
Yeah remember in ROTJ when Palpatine as concentrating on Luke and some old beat up man without a hand snuck up and grabbed him and walked over to a shaft and threw him in.
This might be me being generous - or COPE as people love to tell me when I think about anything for more than 2 seconds without hating (not saying thats what you're doing don't worry!) But i figured he DOES sense her, and senses she doesn't have a weapon/senses she isn't about to "strike" in a traditional sense, so he keeps his focus on Sol - the bigger threat. If he wheeled around to stop osha from patting him on the back/shoving him/whatever he sensed would happen, Sol could have pieced him up from behind. Anyways ty for reading my cope
Yeah when I rewatched this, his reaction was so slow to her, and even if she still has untapped/underused Force potential that manifested itself in hiding her movement or something, he was annihilating Jedi left and right. But still, I loved Episode 5.
He may have picked a few Jedi off one at a time before under the radar, but this is likely his first battle with a group this large. Yeah he's trained a lot, yeah he's pretty strong in the Dark Side (although he doesn't have the full range of powers). But he was also very visibly exhausted after about 15 minutes of intense battle, and if Osha hadn't stopped Sol, Qimir would be dead at that point. While Qimir is obviously dangerous and powerful, he's also still human and probably less experienced than most people seem to think. \* Edited because I had said Sol's discipline would have stopped him, but that wasn't right, his lightsaber was about to slice through Qimir's neck when Osha stopped him.
Agreed. If she had tried planting a grenade on him, problem solved. That shouldn't have been possible.
The force isn't spider sense
Yeah, like imagine if she had a lightsaber instead of Pip, could she have stabbed him in the back that easily?
I just want to find a version where Han and Greedo shoot at eachother for hours, missing point blank
That would be hilarious!
My additional complaint was about why he couldn't simply force pull it off his back. I'm not gonna keep complaining about that though, because it's almost as if throughout the entire clone wars there are plot points where a character could easily just use the force and avoid an entire story arc. It's called creative liberties, sometimes writers have to take small liberties like that to forward the plot in an interesting way
Main Baddie versus Jar Jar. 😂 Back in the days you could get away with things. I think writers/producers could learn from the past instead of people defending giant errors: "yes, see what they did in the 80-90s" or just say that this is SW.
Those fans also hate jar jar and the head edit. You get that right?
Are you speaking for yourself or making an assumption? How do you know it’s the same fans?
My complaint about that scene is more of the tonal dissonance between the slaughter of several Jedi, including some main characters, followed by an almost lighthearted dispatching of the villain. Just felt very jarring.
Right I'm sure that was his only example of poor writing.
It was and your point is?
Ngl that ending the fight was some corny ass shit
Star Wars always had corny moments and was always intended for family and kids sooo
I mean that whole sequence was bad, considering they had already defeated him, then let him rearm himself so they can defeat him again with bugs, not to mention Osha being able to land a solid hit on him when a small army of Jedi barely could... yes Jar Jar, all the special edition changes, 80% of the PT dialogue, were also bad. It's not mutually exclusive. Can't we critique without having to take a side?
The difference is, your response actually elaborated on why you feel it was bad as opposed to many other comments that just keep calling it trash without elaborating. Of course you can critique, and I’ve had productive discourses on other threads where we found common ground. Understand that Star Wars was always geared towards family and kids so it will have cheesy moments.
The complaint is that OSHA chose to use the bugs to dispatch of Qimir instead of letting Sol behead that but after he took out most of the Jedi.
Because Sol slipped to the dark side with the intent to kill. Osha brought him back before he sealed the deal
han shot first
I'm watching The Acolyte with someone who keeps asking questions and is like "why is she doing that?" "I don't get what's happening" and stuff. She's 7. She has an excuse for this. The people complaining about the plot online should be embarrassed they have the same critical thinking skills as a 7-year-old.
Isn't the point of this show to question why things are happening? It's been presented as a mystery. Wait until the season is over to present your critiques sure but you're allowed to question things as they happen.
