Star Wars: The Acolyte - Eps 7 & 8 Spoiler Review
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 ส.ค. 2024
- Season one of The Acolyte comes to a close and I recap all the big reveals as well as my thoughts on the entire season.
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A few eagle eyed commenters have pointed out that the door to the mine was fixed prior to Vernestra's arrival, which explains why she's able to open it. I must have missed that on my watch. Luckily, this was my only issue with the show and I think it's perfect now!
What was frustrating was every time there was an inconsistency in the show, you had to rack your brain to think "well hold on, why was it different for Vernestra instead of them?" and while there's often an answer, like the door being fixed, the best case scenario is to not have those moments to begin with because they take you out of the viewing!
@@katielomax2364 he's caught up in the disney star wars hate so he's looking for these things.
How can osha fix the door? I thought the whole facility blew up on episode seven. And didn't Mae destroyed it from the inside
@@gammaliol theres solar panels you can't see that power the door...but who cares anyways
@@tacocanada1888 If you think this review -- or any of Dan's reviews -- have been driven by "star wars hate", your brain has been fully rotted thanks to your overzealous fandom. LucasFilm will never love you back. You're wasting your emotional energy screaming your uncritical love into the void in the face of poorly written, over-budgeted nothing-burgers of content from Disney+.
The crystal bleeding seems like an interesting idea till u realize Anakin killed a whole village and a LOT of younglings and yet still has a blue lightsaber in his dual with Kenobi.
It makes more sense in Jedi Survivor when they had to take the lightsaber apart by hand to make it bleed.
I think possibly the hilt had cracked a bit when it got knocked out of his hand, so the crystal was exposed, which I guess makes a difference
Isn’t it cannon that they have to manipulate the crystal itself from its origins? Because they don’t unify with the crystal directly like the Jedi does they have to force it making it unstable but usable in a lightsaber
Yea no headland just put it in there cause she thought it would look cool
The reason Kylo Rens saber is so choppy and unstable is because he cracked his crystal while attempting to bleed it.
“The best hook for making a season two is have a good season one”
-Jeremy Jahns💯
How's his liver doing?
@@M_k-zi3tn I suspect that he is now on a list for a transplant.
@@M_k-zi3tn OMG, is he sick?
@@deepaksudevan5456 When he does a review for a bad show that's not as bad as Morpheus, but pretty bad, he drinks. With The Acolyte, it looks like he's been drinking heavily. I really hope that's not real alcohol he's drinking for his liver's sake.
Hat went from FSU to STL to FSU🤔
“I was… going to let… Osha go…”
Yeah… and I was DEFINITELY going to get my kids ice cream before they misbehaved.
I don't know how somebody submitted an actual script with that line and didn't immediately submit their resignation. Is there no shame left in Hollywood?
That's a perfect analogy 😂 Thank you!
I don't understand why people are missing they foreshadowed Mother Aniseya's decision about Osha in the 3rd episode when she had conflict with the rest of the coven and her wife BECAUSE she was more open to letting Osha decide her own fate.
She wasn't 'aggressive' that was her Zabrak militant "get mad" wife that was aggressive. The mother was weary since it was the SECOND TIME the Jedi literally broke into their home.
Her line was corny I agree, but the Mother's intentions was telegraphed in earlier scenes.
This show has A LOT of flaws, but when people complain about 'inconsistencies' in storytelling that were actually addressed in scenes it makes me wonder if people simply are not paying attention (or dual-watching) when they happen on screen.
Dan rightly complains about when TV shows do mad 'exposition dumps' to directly inform the audience about what's happening instead of 'show, don't tell'. But the more I see off-target criticism the more I understand why so many films and TV shows might opt to do this. For many, without jumping out and telling viewers "HERE'S WHAT'S GOING ON GUYS AND THE CHARACTER MOTIVATIONS ARE THIS!", they won't pick up on this, even fans of a thoughtful and insightful critic like Dan Murrell.
@@PityOnlyFools honestly thats a big Amount of Cope... Her intention was teased maybe, but it makes it all the more confusing why she became an evil looking cloud of disintegration without giving Sol any explanation... It just looks dumb
@@PityOnlyFools because she bizarrely opts to use her witch magic to turn into a big black cloud with no effort explaining what she was doing, or why she was doing it, while in a moment of direct confrontation with Sol.
It doesn't help that she messed with the Padawan's head or the Witches were openly contemplating killing the Jedi, but hesitant to do so because they feared the Republic's wrath (even though there's also a Jedi Order, with thousands of Jedi, lol).
180 million dollars...
That's just 10 mill. under the budget of 'Dune - part 2'
Let that sink in
… seriously?
that's actually impressive since the run time of the entire acoylte show is a LOOTT longer than the runtime of dune part 2, thanks for the numbers
Nope, not letting it sink in. Not gonna force it.
Crazy
Disney should be investigated by the IRS, something fishy is going on with their budgets.
This show is like when a toddler tells a story and they keep saying "and this happens" with no coherent thread running through anything
the saddest thing is that it looks pretty good (people complain about the stage look but I don't see it), the choreography is great, music is good. It's just that the writing is absolutely random.
