'The Acolyte' Canceled: Disney's Star Wars Spinoff Done After One Season : star

[–] MimicJar@lemmy.world 83 points 2 months ago (7 children)

There was a good show in there somewhere, but what we got wasn't it.

I'm not sure walking away from the season what I was supposed to have learned. It's ok to kill people sometimes as long as you're pretty sure they messed up your life?

Mando is about found families and learning to trust.

Andor is about how war/strife changes people.

Obi-wan is about relearning to believe (in yourself/the force) and what's worth fighting for.

Ahsoka is about students and teachers, how they each can learn from one another.

Even if you disagree with my interpretation, you can at least agree it's a possible interpretation.

But Acolyte... I just don't know what I'm supposed to get out of it. The dark side ain't so bad? Jedi don't like others using the force?

[–] troed@fedia.io 27 points 2 months ago

My takeaway was indeed that the Jedi of old weren't the good guys, although they still believed they were.

[–] DarkThoughts@fedia.io 15 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The jedi not being strictly all that "good" isn't all that new and I definitely would've liked to see that explored more, as well as more "neutral" force users, or even something from the perspective of the dark side too. I also don't think this show was as bad as the review bombing made it out to be and on YT you kept just seeing the same rage baiting bigots too but it definitely missed the mark in many areas, despite having some good moments too. Still, a lot of the hate definitely came from the fact that we had a black female main character and some lesbian force witches. That's pretty hard to ignore with how loud those people are.

I still want more something like Andor though. That was still the best Star Wars I've ever seen.

[–] MimicJar@lemmy.world 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Actually ignoring the ragebait is easy. It exists for everything. The problem is when a TV show/film is weak. It makes the ragebait easy because now they are "right". The issue with the show has nothing to do with it having a black female lead. The story just wasn't that good. The story is still not that good if she were a white dude. It's not end of the world terrible, just mediocre.

Anyway, back to my point. Shitty people have shitty opinions, it's not worth listening to. OMG did you hear what the bigot said? No, was it shitty? It was? I'm not surprised. Stop giving them attention.

[–] Pandemanium@lemm.ee 8 points 2 months ago (4 children)

I just couldn't believe that after all those years living completely different and separate lives, neither of them changed their hair at all. And since the adult twins were played by the same actor, I couldn't tell them apart aside from clothing.

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[–] Shiggles@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 months ago

If I ever do one of those “watch everything in order” things, I might just watch episode 5. The fight scene was sick. Given how inconsequential the story was, it would probably just feel like an episode of Visions.

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[–] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 50 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (7 children)

Huh… I thought it was pretty interesting. Kinda bummed.

Also, kung fu + force powers is fantastic for fight scenes, so I hope they use that stuff more in other shows/movies.

Edit: the anti-woke review bombing crap that people apparently got up to seems to have played a role in the decision (reading between the lines), which is pretty shitty.

E2: instead of just downvoting, I’m interested to hear what people so strongly disliked about it.

[–] andrew_s@piefed.social 27 points 2 months ago (3 children)

The 'anti-woke' stuff is so frustrating. As soon as some youtube grifter labels something as 'woke' and their followers start review bombing, it frames all subsequent criticism of a thing: Mainstream outlets are wary of the association, so are kinder to a show that it deserves (which then brings their credibility into question for some people); Star Wars nerds who like anything in the universe start dismissing valid criticism because they assume it's been made in bad faith (because 'anti-woke' sorts don't always make themselves so obvious and do highjack legitimate concerns); and anyone trying to genuinely point out faults has to preface everything with where they're coming from (which can get tedious if nothing else).

Anyway: I don't have particularly strong opinions about the show but what I disliked about it was that it reminded me of 'Secret Invasion' and what I saw of 'Echo': it suggests that Disney don't want to do the traditional 'Andor' style of making television, and instead keep with the process of: write + shoot + re-write + reshoot ... This rarely works, and ends up with a show that has inconsistent characters ('Yord' changes personality about 5 times), inconsistent quality (since sets used for reshoots are typically smaller and less dressed), and inconsistent tone (people liked episode 5, but I'd argue that neck-snaps are too violent compared to the vibe of other episodes, which often seemed aimed at young children).

