***** THE ACOLYTE Show Discussion (see note inside) Thread *****

165,835 Views | 1974 Replies | Last: 1 mo ago by Sea Speed
PatAg
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We're about to enter the phase of discussion on the show where people go overboard with pretending the show was great to counteract the people saying it was bad "because its woke".
Can't ignore the obvious flaws just because you want it to be great.
ABATTBQ11
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Cliff.Booth said:

I'm baffled WTF this was going for until I read commentary from someone on the exact wavelength as KK and people like Leslye and Amandla. This is it.





This person needs to get with the times. Bob Iger has returned, and we've come back to reality where the audience isn't responsible for ****ty writing and production.
Madmarttigan
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I think it's ok to challenge the "good" morality of the jedi in a "for the greater good" sense where they sometimes screw up things or do awful things to save many. There are choices that they will of course have to make policing an entire galaxy and they definitely won't always be right. There will be wronged parties and those make for interesting villain origins where we are sympathetic with what happened to them.

The way this show wrote it is just a Jedi being super creepily attached to a little girl for absolutely no reason and again murdering her mother for no reason. Basically murdering a village on a completely ridiculous whim. Just… awful… writing.
Formerly tv1113
gougler08
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Madmarttigan said:

I think it's ok to challenge the "good" morality of the jedi in a "for the greater good" sense where they sometimes screw up things or do awful things to save many. There are choices that they will of course have to make policing an entire galaxy and they definitely won't always be right. There will be wronged parties and those make for interesting villain origins where we are sympathetic with what happened to them.

The way this show wrote it is just a Jedi being super creepily attached to a little girl for absolutely no reason and again murdering her mother for no reason. Basically murdering a village on a completely ridiculous whim. Just… awful… writing.


Yeah I still don't get why Sol killed Anisenya? She was going witch mode I guess?
twilly
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Cliff.Booth said:

I'm baffled WTF this was going for until I read commentary from someone on the exact wavelength as KK and people like Leslye and Amandla. This is it.





This is a classic "Art vs Commerciality" argument. Why can't people see the beauty in something? I can see lots of beautiful things out there. The Last Jedi was a beautifully imaged movie, but commercially, it was a beautiful mess because it didn't deliver what the audience wanted. It was an art piece.

I'm not sure the Acolyte qualifies as an art piece. More like a piece of **** IMO.
concac
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Why did the rodent betray Sol? Did he gain sympathy with Mae after listening in to Sol telling Mae the real story about what happened at Brendok?

And Pip attacking Osha by spraying her with the liquid - why?

And nobody even cared about the Yoda cameo.
powerbelly
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I'm not mad, just disappointed.

It is time for the leadership of Lucasfilm to be turned over from the top down.
Madmarttigan
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It was just a shot of the back of his head I don't know what we are supposed to get hyped for with that.
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concac
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Madmarttigan said:

It was just a shot of the back of his head I don't know what we are supposed to get hyped for with that.
That's the point - Disney probably expecting some ooohs and aaahs and get people all excited about what's to come. But it fell flat because everything about the show is ass.
fig96
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PatAg said:

We're about to enter the phase of discussion on the show where people go overboard with pretending the show was great to counteract the people saying it was bad "because its woke".
Can't ignore the obvious flaws just because you want it to be great.
Similar to the last season of True Detective. I had no problem with it being a female driven show, it just wasn't very good.
Madmarttigan
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Also it's a show in the time period where Yoda is in the height of his power… of course he should be aware of what's going on and somehow involved. Everyone was expecting it.
Formerly tv1113
SpreadsheetAg
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TCTTS said:

I've noticed lately, more and more, that so many of these types of fans only care WHERE the pieces fall, not HOW the pieces got there. It's as if these fans watch solely to see plot points being checked, as opposed to watching for the storytelling itself. Like, what he's describing below sounds awesome. No one's mad that happened. We're upset (relatively speaking) because of HOW it happened. Because the storytelling that connected all the various plot points, and ultimately led to that outcome, sucked.