@@KarelBilek-sh8kq This is what you get when you have a writer's room... and the writers don't actually TALK to each other. They were given an over-all story skeleton and told to make it work... and did so without the level of collaboration required to write a good story. Also... the thing got massive rewrites at least once.... after a bunch of stuff was filmed. Yeah, I think part of the issue is the re-writes... may have broken the plot.
100% agree with you review Dan. For me the biggest let downs of this series was the bad writing and random character motivations like The Trackers sudden decision to sabotage the ship for no reason, Mae suddenly deciding to turn her self in to the Jedi etc. Some of the acting also let it down and this felt like a huge waste of an opportunity and as a complete mess. Even things like the random slow motion fight scenes put me off, it felt like there was no consistent direction or style in the production.
As described, it sounds like Mae is seen as having a redemption arc despite watching her sister execute someone and being an accessory after the fact. Then the hand hold? Haven't these characters known each other for days? And the smoke demon sequence was a complete break. Headland seems to think you can explain things in podcasts. But an audience should be able to make an assessment based on what's put in front of them. Turning into something that resembles a demon isn't a nervous tic.
Everything about the show is so amateurish. Like they just knocked out a first draft in an hour and made no changes after that. I read the Darth Vader comic where they established that corrupting a lightsaber is rite of passage for a sith, but they REALLY needed to establish that in the show beforehand. Why not have Qimir teach Mae that earlier in the season?
Headland said that she believes mysteries should telegraph every story beat and twist. In reality, the best mysteries keep you guessing till the end, then reward you on rewatch by letting you see all the subtle signs and foreshadowing.
The biggest character flaw in the show for me is Sol's character in his final moments. It would have made sense that he is finally able to beat Kimir because he has fully embraced the light side due to his confession to Mae and his intention to turn himself in afterward. But then despite knowing this, he tells Osha that it is "Okay" to kill him because he rather die than live with his guilt even though it would mean her turning to the dark side??
So pretty much, he betrays his own character development in that moment and says something that a normal character would say that isn't in a Star Wars show. Also if he had conveyed all this properly to Osha, and not said it was "Okay" and then she killed him, it would have made her descent to the Dark Side more compelling. But the show would rather make a sympathetic character who kills someone as the result of 20 misunderstandings and bad writing, instead of a compelling villain.
He should have said to her; 'if you strike me down now you will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine...and also evil'.
He’s his own character. I didn’t like the show overall but he stuck to his decision to kill the mother. He looked like he was afraid and didn’t understand what she was doing. He also overheard them talking about a sacrifice of some sort so he felt justified in offing her. And of course he couldn’t tell the twins that. They either wouldn’t believe him or be traumatized even further.
This 💯. I don't know if it was the script or bad acting but I expected Osha to be more conflicted about killing Sol. And he never really got the chance to explain himself and his motivations. He gets out a word or two and gets interrupted by some plot device.
Just wanted to leave something positive. I came home from visiting a friend in the hospital (she's gonna be ok). But I was upset and this video came on and it helped me feel better. Just the familiarity of the opening song (made me do a bit of a dance), and Dan's voice helped me forget my troubles. Collider and Jon Schnepp used to do that. Thanks to content creators for helping people get through their rough days by escaping into things they love. Just like movies do. I'm gonna give the Acolyte a shot sometime. GO NOLES.
Thank you for the very kind words - I'll always humbly take any comparison to the great Jon Schnepp. Best wishes to your friend on a speedy recovery.
@@DanMurrellMovies Thanks!
My husband and I love your reviews Dan, you’re one of our favorites because of your objectivity and positivity, always looking for the good, it’s what we try to do. Your love of film is very apparent. I’ve seen the Star Wars films and some of the shows, I know a little about the lore, enough to carry a conversation with those die hard fans, knowing I’ll learn more and can enjoy their love of it. That said, this is objectively one of the worst written pieces of media period. I love to write, have posted fanfics (not Star Wars other fandoms) and actively work on improving to be a better writer. There is only a frame of a story here, rice paper thin plot, characters that aren’t characters but cardboard caricatures that have no depth, motivations changing every second and are macguffins being moved by the plot. There’s no subtext. And when something is this poorly written with this much arrogance and damage control has to be done after every episode, it should be called out.
Seeing Darth Plagueis regularly hanging around the Jedi temple and Senate of Coruscant like a Littlefinger from Game of Thrones would have been way more interesting than whatever this was.
Dan not being "all aboard the Sol Train", is very funny to me.
I am astonished Lucasfuilm or Disney thought the Acolyte was good enough to be shown to the public! Given Marvel often delay projects for script re-writes or re-shoots (Blade, Captian America 4, Daredevil etc), did nobody there think it would be a good idea give the script another pass, or reshoot some or large part of the show?
By releasing the Acolyte in the state it was in, I think this will contuine to further damage the Star Wars brand and make it harder for the audiance to trust disney on any future star wars project.
Well, they also thought Dial of Destiny was good enough to release.. 😂😂
@@pendaco good or bad, Dial of Destiny completed their apparent mission of tearing down heroes and icons for "reasons". Han, Luke, Leia, Indy, Willow, and apparently now even Yoda. The good news is that they are largely out of characters to shit all over. The bad news is that we just get shitty characters.
@@erickillian313
Bruh....