Also, there needs to be a moratorium of any characters saying they have a 'bad feeling about this' (if anyone says anything like this is S2 of Andor I'll be devasted)

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[–] MimicJar@lemmy.world 22 points 2 months ago (6 children)

In terms of dislike Ryan George does a good job, https://youtu.be/PqwEE6G6zaU

But in more detail there are a lot of decisions made by characters that are fun in the moment, but don't really make sense.

The twins are angry at Sol because he killed their mother, but Sol doesn't clarify that she was turning into a shadow monster?

Osha was a bad Jedi, fell out of the order, but then switches to dark side real quick and kills Sol.

We have to leave your sister behind and mind wipe her because there is no room in the ship? Also the mind wipe is clearly just a "we need a reason to stretch the story" move and if they had made a season 2 would have been undone quickly.

Why did the beaver man mess with the ship? He stopped Sol, but was also an ally?

I'm sure there are more but in general this show just didn't really tell a story I'm interested in.

Don't get me wrong it has some great things I want to know more about. The era of Star Wars is fun to explore and new. Space witches and how they compare (or are?) to the night sisters and their magic/force use. Possessing a Jedi. New Dark side users and origins.

The interesting story to me was/is Qimir, so I hope we can pick that character up again.

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[–] BertramDitore@lemmy.world 18 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I agree. I frankly think the show was quite bad in terms of tone, cinematography, and unfortunately acting. It all felt kinda cheap and poorly planned to me. I say this as someone has genuinely enjoyed all of the other Star Wars shows (yep, even Obi-Wan). But I also found it interesting and really enjoyed the fight scenes and the new yet familiar setting. Regardless of my opinion of the technical side of the production, I absolutely would have watched another season to see where the story was headed.

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[–] MrJameGumb@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago

I watched all of it and as some others have said I think there was a great story in there somewhere but it was just buried under a mountain of bad writing, crappy gimmicks, and terrible continuity.

I enjoyed elements of the story enough that I was willing to give a second season a chance, but I'm honestly not surprised it was cancelled.

The anti-woke stuff was shitty and definitely didn't help but I don't think that alone would have caused Disney to cancel a series if they really believed it could be successful

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[–] frazorth@feddit.uk 32 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

with certain corners of the internet going after Headland, who is a member of the LGBTQ+ community

That's some odd phrasing. Are they not allowed to say that someone is gay?

It feels like they are trying to dog whistle something, but I'm not sure what. Or was all the criticism completely unrelated and they are trying to stretch a point?

[Update]

I have been educated that this is not an uncommon phrasing to use by someone who is gay.

Presumably following the motto of a rising tide raises all the ships and they have expressed a preference for their success to be viewed as a success for everyone?

TIL.

[–] dustyData@lemmy.world 29 points 2 months ago

The producers once alluded that they were being review bombed by conservatives for the acolyte being too woke. Now, that might be true, but, the show also sucked in more than one way, which means there was no one to push back the reviews.

[–] PP_BOY_@lemmy.world 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Reminds me of the George Carlin bit on soft-language.

going after Headland, who happens to be a member of the LGBTQ+ community

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[–] anas@lemmy.world 32 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Kinda weird to blame the bad reviews on “anti-woke bigots”, then cancel the show to appease the bigots.

I did like the show, which looks like an unpopular opinion. Guess the tragedy of Darth Plagueis really isn’t a story the Jedi would tell you.

[–] jet@hackertalks.com 8 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

The one good thing about streaming services like Disney+ is that they have the platform metrics, and they can push shows against audiences and get watch metrics, retention metrics, etc from a large group of viewers. i.e. any online media storms can be weathered by good data of how the show is really performing.

The focus on anti-woke messaging from the show creatives seems like a rhetorical tool, if its the strongest message they have about the property that is what they are going to do to bring attention to it. If you have positive reviews, you talk about the reviews. If you have strong view numbers you talk about the viewer numbers. Since silence is the worst thing for a media property, if you have nothing else you talk about controversy real or imagined. Is there real anti-woke messaging for this show, sure, but like the standard background level you get on anything; is it the most interesting and important aspect of this show? Apparently - otherwise why would the creatives be talking about it?

