The Acolyte: A Cross Examination

[@hatertime]

It can be argued that Lucas didnt think he was going to be sidelined after the Disney purchase. It is no secret that Lucas did not enjoy directing actors, but was way more interested in special effects and all that stuff. Its why Irving Kershner and Richard Marquand "directed" Empire and Jedi. The whole time they were working with the actors while Lucas was working on the rest of the production. Lucas asked Ron Howard, Robert Zemeckis and Stephen Spielberg if they would direct all the Prequel films, they obviously declined. Fast forward to Lucas getting prepared to sell the company. He had done preproduction artwork and concept art, plus story treatments for the 3 sequel films. He brought in the original cast members and gauged their interest in doing more films, to which Hamill and Fisher were interested, and Ford is Ford. Lucas wanted Disney to purchase LucasFilm because he liked what they had done with Pixar, keeping their hands off (at the time). Pixar had its origins as a spinoff of ILM. When Disney purchased LucasFilm they also purchased Lucas film treatments for the sequels and brought in Michael Arndt to write the screenplays. Fast forward to JJ Abrams comes on board, they fire Arndt and start rewriting with Kasden and Lucas departs. So it went from Lucas having creative input but not directing the films to no involvement at all.

[@Snake11Baron]

Kelly Tran wasn’t bullied by fans, she made a whole speech about how Hollyand the media was racist and misogynistic towards her. (Kinda like Ahmed Best)

[@tyeklund7221]

Are you really claiming Ahmed wasn't bullied by fans?

[@Snake11Baron]

@ of course there’s some asses and trolls, it’s the internet and human nature, but he said himself that it was the media’s portrayal spearheading the backlash and that journalists and critics actions upset him the most. Do you really think he was browsing obscure Star Wars forums in 90s internet to see what die hard nerds were saying?

[@shueyk2320]

​@@tyeklund7221 A lifetime ago sure.

[@anthonypc-248]

Thanks for your well measured words, and for the great recommendations of other channels too.

[@TheUniversalninja]

Very fair and honest analysis!! I never knew about the "Sido-Dyas" thing, that's facinating. The only minor critique I have is that I think conceding that 'wokeness' even exists is giving wayyyy too much credit lol. It's only said when engagement farming, and complaining about maginalized representation. Sure corporations will always pander for profit, but that's just another example of the usual corporate souless greed imo. Again, really good video though!!

[@AlienIOIandroktone]

I hate that the backlash to 7 & 8 caused Lucasfilm to cave and make 9, which appealed to no one, and made 7/8 retroactively worse. Not saying Colin Trevarrow's would've been good, he wasn't the right pick off of Jurassic World, but it would've been better than what they made. Anyway, I think Acolyte was fine, better than Obi Wan Kenobi, better than the prequels, but still wasn't very good.

[@scottwerner279]

Yep, I enjoyed 8. Didn’t really care that so many people hated it. Now none of us got to enjoy 9

[@Martnmaceda]

I'd argue it's even better than TCW and The Mandalorian. Not amazing in anyway, but enjoyable.

[@albertthepeacock8020]

Sequels and the Acolyte are fine with good ideas but poor execution

[@Suport7000]

11:10 Same with Andor. Tony Gillroy has said he is not a fan of Star Wars, but it seems most fans liked the show anyways.

[@BenNordVPN]

When think about it, the domino that made Star Wars start to cuck was Episode 8 in conjunction with the arrogance of Rian. Betcha Disney wishes they could take that one back

[@scottwerner279]

You’re delusional

[@JeremyPage-q4p]

Regardless of whether or not someone or a group of someones likes Disney Star Wars, the people in charge should know that once they slap the Star Wars logo on a show or movie, it will be discussed, analyzed, and yes, criticized. To act shocked by the reception of the Acolyte and the criticisms of it, from the acting, writing, set design, etc. is disingenuous to say the least. Art, whether good or bad, is subject to criticism once is made available to the public. Put on your grown up pants Disney, and use some of those billions you make to get some thicker skin.

[@JoshEisleySpaceport]

Solid assessment al around - very clearly in good faith. What I would push back on though is that there is a clear difference between seeing the wokeness if that's what your looking for and having the wokeness being the basis and key talking point of the marketing. You cant not look for it if that's what they're actively emphasizing, and I say that as someone that liked Acolyte for what it was. I'd also say that the writing may not have been poor, as it was wooden and stilted just like any other Star Wars, but the narrative structure was poor: marketing a murder mystery with the solution very clearly telegraphed in the first episode, no cliffhangers to make me want to come back, and teasing a deconstruction that never really came or panned out as well as Hedland thought it was going to, none of the above set the show up for success.

[@Martnmaceda]

It's crazy that a complain is the lightsaber bleeding when this is not a thing that the series introduced, but rather Vader and Kylo comics lol

[@butcherpete2286]

Compare what it took for Vader to do it compared to Osha then.