Yes and also why keep this but yank Willow, which is sooo much better?
Identical twins are essentially one person that has split in two. And also, they state this outright in episode 3, in their little song. I don’t understand why both Sol and the viewers are making such a big deal out of this. There are way more egregious “plotting” and “writing” examples.
When the show first started, I made an offhand remark to a friend that Osha and Mae were the same person. I did not mean that to be a prediction.
They just swapped in the end so it didn't matter. "yeah delete my brain I want to be 9 years old"
@@adamfloyd7457 right? seemed so pointless to just have osha take her place. maybe season 2 mae will look for osha because she vaguely remembers a sister. who wrote this stuff?
No one wants to see disney screw up Plagueis... please no season 2!
I swear the story was a first draft. Nothing make sense. Some good ideas but not the skills to realize it and bring it to life. I won't lie. I'm confused how this cost $180? I know there was rumor this show was a mess and they did reshoots to try and save it. Does that cost a lot?
Any the few people that appeared to like it, are lost after the last two episodes. How did this get approved?
Oh well. At least we have season 2 of Andor to look forward to.
If you ask me, I think the earlier versions of this had the Jedi in a much more morally ambiguous role. Then at some point down the line someone pushed back on that, so we get weird ADR lines and everything hinging on a series of big misunderstandings.
It'd make more sense if the Jedi had 'shadow jedi', kinda like how the Rebellion had people like Luthen and Andor, secretive operatives, taking care of the dirty stuff so the rest of the organization could stay clean and seen as the good guys.
Interesting concept, poor execution
This ⬆️ sums up “The Acolyte” in a nutshell
The Plagueis reveal would be great if my first thought wasn't "too bad this show sucks"
By the last episode I genuinely could not follow which twin was which and what defining characteristics each were supposed to have and which we should be "rooting for". I guess by that point I just didn't care enough about them to try and keep track.
The fight scenes were pretty good though.
The cover story is that Sol snapped and killed his colleagues, but Mae killed Trinity in a bar in front of a lot of witnesses. Other Jedi saw what happened with the poisoned Jedi. How does that figure into the cover-up? Is the idea that Mae/Osha seeking revenge caused Sol to snap? Is amnesiac Mae a patsy for this cover story? “Sol brainwashed her and felt guilty about it!” Yeah right.
+Vader47000
I think they're referring to the massacre in Episode 5
@@thealjohnsonshow2188 Yes but that cover story doesn’t explain how the first two Jedi died since Sol clearly didn’t commit those murders. Or is the idea that he snapped BECAUSE Mae returned? But then they’d have to explain where Mae came from
Been waiting all morning for you to finish watching a show I hope isn’t getting another season. I don’t want the writers to ruin Yoda.
Sol is the only person who can't tell Mei and Osha apart (at any age) and it was always embarassing to watch
He did regonice mel in the end of ep 7
@@PennyAfNorberg because she had been acting real weird
I was thinking that he immediately recognized her and was just playing along but it didn't really pan out like that
Strong "STAY AWAY" for me!
Bazil just hanging around with no motivation communicated to us was super weird.
Agreed, I have no idea what that character was about. Why he was doing things.
One of the "small things" I thought was kind of a mistep was how the show portrayed young Osha as a huge fan of the Jedi. The coven was depicted as a small cult and while its not implicitly stated, its heavily inplied that the children where born on the planet and never left it.
How would Osha know about the Jedi? Ehy is she infatuated with them? There's no way the coven would have told Osha anything about the Jedi aside from telling her that, from their point if view, the Jedi are bad people.
Right. Exactly. That little group seemed very cut off from the rest of the galaxy. And seems like the moms would be extremely controlling of any reading or viewing materials.
Beings split into good and bad side is the main point of the movie Dark Crystal, which was made by Jim Henson. I wonder if they got the idea from that
th-cam.com/video/HMkKuL12FCA/w-d-xo.htmlsi=acwpxj9WhtCkqUna
That was a Conjunction, this was a (con)Vergence, so I think you are onto something there. Perhaps they were expecting to get a thousand years worth of episodes before Mae and Osha joined back into Oshamae?
Really try to imagine Padawan anakin or ahsoka sitting on a planet cataloging plants for two months. I can't 😅
I’m not a canon head. I just want a good show that makes sense. This show doesn’t. I don’t understand how there are so many fan boys in the Reddit downvoting certain posts. How is this peak Star Wars if it isn’t even peak story telling.
Yeah, I've seen totally baffling defenses of the show. I don't get what defenders are seeing. This is the definition of bad writing and bad direction, and in the case of the green lady, bad acting/zero screen presence.
There were exactly two characters here that I found interesting, and enjoyed watching - and they were unceremoniously killed off in episode 5. If there had been any justice provided for Yord and Jecki in the finale, I might've felt better about this season overall. But no - some middle manager Jedi pins their murders on a scapegoat, and their friend - the seeming protagonist of the series - ends up hand in hand with their killer. Great job, show...
Thank you for your point about miscommunication and misunderstanding!!! I hate that point of writing so much in movies and television! It's the worst kind of writing in the world that takes up way too much screen time when it can ALWAYS be fixed by one or two sentences. It drives me up a fricken wall.
