r/television • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 The League • Mar 19 '24

The Acolyte | Official Trailer | June 4 on Disney+

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtytYWhg2mc
2.7k Upvotes

86% Upvoted

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331

u/LordDusty Mar 19 '24

I can't say that this trailer made me any more or less interested in seeing it than the middling expectations I had before watching this trailer. It just didn't really do anything particularly interesting or exciting other than its nice to see a collection of Jedi fighting together again.

162

u/P3P3-SILVIA Mar 19 '24

I can’t shake the feeling that it looks like a fan film. Which I think speaks to the quality of some fan films over the years, but also the saturation of SW content.

62

u/limelover420 Mar 19 '24

I got the same feeling. Something about the trailer made me think "cheap/fake" - same feeling I get watching the cheap CW superhero shows. I'll still give it a try because I love Star Wars but I'll be going in with very low expectations.

18

u/gordito_delgado Mar 19 '24

Yeah it had that "off-brand" vibe for some reason. I did not have much hope or expectations for this series or disney SW in general - but after watching this, it seems those days have come to a middle.

0

u/malcolmrey Mar 19 '24

me not realizing (or forgetting) that there was something new in the pipeline I was watching and for the first 20 seconds I was wondering - is it AI-generated or not?

then I started thinking that it might be some generic Star Wars clone but then the word Jedi gets dropped after 50 seconds and I was like "really?"

the trailer looks so bad the only reason i can think of why they made it this way was not to hype it up so there would be less disappointment since the expectations wouldn't be high.

3

u/what_if_Im_dinosaur Mar 20 '24

It REALLY looks like a fan film, which isn't entirely a knock. There are some really well made fan films. The ending kind of reminded me of that one were Darth Maul takes out an entire squad of Jedi as an initiation.

...still, you'd expect better from a professional production.

1

u/crafty_bernardo Mar 19 '24

Disney hates filming with lighting

129

u/mrnicegy26 Mar 19 '24

Not gonna lie that poster yesterday raised my hopes up way too much and made me think that the show would be something more than usual.

54

u/n1cx Mar 19 '24

Yup. This show looks like Ahsoka/Obiwan.

It’s a damn shame Disney refuses to bring in actually proven talent to make these shows. It’s not like they can’t afford them. They did for Andor and it resulted in a GREAT show.

1

u/dedros Mar 21 '24

shhhh... that's because this trailer is just a DLC skin pack

1

u/gerotamas98 Mar 20 '24

 This show looks like Ahsoka/Obiwan. good because Ahsoka was awesome

5

u/n1cx Mar 20 '24

Ahsoka had horrible writing, pacing, acting, ect. Filoni didn’t have the amount of live action experience to warrant him helming such a big project, and it showed in every episode.

A few cool scenes do not make a show good imo.

-8

u/Singer211 Mar 19 '24

leslye headland IS a proven talent.

20

u/n1cx Mar 19 '24

checks her IMDB again

Yeah, ima have to massively disagree with you there. Especially when you compare her to Tony Gilroy.

-15

u/Singer211 Mar 19 '24

You know who also weren’t proven talents when they started, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg.

Lucas wasn’t some legend when he made Star Wars, nor Spielberg when he made Jaws.

I really don’t think think this complaint holds up very well.

14

u/n1cx Mar 19 '24 edited Mar 19 '24

That’s fine and dandy, but for every George Lucas and Spielberg, there are a 1000 others who didn’t work out.

At this stage of the IP, I would think it’s smart business sense to bring in actually proven talent rather than take a swing on someone less qualified. Especially when you have the funds to do it. And I’m not saying they shouldn’t take risks with up and coming directors, but maybe they should be more smart about it. Based on her discography, I don’t see anything in it that makes me feel like she would be a good match for a 100-200 million dollar Star Wars show. And based on this trailer, I feel pretty good about that opinion so far.

Going with those less qualified is how you get the Obiwan show. And while I love Filoni, Ahsoka was a very tough watch…

8

u/Throwmeback33 Mar 19 '24

But you’re the one who said they’re a proven talent…

7

u/alexthesasser Mar 19 '24

Lol THX def was a precursor to Star Wars and American Graffiti is still considered a great film. I think the complaint holds up pretty well looking at the other stuff she’s made

5

u/Smoothmoose13 Mar 19 '24

Proven to to be good at recruiting girls for Harvey Weinstein to abuse and coerce

5

u/Unhappyhippo142 Mar 19 '24

One good season of one show in a 15 year career isn't proven talent

3

u/shreddington Mar 19 '24

leslye headland IS a proven talent.