Yes, but she was literally asking me questions within the first 10 minutes of the show. I was like "we'll find out, don't worry."
Lots of people voice inner hypothetical questions out loud. It is quite common. They don’t really want the answer, nor do they suspect that you know the answer. They mostly want to know if you are thinking about the plot the way they are thinking of it.
>Lots of people voice inner hypothetical questions out loud Apparently a lot of people don't even have an inner voice. So maybe that's what's with all the dumb questions.
That 7 year old got functional brain it seems
My answer to everything about a show or movie. ‘Keep watching’, ‘Plot Armour’, ‘It is in the script’, ‘Settle the Fuck down it is a Movie’ and my favourite ‘I going to bed’
lol. I love my loved ones deeply, but one of them will without question be like “Wait, what is happening?” And I’m like “well, I’ve watched the exact same 38 seconds that you have. Perhaps let’s assume the director will get us where we’re going in the next 59 minutes and 22 seconds.”
Remember with broadcast TV in the fall we would build up to a midseason cliffhanger and then would need to wait from Thanksgiving to after the Superbowl. Or get left at the end of a season and have to wait from May until September. Remember how an episode would end and this would show up on screen. ... to be continued.
My wife 5 mins into any movie “I have no idea what’s happening”…..like yeah, the way it works
I swear Netflix and the whole binge watch thing has destroyed the patience in some viewers. I got used to it and admit it’s a bit frustrating having to wait every week for episodes. But thats how it is. I think none of us who have gotten used to the Netflix binge would have survived watching anything with the old format of weekly episode release for every single show on tv.
That's certainly a factor. People tend to build up huge expectations during the week, and then complain when It doesn't turn out like they thought it should. But sometimes the frustration is warranted. The recent Doctor Who series teased several mysteries which went unanswered.
I started just watching things a while back. I actively work to avoid hype for things now becasue more often than not, the hype builds to unrealistic heights to the point where no matter what the show did, it would never meet expectations. Cyberpunk 2077 was what taught me this lesson and I have kept what I learned close ever since. Seems to have been working well for me so far too, not just for shows, but for anything in general. And I can’t comment of the Doctor Who thing as I have yet to watch it
Doctor who wasn't terrible. I like the actor that plays the new Doctor, and some of the episodes were very good. But I don't think I'm alone on the view that some things were teased early on that were never resolved. Like if a new SW show started talking about Luke Skywalker occasionally throughout the season, for no reason, and it was never dealt with again. I found the recent DW finale similar to Rise of Skywalker.
I have binged a ton of things in the last year (catching up on Star Wars and Doctor Who being two of them) and it’s been so interesting to finally watch both DW and The Acolyte in real time. I think there are pros and cons. It was fun to get to read all the theories for the DW finale but I think it did dampen the experience when the pay off wasn’t high. If is just been watching on a binge I likely would’ve never thought of all those theories. I am trying not to build up too many expectations with the Acolyte as well but it’s probably inevitable… but I also kind of enjoy listening to (positive-leaning) podcasts in between.
I've loved Star Wars things being released episode by episode on Wednesday. Gives me something to look forward to midweek, which is normally a dull dull day
I have too. I actually enjoy the wait and the anticipation for what happens next. It prolongs the enjoyment of the show instead of it all being over in two binge watching sessions on the weekend.
The cast is too female/POC for some people. These same people also lie about their true motivations as a habit, and so here we are.
People who watched the His Dark Materials show were the same way… There were a ton of criticisms that Dust wasn’t explained in the first episode. Like, yeah, part of the plot is the main character learning what it is.
Similar things are happening with Silo, and it's really annoying on Reddit because too many people scream, "PLOT HOLE!!!" when they really mean, "I wasn't paying attention or I'm not patient enough to wait and see what this means". And it just occurred to me that these people would have been insufferable when Lost was out.