Classic British farces use it well but in tragedy you have to be so careful to make sure that it does not make it into a comedy. "I am going to go all smokey now, don't get freaked out but you are going to love it - I look supercool".
@@pattheplanter I agree! You can make a misunderstanding fantastically, but you really need it to be either incredibly well written, or have it not be a large part of the story in my opinion. Like, how did no one once explain what she was planning to do when she turned into dust?
Hold on… I have to read the books even though they’re non-cannon?
Wtf…
No. All the "lightsaber bleeding" stuff comes from the post-2014 Disney era books.
It has never been a thing prior to 2014.
@@malachi8154 I always assumed light sabres were like mood rings and as far as I am concerned Dan just confirmed that is canon.
Given Disney droped the ball on the live action versions of Thron, Cad Bane, not to mention older characters like Luke, Boba Fett and arguably Obiwan, it is safe to say I have no confidence that they woulld do any better with Darth Plagueis ...
I like The Acolyte more than most other Star Wars Disney+ shows, but Lucasfilm's larger problem is that I'd only recommend Andor and the first two seasons The Mandalorian. On the whole, these shows just aren't cutting it, and they need to get back to making movies. I think Star Wars is fundamentally a film franchise. They can do TV shows, but it shouldn't be the core of the property
Thanks for the review, Dan. Always appreciate how you're able to break down the story issues and explain the problems a lot have us had.
12:00 was the biggest WTF moment for me. I didn't think I'd ever say this, but I prefer the super flammable lamp explanation for their deaths.
When you literally have a property based on an epic battle between good and evil, and you dress the bad guy's military as Nazis to convey that, and then you say: Actually, maybe the bad guys are fine, what does that say about your view of Nazis?
the show is definitely not saying the Sith are the good guys. Rewatch the show
There are "very fine people on both sides." F*ck, does this mean the show is anti-antifa? How have we gotten here?
@@RedCaio Maybe you missed the triumphant music at the end, the romantic undertones, Osha doing what she was "meant to do"... what? Enslave the galaxy?? WTF?? No, they're not making the Sith as good but it's obvious they are not making them as evil or even bad. Whilst George Lucas said that Sidious is the Satan of this galaxy. We haven't seen a single instance of the dark side corruption in this show, taking pleasure in hurting others or anything of the sort...
Disney is full of socialists 😏
@@Bayard1503 You don't think that the entire journey of revenge that Quimir set Mae upon was an unrestrained celebration of classic dark side indulgence in evil? To be clear, I have a lot of problems with the show, but I didn't think it waffled on whether falling to the dark side is bad.
I hope they don't do season 2, not only were the writing, dialogue, character development and motivations so poor, I'm not sure what the message of the show even is. This show had a scene where a woman force chokes her former mentor to death because he admitted he accidentally in a moment of confusion killed her mother. The better way to deal with this would be to hold him prisoner, turn him over to the Jedi to confess, or release the confession to the galaxy to force people to be accountable. Also Osha allows her sister to be essentially lobotomized and leaves her in the custody of the jedi. Is this supposed to be sisterly love? Maybe it is revenge for when Mae left Osha unconcsious on the forest floor knowing Qimir was around? Yes the Jedi screwed up but The coven never has their actions called to account? They literally created these girls to lead them, and were going to essentially force Osha into a life she didn't want until the Jedi disrupted the ceremony. Then mother Aniseya comes around and decides to respect Osha's agency. Mae never shows remorse for cold bloodedly murdering Indara who was trying to reign everyone in and be sensible on Brendok, Kelnacca was innocent and had his mind violated, Torbin had his mind violated but the witches are considered innocent victims? Amandla Stenberg has one facial expression for both characters during the finale. I can see why the pitch got greenlit, but I don't see how the show made it past editing.
Dan, that was a DELIGHTFULLY EVIL Palpatine impression!!! Love it hahahah 🤣
7:36 This was the critical flaw in the series and especially in the finale. Osha and Mae's characters flip flopped so much it felt like the writers ignored what happened previously and only cared about moving the story in its inexplicable direction.
Another careless bit of writing was Sol's reason for not telling the Jedi Council the truth. He gave 2 reasons: that Osha would be studied/experimented on and that with Mae dead he didn't have evidence of Force Twins. The second reason makes no sense because he had blood sample evidence, so why not just stick with the first one?
Also, the acting and/or directing during Osha's murder of Sol was terrible. This was a moment of rage and Osha's face was just blank and her hand looked like it was casually holding a cup 21:26
Finally: Yoda's pointless cameo. If Venestra told him the truth it means Yoda kept the return of the Sith quiet through to Episode 1 and if she told him a lie then it means he's an idiot for not figuring out the story makes no sense.
The story concept had such potential but was failed by the execution.
something has to be done. this was the last straw for me. there’s no excuse for anything within the star wars brand to be this bad. something needs to change.
The lamp had super space napalm obviously
And all those massive walls of the witches’ fortress must have actually been made of oil-soaked paper instead of stone.
This show is badly written and doing things nonsensical to move the plot. They could have avoided this when Mae and Osha met each other in the forest. Mae could just tell Osha that Sol killed their mom, so don't trust him. Those moments with Sol and Mae in the ship should have been Sol and Osha. Osha could have sought Sol to be honest with her while thinking of killing him. The show had potential, but it was ruined from the beginning with bad writing and directing.