[@Martnmaceda]

@ Trying to compare both is idiotic. In the Vader comics they have to account that this is a new change (and a very dumb one btw) that is not reflected in past material, therefore going to far ends to explain why that didn’t happened in the movie. The problem is the dumb concept of sabers bleeding, which the series did not introduced and was way better explained in legends.

[@anthonypc-248]

I actually appreciated the show for NOT being limited by corporate wokeness. They didn't just seem to be virtue signaling with the assignment of powerful abilities and virtues to minority representatives. They genuinely had a diverse cast of uniquely complex characters with a fair amount of personal flaws to go around. Didn't offend me at all.

[@burningcort]

I hate that Disney wants to destroy its fan base by Killing off characters in stupid ways E7-E9, and crapping all over Jedi like it did in Acolyte.

[@Martnmaceda]

The Jedi were already broken by the time of the prequels. They were too dogmatic, involved in politics, and overconfident on their own abilities. This is why Palpatines master plan is so brilliant. The Jedi are on character on the acolyte.

[@burningcort]

@@Martnmaceda The made all the Jedi look stupid, childish, emotional, fools. So while what you said of the Jedi may be true for some of them (even as a whole but not every individual) when you add in all media. They over crapped on them in the Acolyte not a single jedi was made to be positive or likeable they were bad guys.

[@marimars1047]

I wish more fans could be this level headed. Thank you for your video, I can tell you put a lot of effort into it!

[@Sidecutter]

The problem is capitalism. Everything that went wrong can be traced back to the demands it imposes on art and media, and the literal legal requirement to put profit for shareholders above all other considerations.

[@samuelbattershell3413]

Ya, yes let's blame the owners of the means of production for making stipulations for their production so that they have a reason and a means to keep producing and exchange what they receive from exchanging their production to meet their needs.

[@PeacePetal]

The fandom did not give The Acolyte a good faith watch. For me, the perfect example is the “power of manyyyy” memes. When I got to the scene, I was shocked: It wasn’t that funny, and it wasn’t that cringe. But people reacted to it because they had already decided to hate the show. However, I think there are some good faith criticisms of The Acolyte that you dismissed or glossed over. In lore, for example, I find it a little disingenuous to explain away the twins’ virgin birth by saying it was only hinted at or it’s not the same because the vergence was centered around a planet rather than a person. Or in writing, just because Lucas made some mistakes doesn’t absolve Headland from crafting a story where the Jedi Order is portrayed as irredeemable, we’re supposed to root for the bad guys, and both Sol and Vernestra go to self-sabotaging lengths to keep secrets that would be better shared.

[@jonathanwebster2107]

Finally, a level headed analysis! Don’t get me wrong, I have no love for the acolyte (personally I’d give it a 5.5/10) but I thought the excess amount of hate the show got was a bit astonishing. It was good to hear your thoughts about it.

[@butcherpete2286]

Kinda hard to say it was too much of a reaction when the lead actress dropped a diss track swiping at the fans half way through the shows release.

[@JoJo-oc8zf]

I don't like how hyperbolic and obviously overplayed so much online criticism is from content creators are. Calling every project the worst ever, spewing so much hatred for actors, directors, and producers even people who have very little input on the actual projects get hate. It's just so disappointing especially when so much energy and mental space is wasted on movies and shows that are mid to bad while good shows get a little praise then forgotten or used a prop to hate on the mid stuff. Like I don't even like engaging with star wars content online because of the negativity, even in more positive and neutral places that negativity still seeps it's way in

[@Martnmaceda]

Definitely a missed opportunity to compare this series to the content and creators the fandom praises. Most people agree the prequels aren't great-they're just liked because of nostalgia or other subjective reasons. You should have compared this series to the things they claim are good but end up doing the exact same things to get your point across successfully.

[@anthonypc-248]

All the fanatic reactions I saw were coming out before the show was released. The haters were mainly obsessed with Who was making it, and I think just assumed the very worst about what messaging they would be pushing. So then when it finally came out, the efforts to interpret everything in a twisted woke way to confirm their prior assumptions just came off as delusional to me. Like a character drops a singular "they" referring to a beaver alien and that was enough to trigger these defenders of the gender binary. And I kept hearing that one Jedi being called "the token white man" because it was offensive that there weren't many more white men as we're used to? I can cringe when a studio mishandles a shallow attempt at virtue signaling, but what's bad about a "DEI agenda" if it means having more diversity on screen? I'm a hetero white guy and I don't take it as a micro-agression against me if one Star Wars show centers a black lesbian matriarch. Maybe if they were preaching that men are all inferior or only the white human jedi were corrupt... but I didn't pick up on any prejudice messaging like that. I enjoyed the show! Frustrated we now won't get to see the story of those Sith continue after that tease from Darth Plagueis the Shy.... I didn't think the structure of the storytelling was perfect. Redundant flashbacks and some needless confusion. But I really appreciated more nuanced themes that went beyond good vs bad. And politically progressive themes subverting status quo institutions of power is essentially in keeping with the original intent of Star Wars, since George Lucas made us root for rebels fighting agains the military empire, as criticism of the US war in Vietnam. Redirecting the critical lens at the Jedi Order is just a new angle on the political themes Star Was was always about.