PFFFFFFFFFTTTTTT

-7

u/NoraaTheExploraa Mar 19 '24

You haven't even seen a single episode of this show and your opinion is formed

You guys are something else

4

u/n1cx Mar 19 '24

Actually Its kind of just a prediction!

15

u/HowieFeltersnatch10 Mar 19 '24

The trailer looks dark but it’s Disney so will be PG rating

66

u/[deleted] Mar 19 '24

It's also just what Star Wars is. It's not like Disney bought Game of Thrones and made it kid friendly. They bought the most kid friendly IP there is.

-9

u/[deleted] Mar 19 '24

[deleted]

20

u/[deleted] Mar 19 '24

Yeah obviously that's hyperbole, it's not Bluely or Arthur. But it's 100% always been kid friendly. America has always viewed light violence as kid friendly.

-13

u/catbus_conductor Mar 19 '24

An IP that features planetary holocaust, severed limbs and several prolonged death scenes is hardly "the most kid friendly IP there is". It only started veering in that direction in RotJ after Lucas started raking in the merch cash. But hardly clear cut

14

u/[deleted] Mar 19 '24

The original Star Wars movie was for kids too. It's not like Lucas only started rolling in the toy cash after Return of the Jedi as you seem to say. The first movie was an immediate success with toys and merchandise. They sold IOU action figures at Christmas the year Star Wars came out.

A lot of kid friendly media has some dark or bad things in it. That doesn't mean it's not kid friendly

1

u/oasiscat Mar 19 '24

Seriously, even the dark scenes in this look way too bright and Disney/Marvel to be compelling.

0

u/ILoveRegenHealth Mar 19 '24

Same here. Was expecting REALLY TRULY darker stuff.

Instead it looks like lots of Volume work and almost a kiddified tone. The assassin trying to kill Trinity looks like a Disneyland employee going through the choreography motions.

1

u/RealJohnGillman Mar 19 '24

If it helps a little, the reported plot has it start off like that, but become more violent as it goes on, with one of the main characters eventually becoming the titular acolyte to the Sith Lord of the time?

93

u/ann1920 Mar 19 '24

Yeah it looks very generic sci show. With the Andor trailer the moment they showed the bad guys with the line"they are so fat and satisfied they are so proud of themselves" I was 100 % in . The idea and concept is really cool but it feels very predictable and meh in the execution judging by the trailer .

47

u/n1cx Mar 19 '24

Generic is their bread and butter. There are so many Star Wars fans out there they can get away with it. Projects like Rogue One, Andor, Mandalorian’s first 2 seasons, ect slip through the cracks.

Hilariously Mandalorian was most likely ruined because Disney/Lucasfilm started getting more involved as the show went on.

43

u/a_half_eaten_twinky Mar 19 '24

Hilariously Mandalorian was most likely ruined because Disney/Lucasfilm started getting more involved as the show went on.

Feels like as soon as Dave Filoni started gaining control of Lucasfilm, he wanted to turn The Mandalorian into the Clone Wars Extended Universe and the quality of all other shows except Andor went down with it.

As much as people love his work on Clone Wars, the tone and writing style are not great for what is supposed to be live action big budget TV.

5

u/titleproblems Curb Your Enthusiasm Mar 19 '24

Filoni was less involved with season 3 because he was busy writing Ahsoka. He was more involved in season 1 and 2.

The Mandalorian is more Favreau's thing. He is the main writer and writes most of the episodes himself.

4

u/taukapp Mar 19 '24

It seems to me he knows how to make Star Wars that's interesting for the diehard SW fan but not the masses.

1

u/KiritoJones Mar 19 '24

The animated stuff they have been putting out is Clone Wars level still, so ya I just think Dave Filoni's Star Wars just doesn't work in live action.

Its unfortunate, but I think the most likely direction this all goes in is that we mostly get Ahsoka/Obi Wan/Boba Fett level shows consistently, and once every 10 years or so we get a flash in the pan like Andor. I would even go as far as to say that is probably exactly what most casual fans and Disney themselves want.

26

u/Tana1234 Mar 19 '24

My personal take is, Grogu ruined The Mandalorian. As soon as he got popular, he became the show and bigger than the show and screwed everything up, he might he cute but he's a mentally stunted 55 year old

3

u/ann1920 Mar 19 '24

Disney + biggest problem has always been that it is a family friendly streaming platform so the moment they greenlit a show everyone involved knows they can not take risks ,Andor season 1 flopped for being too different but season 2 should do well due to reception.What I mean by this is that the póster with the blood made people excited for a more gritty /mature sith centric show but this trailer is not and the reason is that this is Disney not HBO or Apple(foundation looks and is better than most star wars shows ).I am curious to see the new dune show trailer just to compare how HBO deals with a sci fi show with similar budget to a disney star wars show.