"There's a vergence in the Force! Send Task Force Beachcomber." o7
Haven’t watched a single episode but love watching Dan’s recaps.
These are thoughtful and amazing 👍🏻. Thank you for your service.
The door was broken from when mae broke it, osha fixes the door with her meknek skills, so by the time Vernestra gets there the door is fully operational, she just pressed the "open" button with the Force because it's more cinematic.
I’m pretty sure the power core/generator thing was destroyed when they were kids. There would have been no power to power the door. The only reason there was power, is because the writers either forgot, or needed there to be power so they wrote it in.
7:13 Needed a snap zoom on "THE FORCE?" moment here Dan haha
Things I liked:
- A lightsaber combat that was well lit and can actually see
- OSHA bleeding the kyber crystal was the best moment in the whole show
- 5 seconds of Darth Plagueis
Things I disliked:
- Only 5 seconds Darth Plagueis
- OSHA and Mae are still bad MCs who I don’t care for
- OSHA and Stranger giving off Reylo vibes and reawakening thirsty fan girls
- Sol feeling like an idiot and kidnapper
- Yoda pandering
- This getting a Season 2
I liked that Osha and Mea where on the screen at the same time and you couldnt tell it was CGI
i doubt this gets a season 2.
I hated Reylo and now I hate Oshamir
Same. I'd add making Yoda complicit to framing Sol. That made my entire body feel sick.
This I like the Acting, the Lighsaber Fights, and the Mystery. What I did not like was the Whitches retrual ceremony, and the running time of the epsiodes. I like it. I would not call it the greatest thing in western civilization. That would be the Movie Battleship. LOL!
13:15 well, we learned that Qimir can teleport in ep 8, when he and Osha are trying to get back in the temple. So he probably teleported? He also seemed to have flying or floating ability, as evidenced in that same Kalnaca episode. Not to mention mind wiping abilities. But the problems with the show go far beyond nit picks on how the force is used.
Dan , have you seen blue eye samurai yet ?
the biggest achievement of this finale is that it made me cherish the ending of The Bad Batch more...
What made scifi and fantasy movies and TV shows of the past great was the fact that they were grounded. What I mean by that was that the writers and director of the past didn't throw in the kitchen sink style over substance. Modern Star Wars, started with J.J. Abram, is more shock-&-awe rather than compelling cinematic storytelling.
16:20 I preferred when red kyber crystals were a natural occurence, but Sith used synthetic ones because they had no access to the caves at all or in the numbers they needed when they had empires, and in turn they became taboo among Jedi because of their association. Especially with the veritable rainbow of lightsaber colors we have now, nature skipping red feels ridiculous.
A lot of this review boils down to "this could have been good but instead was executed as stupidly as possible." Disney Plus shows in a nutshell
21:12 OMG I can’t believe that Osha, like Sol, can’t tell the difference between her and her sister in her vision (that we didn’t see, only heard about). I assume the vision showed Osha, in her current clothes, Force choking Sol, and Osha, in her infinite wisdom, assumed for some reason this was May and not her!?!? 🤦♀️ More inexplicable plot holes from brilliant writers 🙄
Disney is just producing subscription content. And it shows.
I’ve been anticipating your review all week!!
I can't believe that Senator at the end used the DC Superman argument to curve the Jedi. Hello? The Jedi is not the all powerful Superman where no one can stop 'em if they snapped or go against the senate. Order 66 proves that they can be wiped out in 1 single sweep. Does anyone did any research on this show?
The Acolyte is literally just Neil Breen's Twisted Pair.
Also, the show completely missed or threw away the opportunity to make Sol a true grey Jedi, who gets excommunicated by the Jedi Order but follows his nature to try to save Osha irregardless.
Episode 7 was an "over there now" Episode 😅
I think one of the saddest things with this show was all the fan theories as the show unfolded that were way more intriguing than what paid writers could ever come up with.
Vernestra opening the coven's door with the Force was funny to me because they had not one but TWO prior scenes where she uses the Force to open doors on Coruscant, as if in an attempt to establish some type of special "door opening" Force power .
I live bands merch, but I'm a 90's kid who couldn't afford merchandise growing up. Now I buy them for my kids, specially because they do listen to those bands and even been to some concerts with me ❤
I think it would have been much more interesting with stronger stakes if the Jedi were debating killing the twins since they are so powerful
I Love Dan because he saves me time that I would have regretted wasting on mediocre content.
I would have been so much more satisfied if Sol's lightsaber had turned orange in Osha's hand.
I really appreciate your honest review without all the vitriol. You gave it points where it was deserved but also showed how flawed it is overall.
I will not be watching. If Disney can tell better stories with better writing, maybe I’ll return, but for now I’m out. Same thing with the MCU.
Here I thought the show would lean on miscommunications/misunderstandings surrounding the twin problem (body swapping tropes, etc.) and instead it was instead used for...the murder of the protagonists' mother?
Conceptually, love many of the themes but that insane budget should have paid for an editor and script supervisor to catch inconsistencies and drive the story more toward character than a plot that uses characters for its own devices. :/
I don't want *this* writing team to do anything with Darth Plagueis. If there is a season 2, I'm not going to bother with it unless new people are behind it.
