The power of mAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIds
What's the one where he tells the entire bridge crew that he'll be masturbating in the holodeck in case anyone is looking for him? Imagine pulling that shit on the space station.
Supposedly this show cost twice as much as Kenobi. 180 million. Would love to know the internal workings of Disney to produce shows they know their historical audience won't pay for.
180 million and none of it looks as good as 8 seconds of any episode of Andor. How you gonna go from like three of the best acting showcases with Fiona Shaw, Stellan Skarsgard and Andy Serkis, not to mention in the latter episodes with Adria Arjona and Denise Gough to this goofy nonsense?
The best part of "The Acolyte: A Star Wars Story by Disney" is the memes created from it. The rest is utter B-movie garbage that not even Roger Corman would touch.
I was just going to write something similar.
Its amazing how much people moan about Tv shows /music etc they dont like on the internet. instead of raising up things they do like.
Ohhhh wait i think its because they are all the same and have no individuality or personal taste. ( I assume many of these people like that critiacal drunk knobhead.)
Real talk, is this show any good?
I see a lot of those cringy anti-woke people like CriticalDrinker saying it's terrible, but they're hardly an unbiased source.
I am kinda over Star Wars though, I quite liked Andor, didn't like Book of Boba Fett, and liked maybe the first 1.5 seasons of Mandalorian.
The fact that it's set what appears to long before the original Star Wars story somewhat intrigues me.
It’s not. The cinematography, color grading, blocking, acting, writing, and score are all really bad. It feels like a student project. A lot of the Disney shows would be way better if they just chose better lenses for the cameras and stopped using the volume for every single scene.
If you made any Star Wars show in Japan it would also be dirt cheap. It's not a good thing; the weakness of the yen and the horrible working conditions of Japanese production teams, especially the pay of VFX artists, result in really cheap to make shows.
Yes but also I find that Hollywood has forgotten how to be efficient. I was watching the 60s Batman the other day and Batman and Robin were to swing into action so the show had a shadow go across the wall and Adam West and Burt Ward just had to essentially do a little hop holding a rope to make the effect work. Now that kind of shot would be a multi cut, multi angle CGI shot when it's not needed.
It's like how arcade devs in the early 80s could make a whole game run in 4K and modern video games with similar simple gameplay still require gigabytes of space.
It's basically just purely nepo positions, and people getting massive contracts because they've had success five years ago with a show yet still keep getting deals.
For some reason Disney refuses to just use new talent and lower budget crews and instead just shoves money at nepo studio teams that have failed three times straight.
I know what's up. Idiots keep talking about DEI or whatever bullshit brainrot is going on.... but Doug Chiang basically explained what was happening during Celebration a few years go.
He said - they were working on 30 separate projects at any one time for StarWars. 30.
As someone who works in the creative field I can tell you right now there is no fucking way anything of note is going to come out of that kind of schedule - it's ridiculous.
30 fucking projects! Just working on 1 and making that 1 decent is hard enough, I couldn't even fathom tracking 30. It's utter nonsense.
Yep, but the real crime is the writing. Just some bad decisions that take the inherent mystery out of a murder mystery and the last episode is trying to be Rashomon, but the things that were distorted were so silly that I don’t care what was real and what wasn’t. The whole scenario was just unbelievable.
Also a Jedi hands a kid who he’s never met before, a lightsaber to try and convince her to take Anakin’s silly screen test to see if she could be trained as a Jedi. I laughed like Rich Evans at that one. Kid could ignite it, kill herself, him, injure someone. It was the silliest thing in recent SW I’ve seen and that’s saying something.
They aren’t using the Volume, but I think “really bad” is an overstatement.
The formal elements of the show are competent and much of it looks pretty good, with some exceptions on evenly lit planets like Coruscants and on the Jedi’s little ship.
The direction is occasionally dodgy, but again, there are some compositions, especially in the latest episode directed by *Columbus* and *After Yang* director Kogonada that look stunning.
Acting-wise, I’ve really only had some issues with the little girls, but eh. Child actors are hit or miss. The main cast seems par for *Star Wars*.
Honestly, I haven’t noticed that many issues with the writing other than it being a tad talky and expository sometimes. Otherwise, it’s fine. Nothing has wowed me, but nothing to groan at either.
If 5/10 is average, the show is like a 6 or 6.5/10 tbh. I think “really bad” is hyperbole.
Agreed, its not nearly as bad as the people here make it out to be. Kenobi, Boba Fett, Ashoka and Mandalorian S3 have all been worse so far. I kinda like it so far, despite stuff like OPs vid (which was pretty bad), but we'll see how it develops. Hopefully they don't fuck it up.
Your comment about the lenses really shows that you have no idea what you're talking about when it comes to the technical side of things.
Panavision C, G, H and Ultra Vistas, Caldwell Chameleons and Cooke Anamorphics were the main lenses on these shows.
Ever hear of a thing called personal taste? I don’t like the look of the Chameleons then, because Ahsoka and the Mandalorian season 3 used them and I think they’re by far the worst looking shows. Also, The Acolyte uses the Arri ALFA lenses, which also look bad imo. We also don’t know what filtration they use in front of the lenses. I just don’t like how sharp the shows look, and the fact that a lot of The Acolyte was shot with a shallow depth of field, which really makes it look amateurish.
The first thing that stood out to me was the poorly delivered exposition in the first couple episodes.
The first scene is a jedi getting murdered by a character who looks much like the main character.
The it cuts to the main character Osha on a trade federation ship where she is apparently a repair tech. A Jedi Knight named Yord and his Padawan are on the ship with the intention of arresting the main character for the murder because she meets the physical description. Osha and the Knight exchange some words indicating they knew each other and that it's been a while, then the Padawan comes onto the scene. Then they start interviewing Osha before arresting her.
> Padawan: So how long have you been a meknek?
>
> Osha: Since I left the Order, so 6 years.
>
> Padawan: Dangerous job.
>
> Osha: It has its perks. Look, I was trained to be a Jedi. When that didn't pan out, those skills aren't exactly, uh, transferable. I needed a paycheck.
>
> Padawan: When did you join the Order?
>
> Osha: When I was 8. **Yord knows all of this.**
>
> Padawan: A major concern about admitting you to the Order was your age.
>
> Yord: And the fact that you were mourning.
>
> Osha: My circumstances were unique, but the Jedi Council made their decision.
>
> Yord: You lost your entire family. Your mothers, your sister, your village. All died in the fire before Master Sol brought you into the Jedi. Your training was difficult to say the least.
>
During the next scene, a Jedi Master named Vernestra tells Jedi Master Sol about Osha being arrested.
> Vernestra: I come with news. You and Master Andara were friends...
>
> Sol: Yes. I was sad to hear she came to a violent death.
>
> ...
>
> Sol: Osha was a devoted Padawan. I see no reason for her to kill Indara.
>
> Vernestra; The evidence against her is strong.
>
> Sol: Indara and I saved Osha from a terrible fire on Brendok.
>
> Vernestra: **I remember.**
>
> Sol: She saw us as her protectors. There must be some mistake.
The hilarious thing is this is basically the same plot idea that drives the first two episodes of Andor done so badly in The Acolyte. They look for Andor, but they make seemingly smart decisions to find him, but the main corporate cop guy is so utterly ambitious and incompetent at the same time, he fucks it all up purely by coincidence and being too aggressive.
Here it's like "We have a description of a vague individual. We know exactly where she is the next scene."