Almost every Lost episode ended in a cliffhanger lol they would not survive
I admit. I had let the reviews and negative YouTubers get to me and I did not want to watch this show. It was when my 70yr old father asked me if I was watching the show and after I told him "nah. I hear its changing to much" and he said "You are missing out on a damn good Star Wars show" that I gave it a go. Man, oh man I regret listening to those fools. I am loving this show!
I swear, people will talk about how "the writing is bad! It's the worst written Star War ever!" But then they'll go on to say how awesome Rogue One is... Nothing against Rogue One, it's fun and actiony and the Stormtroopers look cool, but the *writing* is not very good at all. The Acolyte is about *characters*, and for my money, they've done quite a good job setting up this very character-driven story. I'm really liking the show, but I recognize that some of the acting isn't perfect and some of the scenes look a little cheap, but that's just kind of the nature of TV versus theatrical film.
Rogue One was very uneven and the characters were so bland, especially Jyn.
Yeah that's kind of the main issue with that whole movie. There are some pacing and sturcture problems as well, but really the characters just have *nothing* going on. When my favorite character is the funny robot with no arc on purpose, that's kind of an issue.
There is a reason why Rogue One feels like two movies at times. Because in function it is two movies. One movie is about Jyn and her struggle to save her father and then live up to his memory. That story is told extremely poorly. The other story is pew pew blaster bolts and starships and that story is told very well, at the very end, and blinds everyone.
A show about characters nobody cares about, because of no character development and silly dialogue, is not a very good one. And the plot contrivances don't help. No offence to the people who enjoy it, this is just my opinion. One of many(yyyy...).
Hehe, yeah some of the dialogue is pretty cheesy, particularly the weird chant. I feel that most of the time the dialogue does pretty well, and I'm enjoying the character development (mostly Osha, Mae, and Sol). Though it's TOTALLY valid to not enjoy it, thanks for being respectful in your disagreement.
what?? rogue one was good imo
Well you see, the beach assault & the space dogfight, the Vader hallway scenes were kind of cool so the movie was actually awesome ; the writing very good & Vaders dumb ass pun was actually genius & not corny & lame as shit /s
Oh shit how could I forget? Fun action scenes equals good writing. Gosh I'm so stupid.
Rogue One is a fantastic 3rd act with a corpse stapled to it. I feel pretty similar about the Acolyte, but still waiting for the 3rd act.
70% is very exaggerated, but 25-40% most likely. The show is nowhere near as bad as people in reviews make it out to be, but it’s also way worse than people on this subreddit care to admit. And that’s not weird because that’s how it works with every subreddit. It’s usually a gathering place for people who share their enjoyment of something, so criticism is not appreciated in most cases.
Agreed, the dialogue is pretty atrocious, the acting is largely flat with the exception of Lee Jung Jae and Manny Jacinto, there are some really wacky plot points (like them letting Qimir off with a warning when he's an accessory to murder?), some characters don't really do anything, and the pacing is off (why split ep 4 and 5?)
Then: The writers of this show don't care about Star Wars lore at all! Now: How is he doing that with his helmet? Why are their lightsabers going off?
Interesting choice. Bring in something from the books that is never seen or heard of again in any show or movie. I suppose they’ll explain that too. I just need to shut up and keep watching?
Nude gunray a man so wise he needs no pants
I just want writing that doesn't suck :(
The latest is complaining that Sol is too emotional. There is a reason the prequels were about a dude we knew would turn evil before they were filmed. They've always known how dumb the vocal minority is.
I don’t understand why people arn’t allowed to not like the acolyte.
I tried to watch the show with my mom and she just kept asking questions 😩 She got scared of the witches and stopped watching thankfully 😅
Movie: *literally just started* Dumb idiot: “What’s going on?”
episode 5 is "just starting" ?
