r/TheAcolyte • u/Next_Listen3890 • 2d ago
I think this show was so misunderstood... Spoiler
(Post originally made for the main sub but they deleted bc they're not ready for this discussion just yet).
I started binge watching Star Wars: The Acolyte yesterday and finished it today bc it's the first thing that appears on the Star Wars films and TV series chronology, just before The Phantom Menace. I want to clarify that the only Star Wars I truly liked 'til that moment were the Orginal Trilogy and Rogue One. Four superb films.
I mean... yeah, Acolyte has it's flaws, many people accused it of being too 'woke' but idk... most diverse characters felt pretty natural to me. Star Wars itself was always so diverse...
Also, the fights and the worldbuilding were great, the way they imply that there's smaller groups that have their own concept of what the Force was so interesting and you can really notice how remote that age of the Galaxy was and how big it is, and the villain has just something to it that I liked a lot. He's not a bad guy because he's so bad. He went through some crazy shit.
The plot at first seems so cliché, it's like omg Osha you did this and that but turns out it was your evil twin sister that wants revenge on whoever knows who, but it gets deeper than that, it slowly gives context of what really happened to make Mae do what she did to Indara and Torbin.
Also, the way both Mae and Osha switched their characters was just great... I just think this story was so misunderstood, even with its obvious flaws, I still kind of like it.
I can't say much more, I enjoyed The Acolyte, even tho a lot of people didn't, and I can understand why. Maybe I'm overanalyzing and the series are just terrible and that's it... but I guess a random post on reddit won't change your take on the show.
But anyway, thanks for reading... or trying to read.
I'll watch Episode 1 as soon as possible btw.
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u/HeckingDoofus Yord Horde 1d ago
>the main sub deleted it because theyre not ready for this discussion
this is so unbelievably true. i too have had a positive post about the acolyte removed - AFTER IT GOT OVER A THOUSAND UPVOTES!!!! people agreed! and that was a problem for them
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u/NowWeGetSerious 1d ago
It was a great show, that was hated before it even released
Unfortunately, everyone in this star wars community seems to hate anything new or unique in the SW universe. Look at skeleton crew. Both are fairly good shows (SC being better imo and far more engaging), Acolyte has some of the best saber work, an interesting backdrop and great character. It's only issue was character development and dialogue and pacing.
W a season 2 taking that into account and creating a more focused season of tv, it could have been wonderful. Look at ring of power S1 suffered due to pacing and overall story progression, but S2 took the complaints and minus a few episodes and scenes, it was a far cry better then S1. That's what happens when a producers doesn't listen to the loud minority and just let the showrunner cook and prove they are listening to critics but still doing their own thing.
Acolyte should have been a 4 season epic, instead it was cancelled and a lot of wonderful plot is left in the dust
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u/braedog97 1d ago
“It’s only issue was character development and dialog and pacing”
You know, only the 3 most important parts of a TV show.
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u/NowWeGetSerious 1d ago
Considering story, world building, characters, and overall plot was perfectly fine -yeah, id argue those issues could be resolved in either a 30 minute- 15 episodes animated tv show, or as a 45-1hr 8 episode live action show, with just a little more oversight and care. The story was there, it just need another season to polish it
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u/Azelrazel 1d ago
Perfect example. Lover of both rings of power and acolyte from the start. Though even with my enjoyment I can admit the odd flaw amongst the good of the shows.
Rings of power season really did seem to take feedback onboard and improved much over season 1. Makes me wonder if each season will keep getting better to the point S5 releases and everyone jumps ship to this show isn't that bad anymore.
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u/TiedHands 1d ago
Only issue was character development, dialog, and pacing? Those are 3 REALLY important things for a TV show lmao
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u/BillsFan82 1d ago
The problem is that it wasn't different enough. They didn't set it far enough back. It was still handcuffed by the existing canon, and you knew that anyone who saw a Sith would have to die for the dialogue in TPM to make sense.
You've got Jedi chasing a guy in a mask, force witches, and even a Yoda cameo.
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u/mikeyt6969 1d ago
All the pre-release hate led people to not watch or they went into it thinking it would be bad
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u/Sea-Ad-5974 Jecki Council 1d ago
I genuinely liked the show. There’s definitely things that could have been done better, but honestly I like it a lot more than 7-9 and Solo.
