In the realm of drama of a caliber I have neither seen in forever nor thought I would even bother with, but I find far too hilarious to not pay attention to, we have the most recent Star Wars series on Disney+: The Acolyte.
Fan consensus is that it’s, well, shit.
I’m not going to go all out and cover each of the episodes which has been shown so far — at the time of this writing half the series has aired, and there are plenty of YouTube creators and other bloggers who have gone in depth on each episode and how bad they individually are, as well as the show in general.
As a summary, we have wooden acting, poor use of the more well known talent, dialog that many consider worse than that of the prequels (I know, I was surprised too,) terrible storytelling, and lore breaking choices that show that no one involved in the production of the show actually gives a fuck about Star Wars. All that on a nearly $200,000,000 budget.
Thus the fans of the nearly half-century old story are more than a little pissed, and quite vocal about the poor quality of The Acolyte. It’s just not enjoyable and for as many complaints as fans have had about Kenobi, Season 3 of The Mandalorian, and Ahsoka, The Acolyte seems to be even worse to nearly everyone.
From what I’ve seen, yeah, it’s pretty bad. I didn’t have interest in the program based on what I saw in preview form, and I’m glad I didn’t give it a go because honestly I’m better off spending my time gaming, or re-watching Robot Chicken for the first time in what must be forever. The trailers just didn’t appeal to me, and when I saw the interviews with the cast and producers pre release, I knew this was going to be garbage.
I just didn’t know how quickly this garbage would go up in flames.
The first couple of episodes were received with mediocre reaction from the usual Star Wars fan sources, as best I can see. At that time I didn’t pay attention too much and didn’t have the show pushed in my feed, but then came episode 3: at that point the other week I happened to watch one video covering the show, focusing on the cringefest that is the “The power of one, the power of two, the power of maaaaanyyyyyyyyyyyyy” scene, and then the floodgates opened.
I began to have more and more critical content on the show presented to me, and I watched out of morbid curiosity…. and then came episode 4. Was it as bad as episode 3? No, apparently, but by this point people involved in the show had begun to respond to the criticism and, as we all knew would happen, they cried racism and homophobia.
Now, you’ll notice that I didn’t bring up those topics as criticism of the show because quite honestly beyond the show clearly being made in the modern Hollywood spirit of “inclusion” and “diversity” the criticism I saw almost exclusively focused on the actual production in and of itself, on a whole, being poor, and only brought up the “woke” factor as a secondary point, mainly stressing that the focus was on that element more than the production of a good Star Wars story, which, quite honestly, is what I get out of this. There is no other way to explain the level of “not give a fuck” with the way the story is told and how poorly it utilizes the established universe other than it being produced simply as a vehicle for, well, whatever the goal is with people who prioritize diversity and inclusion over telling a good story.
Now, let’s keep in mind that I’m left leaning. Pretty heavily left leaning in some aspects, but even I’m absolutely tired of every single piece of media produced being made with some kind of inclusivity being the only thing the creators care about. It should be in service of the story, not a replacement for the story.
Lastly, before I end this piece, I do want to point out that if gender and ethnic diversity were why the show is disliked, then the most recent Game of Thrones based series, House of the Dragon wouldn’t be popular either, since if’s full of inclusivity, but it seems to be quite well received, probably because, as best I can gather, it’s a quality story with good production — something The Acolyte simply is not.
One response to the criticism, however, was just something else and is, by far, one of the worst things I’ve ever subjected my eyes and ears to.