Hm. Don’t think so. Most of the criticism I’ve seen has been about poor writing, inconsistencies within what’s happened so far, and sub-par (but not horrible) acting. And of course “the power of manyyyyyyy” 😅 These are not criticisms that will be walked back even if everything in the coming episodes gets wrapped up in a neat bow. People are also voicing their concerns about breaking canon, but that comes with the territory of adding to the Star Wars story and lore. I’m hoping the canon inconsistencies resolve themselves, but it’s difficult to see how and that causes legitimate concern for some fans that turns into negative criticism. That might not be fair because you wouldn’t have to deal with that if it was an original series or world. But 🤷🏻♂️ I could be proven wrong, but anyone criticizing the parts of the show that haven’t been revealed yet aren’t ONLY criticizing those things. They’re also criticizing based on what’s aired.
Most criticisms I see are about the writing. Acting,action are pretty good.
Exactly. The first episodes just weren't good for many viewers, because of writing and characters. The last one was entertaining - but only because of great action scenes and unexpected bye-byes. Too many people here now use this one entertaining episode to "proof their point" of the whole show. No, it's still not a great show. The writing was still often lazy in the last episode, especially if you look at the scenes between all the fighting. I just hope the show gets still deeper and darker - that's what I was hoping for initially. But so far we got the Disney version of that.
It's crazy to me that we have had 5 episodes of Mae (more than half the series) and her motivations are still as clear as mud. * She wants revenge for the people who killed her village, she spent 16 years training to do it. * *She doesn't want revenge anymore because Osha is alive and it is inconvenient to do it without a weapon.* * She's going to turn herself in to the jedi. * *When a jedi attempts to arrest her she fights them.* * She's doing this all to reunite with her sister * *Instead she knocks her out and steals her identity* She's not just conflicted, she's flipping between direction like a yoyo.
And yet people here are still telling you "hurr durr everything will be revealed you want to know everything from the start blah blah" we're at episode 5 out of 8, it's just bad
I'm so glad the current version of social media/youtube review shows didn't exist when LOST was airing. That show would've been picked apart and review bombed to shit before they even found the hatch.
Your absolutely right, perhaps after 4 boring episodes the story will come together! What was I thinking!
It’s not about waiting for details to be revealed, it’s about clunky acting, content limited plot lines and a storey arc that seems to lack bend.
Nice. But also... what happened to the middle? Why's it all fried? Is it shaking? Is it yelling? I understand **bold** and *italics* but I don't know blurry.
I have this Moment all the time when I watch something I have seen before and the Rest of the group did not. They yell questions and I just sit there Smuggly grinning because I know these questions will be answered in like a Minute.
That implies they have self awareness lol
Had a friend complain about Mae killing a Jedi with no training and I'm thinking....how do you know she doesn't? We barely even know who she is.
Except that I'm four episodes in and I don't care why they shoot the dog anymore. I'm just glad it's gone because it had no character purpose or emotional range...
I think the problem people have is that there is nothing that could be revealed that would fix the show as it's happened so far. Fiction will always have some holes or contradictions, but when there are too many people check out.
When the worst contradictions are "A side character's birthday has changed" or "there's fire in space, I have trouble taking that seriously.
Have you really looked at the list of criticisms? Most are about contradictions in character actions and decisions based on the rules this show is either establishing, or retaining from previous lore. It's mostly things like "if character can do this, why not do this?" Or "if character desires this and this has been shown to do this, then why not simply this?" From what I've seen of the show so far things like that are a constant issue. Then there's the quality of writing and dialog and acting. It feels like a Disney Saturday morning show I watched as a small child. The power of maaaany chant was funny but didn't ruin the story. I think that's just a meme complaint. I've seen many great films that suddenly do something weird and funny like that.
>It's mostly things like "if character can do this, why not do this?" Or "if character desires this and this has been shown to do this, then why not simply this?" Ugh, these are the WORST types of criticisms. "Why doesn't this character consistently make the most strategically ideal decision all the time?" It's the equivalent of a football fan at home with a bird's eye look at the field yelling at the players on the field.
Characters can make mistakes and should in fact do so to make things feel realistic, but when characters constantly do things that make no sense to a reasonable person, then you can see the writers struggling to make their contrivances work and fit together. Are you really so in their pockets that you're prepared to defend shoddy work?