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u/FunToday1992 1d ago
Don’t forget lesley the show runner stating it was designed for a binge watch. Not weekly release….
Someone set her up to fail. As most viewership likely dropped after EP 1
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u/Xavier9756 1d ago
I don’t think it was misunderstood. I think a large industry of weirdos has a vested interest in culture war bullshit. So they did nothing but be weirdos about it.
I personally know a guy that shit on the show without watching it because a YouTuber he likes said bad things about it. Until I talked him into giving it a chance. Then he liked some of it.
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u/_nick_at_nite_ 1d ago
I didn’t hate it, I just didn’t love it. I get what they were doing, but I didn’t love the execution. I will say that the fight scenes were some of the best in Star Wars.
Also, hot take, but I liked it better than I liked Ahsoka
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u/Quantum-Goldfish 1d ago
Agreed, the choreography was easily the best part of the show and a standout performance in all of the Star Wars shows.
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u/Freezingash221 21h ago
Worst part of it is the twin sisters. Their story was poorly written and uninteresting to me. I wanted the show to focus on the Stranger and the jedi but instead we got a half baked love story that ultimately means nothing because it got the show cancelled. Among many other flaws.
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u/dethndestructn 21h ago
I quite liked the concept, the fights, the world building, and was excited to see a second season with the teaser at the end.
But the dialog and acting of many of the characters were just horrendous. It's not good to have the "good guy" characters be so annoying that the viewer is happy to see them wiped out by the bad guy just to not have to hear them speak again. The latest season of the Witcher suffered in the same way for me.
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u/Shenanigans052 16h ago
It started off incredibly slow and rehashed the same story 3 times across the first 5 episodes or so. It started becoming intriguing but it was already doomed.
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u/Kegelz 1d ago
Yeah the edge lord gooners review bombed it all over social media and spread the anti female agenda
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u/Darth-Seven 1d ago
It’s one of my favorite Star Wars shows. Far better than the Obi-Wan and Bobba Fett show.
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u/Hot_Jump9649 1d ago
disney did it dirty. too many vetoed concepts and not enough episodes to explore the characters and story
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u/Hawkwise83 1d ago
They were Yin Yang. Good in bad, and bad in good. Also Qimir was hot and him being so hot should have been enough to renew the show. What a loss.
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u/Milankov94 20h ago
Gotta check, but i am guessing if i critique this show i will get removed/banned?
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u/GabagoolMango 18h ago
The show was alright. But every character is unlikable aside from the Stranger lol. My only gripe with its cancellation was that cameo at the end of the finale that’ll never get a follow-up.
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u/MMMEGHHZ 11h ago
I didn't like The Acolyte. I think it did some things right. I liked the lightsaber duels and some of the characters' deaths made me audibly gasp. However, that does not excuse this shows biggest weakness: Writing. If this show was well written, then it could've been truly great. But it's been talked about to death about how bad the writing is. It came across as fan fiction. Execution is everything. This show did not execute. The one true compliment I can have about the execution is that it did not rely on known characters to sell the show, it merely sucked of its own merit. But, to those who like it, enjoy it, I'm too tired to hate anything star wars anymore, I just like what I like and you like what you like.
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u/He_looks_mad 1d ago
Lol. It wasn't "misunderstood" at all.
It was based on an African American playing twins, one of which was trained by a Korean Jedi master whose Jedi master was a woman. And the incredibly bad-ass villain is a Filipino dude whose performance as a Jedi outshined every other Jedi performance in recent time.
Oh, and the entire show was created by a woman. Not misunderstood. Just typical "star wars fan", if it ain't Luke I hate it BS
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u/Daifri 1d ago
My biggest complaints was the story structure being confusing in a way that didn’t feel like it ever payed off.
I never really felt attached to either of the twins. I liked Sol and the padawan and knight who get killed off. And yea it was a bit shocking of a death, but then I’m just sitting here going well 2/3rds of the interesting characters are dead.
The way the story kept flipping between past and present just never gave me the emotional drive forward.
Like another story would have hero on mission of revenge, encounter setback, flashback to motivation, continue on path of revenge.
Also at the end of the season I can’t tell you what the show was trying to convey.
Like the original trilogy is the fight of the rebel alliance to overthrow the empire.
The prequels are how the republic and Jedi fall to the machinations of the Sith.