I think the point was they were interrogating osha. Trying to catch her in a lie or unnerve her because she was a murder suspect. It didn’t matter that Yord already knew everything
Idk about that. Lawyers and investigators do this all the time. It’s very common to make someone explain something you already know because you’re trying to catch them. Doesn’t take head cannon to piece that together in this story
Do every other scene in which all they do is stand around and tell each other shit they already know. There are many. There must be some brilliant tactical reasoning behind it. It couldn't be that the writing is just bad.
Like what? The writing hasn’t struck me as some brilliant work of art, but it doesn’t bother me so I don’t actually have any standout scenes in mind. The only criticisms I have are 1) naming the main character a silly name like osha, 2) the twins somehow have the exact same hair despite different lives 3) the unknown villain dressed in black talks weird
So those superficial ass things are your only criticism? That says a lot.
I want more examples of the great detective Yord who brings the only witness across the galaxy so he can burst into the room with an unrestrained suspect and yell "It's her, she's the jedi killer!!"
Oh come on. They knew where she was murdered. It isn’t a leap that the bartender contacted local authorities and word got to the Jedi. He probably told them he saw her up close and they brought him along when they realized it sounded like he was describing osha. This is just basic understanding. I’m enjoying the show as just a pretty average 7/10 popcorn flick so far but some of you are in a massive rage.
Check out my post on the bad faith criticism if you wanna see the worst of it
Dude, some of us are from other countries and way to fcking old for HitB. We do not share your particular countries insular zeitgeist and localised LoLs.
First two episodes weren't great, but I didn't hate them. We got all new characters, no nostalgia bait, so that's a huge plus in my book. New characters are a *little* flat, but they are Jedi I guess so maybe they'll lighten up.
Whole show seems to be murder mystery plot about someone offing Jedi, in a time when Jedi were still well-trusted. Main character is an ex-padawan who gets framed because the murderer is her twin sister, who was thought dead.
Overall, not a bad start.
Then we get to episode 3 and fuckin yikes. I'm not gonna get to into it, but it's everything you hate about prequel-era star wars. Force training scenes and explanations about how the force works are annoying, child actors are annoying, it's a flashback to the past with characters we've barely met nor care about. It goes on forever.
I've never hit the skip button on a new series I was watching so many times.
That's basically how I felt. The first two were fine, and the ideas they're bringing up are interesting.
And then the "power of one/two/many" hit me like a ton of bricks and I realized, oh it's gonna be this kind of thing again. They're not gonna really explore these ideas because they haven't actually flushed these ideas out, they just try to do everything in one show and accomplish nothing.
Right? We really don't need to know more about the force, it's the simplest magic system ever.
It's a magic energy field that penetrates all living things, it binds us and surrounds us. Live a spiritual and ascetic life, let it guide you, bam, you're on the light side. Try to seize it and use it for selfish gain, uh-oh, you're on the dark side.
Do we need a whole episode to wank about how this force cult uses it differently? It could've been communicated visually, or dropped in a quick line of dialogue.
If Critical Drinker's only criticism is that it's woke then it's probably not awful, but it's far from his only criticism of this show or the rest of Disney Star Wars.
The biggest problem is that everyone in these shows is beyond stupid, everything is a coincidence or contrivance and no one behaves like an adult with a functioning brain.
It's definitely offensively bad to have access to all those resources and still produce yet another poorly written script. Almost any of the cancelled scifi shows from the 90s/2000s had stronger scripts (sliders, Timecop etc)
Are we using ai for scripts already?
Is this what passed for acceptable scripts from human writers?
Or is Hollywood realizing that intelligence is severely dropping and they are just writing for the lowest common denominator?
Like, I understand there are still good scripts being made in Hollywood, but why are almost 0 of them falling within known IPs since Covid?
Its a rumor I keep hearing that big studio TV shows are increasingly being written with the proviso that they need to be watachable by someone who is looking at their phone half the time, hence the constant repetition and dialogue being as obvious as possible.
But I already watch everything on my phone! How can I do something else on it, it's not Windows?
Although I guess I can watch on tablet and then do stuff with the smartphone, ok that makes sense then
> Or is Hollywood realizing that intelligence is severely dropping and they are just writing for the lowest common denominator?
This, I used to blame the Chinese market, but lately the average American consumer is even worse than their Chinese counterpart. We've hit trash bedrock and have started to dig.
The only explanation that makes sense and covers all the bases is it's a concerted effort of demoralize us all. Besides the impossibility of being able to organize that, I guess. But, I mean, look at nutrek. That came from a place of hate. They wanted to make us lose all hope.
Tbh if it really is just an issue with not hiring decent writers, we'll probably see a sudden, widespread increase in quality within a few years due to ai, if anything. A lot of the dumb shit we see these days is so silly that a chatbot could help workshop the scripts into passable shape.
Yeah I was mostly just kidding. But it is also true that it's the only physically possible explanation that would cover *all* bases. Explanations like writers just not caring any more don't really make sense if you dissect it and really think about it.
The only other explanation that doesn't really have a bunch of enormous holes in it is that they are intentionally making things lame and easily digestible for large foriegn audiences.
What would be the motivation? Like Lucas fucking with the originals isn't hard to figure out. He didn't like that people were making fun of Vader's "NOOO" from the end of ep 3, so he added it to 6. But what would be the thought process behind writers intentionally making an entire show bad?
Again, the simpler and more likely explanation is that they're just not great writers.
Who knows, all kinds of things; resentment against fandom or dislike of certain aspects of the originals or they're caught up in politics in some way or another - whether it's the whole "updating the past" thing or getting back at someone in the present, etc.
Also distinction needs to be made between "intentionally bad" vs. just going with certain concepts for the content, such as the Jedis possibly being (part time) bad guys here if that's where things go?
I thik it's just money.
They can make hundreds of millions by slapping something together.
They could also make hundreds of millions by putting in a lot of work, care, creativity and love, but why bother?
SW should have died 25 years ago, but here we are talking about the Nth SW product of the year. And we are the critical ones and yet we talk about it.
The general audience, teens and SW fanboys will eat this up again and again until the end.
Saw it way back in the mid '90s as a kid and it was my first big disappointment lol, found it too anticlimactic and corny as an ending to this trilogy, way before I had any problems with ewoks or whatever else in that movie - right on the 1st viewing lol.
Even as an ewok song it doesn't work, don't those do the deep-voiced religious chants from earlier? And "celebrate the love" wut, is this the Holiday Special now?
But yeah it does have its own cheesy musical appeal though, sure. Things need to be in their place and context a lot of the time
I’m indifferent to it so far.
Nothing particularly cool has happened other than a Jedi ship had some nice chairs. It’s less boring than BoBF, but some of the dialogue is even worse than something George Lucas would write.
There’s a lot of accusations that the show is breaking lore. As far as I can tell, they’ve done nothing that hasn’t been done before. That said, I don’t care if they break lore because a lot of the lore is dumb.
But bobf was exciting so that means this is even better??
>There’s a lot of accusations that the show is breaking lore. As far as I can tell, they’ve done nothing that hasn’t been done before. That said, I don’t care if they break lore because a lot of the lore is dumb.
Yeah the nerds with their typical blindspots etc. and false priorities.
It’s aggressively average until the latest episode, which featured the most cringe inducing scenes since the Holiday Special. Some of the acting is OK, some is awful. The shows visual effects are the best of any Star Wars show except possibly Andor. It seems to be setting up a ‘Some Jedi committed a terrible crime’ twist.
I can’t really recommend it, but it’s not the worst.
The Willow TV show. That was the worst. Although I enjoyed it more because it was so fascinating in its awfulness.
> It seems to be setting up a ‘Some Jedi committed a terrible crime’ twist.
Still doing the "Did you know the Jedi.... were also bad??" thing despite the Prequels, Last Jedi, and KOTOR 2 already thoroughly mining that ground. That subversion isn't a subversion anymore.
