Online Series: Star Wars: The Acolyte on Disney+

[HanSolo]

It's not that specific "woke" parts of the show made it bad. It's that they often didn't make sense and precluded better storytelling. For example, making the parents a straight man and woman wouldn't have made the show better if everything else stayed the same, no, but then the story likely would've been very different, since representing a female-centric society and Headland's own lesbian relationship no doubt inspired the witches in the first place. Without wanting to put those elements in, she might've come up with a better story.

We agree that the show wasn't well written or directed, but if you disagree with the reasons being given for that, what do you think the reasons are?

I'm generally on the side of being annoyed by/disfavoring the rise in the overarching pop culture fandom decrying "wokeness" any time they see a minority and/or female lead in a movie or show trailer (I mean we're not gonna erase the objective fact that this show started getting backlash before it even came out simply because people saw an ethnically diverse cast and people started screaming "go woke go broke" or "dei trash"). Whether my lead or regular supporting character is male, female, gay, straight, bi, trans, nonbinary, white, black, Asian, Latino, or some star wars alien species, I do not give the slightest bit of a shit and it doesn't bother me if a show's cast like this one is primarily minorities.

That said, I agree with you here, pretty much entirely. The idea of the witches, as they were conceived and like the rest of the show could've been good or at least passable, but when the writing of both story and dialogue across the board is so shockingly amateurish you're exposing your story for what it is, and even I- as generally unphased, unbothered, and favorable I am about inclusivity in visual media-came away feeling like witches were a less than half baked self insert personal fantasy. And the thing is, writers self-insert all the time. The skill is in making it so it's not obvious. To me it was obvious and even to me I could smell the "agenda", as it were, coming off the script. I don't even mind the message assuming the message is that LGBT+ people have been marginalized and misunderstood, but when a message like that is so poorly presented, to me, it works against the messaging and presentation of a piece of filmmaking artistry.

And I'm genuinely bothered by all these people on the internet (mostly X) brigading to save this show. Ordinarily I'm all for fans supporting and liking what they love even if I believe it's crap, but I'm really wary of this "save the Acolyte" movement if the end result is Disney getting signaled that it's okay to keep making half baked Star Wars projects as long as it gets the support of some extremely vocal minority.

 

[Hasbro]

I like immersion in my science fiction and fantasy.

If you have too many (or too overt) story beats or characters that remind me of contemporary socio-political issues it kills the verisimilitude.

Well scrap Dune, Marveland ALL of Star Trek then.

 

[Holden Caulfield]

Well scrap Dune, Marveland ALL of Star Trek then.

Add The Expanse, Firefly, District 9, Starship Troopers, For All Mankind, Foundation, etc, etc...

 

[Hivemind]

Add The Expanse, Firefly, District 9, Starship Troopers, For All Mankind, Foundation, etc, etc...

Not to mention Blade Runner, 1984, Robocop, The Twilight Zone, Pan's Labyrinth, They Live, V for Vendetta, Soylent Green, A Clockwork Orange, The Matrix, Ex Machina, The Watchmen, etc etc etc

Hell, Andor is the best received Star Wars content in decades and is also the most explicit in its social commentary

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Hell, Andor is the best received Star Wars content in decades and is also the most explicit in its social commentary

You mean, he's a lesbibi too?

 

[Rob]

There’s an article on Rolling Stone blaming the fans for the Acolytes cancellation. Of course.

 

[BrindamoursNose]

I'll ask again, what agenda was this show pushing? Was it woke because it had a gay witch couple that used magical witch powers to create life? Was it woke because there were only like 2 white named characters? Did the show actually push an agenda or are people applying an agenda because of who the creators/actors are and things they've said in interviews (some of which were talking about projects that had nothing to do with the show)?

If you want to argue the show wasn't well written or directed, I would agree. But I don't think either of those were as much because of "wokeness" . I think it just wasn't well written and/or directed. Say the witch couple was a straight man and straight woman. Does that make the show better? If more of the Jedi were white males, is the show better? What "woke" parts of the show killed it?

 

[MadDevil]

There’s an article on Rolling Stone blaming the fans for the Acolytes cancellation. Of course.

The article makes valid points about the current state of the fandom. While I do think the extreme "fans" that are assholes are the minority, they also tend to be the loudest. And social media basically incentivizes that type of behavior to get clicks/engagement. Even when people call them out on it, they're still getting engagement.