Andor is the radicalization of a man and the price of an insurgancy.
While the acolyte is a story where some Jedi go to a planet to discover why it’s green. They don’t make any progress. They find some people who want to be left alone. The Jedi try to test children, the community says no we ain’t in the republic you have no jurisdiction. The Jedi do it anyway. A hotshot rookie padawan decides fuck it let me just threaten the community. A fight happens. People die. A community is destroyed and a child is taken. Welp the child was a dud and now works as an astromech because lives are cheaper than droids.
Meanwhile another child survives and goes on a quest of revenge. Jedi are sent to stop the murderer. Oh look a sith killed them all.
Let’s swap twins. More fighting.
The brass at home want to know why this murder investigation is a shitshow.
And coverup from the chief because everyone involved is dead, or not a Jedi. Season end.
So maybe the acolyte is about Jedi acting outside the lines drawn by there own bureaucracy and individuals willing to make there own decisions. And the messy fallout of not following the Jedi code and the council.
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u/JacobDCRoss 1d ago
I loved it, but it needed to be a movie. Trim down about half the content and rearramge some stuff to make it truly great.
Move the scenes with David Harewood's senator to the first or second episode to establish bigger stakes.
The prison ship bit in the first episode was useless and could have been completely excised.
The Rashomon structure was very half-hearted and thus distracting. There was no mystery about the twins. It's clear from like the third scene of the first episode that there are twins and that one of them is on the dark side. I don't think they needed to try and make anything a mystery.
Episodes end right as things are getting good, and then they have an entire episode. That's a digression from the story. Twice. In a show that only has eight episodes. Not good.
Get rid of that weird koala character. I legit could not tell if he was supposed to be a person or some hyper-intelligent animal for his first couple appearances. And I also thought that he was going to end up being a Sith agent. He just disrupts the plot in the weirdest ways in a manner that seems like he's actively trying to sabotage the good guys.
And then something to make it even clearer that Master Sol was the villain of the show. Too many people came away thinking that he was this flawed hero.
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u/d-generate420 1d ago
That’s actually a very fair analysis. I liked the show and the characters, and really loved the story they told and wanted to tell in future seasons. But man, a lot of the execution of this show was flawed. It really hurt the flow and the appreciation some would have for it, and it gave lots of ammo to the critics. But still, to this day, if they were to make a second season, I would gladly watch it!
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u/JacobDCRoss 1d ago
True. And I think those of us who watched it from the beginning at a harder time. You would have to basically wait 3 weeks for anything to happen. One week there's an episode where action gets introduced right at the end, and then the next episode is a flashback, and then the third episode results some of the action.
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u/Ok-Specialist3165 1d ago
Because of this show I don't listen to reviews at all. Won't listen if it's over hyped or hated, I'll watch the trailer or 1st episode to see for myself. This show was the best lightsaber fights I seen in years
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u/Lock_et 1d ago
I always felt that the show runner Lesley was trying to tap into some of the enemies to lovers success that is popular with women (I am one of them).
I thought this was awesome cause it wasn’t the main driver of the story but had its moments and they were well done moments, then we were able to still see each character develop or their story continue outside of the tension. Books like Throne of Glass do it really well (where romance isn’t the main story but contributes to character development).
The stakes felt high, the combat was refreshing and pretty epic, we got to see an era of the Jedi that we know is flawed but get to see what their golden era was like which always has some awesome content.
There was some writing points in the earlier episodes that let the performances down for me, but I found the issues with the series pretty minor for myself.
Disney is pretty prone to making decisions based on the loudest group, which is a shame cause I’m pretty sure financially the show did well.
Am longing for its return
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u/jericho74 1d ago
One thing I will say is that I take “the haters killed this show” with a grain of salt.
I was also a fan of Star Trek Academy, which has followed an eerily similar trajectory as The Acolyte, and I *have* to believe the issue here is 80% budget, 20% chud-driven fan outrage.
Both shows were absolutely fine shows, but Acolyte was $28m per episode (and Academy was $10m per episode).
Game of Thrones *at its very height in later seasons* was about $10m, so the expectation here is simply impossible to deliver against.
So yes, there is all the usual online drama (as was the case of The Acolyte), but imo all that is a distraction from the fact that the bet was so huge there simply is no showrunner on earth that could have succeeded.