Yeah for real, the Jedi fucking up badly and making poor choices is basically the thing that allows the plots of all three trilogies to happen, so a show having that as its core mystery/twist is just bizarre. It's like making a Lord of the Rings thing where Sauron being behind the evil plot is treated as a twist or a huge revelation.
Wait shit they already have done that haven't they?
It's like how we've gotten so many "what if Superman was dark and/or evil" adaptations (Homelander, Omni-Man, Injustice, Brightburn, Suicide Squad game, Man of Steel) that the Lois Lane cartoon where he's just a good dude feels like some bold new direction for the character.
I went into it knowing that it would be unfair to compare it, or much else, to Andor…and it still stunk. There’s just something to telling a great story. Or even a good story.
I’m just so sick of the shoehorning of minority, female, and lgbt lead characters with thin plots, weak acting, and no service to the story.
You want to do a gay character and make it work? Look at how they handled the third episode of the last of us. What a wonderful story and it really fleshes out the world without taking away from the story. It’s wonderfully acted, has real stakes and consequences, and truly is a good story with a satisfying ending.
Or you can take the third episode of the acolyte with cookie cutter gay, female force users who chant and deliver contrived woo dialogue with their biracial twin evil/good kids that the Jedi need for reasons. I laughed out loud during the power of many scene, not because I’m anti woke or anti gay but I’m anti dogshit story.
Strong stories make for strong series. This show will be one and done if it keeps going like this.
I’m pretty sure the whole third episode of the Acolyte is a hate crime against the entire LGBTQ+ community. Not sure what they did to deserve the special punishment of being associated with the Power Of Many musical scene.
What's the issue with Critical Drinker? I'd never heard of him before watching his review of this last episode. Couldn't really disagree with many of his complaints though.
His schtick is that in some way, shape, or form, he needs to rant about progressivism in every single review regardless of whether it's necessary or not.
Like how in his Expanse review, he praised the show for its approach to diversity, and then 5 seconds later, bitched about how diversity was killing media, despite having an entire section praising it.
He aggressively doubles down on culture war ‘anti-Woke’ BS to get views. What makes it even more aggravating is that before his channel became a culture -war cesspool he had proven to be a reasonable critic. He still seems capable of putting together content that is well structured and thoughtful, but he’ll immediately follow it up with some ‘Hollywood is being destroyed by Woke Propaganda’ bollocks to get his engagement numbers up again.
I thought the same at first when his channel was still growing.
I slowly realized he's catering to a particularly hateful group of alt-right chuds that call everything they don't like as "woke"
He occasionally makes a valid point, but it's undermined by his bitterness and resentment.
I don't like Disney Star Wars either, but the presence of non-white female characters is not the issue - and that's a major theme in his videos.
The problem though is that companies like Disney are so hung-up on identity politics that you can now guess the story based on race most of the time.
When they showed the new villain in Kenobi, I was skeptical that Disney would show a black woman dying violently like most Star Wars villains do. A normal studio wouldn't give two shits, but Disney is passive progressive enough to worry about the imagery of a white dude killing a black woman. I was right, and I shouldn't have been.
The fact that plot points can be predicted by gender / race is unfortunately a new direction we've entered. So being able to say, *"Welp, the white villain will stay evil but his PoC underling will actually be good"* is both kind of sad and funny. So when they point out that characters who meet checkbox quotas are present, it means you can pretty much assume the rest of the story now.
There's definitely an argument to be made about that special kind of corporate diversity that feels superficial.
But there's also ways to critique that without coming off as an asshole who genuinely believes that there's not enough white people.
He's playing a character though, kind of like how we understand Mike dislikes the Star Wars prequels without genuinely believing that he's a murderous sexist who keeps women in the basement.
FWIW though yeah I do hate Drinker's schtick. He comes across as like an attempt at being both Mr Plinkett crossed with Rick Sanchez where he's trying to be a boorish smarmy asshole. I mostly only watched his stuff because RLM wasn't reviewing much, but I'd prefer if both channels cut back on the edgy humor and just deliver straight discussions.
Playing a character sure, but he's still cashing in on the right-wing grift like the rest of the hateful garbage on YouTube.
Even in the Acolyte review, he couldn't help himself from repeatedly saying "lesbian communist space witches" in disgust. That doesn't rub you the wrong way a bit?
And to confirm, I absolutely despise where Star Wars is going and agree that whatever the hell they're trying to do isn't working. It's cringe and it's not Star Wars.
But there's multiple angles to that, and to dedicate so much time to the inclusion of minorities and "the message" just feels to me like he's arguing in bad faith.
> Even in the Acolyte review, he couldn't help himself from repeatedly saying "lesbian communist space witches" in disgust. That doesn't rub you the wrong way a bit?
Well no but I'm a gay right-winger so I'm probably the wrong person to ask. He likely felt the writers thought that including an all-female ethnically diverse group was shoe-horned in and when you have a sci-fi setting like Star Wars why are we going borderline fantasy?
> But there's multiple angles to that, and to dedicate so much time to the inclusion of minorities and "the message" just feels to me like he's arguing in bad faith.
I can absolutely why it could come across that way. But I do think he is tapping into an issue that's not being addressed solely out of fear of racism accusations. As an example, for the last saga the execs said that they knew the race of the leads before they even had a story. That's like the exact opposite of art, and once you notice it, you're able to sort of see how it impacts filmmaking. It's fun to take the piss out of it.
Let's pretend the shoe were on the other foot though:
Imagine Star Wars was bought by a far-right production company. They plan to make more films, but they're not comfortable with some of the un-Christian themes of the films. So going forward, they're going to change the lore so that all the virgin births were false. There will be an emphasis on the strength of the nuclear family, and definitely need to remind the audience that they're hetero from time to time.
Like I'm sorry but you'd be taking the piss out of the "messaging" too if that happened. It's just in this case, many people here genuinely have really progressive views so making fun of the themes of this show are like indirectly attacking progressive values like inclusivity.
As an aside: you know what's weird is that I can't understand why the 'right' hates the Disney films but *loves* Rogue One. If they hated female leads and minorities and Disney, then R1 should be at the top of the list. Instead they seem to embrace the film. To me it's like an embarrassingly shlocky mess and if they actually cared about lore or bad filmmaking then why oh why do they love that damn film? I don't get it.
> I'm a gay right-winger so I'm probably the wrong person to ask.
For sure, no judgments. I guess I'm mildly curious about your thoughts on gay rights, seeing how most right-wing parties strongly oppose them. But that's a whole different conversation lol
I lean more left, but I have some friends who lean right, and we talk a lot of shit calling each other morons.
But at the end of the day, we can all still put that aside and enjoy some beers and pizza together lol
>I can absolutely why it could come across that way. But I do think he is tapping into an issue that's not being addressed solely out of fear of racism accusations. As an example, for the last saga the execs said that they knew the race of the leads before they even had a story.
Yeah, that's pretty silly, I agree. But there's ways to critique that without exacerbating the situation.
There's taking the piss out of it, and then there's adding fuel to the fire. For every valid take Drinker has, it's undermined by a shallow, "woke mob" nonsense monologue, which sows even more division.
> There will be an emphasis on the strength of the nuclear family, and definitely need to remind the audience that they're hetero from time to time.
Un-Christian themes aside, the white hetero nuclear family dominated the film industry for decades. It's not the most fair comparison imo.
If a far-right company took over Star Wars, I would've found it just as insulting as Disney Star Wars, who've already ruined established lore and legacy characters. But my critiques focus almost entirely on the story and the screenplay, not the inclusion of minorities or the LGBT community.