Exactly. Take Game of Thrones - specifically Jaime Lannister. In S1 he's a condescending sister-impregnating d!<k. By season 5 you're rooting for him. But what happens in season 2,3, & 4 and his journey to get there (regaining some
Honor via Brienne of Tarth) is WHY you're rooting for him.

If they just started making Jaime likable all of a sudden; to fill plot points... it wouldn't have the same effect.
PatAg
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concac said:

Why did the rodent betray Sol? Did he gain sympathy with Mae after listening in to Sol telling Mae the real story about what happened at Brendok?

And Pip attacking Osha by spraying her with the liquid - why?

First one Ive seen a few people complain about.
My take was that Sol appeared to be trying to lock on and fire on Mae's ship, which is maybe not in keeping with his character. So Basil (rodent guy?) tore the wires up to stop him...which I guess is fine since he couldnt just say "dont fire on her thats not who you are" or something like that.


Pip isnt Pip anymore, he's some generic robot that is Mae's now after the hard reset right? Just defending its new owner
SpreadsheetAg
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Quote:

Surely that cave creeper can't be Tenebrous or Plagueis. Although, I guess what really matters is whether or not it's Qimir's master. If it is, why is it letting him train an acolyte? Why is Qimir training one under the watchful eye of his master?

If it's not a master wtf is it?


My guess is Darth Voldemort is Plagueis and he wants to study the this dyad / vergence (Mae and Osha) in order to extend his life.

Fits somewhat with Palpatine quotes below:
Quote:

"Did you ever hear the tragedy of Darth Plagueis The Wise? I thought not. It's not a story the Jedi would tell you. It's a Sith legend. Darth Plagueis was a Dark Lord of the Sith, so powerful and so wise he could use the Force to influence the midichlorians to create life… He had such a knowledge of the dark side that he could even keep the ones he cared about from dying. The dark side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural. He became so powerful… the only thing he was afraid of was losing his power, which eventually, of course, he did. Unfortunately, he taught his apprentice everything he knew, then his apprentice killed him in his sleep. Ironic. He could save others from death, but not himself." - Sheev Palpatine or Darth Sidious.
TRoS
Quote:

The lifeforce of your bond... a dyad in the Force. A power like life itself. Unseen for generations. And now... the power of two restores the one, true Emperor.

So Darth Voldemort has been hanging on to life by a thread for a long, long while. He's discovered by Qimir and flips Qimir to dark side. They find the twins and Darth Voldemort plans to have Qimir train them enough to grow their abilities, and then plans to drain their power and give life back to himself.

Qimir will stop him because he loves Osha, probably. Darth Voldemort is somewhat successful and is restored to some life/power. Further, he doesn't drain Mae/Osha completely, or at least not Osha (Mae sacrifices herself to stop DV from killing Osha). DV goes on to train Palpatine later...

Qimir and Osha decide to peace out and live their dark romance out in the unknown regions. Qimir eventually becomes Snoke... hahaha

FL_Ag1998
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Madmarttigan said:

Also it's a show in the time period where Yoda is in the height of his power… of course he should be aware of what's going on and somehow involved. Everyone was expecting it.


But, you see, if Yoda was involved that would mean a lesser role (gasp, perhaps no role at all!) for the show's creator's girlfriend.
Madmarttigan
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I'd be a little mad if they turned Yoda into a lying political scumbag covering up murders for the greater good of the jedi so best keep him out of that part.
Formerly tv1113
Cliff.Booth
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FL_Ag1998 said:

Madmarttigan said:

Also it's a show in the time period where Yoda is in the height of his power… of course he should be aware of what's going on and somehow involved. Everyone was expecting it.


But, you see, if Yoda was involved that would mean a lesser role (gasp, perhaps no role at all!) for the show's creator's girlfriend.