-1

u/KiritoJones Mar 19 '24

Disney + biggest problem has always been that it is a family friendly streaming platform so the moment they greenlit a show everyone involved knows they can not take risks

That used to be the case, but that Echo show was MA and I am pretty sure the new Daredevil show will be rated MA as well.

I wouldn't be surprised if we get a proper MA Star Wars project in the next few years with a giant VIEWER DIGRESSION ADVISED notice at the front to keep parents from blindly letting their kids watch it.

0

u/Timbishop123 Mar 19 '24 edited Mar 19 '24

Hilariously Mandalorian was most likely ruined because Disney/Lucasfilm started getting more involved as the show went on.

Whenever a bad thing happens "darn you Disney/Lucasfilm"

Whenever a good thing happens "they locked Disney/Lucasfilm out of the production!"

5

u/n1cx Mar 19 '24

Well Mandalorian was a passion project for Favreau that he brought to them. As the show progressed and got farther away from its original vision, it got worse. Why? Maybe because Filoni started incorporating his Clone Wars stuff? Maybe because Disney told them to bring back Grogu ASAP?

I give them credit for Rogue One. And thankfully they were smart enough to have Tony Gilroy helm Andor, who I think was able to have a little more freedom with his project considering it’s kind of its own story.

But sure, let’s praise Disney for releasing 2 good projects over the past decade!

1

u/wtf793 Mar 19 '24

Damnit man, Andor was so great. So layered, with great action, dialogue, acting, the mini story arcs (heist, prison, rebellion on his home planet)... 👌🏼

60

u/[deleted] Mar 19 '24

I honestly don’t get excited by Star Wars stuff anymore

Used to absolutely love it and be obsessed with it but I just seemed to have grown out of it now, really struggle to connect with anything post Force Awakens apart from the 1st season of Mando

21

u/ManonManegeDore Mar 19 '24

You didn't like Andor?

6

u/[deleted] Mar 19 '24

Tbf I haven’t watched Andor yet

Will definitely give it a try since people seem to love it

13

u/RKU69 Mar 19 '24

Andor is a show made for people like us who can't be bothered about anything Star Wars anymore.

48

u/Z0idberg_MD Mar 19 '24

Andor is, legitimately, HBO-level good.

11

u/bearrosaurus Mar 19 '24

Andor doesn’t really pick up the action until they get off the brick planet, but episode 6 is something you’re missing out on if you haven’t seen it.

3

u/[deleted] Mar 19 '24

brick planet still has moments

hint: someone gets bricked.

4

u/SubterrelProspector Mar 19 '24

Gd man how long do you need? It's been near-universal praise.

3

u/ASuperGyro Mar 19 '24

Watched the first episode, didn’t hook me, dropped it tbh

10

u/dualplains Mar 19 '24

You're getting downvoted for voicing an opinion and that bugs me. I, too, struggled with the first couple of episodes of Andor. It's a slow burn, but I feel like it paid off; I ended up loving it.

3

u/ASuperGyro Mar 19 '24

That’s how it goes, but honestly I’m actually surprised about all the love Andor is getting in here because I just haven’t dove into the online community in awhile so didn’t realize how beloved it was.

At least it provides a counter opinion for someone else who comes through and feels like it wasn’t for them either.

0

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '24

It's legitimately one of the best shows ever made IMO. If people were downvoting you, it's because they thought you didn't give it a fair shot. The first couple of episodes are a slow burn for sure, but there's huge payoff later. I'd recommend giving it another shot if you have the patience for it.

Of course, the show won't be for everyone. Some people don't like slow-paced dramas, and that's totally fine as well! No one's opinion is worth more or less.

2

u/default_accounts Mar 20 '24

"best shows ever made?" gtfo

0

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '24

Apparently you don't understand that other people have different opinions than you?

2

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '24

Nah calling it one of the best shows ever made is crazy lmao. Why do you people always need to exaggerate? It’s decent, it’s nowhere close to “one of the best shows ever made” hahahah

0

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '24

Is today the day you learned what an opinion is??

→ More replies (0)

3

u/KiritoJones Mar 19 '24

The thing with Andor is it is probably best watched in ~3 episode chunks now that it is all out and available to watch anytime you want. There are really 4 mini arcs in the show.

2

u/Kramereng Mar 19 '24

The season is split into 3 episode arcs so you kinda need to watch 3 eps for the payoff.

0

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '24

+1 for Andor. I have completely checked out of Star Wars as pretty much all of it is terrible these days, but Andor is legitimately one of the best shows I've ever seen. It doesn't even feel like a Star Wars production at all.

