A Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy: The Star Wars Thread

[Adrenaline]

I think it's very funny that they did end up going with a second flashback episode that invalidates the first flashback episode, and yet the biggest hole people saw in the first (How did one torch burn down a stone temple, and how did all those witches die?) remained unaddressed.

 

[Sarcasmorator]

I thought both were pretty clear in this one. Fire got into their Flammable Energy Tubes, and getting forcibly cut off from mind control killed the witches—or, possibly, didn't kill them but knocked them out, so they were either wrongly assumed dead or died as the place burned.

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

I thought both were pretty clear in this one. Fire got into their Flammable Energy Tubes, and getting forcibly cut off from mind control killed the witches—or, possibly, didn't kill them but knocked them out, so they were either wrongly assumed dead or died as the place burned.

This was my read of things. It was clear, but still clearly stupid lol

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

The entire sequence where Sol accidentally kills the witch-queen is so ridiculous. You can tell based on everything happening in the show up to that point, as well as how all of that part of the show is framed, that it's supposed to be this big, tragic mixup; there's no bad guys. Except homegirl friggin' wigs out, grows crazy fangs, starts hissing and screaming, and turns into ominous black smoke. Like, she could have said a short sentence real quick-like, "My babies need me, give me one sec" and everything could have been avoided. Instead, she does the force equivalent of pulling an assault rifle out in front of a cop and surprise of course it goes badly. I think the basic outline/core ideas here are sound, just they needed more time in the oven/refinement to make them not present as heckin' stooopid

Also, it didn't escape my notice that the Darth Maul-lookin' mommy was unaccounted for by the end. I bet these writers won't be able to help themselves and there will be an epilogue where we see her being, in some way, a direct ancestor for Darth Maul.

 

[Adrenaline]

If only they didn't have those super dangerous flammable energy tubes

 

[Sarcasmorator]

Star Wars always has super flammable energy tubes. Everything blows up real nice and easy. Everything is simple. No railings, no passwords or security that can't be sliced in seconds, just turn this or that on or off with a lever.

 

[Adrenaline]

believe me I would also be complaining if a starship was destroyed by somebody dropping a lamp

 

[Sarcasmorator]

ever notice they don't have oil lamps on their starships? Osha regulations.

 

[Adrenaline]

You're going to jail

 

[Sarcasmorator]

Qimir and tell me that

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

Qimir and tell me that

Edit: Why did Yoda take his clothes with him when he transitioned to being a force-ghost, but Obi-wan didn't? Is Yoda's clothes... made up of his own hair??

 

[Sarcasmorator]

non-lore answer: presumably because it would be a lot harder to have two sets of collapsing fabrics in the shot with however they handled that. the blanket alone seems like it's one shot they took, with a different shot of Yoda composited underneath so they could fade him out as the blanket collapse started advancing.

 

[BEAT]

Ok gonna watch this now and then I'll probably post about how stupid it is.

 

[BEAT]

The sequence where the cult leader goes into the young jedi's brain and TEMPTS him with NATURAL DESIRES was weird. I was like "AH YES, HE IS A 20 YEAR OLD WHO'S IN A WEIRD MONASTIC ORDER THAT FORBIDS FUCKING THAT JUST FOUND A BUILDING FULL OF HOT WOMEN I SEE WHERE THIS IS GOING" but no turns out he was just homesick.

That's a weird thing to tempt a dude with, especially when the logic is "Hey I can tell you want to be NOT HERE you should ally with me a person that lives here, the place that you hate and wish to leave."

 

[BEAT]

That was some goofy shit.

 

[BEAT]

I like that the dickhead cops response to doing a mass death is to lie to internal affairs. Very True to dickhead cop life.

 

[BEAT]

The acolyte is not a very good show.

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

That's a weird thing to tempt a dude with

Yeah, but it's the Disney™ thing to tempt a dude with since we can't be havin' horny characters in the House of Mouse.

 

[BEAT]

There was a literal months long ad campaign on how Eternals was the first MCU movie to contain fucking since Iron Man.

 

[BEAT]

"Woah, babes." is the entire premise of multiple cartoons aimed at children 10 and under.

 

[BEAT]

I'm not saying the show needed to go "HEY IN THIS UNIVERSE PEOPLE FUUUUUCCCCKKKKK" I'm just saying "Temptation of natural desire" maps a whole lot better to "Damn those women are hottt" than "damn I really want to go back to new York traffic, the planet."

 

[BEAT]

So the Acolyte is done.

Spoiler: SOME BULLSHIT I WROTE ON A DISCORD

It's just a Bad TV show. and the fact that it's a bad STAR WARS show is no longer even uncommon enough to raise an eyebrow.
Between the Mandalorian the book of Boba Fett Obi Wan Kenobi Ashoka and the Acolyte, I count 5 & 1/2 seasons of Bad TV shows
And sure they all had good STUFF in them. A dedicated fan could absolutely plant their flag in any of them with a rundown on why actually any of those seasons of TV are the good one actually.

But on the whole... man, fuck star wars.

I think the acolyte has the most drastic wasted potential/letdown ratio. Like most of these shows are filler nothing. "What did Obi-wan get up to between episode 3 and 4?" IDK weird hermit bullshit who gives a fuck. That guy who fell into a hole in return of the Jedi is back! So what. That guy was always a loser.