Disney/Lucasfilm hasn't helped themselves with the overall mediocre quality of their shows outside of Andor and the first couple seasons of Mandalorian. It's easier to overlook and live with the dumb shit that people complain about if you're still getting good stories. When you're not those things become even more annoying.

They started off strong with Mandalorian, then faltered with BOBF and Obi-Wan. Even season 3 of Mandalorian isn't as well regarded as the first two. I liked Ahsoka, but I do think you kind of have to have seen TCW and Rebels for it to work. Andor is the only real critical success in the last few years and even that didn't do great in terms of how many people watched it. Acolyte was the worst of what's been a rather steady decline in the quality of their shows.

So you've got a fan base that is understandably disappointed in what they've gotten in recent years, plus a minority of engagement farmers amplifying the negativity, which then triggers the opposite extreme of fandom, which in turn feeds the engagement farmers and leads to a never ending cycle of bullshit that results in everybody being pissed off.

They could solve a lot of this by putting out quality entertainment but they seem to have lost whatever mojo they had with Mandalorian, and the film side has pretty much been a disaster since TLJ. They need to reassess and come up with an actual plan before people just stop giving a shit.

 

[Osprey]

None of that has anything to do with an agenda being pushed. It's just not good storytelling. Is it not possible that the creators just aren't very good, and that is has less to do with their orientation and life experiences? Also, doesn't every creators experiences influence what they're creating?

Is it possible that the creators just aren't very good? Sure, though Headland did co-create, co-write and showrun the first season of Russian Doll, which received 14 Primetime Emmy nominations, two of which went to her, and the ratings went way down in Season 2 after she stepped away to work on this show. Is it possible that she did a good job on that show because there was no agenda other than creating a smart sci-fi series? But let's assume that that success was a fluke. Is it also a coincidence that the most progressive Star Wars show was the most poorly written? To be clear, I'm not saying that it was bad because it was progressive, just that it seems like there was so much focus on being that and representing the writers' views and not enough on basic character development, dialogue and continuity. That seems like a reasonable explanation and a better one than the writers just not being very good. They're still people who do this for a living and the writing was so surprisingly amateurish that being seriously misguided seems like the best explanation (because it certainly wasn't lack of time or budget or storytelling freedom).

They could solve a lot of this by putting out quality entertainment but they seem to have lost whatever mojo they had with Mandalorian, and the film side has pretty much been a disaster since TLJ.

The "mojo" that they had with The Mandalorian and TFA was that those were made purely for the sake of entertainment and escapism. They got away from that and the quality, viewership and ratings have suffered, with The Acolyte being the culmination. It's easy to say that they could solve it by putting out quality entertainment again, but that's hard if you can't identify what the problem is and why the quality slipped.

 

[Hivemind]

Sure, though Headland did co-create, co-write and showrun the first season of Russian Doll, which received 14 Primetime Emmy nominations, two of which went to her, and the ratings went way down in Season 2 after she stepped away to work on this show. Is it not possible that she did a good job on that show because there was no agenda other than creating a smart sci-fi series? But let's assume that that success was a fluke. Is it really a coincidence that one of the worst-written shows on TV (The Acolyte) was also one of the most progressive and controversial?

The only thing I took away from this is that you've clearly never watched Russian Doll.

 

[Shockmaster]

I think the discussion about real or perceived social/political themes in this show, and the perceived winners or losers of its cancellation has enabled us to miss the very simple reasons it was cancelled:

-It cost too much money to make
-It didn't get enough viewership to justify that cost

 

[S E P H]

Well scrap Dune, Marveland ALL of Star Trek then.

Sci-fi politics =/= real politics

 

[Primary Assist]

There's only been 2 good Star Wars movies, and the last one came out in 1980

 

[MadDevil]

There's only been 2 good Star Wars movies, and the last one came out in 1980

Wow, I've never seen this take before.

 

[Osprey]

I think the discussion about real or perceived social/political themes in this show, and the perceived winners or losers of its cancellation has enabled us to miss the very simple reasons it was cancelled:

-It cost too much money to make
-It didn't get enough viewership to justify that cost

I don't think that anyone is missing those facts. We're discussing the reasons for the second one.

 

[Hasbro]

 

[Blitzkrug]

Don't be so sure!

‘The Last Jedi’ Is Aging Better After Five Years

It's coming!