All that wasted cash, and they run out a Wookie with a metal detector
180 million dollars well spent! 🤷
😂
I laughed so hard at your metal detector delivery line. Perfect 😂👌
You pretty much nailed all my thoughts on it, and why Dave Filoni should be the only person allowed to supervise Jedi stories.
To paraphrase Han Solo in The Force Awakens, "That's not how 'drops the dime' works!"
I've long stopped watching but am enjoying Dan's breakdowns
I've genuinely never seen a TV show before where the characters made such inconsistent and indecipherable decisions before. I could barely keep track of why anyone was doing anything... especially Bazil. I hate that guy
The bleeding of the crystal was first in the Vader comic by Charles Soule, who writes really good Vader stuff. The issue I had with the bleeding of the crystal is that while it looked cool, the process that Vader went through to do that nearly killed him. Osha had zero issues doing it. When you bleed the crystal, the light side actually fights back. Vader literally had to pour all of his hate and rage into the crystal and tap deep into the dark side to even survive what happened. Not to mention, as others have stated, he had to go to great lengths to get the crystal in the first place. The Emperor told him he had to take out a Jedi with no weapon. So, I think it was too easy for Osha to bleed that crystal. Minor in the grand scheme of things, but a problem, nonetheless. I think my biggest issue with this show is that we continue to see that the Jedi are nothing more than a bunch of habitual liars, and that makes me sad. They are supposed to be the good guys. They don't have to be perfect, but they've fallen back to this same issue in every single era we have them. They lie and cover up things multiple times in the High Republic, they cover stuff up in the Prequels, they lie to Luke about Vader in the OT, and Luke lies about his actions with Ben in the Sequels. Why would anyone want to be a Jedi or trust anything a Jedi says? At least the Sith have the integrity to say they are committed to the dark side. It bums me out. I want the Jedi to be good again.
The most charitable thing I can find to say about the writing is that it felt very first draft. There are some nice ideas in there, but none of them are thought through or developed properly. If there is a second series, really hope they bring in a new writer to marshal it. 13:00
I don't want to defend this show much but Vernestra was able to open the fortress door in E08 because Osha had fixed it just minutes earlier, when arriving with Qimir
EDIT: Though the stupidity of Mae destroying the other side of the mechanism somehow breaking the mechanism outside the place still stands. If I smash the lift buttons on floor 3, the button on floor 1 still works...
People getting really excited about the Kelnacca content has been driving me crazy, he was more or less just a prop.
I was VERY hyped for Kelnacca to be a thing and very disappointed when he was not a thing.
@@DanMurrellMovies Same! It doesn’t get cooler on paper than wookie Jedi
@@quickhands7008 Wookie Sith with purple eyes who dyes his fur in red and black tiger stripes, clips fades into his arm fur and rides a custom painted gold and dark blue hoverbike? With an invisible infra-red light sabre blade that you can only see by the distortion of light coming through it?
@@DanMurrellMovies I just love Qimir x Osha. That's the gift this show gave me. Funny how Brandy x Paolo reprised their roles as Cinderella and Prince Charming from 1997 live action, this is what they should've done for Little Mermaid 2023. #Blasiancouplesforever
10000% AGREE , It was like a long tutorial level in setup for a game. I wanted to love this show, but up until the last credits roll, it felt like such a disappointment on a number of levels that you have eloquently brought up here. What a Complete, thoughtful and warranted evisceration. I absolutely love you man. #MayTheForceBeWithYouAlways
$180 million was spent on this show. The budget for Top Gun Maverick was $170-177 million. And that money paid for Tom Cruise and THE U.S NAVY!!!
7:07 Yeah, I believe that Vernestra was able to open the door because it hasn't been operating properly for 16 years. As opposed to when Sol was there it was fully functioning.
As an elevator pitch, it might pass muster. A story about someone being corrupted might be interesting. It might even be morally important. But it needs to work as a star wars story and have characterisations where people don't turn on a dime. We know the Jedi fall. So a story about a noble jedi winning isn't on the cards. But the characters are so unlikeable/underdeveloped. When we go on a journey with morally flawed characters, it's usually where the character work is handled well. You don't undercut the depth of their fall or the horror of their actions. This does both those things. The three surviving main characters are killers or serial killers. Mae just let her sister run off with a psychpath, so if she's meant to be the protagonist of season 2, then she needed to be absent for sol's murder. If you know the jedi lose, I think your best move is having them lose nobly. Light amidst the darkness is a better sell (for star wars) than watching a series of corrupt characters behave poorly absent any grace.
I don't know. It seems like Anara, Jecki, and Yord demonstrated flashes of light before their candles went out. But the narrative swooning for The Stranger undercuts this. Unless season 2 examines the loss of Osha's soul and does compelling work on Mae's redemption (given she killed people and attacked randoms in the bar), it just seems morally bankrupt. The star wars greater tapestry is about good vs evil.
Mae escaped Sol custody, ha!
lightsaber mood ring. lolol
This show never would have made it past pilot season back in the day.
Heck, my English teacher in middle school wouldn't have let me get away with writing something like this.