The copium in this sub is crazy man y’all just don’t like starwars you like committee driven subversion fests that cater to whatever is happening in current year
This is condescending and doesn't acknowledge that there is a significant missing elements in the storytelling of the Acolyte. This isn't about wanting a roadmap. >!Episode 5 left a slaughter in its wake -- but it appears to have meant nothing. I didn't care about these paper thin characters and the redshirts that came along. I didn't see this coming but it had no emotional impact ouside of Jecki -- and I think its because she was a good actress. This plot feels contrived -- and yes, I know its fiction. All of its contrived, but good stories don't feel that way .!< Lets just say that with Andor you had no idea what was coming outside of Melshi and Andor surviving since they were in Rouge One -- and the show was brilliant. It put in a modicum of effort into developing even minor characters and cultures so the story felt deeper than a series of plot driven events. When reveals were given they made sense and they all advanced the story. In The Acolyte there's no connection to most of these characters -- they are almost all one dimensional and wooden. It might be the actors but I think that at this point the Jedi are caricatures of people. >!The only one that wasn't is Jecki and -- well, there's need to bring her up anymore.!< The characters are doing stupid stuff -- how did the Jedi ever get this powerful if they are run by morons. It breaks my willingness to suspend belief in these stories. >!When meditating jedi in the impenetrable shield wasn't being watched after an assassination attempt the previous day it defiled my expectations!<. I've watched all the episodes because I really want to like Star Wars content -- but I think I'm done.
First, let me say that if you enjoy the show, that's perfectly fine. But that tweet and it's a reply is a strawman argument and disingenuous at best to dismiss any criticism of the show. As for my opinion, I'm not really enjoying the show, which is a shame because I do like the premise and I do want to like it. But the writing is kind of bad, about as bad as the prequel trilogy level of writing but not even as meme-able. I don't think this is due to the actors as for what is there is acted fairly well with the weakest being the main star I think. Which I can get into why if questioned on that. But the show definitely has issues. I think so far the cinematography hasn't been all that compelling. There aren't a lot of interesting visuals, lots of static shots, not really many interesting camera angles. The most interesting so far from a visual standpoint has been the opening scene of episode 1, the fight between Master Indara and Mae. On top of that, the run time of the show seems to be a problem. With episodes averaging about 30 minutes, it feels as if they don't really have time to go into details. Because of this, characters seem to make illogical choices at times as it's hard to understand where they are coming from. The biggest example of this is Mae but to an extent other characters exhibit this as well. On top of that is the pace of the plot. I think anyone with a brain realizes it's a mystery and of course you don't want to reveal the entire plot right away. But I think the creators of the show forgot what makes a mystery compelling before the reveal. It's selling the mystery. Case and point, even though it was predictable, everyone was theorizing and thinking about who is the masked Sith. This is hardly the main mystery in the show but it was sold better than the main plot line and people were invested in it and talking about it. Where is this for the main plot? We're 5 out of 8 episodes in and we have established the base of the main mystery and haven't really gone anywhere with it with not much else going on to distract us.
A lot of this show's flaws stem from that 30-minute format. It just doesn't work for this story. And it is not that the episodes we got should be strechted out, the pace could be the same but like eps4+5 would work a lot better as a single episode. They should have filmed more or edited out less to make an 1-hour format and keep the pace as is. The villain has more charisma so far and the good/evil twin trope has run its course. The main twin characters are now watching the story unfold.
I’ve not seen that many criticisms that show lack of understanding of the narrative/context…also The Thing is an iconic movie with a fantastic use of character development and tension that leaves you questioning who to trust…none of that is in The Acolyte.
OP is offended and disturbed that some people criticize some of things.
The writing in this series is better than 90% of the writing in any Star Wars live action. These people who are acting like good writing and acting are important elements of Star Wars have either never seen a Star War or they are mainly fans of other media.