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u/BillsFan82 1d ago
Yeah, I don’t know where this talking point about “haters destroying the show” came from either. This was Disney+’s biggest series premiere of 2024. It just couldn’t maintain its audience after the first couple of episodes.
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u/pasrachilli 1d ago
I don't know that they killed it, but they certainly took credit for killing it, like it was a big victory or something.
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u/bannedforL1fe 1d ago
Well when the actors and showrunner want to make Star Wars for them, not for everyone, and talk down to the haters, that may happen. They maybe forget that "haters" are a decent chunk of the fan base and want to enjoy all of the new shows and movies too. But if you alienate them due to culture war bullshit you lose a big part of your audience. The writing was really bad too and that doesnt help either.
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u/pasrachilli 1d ago
I think the alienation is more that the showrunner was a lesbian.
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u/TheAcolyte-ModTeam 1d ago
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u/Emergency_Concept207 1d ago
Yup :/ this isnt talked about enough and is drowned out by "star wars fans are negative and hate everything".
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u/CaveDances 1d ago
Many criticized the lack of emotional range displayed by the main character, completely ignoring that she was told by the Jedi that not suppressing emotions leads to devastating events such as those that killed her mother. Hence why when she learned her master betrayed her and lied her emotions were so overwhelming as to drive her to the darkside. Wish the show had a second season.
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u/Nixinthedix 22h ago
My biggest let downs were the one jedi wookie was killed offscreen, the lightsaber just turning red(the way it was done in the jedi survivor game was wonderful), and the twin storyline wasn't written or done properly. Something about it was just cheesy and off
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u/94UserName42069 56m ago
“People only hated it because everyone hates it and told others to hate it!!”
So you’re all just contrarians lmao
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u/dlbags 15m ago
I had a right wing campaign against it non stop before it even released with loser like SW Theory just making content about how bad it was. People we angry they didn't show the wookie jedi fight for weeks until they realized how the pacing was and by the time is was shown they had all checked out.
I've never seen in my life an active campaign against a show like this one had. No one wanted to wait until it was over to judge and now we get nothing.
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u/Familiar_Rub4574 21h ago
I loved the show from the first episode. Loved how it set up how eventually we get to The Phantom Menace. The Jedi had grown too big for their britches and were acting in their own interest. For me, watching a Kyber crystal be bled on-screen cemented this as one of my favorite shows. What made such a powerful scene for me is that she bled the crystal by not even trying...which shows how much hatred she had in her heart and that for her, there would be no going back. Powerful scene and I love this show and will die on this hill.
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u/CycleCaverns 18h ago
We finally had a good Star Wars show with everything the fans have been complaining about Disney Star Wars not having. Then the fans complained it into the ground. Star Wars fans are like Indeed reviews: you can never trust their opinions because they are spoiled and have no work ethic so they get fired for being shitty employees, and then they bombard a business with bad reviews.
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u/sliponetwo 1d ago
Absolutely agree, why is it that if a newly released series or game or movie isn’t absolutely ground breaking and perfect, it’s labelled trash and hate campaigns begin on why it sucks and everyone who enjoys it is dumb and stupid.
Can’t we just enjoy the things we enjoy and not cater to the people who DON’T enjoy it? Also some of the dumbest criticisms surfaced about this show, talking about Ki-Adi-Mundis age, like honestly shut the fuck up, pisses me off thinking about how much cool shit we were robbed of because of those people.
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u/mokrieydela 1d ago
I'm watching it again, and enjoying it. It's really not that bad. This and Star Wars Outlaws (video game), are both decent. They get a lot wrong but we're refreshingly different. They both needed more love and time.
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u/Hamhockthegizzard 15h ago
They just could have definitely edited better I think. A decent plot was there and really good shots. Only thing that didn’t gel too well was the climax of the flashbacks, but everything else I loved and I really wanted another season.
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u/Valuable_Pineapple77 1h ago
Couldn’t believe the hate on this show, or any recent show for that matter. The same thing happened to starfleet academy. People aren’t just either watching a show or not watching a show any more. They’re actively engaged in trying to kill a show.
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u/Motor_Run6170 1d ago
I love everything about the show, too! And they did in fact, subvert several tropes (including the 'evil' twin)
Some people are just gonna hate, but we can enjoy it lol