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A Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy: The Star Wars Thread
I dunno how business-wise it is to make a show that - from what I can tell - is Rebels Pt2 live action when the broader, casual audience is likely actively turned off by cartoons. But if Paramount/CBS decided to make a live action sequel to say, Star Trek: Prodigy I would be hooting and hollering. So good on Disney for not being completely allergic to risk here and I’m genuinely happy for Rebels fans.
You definitely get a lot more out of this if you've seen both Clone Wars and Rebels. While it's great to see a follow-up to Rebels' ending, and I enjoy the live-action casting of those characters, I can't help but feel like the overall 'tone' is off.
Episode 3 was pretty good, with no qualifiers or caveats. Good job, Ahsoka.
Also, I guess this show is going to go live on Tuesdays at 9pm est/6pm pst. I greatly appreciate that.
Also, I guess this show is going to go live on Tuesdays at 9pm est/6pm pst. I greatly appreciate that.
I guess it was foolish of me to assume that Ahsoka would have an actual conclusion
Hey so Acolyte started. It’s pretty alright! Two episodes in, it’s hard to see where this is going, which I suppose is a good thing. But it’s a mystery show so we’ll see if this mystery pays off. Darth Plaegus or we riot
The writing in the first episode felt pretty low effort to me, like every Star Wars show besides Andor. Example: How do the criminals escape the prison ship? Uh, the ship is entirely manned by droids and one of the prisoners can just shut them down with his cyber brain. Cool.
Gonna be honest - that just feels like Star Wars in general. I don't really come to this franchise to expand my mental horizons or to be a critical thinker.
TBF seems like nobody actually knew this was the case except for the Korean guy, and also the few people who did know thought they were dead so that wasn't really a plot hole.
I agree that was fine except for the one beat where the Korean guy was like "she's dead... I saw it happen." If there's one type of character who should know seeing something doesn't make it true, it's a Jedi.
One thing I found odd by the end of the second episode was how the show kept setting up Osha being framed for what Mae was doing but then gave her easy outs. Oh, her old master believes her that her sister did it. Oh, the other Jedi just happened to follow her and see the guy was already poisoned. It's not even that it's lazy it's just an odd choice to do that a second time.
I watched Obi-Wan Kenobi and was unimpressed, except for Ewan McGregor - he's great. But the plotting felt very contrived from start to finish, and I had a lot of little nitpicks that added up to something that just wasn't that great. Although the Darth Vader stuff - is that a spoiler? - was pretty OK, I suppose. It felt more than anything else has like a link between the prequels and the OT, so I suppose it fills a gap, but in doing so it does that "shrinking the universe" thing that's ultimately just not a recipe for particularly interesting stuff.
I much preferred Andor, which I also watched, and it followed what I now see as an inviolate rule: the farther from the skywalker saga a new piece of star wars media gets, the better it is. The way it expanded the universe and "life on the ground" under the empire, like what the Mandalorian S1 did for post RotJ, was actually interesting, and it tells a more or less interesting story in its own right. Not perfect, but good.
I much preferred Andor, which I also watched, and it followed what I now see as an inviolate rule: the farther from the skywalker saga a new piece of star wars media gets, the better it is. The way it expanded the universe and "life on the ground" under the empire, like what the Mandalorian S1 did for post RotJ, was actually interesting, and it tells a more or less interesting story in its own right. Not perfect, but good.
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
I feel like a lot of spin-offs and continuations try to do "mature" versions of the property originally aimed at kids but only a few really get it right. Andor does. It's dark but not edgelordy and adult but not straining to be seen as such. And it works. It's a hard feat but I feel like Andor pulls off that really hard feat.
Phantoon
I cuss you bad
Yeah, it does a tightrope walk incredibly well. There's scenes where characters have clearly just had sex, quite disturbing (albeit abstract) torture and the clearest depiction of the Empire as Space Nazis. And the first use of a real swear word in Star Wars! And yet it's still Star Wars. Somehow.
It knows the value in darkness and moral complexity in storytelling, and isn't doing it to edgelord Star Wars into something it shouldn't be.
I think the arc with Dedre is one of my favourite story bits in a long time.
It knows the value in darkness and moral complexity in storytelling, and isn't doing it to edgelord Star Wars into something it shouldn't be.