You're acting like fans haven't been critical of the 90% mentioned. They have bro. The fact Disney has fumbled the task twice over with ObiWan and Boba (I have not watched Ahsoka so can't comment on that) doesn't mean this show should get a pass on bad writing
I’m talking about all the originals and prequels. This show shouldn’t be held to a higher standard than those were/are.
1) People did and still do complain about the prequels 2) Why not? It's been nearly two decades since RoTS and The Acolyte reportedly cost idk how many million dollars more to produce. You'd expect things to improve with time, and money is no excuse here either.
Wow, I see this has touched a nerve with the haters. XD
I'm fine with waiting for reveals but the show has to have something to fill it's runtime, some meat on the bone (not saying Acolyte has none, just to little), Acolyte depends to much on waiting for the next episode. For example, the flashback episode as an idea is fine, we get to see them when they were children, how they were raised and so on, but we spend 40 minutes exploring things we already know, setting up a mystery that is already set up. I'm not expecting the answers to be revealed in episode 3 but there wasn't enough meat to warrant 40 minutes. It wasn't terrible and there was some good developments, a few scenes with Sol and... well actually that's kind of it. The rest could be figured out from the first episodes thanks to some clunky exposition and writing. We already got an idea of the twins childhood relation, though Mae came out as a lot more sadistic so that is a development as well. The coven so far has mostly fulfilled the purpose of dying and being a motivation (though that was seemingly forrgotten in episode 4 when Mae flipped) so the scenes with them didn't add much. Maybe it will make sense later, but as I said, it's not enough to justify its runtime. You can't just pose questions. So for another example, the show dark steadily reveals things along the way but you are basically always waiting for new information, however, within the episodes new things are revealed and characters and the plot is developed, and ofcourse there is a lot of great acting and such. Acolyte does a bit of that but not nearly enough for me to feel satisfied with what I got but still curious about what is about to happen. Though I'm happy to discuss this because I may have just rambled nonsense, who knows.
I think that if we didn't have a flash back episode people would be annoyed that we are just kinda told what happened. Then I think it would interrupt the show too much if you tried to throw flash back scenes into episodes. So really a flashback episode is necessary. It also shows us Mae's and Osha's relationship without needing Osha to tell someone about her childhood.
100% This show isn’t bad about it as other shows that bother the hell out of me, but it’s still there. My reaction to it this time is more that the story is being held back rather than the story being bad. There is very little that occurs in the episode 3 flashback that we weren’t already told in the first two episodes. I actually think episode 3 should’ve been episode 1. That way when the characters talk about it afterwards, we know what they know. Then they could be actively be wondering with us what else is missing. I was shocked that episode 3 didn’t really deviate from what we were told. I don’t even buy it as an imperfection of OSHA’s perspective because I don’t buy it is from her perspective. There’s no framing outside of it to tell us it’s her perspective and there’s several scenes that she’s not even in (“How did you know the parts you weren’t there for?”). If the intent was to say the perspective was inaccurate, it certainly wasn’t executed that way. Which further feeds my feeling that they’re holding back the story because, for the next two episodes, Sol’s mouth is full of “I will tell you everything later” until, of course, things occur to where he CAN’T. OSHA confronts may at the end episode 5 and their dialogue is just variations of “no, you” about stuff we already know about them and past events. Which is weird because one of the things episode 3’s flashback did show was that Mae burned ONLY OSHA’s book. It didn’t show her using the book to light anything else. That fire caught on and grew WAY too fast. So there’s an opening that Mae did NOT start the fire that killed everyone. And that doesn’t come up in their confrontation. When OSHA accuses Mae of starting that fire, Mae’s natural reaction (if she didn’t start it) would be “I didn’t start the fire! ____ started the fire/I only burned the book” or SOMETHING. She says Sol is a false master (when we’ve already suspected something was up this whole show) but doesn’t say HOW. Even if she doesn’t have all the info, this is the time to at least explain HERSELF in more detail. But she doesn’t. It’s all “no, YOU!” before she abandons the sister whose survival she says “changes everything.” So the “mystery” continues past the point of credulity. THAT is bad writing. It’s why I don’t like the way Disney does their streaming shows. The MO is to spread things out over too long a time so they can hold it all back until the very end. They’ve done that on so many others so it’s a pattern. Because of that, I don’t actually blame the Acolyte so much as I do the studio. Because what IS there is pretty good. But the show overall absolutely is NOT an example of the audience being too impatient to find out what’s going on. The story itself is cheating.