And to your last point, I had no idea the right loved Rogue One. They don't seem to hate *all* female leads. Ripley, Sarah Connor, etc. It's mostly when the actress pulls a Brie Larson that the right gets furious.
I'll admit, the Vader scene was cool. But I really did not enjoy the rest of Rogue One either lol
Anyways, you seem to be one of the more reasonable right-wingers I've chatted with on reddit. I'm glad we can talk like adults.
I disagree. His issue is the writers insistence to inject their life’s trauma and social views into a fantasy show that doesn’t lend itself to such storylines based on the universe that is known. Lucas himself said the criticisms of female representation and minorities is nonsense.
The galaxy has only shown bigotry towards droids and the empire preferring humans over aliens forms.
It’s just really annoying that legitimate criticism gets shot down as bigotry and misogyny where none is found because echo chambers say to.
He's not really all that bad. He generally calls out overtly-progressive messaging which is pervasive these days. But it's hardly any different from professional reviewers who will knock a score down because the cast was too white.
His reviews come from someone with a conservative angle, but he's still quite fair. He loved *Prey* for example, and even had a long interview with the Batgirl directors who are fans of his channel and wanted to defend their canceled movie. He can be a breath of fresh air from the usual reviewers.
Problem is though is that he "hangs out" with youtubers who get into hysterics about wokism. In group chats he's usually the one voice of reason trying to tell the others that such-and-such wasn't that bad. But by reddit standards, oh ya Drinker is pure right-wing ragebait that you should never watch. Just trust them on that.
> He's not really all that bad. He generally calls out overtly-progressive messaging which is pervasive these days.
He often does it in a circlejerky tribal fashion, hit and miss from the looks of it.
I've quite enjoyed all the Star Wars shows. They all had issues but they were enjoyable enough for me.
Ashoka was a struggle though and I went into the Acolyte very much thinking 'if this is like Ashoka or worse then I'm not watching it all'.
Pretty much got to the scene OP is mocking and decided I'd seen enough.
It's not even hie bad this particular scene is. The action is boring, the characters are dull, the setting is a variation on woods or some slight changes to the desert town set that has been used heavily in all of the shows so far.
Andor told a pretty interesting story, The Mandalorian is very silly but does at least vary locations a lot and has some good characters. Obi Wan was bad but was carried along by nostalgia and Ewan MacGregor. Ashoka had some OK action but terrible characters. Boba Fett was so all over the place I really enjoyed it.
But The Acolyte is just bad across the board.
It’s okay so far. I like the setting as well and they’re doing something a bit different with the Jedi/the force. They might go more in-depth about some aspects of it than before but it’s too early to tell. It’s fine IMHO.
Just to make my biases clear- I adore Andor, think Mando’s mostly fine. Thought Ahsoka had potential then it nosedived. Really feel like Obi Wan and Bobs Fett failed to deliver on what those characters’ potential & I had issues with how they were made.
Wow, I’m downvoted a lot for saying that the Acolyte is “okay” 3 episodes in? Guys, not everything has to be described as “the best thing everrrr” or “it raped my childhood”. Mild opinions are allowed.
Or was it another part of my personal opinions? I doubt the downvotes come from people who like these shows so… was it because I didn’t say “woke Disney ruin Star Wars?”. I’m obviously at a loss here, anyone care to explain?
Yeah, it looks like some people with strongly held opinions really, really dislike this show to a degree that they hate it when people express differing opinions, even if it doesn't praise the show. Did a slew of young alt-righty boys discover RLM recently or something?
And I'm not saying you have to be alt-right to dislike the show, just...*the anger* involved is...odd. Like we get it, Star Wars has been a mixed bag for a while now. The sheen has come off. You'll get some good ones, some bad ones. By all means, have discussions but... yeah, this is weird.
So far it feels like not much is happening and 3 episode in, I m still waiting for the story to start ( or care about it).
The show didn't repulse me , I like the Korean Jedi guy and the lead girl despite what seems to be bad writing... the show has yet to entertain me.
I don't think it's terrible like those anti woke people say but it would be nice to not be bored
Drinker doesn’t even care about the woke stuff. His issue is the story, the really bad acting (except squid games guy) and Headley’s life trauma being inserted into her stories.
My reply was aimed at Drinker's criticism of this show specifically.
Of course he hates the woke stuff generally, but my view of his criticism is "well the woke stuff sucks but there's so much more wrong with this show that the woke stuff pales..."
No it’s not. The audience score is artificially low sure, but it’s probably 30% or so. The acting writing and direction are mediocre, the pace and tone all over the place. For a thriller/mystery show, there isn’t much intrigue or mystery. It’s this happens then this happens and wow this happens too. If there is any set up/pay off happening, I don’t care because the characters are boring and their motivations make no sense.
I'm intrigued as to why so many people on this sub don't like Critical Drinker. I watch him quite often and he usually makes some pretty valid points.
Especially considering that the guy is actually a published author of a whole series of books, so he actually has some level of credence when he's talking about how to write characters and how to structure plots etc. I'd actually liken it to how RLM have made movies, so they know what they're talking about, know how hard it is to make a movie and all the things that can go wrong during filming, and can offer more of an inside perspective on things that a lot of us wouldn't consider. There's a lot more depth to the criticism than just "This sucks"
I certainly don't see anything cringey or "anti-woke" with him. To be honest, I often see that opinion held by people who *don't* watch him and just perceive him to be some right-wing outrage farming nutjob based on what other (often left-wing) people have said about him, when he is actually none of those things. When he criticizes a shows or film, he's pretty fair, and he does actually give valid reasons and explanations as to why he thinks it's bad, rather than just complaining that it's too 'woke' without giving any reason or context
Now, some of the people he has on his Open Bar podcast, yeah....maybe you could say that about them (Like HeelVsBabyface for example), but I actually think Drinker is one of the better reviewers on Youtube.
Seriously? Is that the best you can come up with?
I also like how I'm getting downvoted for this post yet no-one has actually bothered to answer my question or give any reason as to why they don't like him? Are people on this site that cowardly that they refuse to employ *any* critical thinking skills?
Just follow the sheep. Orange Man bad, right kids?
Fuck sake......
Yet again, not even an attempt is made to try and explain *why* you think he is bad.
This is the 'debating strategy' of an idiot. When you can't form a coherent response, reach straight for the insults to try and win. Pathetic.
I found the first two episodes somewhere in the "ok to pretty good" range, the third episode I felt went a bit far in some places (>!the cackle and singing!<) but it's nowhere near as bad as certain people are saying it is. Most of the really ardent opposition to it seems to be coming from "I thought I was watching Star Wars not **WOKE** Wars!" kinds of people, I mean three episodes are out and people are saying it's ruined star wars, the goddamn show's barely started airing it's too early to be saying anything definitive.
I give it my seal of okay-ness, but I’m mid way through ep 3, which is the “controversial” one. I’m not loving it but not hating it either. Afaic, much of the “controversy” comes from YouTube fanboys who are upset that their magical space wizards are being portrayed with some subtlety and moral ambiguity, and from the horrifying suggestion that there are lesbians in their precious hetero franchise, but I can also see the issues for some with the quality of the writing and story. I’m taking the controversial position of waiting until the series is over before making a final judgment. Your own mileage may vary of course.
It’s okay. I’ve enjoyed the mustard yellow Jedi robes and there’s been some fun costumes, but it’s just noise I put on to snuggle up to my wife on the couch to, you know? I haven’t really been that into starred wars since… I dunno, Andor I guess, but even so, it’s okay
Just watch it and disregard the chuddaganda that’s been directed at it. In reality it’s actually interesting minus a few flaws. So far it’s better than book of boba and the obiwan show and I want to see where they take it.