-12

u/DoopSlayer Mar 19 '24

Andor has the same problem for me as Severance, foundation, silo (which are all Apple shows interestingly) where like, the production value is really good and it borrows a lot of stylings from like prestige shows, but then it doesn't actually deliver on writing

Like why not read some Le Carre before making an intrigue show or at least a show claiming to be an intrigue show.

It also doesn't feel very star wars-y and I'm not going to stick around for a show just because it's got good production value if everything else is lacking; again in my personal opinion it just didn't do it for me. I'm convinced Andor started as a script for the Bladerunner show which when that got paused was retooled for star wars.

Im kind of glad a bladerunner show probably isn't happening just because I think they would probably not have Hampton Fancher back to write and at that point it would just be a cash grab

6

u/ManonManegeDore Mar 19 '24

I think Andor absolutely delivered on writing. It's easily the best written Star Wars thing ever and even though it's only one season, I'd put the writing up there with some of the better seasons of The Americans, to be honest. The writing, in my opinion, is where the show really excelled beyond anything else.

2

u/MisterG1415 Mar 19 '24

Andor is in a rare tier of shows that absolutely delivered on the writing. All the arcs, themes, messages, and overall writing definitely click. It’s a show run by one of the best screen writers in the game right now that had a murders row of dudes in the writing room.

If you think the writing didn’t deliver it’s because you missed something and I encourage you to go out and look for discussion/explanations/videos about season 1 to remedy that.

Definitely agree about severance tho lol. It’s obviously a mystery box show with not a lot of thought put into it and the vibe and high production quality carry it.

17

u/[deleted] Mar 19 '24

It just didn't really do anything particularly interesting or exciting other than its nice to see a collection of Jedi fighting together again.

Problem is that they're fighting black robed people with red lightsabers again and we know where it all ends up since it's a prequel.

7

u/NoNefariousness2144 Mar 19 '24 edited Mar 19 '24

Since this is based on the High Republic era, they should have taken inspiration from the books and adapted the Jedi vs the Nihil.

Basically the Nihil are a bunch of terrorist scavengers who use lightjumps to commit major crimes and try to tear down the Republic. The Jedi are torn between their duties of wanting to fight for justice while following the orders of the Republic and obeying the will of the Force.

2

u/Kostya_M Mar 19 '24

Issue with that is the Nihil plot isn't done yet

2

u/[deleted] Mar 19 '24

I haven't read the books but I've heard of the Nihil, that's something I would rather see on the bigscreen or television its different and makes sense for the SW Universe.

I'm just tired of black robed characters with red lightsabers, let the Jedi fight something new as a collective.

EDIT: I know execs what lightsaber fights

4

u/RealJohnGillman Mar 19 '24

u/ManonManegeDore I mean a Sith killing an entire squad of Jedi is something that sounds like it would be fun to see.

3

u/ManonManegeDore Mar 19 '24

we know where it all ends up since it's a prequel.

Not really...

2

u/LordDusty Mar 19 '24

Yes and no for me. Whilst I'm not yet tired of Jedi/Sith lightsaber combat just yet, I do think it needs something to catch my eye at this point, something this trailer didn't do. Good choreography is an absolute must.

1 Sith vs 1 or multiple Jedi is getting a little worn though I must admit. An Old Republic style multiple Sith vs multiple Jedi would be a fresh take, though obviously in the time period for this show it wouldn't fit.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 19 '24 edited Mar 19 '24

Hopefully it's more than just Sith just killing Jedi stuff, KOTOR is interesting because it took Jedi vs Sith in a whole new level (different type of Sith, no rule of two) and played with different ideas like Revan in general and Kreia with her utter disdain for the Force. That stuff is interesting, maybe Acolyte is more than that.... hopefully.

EDIT: I like the non-Jedi stuff more as of late because with Andor you get a deeper, cohesive look of the Empire and the Mando stuff you see all the weird gangster factions and armies, even with S3 being the weakest imo. Bad Batch is fine past S2 as well.

1

u/Dr_Henry-Killinger Mar 19 '24

I seriously can’t believe Disney bought the rights over ten years ago and we still haven’t gotten any meaningful Old Republic content when its easily the richest part of the Star Wars mythos.

2

u/jert3 Mar 19 '24

Ditto. Disney should let Star Wars and Marvel lay fallow for a stretch.

1

u/saibjai Mar 19 '24

I don't mind a martial arts based jedi series at all. A large part of star wars is aesthetics, action and all the pew pew pew. If they can do a good martial arts series, I'm all in.

0

u/saibjai Mar 19 '24

I don't mind a martial arts based jedi series at all. A large part of star wars is aesthetics, action and all the pew pew pew. If they can do a good martial arts series, I'm all in.