But this one had some IDEAS right? There was PROMISE here. It was about a bunch of new guys who weren't hermits or stuck in holes! There was room for stuff like "Hey actually yeah they Jedi DO suck" and "what exactly is life like for Jedi that washed out in training" or "hey isn't it kind of weird that an extrajudicial religion has an actual goddamn monopoly on magic?"

And then over the course of 8 weirdly paced episodes and a story structure that's just fucking baffling and weirdly self-assured that it's getting a second season (it almost definitely isn't), all the stuff that made me go "Oh that's kinda cool!" got taken out behind the woodshed and shot.

Also dumb sidenote: why was "the twins are twins BUT NOT REALLY!!!!" They kept saying "YOU'RE THE SAME PERSON!" but like, they very obviously weren't? Like I guess you could argue that they're empathetic towards each other but no more so than normal siblings. If you cut one the other doesn't immediately bleed. There's nothing indicating that they'll recombine into the prefect complete form like Cory did.

GO WATCH CORYS

 

[BEAT]

I think the fastest "Oh that's an idea!!! I wonder what they'll do with NEVER MIND" moment was in episode 3 where the weird cult redefined force as a thread.

I was like "Oh damn that's a good point!" There's more star wars than any sane person should ever try to watch but I don't think I've seen anyone use the force in ways that were focused on the "connection to all living things" aspect. Maybe this weird cult is onto something and their use of the force is a sort of holistic coexistence with all life instead of just shoving people.

Then they just shoved people.

And I GUESS I could see the argument of "ahah they were an evil woods cult of COURSE their teachings are nonsensical and hypocritical" but it's like... you know?

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

Yeah it’s the same problem Discovery had in the other Star Franchise where you’re often like “Hey! That’s a neat idea! I’m excited to explore that!” And then they don’t really explore it/it’s just an excuse to do action things.

Which is…. Fine. It’s suboptimal for me, but there’s an audience out there I’m sure who don’t want to think too hard on their leisure time and just wants to see space samurai swing their space-katana at each other.

 

[Adrenaline]

I just don't like any of the characters and I find all of their motivations to be unclear. Hard to get into a show like that.

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

I like a lot of the characters in theory/their personalities, we just haven’t spent enough time with any of them to get to know them. I also like unclear motivations because it can be an interesting game to figure that stuff out. I don't feel like anyone's motivations in this were unclear though. If anything, they were so predictable as to be boring, and didn't do anything to either endear me to the characters or move me emotionally.

Also dumb sidenote: why was "the twins are twins BUT NOT REALLY!!!!" They kept saying "YOU'RE THE SAME PERSON!" but like, they very obviously weren't? Like I guess you could argue that they're empathetic towards each other but no more so than normal siblings. If you cut one the other doesn't immediately bleed. There's nothing indicating that they'll recombine into the prefect complete form like Cory did.

I don't have anything to go on beyond theory-crafting, but the whole scenario feels like a Sith Origin Story, showing us the secrets behind how Anikin could have been conceived. The show, as you said, also feels like it wants to show the audience the secret history of why the Jedi/Republic became corrupted which to me is boring/bad because it's as if we didn't already get a whole trilogy about just that.

High Republic could/should have been really fertile grounds to tell interesting stories and instead we got this. I hope this show doesn't torpedo the entire idea/setting.

 

[Phantoon]

I just don't like any of the characters and I find all of their motivations to be unclear. Hard to get into a show like that.

Yeah, after all of that I think I can name one character. There was Sol, Twin #1, Twin #2, Robes Trinity, Floaty McUseless, Mr Beaver and Darth Jason

Something tells me I wasn't much engaged

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

I found all of the characters' motivations pretty easy to follow and articulate. All except for the primary pov-twin that we follow and I assume the show wants us to like. I don't understand her at all. Characters - and herself - keeps telling us how ANGRY she is, but it never finds expression until the very end. And when it does, it feels very off considering all of her previous characterization as a very compassionate, very measured person. It all feels like it's supposed to be in service of this idea that these twins are "the same person" and thus are interchangeable. But like... I'm failing to understand why I'm supposed to find that idea interesting or compelling as well.

What I find harder to reconcile is not their motivations (which IMO are usually expressed fairly directly to the viewer through stupidly blunt dialog) but their actions. Like Green Face for example. Her motivations are pretty self-explanitory. She's a bureaucrat who demonstrably believes the ends justify the means. But in this final episode where she's confronted directly by a Senator who lays out very reasonable concerns about how the Jedi operate and who holds them accountable -- she doesn't even pause for a minute to consider maybe he has a point when EVERYTHING HE COMPLAINS ABOUT COMES TRUE. She is just like, "Everything you feared came true, but trust me, nothing to see here" as she proceeds to cover up and even bigger scandal where her own former Padawan might be a Sith now. She's supposed to be a high ranking, elder Jedi? Shouldn't she know better? How tf did she even get this far in life?

 

[Adrenaline]

What I find harder to reconcile is not their motivations (which IMO are usually expressed fairly directly to the viewer through stupidly blunt dialog) but their actions.

This is exactly what I'm talking about. In a story a character's motivations are not expressed by what they say but what they do. And a lot of the time I did not know why characters were doing the things they were doing. It creates this sludgy feeling where I'm just observing a series of events instead of being drawn into a story.

 

[Adrenaline]

In a mystery story, which The Acolyte gestures at being, unclear motivations are fine, but you usually need a protagonist unraveling the mystery with a clear perspective and goal. And The Acolyte absolutely does not have that.