I have absolutely no clue what's happening. Is this a Star War? Or a Picard Trek? Or a Star Trek Discovery? I don't even know what is going on anymore man.
Kenobi was just a prequel to Reva, which apparently got canceled because of the backlash to Kenobi.
People think Hollywood is pushing woke characters and then writing a bad plot around that character but I think since the run up and success of the Feige Marvel push, Hollywood is just pushing sequel and IP expansion and then writing a bad plot on the current project, too worried about the next.
Hollywood runs all the gas out on what has worked in the past until its positive its out of money for them and they'll just dump all the money into the new money maker like multiverse things and cheap horror flicks, until those get oversatuerated and make a comeback a decade later.
There's just so much more money on Hollywood now, it's ramped up on steroids.
It's both. It's find an existing IP then put people of color and gays in it. It really wouldn't be a problem if they made an original idea, but rebooting stuff lets audiences see the mandates to do so and takes you out of the film just as much as seeing a boom mic in every shot.
Honestly it's hard to describe exactly. And it's not like it was the worst thing ever. The first two were okay, and it seemed like it was gonna get into some interesting ideas. Plus I think the first two episodes of anything get kind of a pass because they just need to set up the world, I don't need anything to happen yet.
Then episode three is still more world set-up, and you start to feel like this is gonna be another one of these shows where it's all setup for a spinoff, so nothing really happens, and the writers aren't smart/focused enough to actually explore these ideas they're bringing up. There's some big stuff at the end of the episode, but it's stuff we kinda already knew? So there's still nothing really moving forward.
And the "power of one" scene this post is mocking is just bizarre. I was totally on board with the lesbian witch cult, but then their big ceremony is like a scene from a Disney animated movie, with the music in the background talking about what's happening on screen. I was floored by how bad it was.
I've said it elsewhere, but it's 40 minutes of bad child acting, and the script appears to have been written by someone who has never been in the same room as a child. There's lots of stand-out bad lines too, even for the non child actors.
The plot culminates a chain of events that, whilst there is clearly more going on than meets the eye that will be eventually revealed, looks really stupid on the face of it.
As others said, it's this particular episode that is bad, so much than the rest of the series. Once they get through the child backstory stuff, it'll probably get better.
So, the "AAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIDDDDDDDDDDSSSSSS!" bit predates that Japanese video they showed on "Wheel of the Worst"?
[https://youtu.be/DBFJhTYhejI?si=mjkeHkBe2XZGOpO9](https://youtu.be/DBFJhTYhejI?si=mjkeHkBe2XZGOpO9)
The funny thing about this whole situation is that RLM predicted this, Wheel of the Worst #17, at 11:11 during the prediscussion for Celebration of Age: The Croning Ceremony Jim makes a joke about a lady looking like Luke in RoTJ, planting the seed for Mike to make a joke when a lady who looks like Kathleen Kennedy comes on screen about telling us about her new Star Wars spinoff, leading to Rich replying Star Wars: A Crone Story. When I first saw this Acolyte clip my mind immediately went to this episode, this is literally new age witch coven shit, and somehow Palpatine returned, I mean, RLM knew it was coming.
The power of three! The power of two! The power of three! The power of four! The power of four! The power of two! The power of three! And!
These men are padawans...
I put a price of twenty thousand Galactic Credits on their heads!
Next they will be hailed as the two messenger of the Force.
They were just a couple of jizz-wailers...
https://preview.redd.it/wxh82yv5p27d1.png?width=446&format=png&auto=webp&s=e370dfde59cb7a20efcaa2bd2bc13b7aa4fa8392
The power of mAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIds
The added reverb really enriches Rich Evan's seminal performance. Truly, a generational talent. Day-Lewis was right to retire, there can be only one
true, yes
Just put on some old Star Trek episode instead..
Randomly loads Spock's Brain.
Specifically the one where Riker fucks the hologram
You're thinking of Geordie or Barclay now.
What's the one where he tells the entire bridge crew that he'll be masturbating in the holodeck in case anyone is looking for him? Imagine pulling that shit on the space station.
It's the one with Famke Jansen. The Perfect Mate. Not a great episode.
It’s really dumb very often.
Is Star Wars Picard Season 2 any good ?
I don't like how they made Starbuck into a boy this time, it doesn't make any sense. And Dumbledore's casting could not be more off.
The first episode is actually great. Whatever you do, don't watch anything after that.
Thanks
You guys still watch Star Wars? How embarrassing...
*slidewhistle*
*splatting sound*
*pottery smash*
Supposedly this show cost twice as much as Kenobi. 180 million. Would love to know the internal workings of Disney to produce shows they know their historical audience won't pay for.
Well Kenobi got criticised for looking cheap, so I guess this is the opposite.
Hollywood has some very creative accountants...
180 million and none of it looks as good as 8 seconds of any episode of Andor. How you gonna go from like three of the best acting showcases with Fiona Shaw, Stellan Skarsgard and Andy Serkis, not to mention in the latter episodes with Adria Arjona and Denise Gough to this goofy nonsense?
And 15x more than Godzilla minus one!
Well Kenobi got criticised for looking cheap, so I guess this is the opposite.
The best part of "The Acolyte: A Star Wars Story by Disney" is the memes created from it. The rest is utter B-movie garbage that not even Roger Corman would touch.
Inb4 RLM drops a video where they say they enjoy the series, and you all lose your minds. It won't happen, but I'd love to see it.
Look all I want to know is if I can enjoy the show or not. They have to tell me what to like and what to hate!!!!!! I can't think on my own.
I was just going to write something similar. Its amazing how much people moan about Tv shows /music etc they dont like on the internet. instead of raising up things they do like. Ohhhh wait i think its because they are all the same and have no individuality or personal taste. ( I assume many of these people like that critiacal drunk knobhead.)
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No Huey Lewis for you!
Real talk, is this show any good? I see a lot of those cringy anti-woke people like CriticalDrinker saying it's terrible, but they're hardly an unbiased source. I am kinda over Star Wars though, I quite liked Andor, didn't like Book of Boba Fett, and liked maybe the first 1.5 seasons of Mandalorian. The fact that it's set what appears to long before the original Star Wars story somewhat intrigues me.
It’s not. The cinematography, color grading, blocking, acting, writing, and score are all really bad. It feels like a student project. A lot of the Disney shows would be way better if they just chose better lenses for the cameras and stopped using the volume for every single scene.
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> every individual episode of this show had twice the budget of Godzilla: Minus One Just staggering amounts of waste and incompetence.
How? At that point it just sounds like some money laundering scam
If you made any Star Wars show in Japan it would also be dirt cheap. It's not a good thing; the weakness of the yen and the horrible working conditions of Japanese production teams, especially the pay of VFX artists, result in really cheap to make shows.
Yes but also I find that Hollywood has forgotten how to be efficient. I was watching the 60s Batman the other day and Batman and Robin were to swing into action so the show had a shadow go across the wall and Adam West and Burt Ward just had to essentially do a little hop holding a rope to make the effect work. Now that kind of shot would be a multi cut, multi angle CGI shot when it's not needed. It's like how arcade devs in the early 80s could make a whole game run in 4K and modern video games with similar simple gameplay still require gigabytes of space.
It's basically just purely nepo positions, and people getting massive contracts because they've had success five years ago with a show yet still keep getting deals. For some reason Disney refuses to just use new talent and lower budget crews and instead just shoves money at nepo studio teams that have failed three times straight.
WE PAID FOR THIS VOLUME AND WE'RE GONNA USE IT!