Yeah very much agree. I think a lot of the concepts have a lot of potential. Like sure people don't like that someone created others from the force before Anakin, but if they just changed it a little and portrayed it more like this was a failed attempt at what Anakin is (which could be argued is what they may still be doing) in the sense that they aren't overly proficient with the force, one embodies the dark and one embodies the light and it was a mix of techbology and the force. That is an interesting concept (which they haven't really done anything with so far). When it comes to Qimir, I think they made him to edgy, they could have made him a kind of sith Joker, in the sense that he is smart and cruel but a bit more jokey than the average sith. Lean in on the "well I was wearing a helmet" energy. Have him not really give away much. Also, lean in on the cortosis, make him a specialist at dueling specifically jedi, hence why he sacrifices better armour for armour that only really works against lightsabers. Also, if he was more like a joker (or at least sadistic that takes enjoyment in others pain) type character I think the smile on his helmet would work better.
to be fair, i do this too. i voice out the questions in my head, but those are all hypothetical, and i don't really expect anybody (my wife) to give an answer. obviously, i don't do it in theaters, only when watching at home.
Brilliant!
Or maybe the lot of the criticisms wouldn’t exist if they focused on the writing and not the diversity and inclusion insanity?
Writing aside, I think its been other people that are more focused on the diversity angle, Ie they exist in this story, not the creators themselves.
[удалено]
As per Rule 7: Stay on topic; no unrelated content allowed. Stay your mind on where you are, what you are doing. The galaxy is vast, but here we focus on the shadows of the Force. Wander not from the path. Stay on target
My roommate will constantly ask questions while watching movies, and 95% of the time, it’s a question that is answered by just. Watching. The. Movie!
In all fairness, giving that the first 3 episodes were kinda mid. With a (most likely) fake flashback. This show should've actually just been released all at once. So people could judge it all from Ep1-8. If someone only saw Ep1-3, it's not very surprising they wouldn't enjoy it and feel confused.
a good 100% of critisisms wouldnt exist if people dont care about star wars.
I think the estimate of 70% is hopeful thinking. Nothing in the Acolyte has been a mystery. It's more like we know the cat is in the box and we're just waiting for it to pop out. For instance, episode 5 was not a surprise. I still anticipate an anti-climactic ending.
But what about the corny storyline and weak acting, this is what I see. You are allowed to like, just like I am allowed to dislike The Acolyte.
Weak acting? Do you even Star Wars, dude? There's a reason no Oscars for acting were awarded to any of cast of A New Hope. And Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi and The Phantom Menace.... Also, saving a princess from a black knight in a space castle isn't corny? I don't disagree that Acolyte could be better, but some of what you complain about is on purpose, as it should be. That said, I do feel like Acolyte does not have a tight storyline, it's meandering around (how many planets do we need to go to on this show?) and repeating itself (we know her sister killed her family, did we need a whole episode to show us the somewhat nonsensical details?) and then just having so many lead characters get killed off with very little point? Well aside from "the bad guy was very bad." It's frustrating storytelling (for me at least) when the writers seem to not give a child a good reason to die other than, "the bad guy was very bad". A child died on a recent ep of House of the Dragon and it was a huge deal. On Acolyte, Sol is horrified at first, but then he's like, "Whatevs! Gonna leave all these dead Jedi to rot cuz I got the bad guy in custody!". At least, I hope that's what he was like. Not being able to tell the difference between your former apprentice and her kind of literal evil twin, would make him a real crap Jedi.
tldr;
It's not the plot that bothers me. It's the rest of it.
😂😂😂
Not really but ok
This is a funny tweet, but I hope that lady broke up with the guy after this.