I think the arc with Dedre is one of my favourite story bits in a long time.
Phantoon
I cuss you bad
Counter to the rest of the internet, I enjoyed The Acolyte episode 3. It makes the Force a bit bigger with a new religion. It deepens the mystery as to what happened, as there's no way evil twin killed all of those people (and implies our Sith is one of the Jedi) and as this Sith is likely Darth Plagueis' master, the experiment with the twins is what gave him the idea for Anakin. Conceptually cool stuff.
Yeah, my wife and I really liked it, too. I’m kind of baffled by the hate for this show.
Phantoon
I cuss you bad
Well, I could expound at length about the vast reservoir of stupid stuff in episode 1 and 2, the Jedi are as dull as the prequels and having Carrie Ann Moss in your show and killing her off before the opening credits should be a capital offence, so I can see legitimate reasons for disliking it
There is some good stuff here though if you're a lore guy
There is some good stuff here though if you're a lore guy
I like the ideas this show is playing with. I also think some of the emotional beats are affecting. I like a lot of the characters. The show’s look/visuals are solid. But the plotting and scripting in general are pretty bad. At least, bad in that they don’t fit the style of show this show is trying to be.
The tone and mystery-plot are that of a wannabe prestige TV show. But the plotting and dialog feel more like a cheap comic book. They would actually work pretty well in comic form I bet, but when you get live human beans trying to do it, it looks bad and laughable. This might have worked better as a side story in a cartoon that only took up a few episodes.
To me, the show feels kinda like the worst parts of Star Trek Discovery. Interesting, fun, but underbaked and not the best execution.
The camp of the lesbian witches was delightful but just did not fit the tone of the rest of episode. Also the Jedi did nothing wrong
The tone and mystery-plot are that of a wannabe prestige TV show. But the plotting and dialog feel more like a cheap comic book. They would actually work pretty well in comic form I bet, but when you get live human beans trying to do it, it looks bad and laughable. This might have worked better as a side story in a cartoon that only took up a few episodes.
To me, the show feels kinda like the worst parts of Star Trek Discovery. Interesting, fun, but underbaked and not the best execution.
The camp of the lesbian witches was delightful but just did not fit the tone of the rest of episode. Also the Jedi did nothing wrong
Okay so I gave THE ACOLYTE another chance and I need to complain about how badly it fucked up somewhere. Here is fine.
SO FUCKIN EPISODE 3.
We will look past how so many of the shots in this show are incredibly boring, the extremely tortured "We can't call it ice cream" moment, the stupid chant, and the desperate gesturing towards the Phantom Menace "SEE YOU RECOGNIZE THIS" ect ect. Whatever. Doesn't matter.
No I want to talk about how this episode SURPRISED me by sucking.
On one side you have a weird cult that's very visibly onscreen doing weird indoctrination shit with openly contradictory teachings. Anytime the one kid says "hey I'm not super onboard with being a part of this weird cult for the rest of my life" her moms go YES YOU ARE SHUT UP. A bunch of fucked up super isolationist off the grid losers with WEIRD ideas about the expectations you can put on an 8 year old.
On the other side you have the Jedi at peak of their power, and therefore peak "Oh yeah this organization is DOOMED doomed". A bunch of dickhead cops going way outside of their jurisdiction because they can't abide by anyone doing the special thing except them. They march in there with the deadliest weapons ever and say "YOU GUYS GOT KIDS? HAND EM OVER!" They're all about love and peace but you'd better do what they say immediately because they will absolutely kill you if you look at them funny.
AND THAT'S GREAT.
No seriously this is a fantastic recipe for an incredibly tense hour or-so of TV. You can see it so perfectly! Two sides who are both very wrong but also very convinced that they're right creeping up to the line of no return, daring eachother to step over it. A pressure cooker waiting for any excuse to inevitably explode, where said explosion will only further convince the survivors that they were the right ones all along. A perfectly grim backstory that would totally explain why the dude in episode 2 who spent 10 years meditating would go "Yeah, I deserved to die for that."
All the ingredients were there.
So why didn't they do it?