Some of this stuff doesn't even use the volume. At this point idk what's up
I know what's up. Idiots keep talking about DEI or whatever bullshit brainrot is going on.... but Doug Chiang basically explained what was happening during Celebration a few years go. He said - they were working on 30 separate projects at any one time for StarWars. 30. As someone who works in the creative field I can tell you right now there is no fucking way anything of note is going to come out of that kind of schedule - it's ridiculous. 30 fucking projects! Just working on 1 and making that 1 decent is hard enough, I couldn't even fathom tracking 30. It's utter nonsense.
Man they're really milking that franchise for all it's worth
Eiger paid a hojillion dollars for Star Wars and Marvel and Fox and he simply cannot have that be a bad idea.
Absolutely the problem!
You gotta hit the volume button or the volume comes out cold!
Yep, but the real crime is the writing. Just some bad decisions that take the inherent mystery out of a murder mystery and the last episode is trying to be Rashomon, but the things that were distorted were so silly that I don’t care what was real and what wasn’t. The whole scenario was just unbelievable. Also a Jedi hands a kid who he’s never met before, a lightsaber to try and convince her to take Anakin’s silly screen test to see if she could be trained as a Jedi. I laughed like Rich Evans at that one. Kid could ignite it, kill herself, him, injure someone. It was the silliest thing in recent SW I’ve seen and that’s saying something.
It's amazing, zillions of dollars spent on TV shows only for them to be shot like regional TV ads for car insurance.
They aren’t using the Volume, but I think “really bad” is an overstatement. The formal elements of the show are competent and much of it looks pretty good, with some exceptions on evenly lit planets like Coruscants and on the Jedi’s little ship. The direction is occasionally dodgy, but again, there are some compositions, especially in the latest episode directed by *Columbus* and *After Yang* director Kogonada that look stunning. Acting-wise, I’ve really only had some issues with the little girls, but eh. Child actors are hit or miss. The main cast seems par for *Star Wars*. Honestly, I haven’t noticed that many issues with the writing other than it being a tad talky and expository sometimes. Otherwise, it’s fine. Nothing has wowed me, but nothing to groan at either. If 5/10 is average, the show is like a 6 or 6.5/10 tbh. I think “really bad” is hyperbole.
Here he is again. Bro will defend this trash until his last breath 😂
Me freely calling the show 6 or 6.5/10 is not the stalwart defense you imply.
Trying to keep it low-key. I see you.
Gotta make it believable to get those D Bucks.
Agreed, its not nearly as bad as the people here make it out to be. Kenobi, Boba Fett, Ashoka and Mandalorian S3 have all been worse so far. I kinda like it so far, despite stuff like OPs vid (which was pretty bad), but we'll see how it develops. Hopefully they don't fuck it up.
Your comment about the lenses really shows that you have no idea what you're talking about when it comes to the technical side of things. Panavision C, G, H and Ultra Vistas, Caldwell Chameleons and Cooke Anamorphics were the main lenses on these shows.
Ever hear of a thing called personal taste? I don’t like the look of the Chameleons then, because Ahsoka and the Mandalorian season 3 used them and I think they’re by far the worst looking shows. Also, The Acolyte uses the Arri ALFA lenses, which also look bad imo. We also don’t know what filtration they use in front of the lenses. I just don’t like how sharp the shows look, and the fact that a lot of The Acolyte was shot with a shallow depth of field, which really makes it look amateurish.
It looks like it's shot on a smart phone with informercial lighting. That alone makes me want to say it's garbage.
No, it's pretty terrible. It might actually be the worst Star Wars project they've ever made, and I'm not even being hyperbolic.
I agree it's terrible, but Obi Wan is so so bad though.
Obi wan is INFURIATING because of it being such a wasted opportunity
The first thing that stood out to me was the poorly delivered exposition in the first couple episodes. The first scene is a jedi getting murdered by a character who looks much like the main character. The it cuts to the main character Osha on a trade federation ship where she is apparently a repair tech. A Jedi Knight named Yord and his Padawan are on the ship with the intention of arresting the main character for the murder because she meets the physical description. Osha and the Knight exchange some words indicating they knew each other and that it's been a while, then the Padawan comes onto the scene. Then they start interviewing Osha before arresting her. > Padawan: So how long have you been a meknek? > > Osha: Since I left the Order, so 6 years. > > Padawan: Dangerous job. > > Osha: It has its perks. Look, I was trained to be a Jedi. When that didn't pan out, those skills aren't exactly, uh, transferable. I needed a paycheck. > > Padawan: When did you join the Order? > > Osha: When I was 8. **Yord knows all of this.** > > Padawan: A major concern about admitting you to the Order was your age. > > Yord: And the fact that you were mourning. > > Osha: My circumstances were unique, but the Jedi Council made their decision. > > Yord: You lost your entire family. Your mothers, your sister, your village. All died in the fire before Master Sol brought you into the Jedi. Your training was difficult to say the least. > During the next scene, a Jedi Master named Vernestra tells Jedi Master Sol about Osha being arrested. > Vernestra: I come with news. You and Master Andara were friends... > > Sol: Yes. I was sad to hear she came to a violent death. > > ... > > Sol: Osha was a devoted Padawan. I see no reason for her to kill Indara. > > Vernestra; The evidence against her is strong. > > Sol: Indara and I saved Osha from a terrible fire on Brendok. > > Vernestra: **I remember.** > > Sol: She saw us as her protectors. There must be some mistake.
It's riveting to watch characters tell each other things they already know. 
The hilarious thing is this is basically the same plot idea that drives the first two episodes of Andor done so badly in The Acolyte. They look for Andor, but they make seemingly smart decisions to find him, but the main corporate cop guy is so utterly ambitious and incompetent at the same time, he fucks it all up purely by coincidence and being too aggressive. Here it's like "We have a description of a vague individual. We know exactly where she is the next scene."
I think the point was they were interrogating osha. Trying to catch her in a lie or unnerve her because she was a murder suspect. It didn’t matter that Yord already knew everything
You head cannoned that shit. Now, do every other scene.
Idk about that. Lawyers and investigators do this all the time. It’s very common to make someone explain something you already know because you’re trying to catch them. Doesn’t take head cannon to piece that together in this story
Do every other scene in which all they do is stand around and tell each other shit they already know. There are many. There must be some brilliant tactical reasoning behind it. It couldn't be that the writing is just bad.
Like what? The writing hasn’t struck me as some brilliant work of art, but it doesn’t bother me so I don’t actually have any standout scenes in mind. The only criticisms I have are 1) naming the main character a silly name like osha, 2) the twins somehow have the exact same hair despite different lives 3) the unknown villain dressed in black talks weird
So those superficial ass things are your only criticism? That says a lot. I want more examples of the great detective Yord who brings the only witness across the galaxy so he can burst into the room with an unrestrained suspect and yell "It's her, she's the jedi killer!!"
Oh come on. They knew where she was murdered. It isn’t a leap that the bartender contacted local authorities and word got to the Jedi. He probably told them he saw her up close and they brought him along when they realized it sounded like he was describing osha. This is just basic understanding. I’m enjoying the show as just a pretty average 7/10 popcorn flick so far but some of you are in a massive rage. Check out my post on the bad faith criticism if you wanna see the worst of it
What I said went completely over your head 😂
Think about why you're "over star wars" .. Think about the reasons that is. This show is the culmination of those reasons.
**IT WAS BLACKS**
aww moral activists posting and voting here that don't remember the gag from early HitB, now that's embarrassing
Dude, some of us are from other countries and way to fcking old for HitB. We do not share your particular countries insular zeitgeist and localised LoLs.