The small thing that irked me the most was when Vernestra said to set up a five click perimeter and instead all the Jedi were just walking in a line everywhere
I am a casual Star Wars fan, not reading any books, comics, animated shows etc. ..Why did Bazel do what he did? Out of the blue, i don’t understand the character flips flop arcs ….the twin actress non-expressive behavior seems like a horrible acting choice, she seemed like a wet blanket the entire series…I don’t understand the figure hiding in the cave, was he there there whole time?!? Then the last shot, pissed me off, so Yoda knows about a Sith and he chooses to do nothing while they are able?!?
They literally replayed scenes from Episode 3 rather than spending a minute giving Torbin motivation for wanting to go home. The writing is pathetically bad.
Much more enjoyable and hilarious watching your review than the show which I haven’t watched 😂
*Most* *Predictable* *Murder* *Mystery* *Ever*
Qimir is Smilo Ren ☑️
Sol kills Aniseya ☑️
Sol dies ☑️
Jedis covered it up by lying ☑️
Vernestra is Qimir’s former master ☑️
Osha will be Qimir’s acolyte ☑️
Even the cameo appearances from Plagueis and Yoda didn’t feel that shocking although seeing Plagueis did give me an OMG moment. Look, it’s Ebony Maw from Avengers: Infinity War who Tony Stark called Squidward becoming a Sith Lord in the dumbest whodunit series ever!
I just think the writers were several steps behind the viewers. It’s like the writers are trying to spell the word cat or dog on paper and the viewers has to keep helping them with that spelling. The viewers already filled in the blank faster than they could. The only thing that did surprise me was Vernestra throwing Sol’s dead body under the bus like that. Still not as surprising as that pop song during the end credits from Ep. 7.
With all that said, I actually like this episode. Pacing felt a lot better. Another fight scene between Sol vs. Smilo. I did feel some tension in it being it was 46 minutes and not 32 minutes of Ep. 4 and 5. I like it enough but I’m not saying I love it. It’s still severely flawed but this might be the most enjoyable episode I saw so far. More than Ep. 5 because it did close some loose ends and it did have a little more emotion. I will give it a B-. Not from a logic/writing standpoint, but from how I feel about it.
Let’s rank each SW series’ finale…
Finale Rankings
1. The Mandalorian S2
2. Andor
3. The Mandalorian S1
4. The Mandalorian S3
5. Obi-Wan Kenobi
6. The Acolyte
7. Ahsoka
8. The Book of Boba Fett
Star Wars B*TCH Theory whining about Plagueis’ appearance. Your hack writer, George Lucas, ripped off Christianity, bro. Jesus Christ’s story has been around for over 2000 years. Anakin’s immaculate conception story is around 25 years. Then George based the Force on Taoism.
There are still some parts that didn’t make sense. First off, Mae was at it again. When Sol is ready to explain something important, Mae does something to prevent him from saying it. I thought the whole point of Mae boarding the ship was to kill Sol? Now she’s trying to escape.
Didn’t it feel like The Stranger turned back into Qimir in this episode as if Manny Jacinto became more of Osha’s sidekick by letting Osha do what she wants? It’s his own ship and it felt like he took the Chewbacca role. And Osha turning to the dark side happened faster than Anakin in Revenge of the Sith.
The ending was a ripoff of No Way Home. Since when did Qimir have powers to erase memories permanently? How did he become Men in Black/Doctor Strange all of a sudden? He was reciting the same words Palpatine said in Return of the Jedi. And WTF are Qimir and Osha holding hands for? She glances at his dong a few times and she liked what she saw? Didn’t he kill her friends?
I think Episode 7 was so disappointing with the “big reveal”, it didn’t matter how good Episode 8 would be. Episode 7 put the nail in the coffin for this series. The writers turned Sol into a dumbass like them. Why not have Sol report it? The lie was their biggest sin and they all had to die because of it. Sol could’ve just said he killed Aniseya out of self-defense.
The witches were the aggressors. While Sol and Torbin did initiate the confrontation because Sol was so eager to protect the kids and wanted a padawan of his own, and Torbin was homesick, killing Aniseya was NOT from malicious intent but from self-defense. I did not see one moment to make me believe the Jedi are evil except that group lied about it and then Vernestra lying about the entire story.
Who knew Leslye’s wife would end up being the most unlikable and despicable character in her own series even surpassing Schizo/Bipolar Mae who now has amnesia and Koril who didn’t reappear. What Vernestra did to her old friend was so wrong. Blame everything on him when all he was trying to do was protect kids from a religious dark side using witch cult. But I guess she lied to get Senator Rayencourt off her back.
That might be the weakest group of Jedis of all-time: Sol, Indara, Kelnacca, Torbin and toss in Yord and Jecki. Some were given some of the dumbest motives ever. So many of these characters as Sean Chandler said had wildly inconsistent characterizations. They can go out of character from a drop of a hat.
We saw it with The Stranger in the finale. He went back being Qimir and tagging along with Osha and Mae. From main villain to sidekick! Qimir is a submissive character. Osha said no to him twice and he was cool about it and he still let her pilot his ship. So Qimir is as desperate for a pupil as Sol. Almost like he needs to act like a simp to Osha to be his pupil.