[@Martnmaceda]

I think you should have compared this series to The Clone Wars instead of the prequels. A lot of the mistakes you pointed out in the movies show up even more in the series, and honestly, I’d bet that most of the vocal haters of this series are the same people who praise The Clone Wars for the same things they criticize here.

[@MichaelJPartyka]

George Lucas was so NOT bound by lore that "Darth" was originally Vader's first name. But let's be clear: "The Acolyte" was utterly terrible save for the epic lightsaber battle in episode 5. It was predictable, cringey, unoriginal, credulity-straining, boring AF, and even gave off pedo vibes. Moreover, the Skywalker Saga didn't need ending -- it needed a new beginning, which it got with the first two films of the sequel trilogy. The ninth film had the potential to spawn a plethora of new Star Wars shows, but the writers instead decided to forcibly clamp down on all that potential and vomit the Emperor back in front of us.

[@SpenceyWencey-tz7lp]

All these criticisms except boring and the “pedo vibes” (which are both subjective) also apply to the originals that everyone sees as gods: -predictability/unoriginality: A New Hope follows the “Hero’s Journey” structure to a fault. It isn’t remotely original, and that’s exactly why it succeeded. -cringey: how? “The power of one, the power of two, the power of many” is a cheesy line for sure, but how is it more cringey than “the Force will be with you, always”, or “once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny”? -credibility-straining (assuming that’s what you meant by “credulity”): you know you’re talking about Star Wars, right? These movies and shows aren’t remotely realistic. And that’s the point (outside of Andor) None of these are fair criticisms and most of them don’t make sense. I agree about TRoS though lol

[@MichaelJPartyka]

@SpenceyWencey-tz7lp The Hero's Journey is too large a template to call any work based upon it "unoriginal" on that account. I'm talking about the predictability of knowing *exactly* what's coming next -- i.e., "Oh, the killer has a twin? She'll be blamed for the crime." "Oh, the twin sees a fire? She's about to have a PTSD flashback." "There's a mystery Sith? It's the sidekick. Who else could it be? There are no other candidates." Boooring. Cringey as in, "I really feel like Osha is supposed to be my Padawan!" (And there go the pedo vibes, too: Sol was so inappropriately attached to little girl Osha that he killed her mother.) No, I meant "credulity-straining". Anakin's virgin birth is really something anybody can do so long as there's enough Force power in the area? Okay. (I mean, bad enough Lucas incorporated a virgin birth into SW lore at all, but....) And Osha just turns dark side at the drop of a hat? No confusion, just rage? How many times did Sol "overtrain" her, if you get my gist?

[@Martnmaceda]

@@MichaelJPartyka Star Wars has always been cringey. Do you really praise the emperor lines as something to cringe for? Or the way that Ahsoka is and her annoying Skyguy frase?

[@MichaelJPartyka]

@@Martnmaceda I only skimmed the "Ahsoka" series and never watched "Clone Wars", so I missed any cringe there. If you're going to argue, "The originals really weren't all that good!" I'm not going to dispute that. I've watched them all recently and...well, they're really *not* anywhere as good as I once thought. Even ANH is nearly unwatchable when it gets to the absolute confusion of logic and editing that is the final Death Star battle. But that doesn't excuse "The Acolyte" from being even worse. Far from it. Everything "Star Wars" from here on out has a duty to be *at least* as good as the originals, and "The Acolyte" does not reach that level -- it doesn't even reach *prequels* level (which is below the originals).

[@Martnmaceda]

@ That’s not where I am going, you’re misrepresenting my argument. My point is that the acolyte is by FAR not the cringiest thing we’ve got from Star Wars. It’s pretty bearable and there’s more other content that would take that place. What makes you thing it’s so cringey?

[@69jonhill]

I'm not watching this tripe to the end, but so far (ten minutes in) you appear to be missing the point that the show was utter shite.

[@sekarmaltum1695]

"legends" to pre-disney starwars is like saying "cis" to normal people

[@borginburkes1819]

Star Wars is dead and Disney killed it.

[@JoJo-oc8zf]

Starting from that mindset is the problem

[@albertthepeacock8020]

I mean the toxic manchildren are the real villains who relentlessly attacked George Lucas,Ahmed Best,etc even to this day with the new crew. Those toxic people didn't apply the lessons the movies were saying but sure point fingers at the billion dollar company over movies/shows you didn't like

[@shueyk2320]

​@JoJo-oc8zf "I sold it to white(jew) slavers" Sad! Many such cases

[@kg7219]

It’s a good trilogy of films from 50 years ago and investing so emotionally into a media product is stupid and cringe. Get a grip my boy it’s just a product

[@borginburkes1819]

@@kg7219 Star Wars isn’t just a product, it is a work of art.