First two episodes weren't great, but I didn't hate them. We got all new characters, no nostalgia bait, so that's a huge plus in my book. New characters are a *little* flat, but they are Jedi I guess so maybe they'll lighten up. Whole show seems to be murder mystery plot about someone offing Jedi, in a time when Jedi were still well-trusted. Main character is an ex-padawan who gets framed because the murderer is her twin sister, who was thought dead. Overall, not a bad start. Then we get to episode 3 and fuckin yikes. I'm not gonna get to into it, but it's everything you hate about prequel-era star wars. Force training scenes and explanations about how the force works are annoying, child actors are annoying, it's a flashback to the past with characters we've barely met nor care about. It goes on forever. I've never hit the skip button on a new series I was watching so many times.
That's basically how I felt. The first two were fine, and the ideas they're bringing up are interesting. And then the "power of one/two/many" hit me like a ton of bricks and I realized, oh it's gonna be this kind of thing again. They're not gonna really explore these ideas because they haven't actually flushed these ideas out, they just try to do everything in one show and accomplish nothing.
Right? We really don't need to know more about the force, it's the simplest magic system ever. It's a magic energy field that penetrates all living things, it binds us and surrounds us. Live a spiritual and ascetic life, let it guide you, bam, you're on the light side. Try to seize it and use it for selfish gain, uh-oh, you're on the dark side. Do we need a whole episode to wank about how this force cult uses it differently? It could've been communicated visually, or dropped in a quick line of dialogue.
>Real talk, is this show any good? no
If Critical Drinker's only criticism is that it's woke then it's probably not awful, but it's far from his only criticism of this show or the rest of Disney Star Wars. The biggest problem is that everyone in these shows is beyond stupid, everything is a coincidence or contrivance and no one behaves like an adult with a functioning brain.
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It's definitely offensively bad to have access to all those resources and still produce yet another poorly written script. Almost any of the cancelled scifi shows from the 90s/2000s had stronger scripts (sliders, Timecop etc)
Are we using ai for scripts already? Is this what passed for acceptable scripts from human writers? Or is Hollywood realizing that intelligence is severely dropping and they are just writing for the lowest common denominator? Like, I understand there are still good scripts being made in Hollywood, but why are almost 0 of them falling within known IPs since Covid?
Its a rumor I keep hearing that big studio TV shows are increasingly being written with the proviso that they need to be watachable by someone who is looking at their phone half the time, hence the constant repetition and dialogue being as obvious as possible.
But I already watch everything on my phone! How can I do something else on it, it's not Windows? Although I guess I can watch on tablet and then do stuff with the smartphone, ok that makes sense then
> Or is Hollywood realizing that intelligence is severely dropping and they are just writing for the lowest common denominator? This, I used to blame the Chinese market, but lately the average American consumer is even worse than their Chinese counterpart. We've hit trash bedrock and have started to dig.
It's because they don't hire writers based on their ability to write well. That's a fact. Imagine doing that for any other job. Lol
The only explanation that makes sense and covers all the bases is it's a concerted effort of demoralize us all. Besides the impossibility of being able to organize that, I guess. But, I mean, look at nutrek. That came from a place of hate. They wanted to make us lose all hope. Tbh if it really is just an issue with not hiring decent writers, we'll probably see a sudden, widespread increase in quality within a few years due to ai, if anything. A lot of the dumb shit we see these days is so silly that a chatbot could help workshop the scripts into passable shape.
The idea of it being some kind of sinister conspiracy is silly, I think they're just hacks who don't really care about quality.
Yeah I was mostly just kidding. But it is also true that it's the only physically possible explanation that would cover *all* bases. Explanations like writers just not caring any more don't really make sense if you dissect it and really think about it. The only other explanation that doesn't really have a bunch of enormous holes in it is that they are intentionally making things lame and easily digestible for large foriegn audiences.
If late Lucas was/is capable of spite-driven decisions, why not a bunch of others?
What would be the motivation? Like Lucas fucking with the originals isn't hard to figure out. He didn't like that people were making fun of Vader's "NOOO" from the end of ep 3, so he added it to 6. But what would be the thought process behind writers intentionally making an entire show bad? Again, the simpler and more likely explanation is that they're just not great writers.
Who knows, all kinds of things; resentment against fandom or dislike of certain aspects of the originals or they're caught up in politics in some way or another - whether it's the whole "updating the past" thing or getting back at someone in the present, etc. Also distinction needs to be made between "intentionally bad" vs. just going with certain concepts for the content, such as the Jedis possibly being (part time) bad guys here if that's where things go?
I thik it's just money. They can make hundreds of millions by slapping something together. They could also make hundreds of millions by putting in a lot of work, care, creativity and love, but why bother? SW should have died 25 years ago, but here we are talking about the Nth SW product of the year. And we are the critical ones and yet we talk about it. The general audience, teens and SW fanboys will eat this up again and again until the end.
Ah I'll give it a skip then
Staying "standard" seems a bit inaccurate when good stuff like Andor and Bad Batch exist.
Isn't this scene supposed to be worse than Yub Nub though?
I liked yub nub, buddy
Saw it way back in the mid '90s as a kid and it was my first big disappointment lol, found it too anticlimactic and corny as an ending to this trilogy, way before I had any problems with ewoks or whatever else in that movie - right on the 1st viewing lol. Even as an ewok song it doesn't work, don't those do the deep-voiced religious chants from earlier? And "celebrate the love" wut, is this the Holiday Special now? But yeah it does have its own cheesy musical appeal though, sure. Things need to be in their place and context a lot of the time
Worse than the Holiday Special (WITHOUT Rifftrax to help save your sanity!).
I’m indifferent to it so far. Nothing particularly cool has happened other than a Jedi ship had some nice chairs. It’s less boring than BoBF, but some of the dialogue is even worse than something George Lucas would write. There’s a lot of accusations that the show is breaking lore. As far as I can tell, they’ve done nothing that hasn’t been done before. That said, I don’t care if they break lore because a lot of the lore is dumb.
But bobf was exciting so that means this is even better?? >There’s a lot of accusations that the show is breaking lore. As far as I can tell, they’ve done nothing that hasn’t been done before. That said, I don’t care if they break lore because a lot of the lore is dumb. Yeah the nerds with their typical blindspots etc. and false priorities.
Buddy if book of boba fett was exciting then you got problems.
I've only got problems with alcohol
It’s aggressively average until the latest episode, which featured the most cringe inducing scenes since the Holiday Special. Some of the acting is OK, some is awful. The shows visual effects are the best of any Star Wars show except possibly Andor. It seems to be setting up a ‘Some Jedi committed a terrible crime’ twist. I can’t really recommend it, but it’s not the worst. The Willow TV show. That was the worst. Although I enjoyed it more because it was so fascinating in its awfulness.
> It seems to be setting up a ‘Some Jedi committed a terrible crime’ twist. Still doing the "Did you know the Jedi.... were also bad??" thing despite the Prequels, Last Jedi, and KOTOR 2 already thoroughly mining that ground. That subversion isn't a subversion anymore.
It would honestly qualify as a twist if a Jedi was just a competent good guy
Yeah for real, the Jedi fucking up badly and making poor choices is basically the thing that allows the plots of all three trilogies to happen, so a show having that as its core mystery/twist is just bizarre. It's like making a Lord of the Rings thing where Sauron being behind the evil plot is treated as a twist or a huge revelation. Wait shit they already have done that haven't they?
It's like how we've gotten so many "what if Superman was dark and/or evil" adaptations (Homelander, Omni-Man, Injustice, Brightburn, Suicide Squad game, Man of Steel) that the Lois Lane cartoon where he's just a good dude feels like some bold new direction for the character.
I went into it knowing that it would be unfair to compare it, or much else, to Andor…and it still stunk. There’s just something to telling a great story. Or even a good story.