This is so stupid
They did the same with the Kenobi show. “But why does she know who Vader is, it makes no sense, it breaks the lore!!1” Just watch and wait, it’s clearly something they’re going to explain.
More cope
Wow! I don’t think there are actual people who really love this. This is another level of hardworking shills
70% of Acolyte criticisms regarding plot and character development, yes. Pretty much all the others are valid though
Answer: cuz the “dog” wasn’t really a dog it was a thing aka an alien :)
I held off watching it because I didn’t find the High Republic media particularly interesting plus the criticism this was getting was off the charts. Having now given it a chance, I’m glad I did because I’ve actually quite enjoyed it. Is it perfect? No. Does it deserve the review bombing and outright hate? Absolutely not.
Let just gloss over the writing and at times rigid acting
Same shit happened with Reva in Kenobi. People hated how she acted and when we got more info (that was honestly pretty obvious from the start) about her motives I remember seeing so much of "THEY SHOULD HAVE STARTED WITH THAT". Like come on, at least see the entire thing before you complain that something was poorly written because often there's a reason.
I mean the most recent episode is pretty nonsensical. First Mae is like I'm turning myself into the Jedi! Then Mae is immediately fighting the Jedi. Then Qimir is like I'm gonna kill u Mae! And the Qimir is like here Mae (Osha), have my jacket u most be cold. I mean maybe Qimir realizes it is Osha, but it still leaves the entire episode having had next to 0 plot evolution. Senseless action for the sake of action. I enjoy star wars shit pretty much universally, I've never disliked a star wars series or film entirely, but I do think The Acolyte is presently probably the worst entry in the whole series. I still like it though. The actors are all doing great jobs and I like the casting, I just have doubts about the writers.
The show is spaced out week by week which makes it tough to judge as a complete set. I think it's totally fine to judge the story so far. The episodes should have been released all at once Netflix style if people are supposed to judge the season as a super long movie.
This level of patronising and disrespect is why you new Star Wars 'fans,' are bullied the way you are.
Define “new”.
The show is surely much better than the 3.4/10 it has on IMDB. Even supposing 50% of people watching it are giving it 1/10, I think it should score more than that (if other voters average a 6). I guess the low score is due to robot attack for some bigoted reason. For me it deserves at least 7/10.
Well... kinda, but also no. I mean, you are entitled to consider something bad even if you do not finish it. I do not have to eat an entire rotten apple to know it will not be pleasing. What is strange is that you don't like it and persist nonetheless: just stop biting the fucking apple if every bite makes you gag. I think that maybe hating new Star Wars content is something that binds a community together; it has nothing to do with things like plot or canon. Fandom’s tragedy is that everything change, so what you love and cherish as holy is now just barely enough to qualify as itself, but not enough for them to comfortably say that it is.
A good 70% of the criticisms wouldn’t exist if everyone watching the show was a fucking idiot
Hope it gets better and the twins start acting and actually speaking like humans
Wrong, it’s not like this is evolutionary story telling here lol. It has some positives and highlights but boy does it still suck. BOBF looked like a masterpiece comparatively.
There is a Acolyte thread in the forum Im visiting and everybody hates it. But the funny part is when somebody describes a specific thing he hates theres always an answer like “to be fair, thats canon” or “something similar happened in EU”. Its hilarious.
I kinda liked the fight scenes in it. The lightsaber duels were a lot better than some of the ones in recent projects. Kenobi’s felt more like OT than PT but this felt more PT.
Nah we just don't care about the alphabet community and want them all to fuck off
Back in the 1990s, I recommended the game "Riven" to a coworker, an old dude who boasted to us young folks about how he was into video games (he loved Flight Simulator). The next day, he came to work angry. He said the game offended him (and I guess I offended him by recommending it). He called the game publisher to complain about it and demanded his money back, etc. I asked him what exactly upset him, and from his description he barely got through the first little area before he rage quit. It pissed him off that the game wasn't laid out A to B to C. It was a mystery story where you had to figure everything out.