The rhetoric escalation tree reveals uncomfortable truths. Woke/AntiWoke doesn't matter, only if it makes money, if it makes money, it gets another season.

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[–] MehBlah@lemmy.world 31 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I can live without this one. I want Andor season 2. The beauty of Andor is we know how it ends.

[–] lud@lemm.ee 8 points 2 months ago

Pretty sure andor season 2 is under production.

[–] tobogganablaze@lemmus.org 24 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Well, no surprise there.

[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 12 points 2 months ago (1 children)

After the first two episodes I was willing to give it a chance, especially since they dispensed with the whole "Is she or isn't she the killer?" nonsense almost immediately.

Then everything went to shit in episode 3 and I just stopped watching. Mae's damage vs. the Jedi is that she set a fire that killed everyone? Seriously? How is that the fault of anyone except Mae? To the point where she wants to kill everyone else?

[–] sandbox@lemmy.world 18 points 2 months ago (3 children)

If you had kept watching, then you would have learned that episode didn’t show the full picture and that Osha’s memory of the events had been altered by the Jedi.

[–] PunchingWood@lemmy.world 12 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (9 children)

Honestly it's kind of infuriating how many people were drawing conclusions after barely watching the show, or the many people that clearly never bothered to watch at all and based their entire opinions exclusively on social media ragebait. And this no doubt also contributed a lot to poor viewer stats.

The show wasn't excellent by any means, it could've been so much better, but I didn't feel like it was that bad as a lot of people made it seem like. And it definitely needs one to watch the entirety of it before drawing any conclusions considering the story and character developments.

Good example was people complaining about the fact that Carrie-Anne Moss's character being killed off within 5 minutes in the first episode, yet they didn't even bother to think about or wait for the fact that she could appear in more episodes through flashbacks. Clearly the show was made around misguiding viewers and infamous "subverting expectations".

It's a shame the show has to end this way, but at least the main story about the twins feels semi-complete. But unfortunately also a lot of open endings still, which are maybe better left like this, or perhaps wrapped up in novels or something.

[–] metaStatic@kbin.earth 15 points 2 months ago (2 children)

barely watching the show

It's my understanding it was released episodically like broadcast television. It doesn't matter how bad a show is I'll probably binge the whole damn thing if the entire season drops at once, but give me an exit point and one bad episode could be the end.

[–] MagicShel@programming.dev 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

They want a series to keep viewers around for more than a month, and I think they are trying to replicate the water cooler conversation piece that Game of Thrones was. I remember spending a few minutes each week discussing GoT with coworkers, driving everyone's interest.

That being said, I just really don't like shows where you feel you never know what's going on until they put the pieces together for you in the last episode. I get it's supposed to keep you intrigued and speculating, but mostly I just get angry that show runners substitute mystery for caring about the characters.

[–] dustyData@lemmy.world 9 points 2 months ago

The GoT strategy only works if the writing is good. Dialogue and plot quality are vital, specially when you're watching an episode to episode release model. Often times I felt like I was watching a bunch of middle schoolers cosplaying and making up the dialogue and story as they went along on the playground. Nothing of interest was happening, no deep topics were explored, what was said had no literary or poetical interest, it lacked any complex structure and it sometimes didn't have any structure at all, there was nothing to discuss on the hypothetical water cooler talk. Its cancelation is probably going to drive more conversation than any of its episodes ever did.

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[–] pastabatman@lemmy.world 22 points 2 months ago (4 children)

It was nowhere near as bad as the reviews suggest. Manny Jacinto was honestly great. The Stranger's helmet design with the metal cables looking like a deranged smile was cool, as was his ability to temporarily disable lightsabers. The new king fu element to the fight scenes was interesting.

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[–] Melonpoly@lemmy.world 16 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Good, I don't know how something like this could've been created in the first place. It makes it seem like anyone can be in charge of big budget shows regardless of if they have talent.

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[–] Wisas62@lemmy.world 16 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

I don't even feel like it was that 'woke'. But it was that bad. Bad wiring, bad acting, worse storyline. The only good thing was the choreography of a couple of the fight scenes except that they mostly made no sense. Not even Darth Vader cut through so many Jedi like butter but this random guy that 'i believe you would refer to me as sith' does with ease. I really think she was determined to ruin the originals. Basically she took everything that was cool and good and did it worse.