Yeah, no.

That movie took what was one of my favorite protagonists in all of fiction and f***ing butchered him to the point he became unrecognizable. Kinda apt as a metaphor for the Disney era of Star Wars.

Rian Johnson can get f***ed. Pretentious twat. Last Jedi damaged my love for star wars and the rise of Skywalker mostly finished the job. Outside of the new Jedi video games (which are actually pretty well written) I haven't interacted with the series since those movies.

 

[Bowski]

Yeah, no.

That movie took what was one of my favorite protagonists in all of fiction and f***ing butchered him to the point he became unrecognizable. Kinda apt as a metaphor for the Disney era of Star Wars.

Rian Johnson can get f***ed. Pretentious twat. Last Jedi damaged my love for star wars and the rise of Skywalker mostly finished the job. Outside of the new Jedi video games (which are actually pretty well written) I haven't interacted with the series since those movies.

RJ was just a puppet. I'm convinced to this day that the movie was conceived by the real Dark Lord of the (Nonsensical) Swerve:

 

[Blitzkrug]

RJ was just a puppet. I'm convinced to this day that the movie was conceived by the real Dark Lord of the (Nonsensical) Swerve:

Couldn't possibly be. Not enough plot devices/objects on poles.

 

[DustyDangler]

There’s an article on Rolling Stone blaming the fans for the Acolytes cancellation. Of course.

They may want to consider the possibility of the cancellation being a result of a lack of fans. I suspect a lot of people have just moved on from Disney/Lucasfilm.

 

[Roo Returns]

Okay, so a character whose species we don't know the lifespan of, in a galaxy with species that can live for centuries, and an Order that is shown to be flawed and falls a century later being shown as being idiots was a bridge too far?

The character was not born yet that was established. It's minor compared to a badly written show. What it shows is a disrespect or thumbing your nose at the audience. You already have very little currency and tread because 80% of what Disney has done with the IP has not worked since the reboot/return. Minor stuff like that is going to anger the core audience and thin it.

 

[Roo Returns]

The bottom line is the show wasn't good. Poorly written and bad characters. Blaming fans online who care about cannon or like old school Star Wars is a cop out because Kennedy needs to do better in selecting a plot, casting, etc.

You can cast whoever you want in the lead and have whatever allegories you want, just make it subtle. Kathleen Kennedy doesn't understand subtle. You don't need to have an explicit love story or if you do, you don't need to announce it to the audience.

Hollywood cares so much about moral politics or fan service, they don't understand you need to tell good stories and have people invested in good characters.

Once again, go look at X-Men from Chris Claremont's 17 year original run. He was writing very political and very female-driven stories for pretty much all of it (especially his last decade) but he was subtle. Mystique and Destiny's relationship was implied but never shouted at the audience. Storm was the leader eventually. Kitty's heritage and Rogue's lack of love life examined. All as part of the story.

 

[MadDevil]

The character was not born yet that was established. It's minor compared to a badly written show. What it shows is a disrespect or thumbing your nose at the audience. You already have very little currency and tread because 80% of what Disney has done with the IP has not worked since the reboot/return. Minor stuff like that is going to anger the core audience and thin it.

It was established in Legends material that is no longer considered canon. Even if it was, who gives a shit? Do you honestly think most people who watched the show know or care what Ki-Adi-Mundi's f***ing birthdate is? It's dumb shit like this that annoys me in these arguments. It's like complaining that they missed a spot painting the Titanic's hull as the damn thing is halfway under water.

 

[MikeyMike01]

Yeah, no.

That movie took what was one of my favorite protagonists in all of fiction and f***ing butchered him to the point he became unrecognizable. Kinda apt as a metaphor for the Disney era of Star Wars.

Rian Johnson can get f***ed. Pretentious twat. Last Jedi damaged my love for star wars and the rise of Skywalker mostly finished the job. Outside of the new Jedi video games (which are actually pretty well written) I haven't interacted with the series since those movies.

The Last Jedi is the worst movie I’ve ever seen, and I expect that to remain unchanged for the rest of my life.

 

[DustyDangler]

The Last Jedi is the worst movie I’ve ever seen, and I expect that to remain unchanged for the rest of my life.

For me, it's a toss up between Battlefield Earth and The Last Jedi. I would have to watch them again to make a better judgment but...I don't want to.