Were they afraid that we the audience would figure out that an ideological standoff would reach a tipping point. were they afraid that we would consider building up to an expected and earned climax wasn't a surprise? Because one of the kids going "SUDDENLY I AM GOING TO KILL EVERYONE" was not an appropriate payoff to the buildup!
What happened here exactly?
What decisions got made in the writers room that lead to this?
SO FUCKIN EPISODE 3.
We will look past how so many of the shots in this show are incredibly boring, the extremely tortured "We can't call it ice cream" moment, the stupid chant, and the desperate gesturing towards the Phantom Menace "SEE YOU RECOGNIZE THIS" ect ect. Whatever. Doesn't matter.
No I want to talk about how this episode SURPRISED me by sucking.
On one side you have a weird cult that's very visibly onscreen doing weird indoctrination shit with openly contradictory teachings. Anytime the one kid says "hey I'm not super onboard with being a part of this weird cult for the rest of my life" her moms go YES YOU ARE SHUT UP. A bunch of fucked up super isolationist off the grid losers with WEIRD ideas about the expectations you can put on an 8 year old.
On the other side you have the Jedi at peak of their power, and therefore peak "Oh yeah this organization is DOOMED doomed". A bunch of dickhead cops going way outside of their jurisdiction because they can't abide by anyone doing the special thing except them. They march in there with the deadliest weapons ever and say "YOU GUYS GOT KIDS? HAND EM OVER!" They're all about love and peace but you'd better do what they say immediately because they will absolutely kill you if you look at them funny.
AND THAT'S GREAT.
No seriously this is a fantastic recipe for an incredibly tense hour or-so of TV. You can see it so perfectly! Two sides who are both very wrong but also very convinced that they're right creeping up to the line of no return, daring eachother to step over it. A pressure cooker waiting for any excuse to inevitably explode, where said explosion will only further convince the survivors that they were the right ones all along. A perfectly grim backstory that would totally explain why the dude in episode 2 who spent 10 years meditating would go "Yeah, I deserved to die for that."
All the ingredients were there.
So why didn't they do it?
Were they afraid that we the audience would figure out that an ideological standoff would reach a tipping point. were they afraid that we would consider building up to an expected and earned climax wasn't a surprise? Because one of the kids going "SUDDENLY I AM GOING TO KILL EVERYONE" was not an appropriate payoff to the buildup!
What happened here exactly?
What decisions got made in the writers room that lead to this?
I've seen some speculation that what we saw in that episode isn't the whole truth, and we'll see what actually happened later. But if true, that's even worse storytelling. If you want a fake flashback, you have to start the show with that, then go back later and show what "really" happened. You can't start a show, spend an entire episode on a fake flashback, and then go back AGAIN later to show the truth. It would be sheer incompetence.
The fight scenes on The Acolyte are really solid. Which just goes to show that doesn't matter much when you don't care about anything else happening.
Haven't seen the latest episode yet, but "things aren't what they seem at first" seems to be the running theme of the show, and I honestly kinda dig it. It's been slow to get going, but we've got the chill "smuggler" who's a Sith(?) lord, the "good" twin who might turn, Jedi holding dark secrets, political maneuvering, cover-ups, assuming the worst (jumping the conclusion Sol massacred his own Jedi team), etc., etc. It's a show that doesn't seem clear in what it is from the start because it's not trying to be. It's unfolding in layers. And honestly, each episode is short enough that I don't get impatient with it.
I think each of those things taken in a vacuum are perfectly reasonable/interesting ideas to put into your show. The problem I'm having with Acolyte however, is that the "things are not what they seem...!" card is being abused here. It's one thing when a character you thought you knew well turns out to be something else. But if I never really knew that character to begin with, then there's no real shock or suspense or dramatic value. And it's hard for me to drum up sympathy or be alarmed if one of these characters dies or deals with some tragedy. Like, the reason why an event like "The Red Wedding" in Game of Thrones was so poignant, was because it happened at the end of Season 3, after we'd spent years getting to know these characters. Imagine if that event took place at the beginning of S1 instead. That's kinda what's going on in Acolyte: we barely know any of these cats, yet we're being asked to care about them?
I feel like tonight's episode would have been a very interesting starting point for a story, had this been just that - the starting point. Instead, it's functionally the climax/big reveal. Which really doesn't work when this felt like the most obvious reveal that I've seen in a long time.