Or a female being having to listen and take advice from an....older, wiser male being. Un-****ing-acceptable.
SpreadsheetAg
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FL_Ag1998 said:

And trust me, its no coincidence that the lone main Jedi who survives this train wreck of a season, dooming us to see more of her Syfy-channel worthy performance in Season 2, is Headland's girlfriend.
This. So the one Jedi that was worth a F- was Sol, and he was turned into a murderer and was in turn murdered by his former pupil.

All the other Jedi are worthless, incompetent, or just the equivalent of LARPing super-dorks in cosplay.

And with that budget, why the hell have they gone the Star Trek route of 90% of the galaxy is human, and 9 of the 10 remaining percent of the galaxy are humanoids with spots, or dots, or horns, or tall heads ... where's the non-biped / non-humanoid diversity?
Dekker_Lentz
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Cliff.Booth said:

I'm baffled WTF this was going for until I read commentary from someone on the exact wavelength as KK and people like Leslye and Amandla. This is it.




The discourse in this screenshot is extremely frustrating. Most of the old Star Wars EU grappled with the morality of the Jedi. Starting with Dark Empire and the Thrawn trilogy.

If Acolyte had come anywhere close to actually showing these ideas instead of merely hinting at them, then this show would have been a huge hit.

The show could have been fixed. First, episode one should have been just Brendok. The opening sequence is Venestra reminding the four Jedi that they are there to study the Vergence in the Force and gather information of the rumored force cultists on the planet, but not to engage.

I would have dropped the mystery of the twins to the audience and spent more time showing how similar the twins are, even though they are accomplishing different things. Intermixing Mae getting ready to fight and Mae and Indara's fight with Osha getting ready to and saving the ship. Less good twin/evil twin and more action twin/reflective twin. Then over the series the twins would be learning the skills of the others.

Make Torbin Jedi ambitious and him viewing being assigned to Brendock as a punishment or hampering his Jedi career. Make that he wants to be on the council. I might have even added a fifth Jedi to the mission that Torbin got killed by pushing for action, maybe a padawan for Kelnacca? Make it clearer what he was seeking forgiveness.

Also, I would strongly consider making it clear that the Witches were planning to fuse Mae/Osha into one person and that is what the ceremony was about and they understood that Mae/Osha couldn't thrive separately. Then it can be clearer that one of the mother's could be having second thoughts and sending a daughter with the Jedi makes more sense, i.e. they can both live. This could be the moral dilemma, should the two half's of one soul be reunited, even if it means extinguishing one of them? Should it be done by the cultists/should it have been done by Jedi? Should both continue to live? The best way to show the flaws in the Jedi Order is giving them moral problems that don't have nice and neat solutions or even problems without solutions.

Thus it makes it more tragic that the Jedi intervened, because if they had done nothing perhaps, the joint being would have gone on to be a great Jedi. This could be what Torbin realized, that by acting, he created suffering for Mae/Osha and the others when observation and patience would have lead to a different result.

Add a scene with Darth Plagious and Qimir to give some context to what the Sith are playing at here. For all the talk that this show was to expand the Sith, we really didn't see it. Personally, I would love if the explanation was Plagious was grooming Qimir to assassinate Darth Tenberous, but lots of ways to go about it.

If you show Yoda, he has to say/do something.

Then tighten up everything else.
Mathguy64
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They had a Sasquatch Jedi that you saw for 10 minutes?Isn't that enough?

Seriously I wonder how they really do Plagueis. He's like 8 ft tall right? From the Banking Clan.
justnobody79
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The actress playing Vernestra had all the charm and charisma of T-1000 from Terminator 2. I think the dorky Jedi must have won a raffle at the local Comicon to get that role. Sol and Qimir were acted pretty well, but the writing killed Sol the last few episodes. All in all this show was a train wreck. Like if the Last Jedi and the Vespa gang from Book of Boba Fett had a baby bad. But hey, at least they got to knock down the evil Jedi patriarchy a few notches.
powerbelly
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She is ****ing the executive producer
justnobody79
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powerbelly said:

She is ****ing the executive producer
trying to guess the censored word. I'm going with scissoring
Cliff.Booth
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SpreadsheetAg
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What species was the lead senate dude? Was that supposed to be a Bothan?
Mathguy64
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powerbelly said:

She is ****ing the executive producer


She is ****ing the executive producer.