I will still defend what Sol did but not what Vernestra said after he died. But I guess Vernestra is the Palpatine before Palpatine. She’s a phantom menace among the Jedis. Great acting by Lee when Sol was killed. I felt that. I was sad. Not so good acting from Amandla, the worst actress in the series portraying two unlikable, uninteresting characters.
Even Bazil turned on Sol at the end! Nobody is loyal. Everyone changes their personality and motivations every 20 minutes or so. Osha said no to Qimir twice and then she’s willing to train under him if he erases her sister’s memories and then hold his hand at the end. Nobody knows WTF they want in this story. Indara could’ve prevented the entire thing by saying NO to Sol, end of story.
The series didn’t need to have 8 episodes. Ep. 3 & 7 and Ep. 4 & 5 could’ve been combined. We didn’t need to waste 30 minutes from Ep. 7 rehashing the events from Ep. 3 from a different camera angle. Or just make each episode at least 45+ minutes long which can flesh out the characters and story better. Reason why I’m more invested in HOT D and The Boys’ characters is because their episodes are usually over an hour long.
The Acolyte was structurally flawed from the get go. Pacing is all over the place. Same with the character motivations as if their personality needs to change instantly because the script demanded them to. Some episodes were too short to tell us anything and other times they dragged while still being a short episode.
Character Rankings
1. Qimir / The Stranger
2. Indara (Trinity didn’t deserve to die!)
3. Sol
4. Jecki
5. Yord
6. Aniseya
7. Torbin
8. Bazil
9. Pip
10. Osha
11. Koril
12. Mae
13. Vernestra
Series Rankings
1. Andor = A-
2. The Mandalorian = B+
3. Ahsoka = C
4. Obi-Wan Kenobi = C-
5. The Book of Boba Fett = C-
6. The Acolyte = D
I’m a little sad that The Acolyte did end. Not because I want to see more shit writing and bad acting from Amandla but because the hate watching grifters will no longer have comedy material for us. It was a fun 6 weeks from June 4 to July 16. But we still got 3 more episodes of House of the Dragon, 1 more episode of The Boys S4 tomorrow which coincides with Cobra Kai S6 Part 1 and Twisters, and we got Deadpool & Wolverine next week.
And if you want more hate watching grifter / rage baiter material, The Rings of Power S2 will be released at the end of next month. The Critical Drinker will have a field day with that and he’s a big LOTR fan. Of course, it won’t be the same as The Acolyte because I think less people will watch that. Star Wars fandom is still larger than LOTR fandom. I only saw two episodes of The Rings of Power S1 because I was so bored from it. I have no intention to watch TROP S2.
While I do have my complaints with House of the Dragon and there is always going to be higher expectations from book readers, we can’t complain about the high production values, acting, and even character motivations. It’s not all over the place the way The Acolyte is. We can binge watch The Acolyte for an entire afternoon and the story still doesn’t work. It’s bad writing no matter how you see it.
How the hell did The Acolyte have a budget of $180M? That’s double than Obi-Wan Kenobi and it doesn’t look as good as it. While I saw MaXXXine for a fourth time yesterday and that only costs $2M and I was more immersed with it than I ever did for The Acolyte. While HOT D has a budget of $20M per episode and it looks better than close to $300M budgets coming from Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
Who I’m going to miss is watching Star Wars Meg and Allen Xie from Generation Tech daily. I don’t plan to watch The Skeleton Crew and don’t care to watch any SW animated series content except for Tales of the Jedi. I’m really not into cartoons except for Family Guy, Futurama, and the newest Beavis and Butt-Head. I prefer LIVE ACTION Star Wars. I do think the animated ones are better but anything can happen in cartoons. It’s harder to make live action than cartoons.
Even if Andor S2 gets released next year slated in June 2025, I’m not sure I would visit Meg or Allen’s channels all that much. Tony Gilroy’s writing doesn’t get his sources from Legends or whatnot. It’s his own fresh take without grabbing stuff from Legends. When I watched Andor, I didn’t go on TH-cam to watch breakdowns for it. Andor seems to operate in its own space.
A show better suited for Star Wars Meg, Generation Tech, Star Wars Explained, Heavy Spoilers, ScreenCrush, and New Rockstars, are shows like Ahsoka and The Acolyte that deals with Legends material. That deals with Jedis, Sith, Nightsisters, and magic. Andor isn’t meant for me to have it be broken down. I watch Andor similar to The Boys where I don’t need breakdowns after each episode. I will still leave comments but I’m not invested into the lore as say House of the Dragon.
It’s a little bittersweet that The Acolyte did end. Feels like summer is almost over after we watch Deadpool & Wolverine a few times and when HOT D S2 ends on Aug 4.
I watched all of your reviews. This is a great finale.
Clamoring for season 2? That's so funny 😂😂😂😂
"...we just see it from over there now" struck me as quite funny
Torbin racing off was because of mother aniseas mind trick
Great well thought out review, earned a fan and a subscribe.
Kyber crystal bleeding was established in legends but my understanding is that it's supposed to take years and years and is a slow change as more and more hate and fear get poured into the crystal being wielded by the Sith. It's wasn't supposed to be a "mood ring", at least not in the original concept, but apparently that is what lightsabers are now. Can't wait till we get a rainbow saber for someone who has mastered all their emotions and is a perfect being :P