Last week Star Wars fans were, to use the word very loosely, treated, to the season (and hopefully series) finale of The Acolyte. That final episode cemented this series as, by far, the worst thing to come out of Disney Star Wars. Period.
Now, I had no interest in watching the show — the material related to the show before its release, namely the cringe-fest that were the various interviews with the cast, cemented me as not watning to bother with this program. I wanted Star Wars, not “yaaaas queen” mixed with people thinking Anakin blew up the Death Star mixed with someone saying that seeing motherfucking Frozen (as a fully grown adult) made them cry inspired them to write this series…. no, that’s where I check out.
So, I went on with my life without any interest. Let’s be clear, I watched and enjoyed Ahsoka. Mandolorian Season 3 was mostly watchable to me. I did generally enjoy Andor and at least had aspects I liked about Book of Boba Fett. Kenobi I enjoyed in the moment, but afterwards realized was a total clusterfuck. Even while watching it I found elements to be, shall we say, poorly executed, but I was able to suspend my disbelief and just enjoy the show for what it was.
There was absolutely note way that could happen with Acolyte. I could not and would not be able to just take the show for what it is, and so, I avoided it.
Then, the show premiered, and a few YouTube channels I follow began talking about it. I watched their videos and wondered if they were just being hard on the show, as I felt they were with Ahsoka — yeah, it had its flaws but I felt people were too critical on it.
The Acolyte, however…from half assed under-acting to half-assed overacting, terrible writing, piss-poor choreography, and a story that even if it didn’t feel like it was written by a 12 year old still wouldn’t actually go anywhere or make any sense, well, there’s no redemption there.
I would list everything wrong, but a dozens of people out there on YouTube have done a far better job than I ever could ripping the show to absolute shreds, as it deserves. Indeed, that’s how I watched the show, in effect — was seeing their content, their examples in the form of clips from the show backing up their takes on it, and when I could watch isolated clips myself of “important” scenes, finding them to indeed be just as bad as consensus seemed to agree.
We just wanted a good Star Wars show. That’s all we want.
Instead, we got a random (and incorrectly formatted) pronoun insertion, lesbian space witches, a main female character stalking a primary male character while he bathes, as well as checking out the bad guys… ahem, Saber, along with plenty of sexual innuendo in between. (something that would have been immediately called out as creepy and sexist if it was a male character doing the same to a female character bathing,) and an entire “reason for everything happening” that’s supposed to make the Jedi look like the bad guys when, barring some actions here and there,they generally reacted to the situation appropriately.. Especially Squid-Game guy shoving his light saber into queen space witch when she turns into some demon cloud.
Let’s not even mention that joke of a song the lead actress made trying to call out those of us who dislike the show as “racists” even though race has nothing to do with the shows hate and has everything to do with the fact that the show just fucking sucks.
…and yet I’ve argued with people defending this show.. they complimented it almost arbitrarily, and will admit no faults with it. Oddly enough, they all seem to be the same type of person, but I’ll save that diagnosis for another article.
I’ve given a lot of slack to Disney Star Wars, but this is just…. inexcusable. $180 million dollars, and this was the best that could be come up with. Don’t get me wrong, there are elements that work. This show totally could have worked, but it didn’t. Period.
I may have more to say down the line, if I feel like it.