She is the ****ing executive producer.

Gotta love the English language when one word changes form between verb and adjective. It makes all the difference in the world.
jeffk
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The fight scenes were cool. Even if half the Jedi were just red shirts.

There were some good bones to the story, but everything about how it was written and then executed was booty butt.
fig96
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Pretty spot on from Jeremy Jahns...

CheeseSndwch
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Something I was thinking about at lunch today, if Mae had her memory wiped is essentially at the emotional/cognitive level of a child would she be young enough to be trained by the Jedi? Because I think that's the direction this is going to go in if we get a Season 2.
Red Five
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One small positive from last night, I thought David Harewood was great as Senator Rayencourt. They should have ditched the entire story they wrote and instead made it about the stranger killing jedi and Vernestra finding out it was her former padawan and trying to stop him while also trying to cover up the fact that a former jedi is going on a killing spree and hold off the Senate's attempts to exert more control over the order. That would have required much better writers than what they had, obviously, but it would have been a much more compelling story.
Madmarttigan
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Agree about the senator thought he was interesting
Formerly tv1113
TCTTS
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SpreadsheetAg said:

Quote:

Surely that cave creeper can't be Tenebrous or Plagueis. Although, I guess what really matters is whether or not it's Qimir's master. If it is, why is it letting him train an acolyte? Why is Qimir training one under the watchful eye of his master?

If it's not a master wtf is it?


My guess is Darth Voldemort is Plagueis and he wants to study the this dyad / vergence (Mae and Osha) in order to extend his life.

Fits somewhat with Palpatine quotes below:
Quote:

"Did you ever hear the tragedy of Darth Plagueis The Wise? I thought not. It's not a story the Jedi would tell you. It's a Sith legend. Darth Plagueis was a Dark Lord of the Sith, so powerful and so wise he could use the Force to influence the midichlorians to create life… He had such a knowledge of the dark side that he could even keep the ones he cared about from dying. The dark side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural. He became so powerful… the only thing he was afraid of was losing his power, which eventually, of course, he did. Unfortunately, he taught his apprentice everything he knew, then his apprentice killed him in his sleep. Ironic. He could save others from death, but not himself." - Sheev Palpatine or Darth Sidious.
TRoS
Quote:

The lifeforce of your bond... a dyad in the Force. A power like life itself. Unseen for generations. And now... the power of two restores the one, true Emperor.

So Darth Voldemort has been hanging on to life by a thread for a long, long while. He's discovered by Qimir and flips Qimir to dark side. They find the twins and Darth Voldemort plans to have Qimir train them enough to grow their abilities, and then plans to drain their power and give life back to himself.

Qimir will stop him because he loves Osha, probably. Darth Voldemort is somewhat successful and is restored to some life/power. Further, he doesn't drain Mae/Osha completely, or at least not Osha (Mae sacrifices herself to stop DV from killing Osha). DV goes on to train Palpatine later...

Qimir and Osha decide to peace out and live their dark romance out in the unknown regions. Qimir eventually becomes Snoke... hahaha

I'm afraid this is essentially the plan (save for the Snoke part), and I'm seeing a ton of fanboys speculating the same online/pretty pissed off about it (lots of whining that it turns out Plagueis was inspired by nothing more than "lesbian space witches"). Basically, it's looking more and more like The Acolyte is the origin story of how Plagueis got his powers, a story that of course ultimately goes on to inspire Palpatine/Anakin, serving as connective tissue to the Skywalker Saga.

On paper? That's pretty cool!

Under the guidance of Headland & co? Ugh, no thank you.