It's like the scene in Talladega nights where Cal is telling Gerrard the things that America created.

All woman witches with a connection to the dark side - Dathomir.

Children created by a vergence in the force - Anakin.

Force choke - Vader (this one made me sad).

Purple light saber - Windu.

Multi piece red light saber - Maul.

PIP - fallout.

Then there's just totally random things that are dumb: Regular Jedi having yellow lightsabers. The stones used in yellow lightsabers were used for the guardians of the temple. Kyber crystals make blue or green and that's why they are that color in the originals.

It was loosely implied that there was another Sith, maybe plagiues, implying that Qimir was his apprenrice making him be actively searching for his own apprentice ignoring the rule of 2.

Mace Windu says there hadn't been Sith in a millennium and the generally accepted context is that they've always existed they just hide from the Jedi. Now you a clear story of sith killing Jedi only 100 years prior.

Anissya tells the Jedi to make a perimeter but then they just all ignore that order and all go to the same place?

The only way you could execute a show this poorly is on purpose. Which I think is true, I think she wanted people to reference her show for the fun cool stuff because it's more fresh on their minds.

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[–] kandoh@reddthat.com 14 points 2 months ago

I liked it. Struggled at the beginning with lots of walking and talking to fill out time, but it tried to do something interesting with the rashomon story structure at the end.

I thought the seductive elements of the Darkside that they played up worked extremely well.

The squid games actor was great.

The fight scene in episode five was tons of fun. When Jason from the Good Place killed X2 by stabbing her 3 or 4 times with the short lightsaber I rewound to watch it a few times.

Probably would've been a better movie.

[–] MajorHavoc@programming.dev 13 points 2 months ago (1 children)

This is the first I've even heard of this show. It must have dropped during one of my "pissed off that Disney can't be arsed to keep their Android app working." phases.

Oh well.

[–] harrys_balzac@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I was excited for it but stopped halfway through episode 3. They should have started with episode 3, left things unclear then start off with episode 1.

I honestly didn't feel any sort of connection with any of the characters. I felt bad for Sol. He got peer pressured by a bunch of Jedi buttheads.

I'd rather have more episodes of Boba Fett than The Acolyte.

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[–] Illuminostro@lemmy.world 12 points 2 months ago (1 children)

All the "woke," incel bullshit aside, it wasn't very good.

[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I've been a Star Wars fan since '77 and wanted to like it, couldn't make it past Ep. 3.

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[–] ApollosArrow@lemmy.world 10 points 2 months ago (3 children)

My larger worry about this cancellation is the potential graveyard they may have kicked off. Netflix has a lot of cancelled shows that no one will ever watch, it just dilutes their overall library. If even Star Wars isn’t immune to this, then I really do hope Disney wasn’t lying and we start seeing fewer streaming shows coming out. I think we’d all prefer quality over quantity.

[–] setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I don't think this cancelation kicks off the problem of dilution of Star Wars brand identity. I think that problem has been happening for a while with the scattershot releases of movies and shows without the promised cohesion. There doesn't seem to be a vision from high up of what Star Wars should look like, or where it should be going with the setting.

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[–] lorty@lemmy.ml 9 points 2 months ago

I liked the ending but overall the show was terrible. Not much is lost with the cancellation.

[–] demizerone@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I didn't even bother. I checked out after Ahsoka. I really don't give af about "woke", the writing has been terrible. These series have so much embedded lore you have to watch YouTube vids to figure out context. I don't have time for all that.

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[–] ZeroHora@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I didn't like it but I think a season 2 was best than canceled, what did I gain watching s1? There's no story, only setups and now everything was thrown in the garbage, what a waste of time.

[–] Squizzy@lemmy.world 16 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It deserves to be cancelled for not telling a story

[–] Zahille7@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Then cancel Ahsoka, imo

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[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago

Too bad. I didn’t care very much for most of S1, but it seemed to be getting going in the last couple episodes and gave me hope that S2 would be decent.