Unfortunately, the fact that this is almost assuredly the story going forward likely increases the show's chances of renewal. Without that bigger connective tissue, if this were more of a contained story set a hundred years ago, one that underperformed as much as it did, it would be way easier for Lucasfilm to count their loses and move on. Basically, I still don't think "woke" pressure gets this thing renewed, but the fact that it looks to be telling a much grander, more significant story very well could.
Cliff.Booth
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TCTTS said:

SpreadsheetAg said:

Quote:

Surely that cave creeper can't be Tenebrous or Plagueis. Although, I guess what really matters is whether or not it's Qimir's master. If it is, why is it letting him train an acolyte? Why is Qimir training one under the watchful eye of his master?

If it's not a master wtf is it?


My guess is Darth Voldemort is Plagueis and he wants to study the this dyad / vergence (Mae and Osha) in order to extend his life.

Fits somewhat with Palpatine quotes below:
Quote:

"Did you ever hear the tragedy of Darth Plagueis The Wise? I thought not. It's not a story the Jedi would tell you. It's a Sith legend. Darth Plagueis was a Dark Lord of the Sith, so powerful and so wise he could use the Force to influence the midichlorians to create life… He had such a knowledge of the dark side that he could even keep the ones he cared about from dying. The dark side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural. He became so powerful… the only thing he was afraid of was losing his power, which eventually, of course, he did. Unfortunately, he taught his apprentice everything he knew, then his apprentice killed him in his sleep. Ironic. He could save others from death, but not himself." - Sheev Palpatine or Darth Sidious.
TRoS
Quote:

The lifeforce of your bond... a dyad in the Force. A power like life itself. Unseen for generations. And now... the power of two restores the one, true Emperor.

So Darth Voldemort has been hanging on to life by a thread for a long, long while. He's discovered by Qimir and flips Qimir to dark side. They find the twins and Darth Voldemort plans to have Qimir train them enough to grow their abilities, and then plans to drain their power and give life back to himself.

Qimir will stop him because he loves Osha, probably. Darth Voldemort is somewhat successful and is restored to some life/power. Further, he doesn't drain Mae/Osha completely, or at least not Osha (Mae sacrifices herself to stop DV from killing Osha). DV goes on to train Palpatine later...

Qimir and Osha decide to peace out and live their dark romance out in the unknown regions. Qimir eventually becomes Snoke... hahaha

I'm afraid this is essentially the plan (save for the Snoke part), and I'm seeing a ton of fanboys speculating the same online/pretty pissed off about it (lots of whining that it turns out Plagueis was inspired by nothing more than "lesbian space witches"). Basically, it's looking more and more like The Acolyte is the origin story of how Plagueis got his powers, a story that of course ultimately goes on to inspire Palpatine/Anakin, serving as connective tissue to the Skywalker Saga.

On paper? That's pretty cool!

Under the guidance of Headland & co? Ugh, no thank you.

Unfortunately, the fact that this is almost assuredly the story going forward likely increases the show's chances of renewal. Without that bigger connective tissue, if this were more of a contained story set a hundred years ago, one that underperformed as much as it did, it would be way easier for Lucasfilm to count their loses and move on. Basically, I still don't think "woke" pressure gets this thing renewed, but the fact that it looks to be telling a much grander, more significant story very well could.


Will anyone within Disney LF have the boldness to point out that regardless of where the story is headed into potential future seasons, the amateur execution of this one means if renewed it has to be in the hands of someone capable? Is she at all on the chopping block for botching this season so badly, or is she unfireable?
Madmarttigan
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Expectation - they have to get someone new to lead this

Reality - we've brought on Rian Johnson as a consultant
Formerly tv1113
TCTTS
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Headlund or Kennedy? If the latter, Kennedy's current contract is apparently up at the end of this year, and hopefully all parties finally agree it's time to part ways. If Headlund, I seriously doubt they would renew the show but fire her. It happens more than you'd think, but just doesn't seem likely in this particular instance.
 
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