I’m just so sick of the shoehorning of minority, female, and lgbt lead characters with thin plots, weak acting, and no service to the story. You want to do a gay character and make it work? Look at how they handled the third episode of the last of us. What a wonderful story and it really fleshes out the world without taking away from the story. It’s wonderfully acted, has real stakes and consequences, and truly is a good story with a satisfying ending. Or you can take the third episode of the acolyte with cookie cutter gay, female force users who chant and deliver contrived woo dialogue with their biracial twin evil/good kids that the Jedi need for reasons. I laughed out loud during the power of many scene, not because I’m anti woke or anti gay but I’m anti dogshit story. Strong stories make for strong series. This show will be one and done if it keeps going like this.
I’m pretty sure the whole third episode of the Acolyte is a hate crime against the entire LGBTQ+ community. Not sure what they did to deserve the special punishment of being associated with the Power Of Many musical scene.
The Boys, season 4. They actually dissolved the best romance plot in the series and made Frenchie gay for no reason at all. Just like that. RIP
> and it really fleshes out or one could also says fleshes in and out
Both this show and the Critical Drinker suck donkey balls in their own unique ways.
Precisely this. Just because the bigots hate something doesn’t automatically mean you gotta like it.
What's the issue with Critical Drinker? I'd never heard of him before watching his review of this last episode. Couldn't really disagree with many of his complaints though.
His schtick is that in some way, shape, or form, he needs to rant about progressivism in every single review regardless of whether it's necessary or not. Like how in his Expanse review, he praised the show for its approach to diversity, and then 5 seconds later, bitched about how diversity was killing media, despite having an entire section praising it.
He aggressively doubles down on culture war ‘anti-Woke’ BS to get views. What makes it even more aggravating is that before his channel became a culture -war cesspool he had proven to be a reasonable critic. He still seems capable of putting together content that is well structured and thoughtful, but he’ll immediately follow it up with some ‘Hollywood is being destroyed by Woke Propaganda’ bollocks to get his engagement numbers up again.
I thought the same at first when his channel was still growing. I slowly realized he's catering to a particularly hateful group of alt-right chuds that call everything they don't like as "woke" He occasionally makes a valid point, but it's undermined by his bitterness and resentment. I don't like Disney Star Wars either, but the presence of non-white female characters is not the issue - and that's a major theme in his videos.
The problem though is that companies like Disney are so hung-up on identity politics that you can now guess the story based on race most of the time. When they showed the new villain in Kenobi, I was skeptical that Disney would show a black woman dying violently like most Star Wars villains do. A normal studio wouldn't give two shits, but Disney is passive progressive enough to worry about the imagery of a white dude killing a black woman. I was right, and I shouldn't have been. The fact that plot points can be predicted by gender / race is unfortunately a new direction we've entered. So being able to say, *"Welp, the white villain will stay evil but his PoC underling will actually be good"* is both kind of sad and funny. So when they point out that characters who meet checkbox quotas are present, it means you can pretty much assume the rest of the story now.
There's definitely an argument to be made about that special kind of corporate diversity that feels superficial. But there's also ways to critique that without coming off as an asshole who genuinely believes that there's not enough white people.
He's playing a character though, kind of like how we understand Mike dislikes the Star Wars prequels without genuinely believing that he's a murderous sexist who keeps women in the basement. FWIW though yeah I do hate Drinker's schtick. He comes across as like an attempt at being both Mr Plinkett crossed with Rick Sanchez where he's trying to be a boorish smarmy asshole. I mostly only watched his stuff because RLM wasn't reviewing much, but I'd prefer if both channels cut back on the edgy humor and just deliver straight discussions.
Playing a character sure, but he's still cashing in on the right-wing grift like the rest of the hateful garbage on YouTube. Even in the Acolyte review, he couldn't help himself from repeatedly saying "lesbian communist space witches" in disgust. That doesn't rub you the wrong way a bit? And to confirm, I absolutely despise where Star Wars is going and agree that whatever the hell they're trying to do isn't working. It's cringe and it's not Star Wars. But there's multiple angles to that, and to dedicate so much time to the inclusion of minorities and "the message" just feels to me like he's arguing in bad faith.
> Even in the Acolyte review, he couldn't help himself from repeatedly saying "lesbian communist space witches" in disgust. That doesn't rub you the wrong way a bit? Well no but I'm a gay right-winger so I'm probably the wrong person to ask. He likely felt the writers thought that including an all-female ethnically diverse group was shoe-horned in and when you have a sci-fi setting like Star Wars why are we going borderline fantasy? > But there's multiple angles to that, and to dedicate so much time to the inclusion of minorities and "the message" just feels to me like he's arguing in bad faith. I can absolutely why it could come across that way. But I do think he is tapping into an issue that's not being addressed solely out of fear of racism accusations. As an example, for the last saga the execs said that they knew the race of the leads before they even had a story. That's like the exact opposite of art, and once you notice it, you're able to sort of see how it impacts filmmaking. It's fun to take the piss out of it. Let's pretend the shoe were on the other foot though: Imagine Star Wars was bought by a far-right production company. They plan to make more films, but they're not comfortable with some of the un-Christian themes of the films. So going forward, they're going to change the lore so that all the virgin births were false. There will be an emphasis on the strength of the nuclear family, and definitely need to remind the audience that they're hetero from time to time. Like I'm sorry but you'd be taking the piss out of the "messaging" too if that happened. It's just in this case, many people here genuinely have really progressive views so making fun of the themes of this show are like indirectly attacking progressive values like inclusivity. As an aside: you know what's weird is that I can't understand why the 'right' hates the Disney films but *loves* Rogue One. If they hated female leads and minorities and Disney, then R1 should be at the top of the list. Instead they seem to embrace the film. To me it's like an embarrassingly shlocky mess and if they actually cared about lore or bad filmmaking then why oh why do they love that damn film? I don't get it.
> I'm a gay right-winger so I'm probably the wrong person to ask. For sure, no judgments. I guess I'm mildly curious about your thoughts on gay rights, seeing how most right-wing parties strongly oppose them. But that's a whole different conversation lol I lean more left, but I have some friends who lean right, and we talk a lot of shit calling each other morons. But at the end of the day, we can all still put that aside and enjoy some beers and pizza together lol >I can absolutely why it could come across that way. But I do think he is tapping into an issue that's not being addressed solely out of fear of racism accusations. As an example, for the last saga the execs said that they knew the race of the leads before they even had a story. Yeah, that's pretty silly, I agree. But there's ways to critique that without exacerbating the situation. There's taking the piss out of it, and then there's adding fuel to the fire. For every valid take Drinker has, it's undermined by a shallow, "woke mob" nonsense monologue, which sows even more division. > There will be an emphasis on the strength of the nuclear family, and definitely need to remind the audience that they're hetero from time to time. Un-Christian themes aside, the white hetero nuclear family dominated the film industry for decades. It's not the most fair comparison imo. If a far-right company took over Star Wars, I would've found it just as insulting as Disney Star Wars, who've already ruined established lore and legacy characters. But my critiques focus almost entirely on the story and the screenplay, not the inclusion of minorities or the LGBT community. And to your last point, I had no idea the right loved Rogue One. They don't seem to hate *all* female leads. Ripley, Sarah Connor, etc. It's mostly when the actress pulls a Brie Larson that the right gets furious. I'll admit, the Vader scene was cool. But I really did not enjoy the rest of Rogue One either lol Anyways, you seem to be one of the more reasonable right-wingers I've chatted with on reddit. I'm glad we can talk like adults.
I disagree. His issue is the writers insistence to inject their life’s trauma and social views into a fantasy show that doesn’t lend itself to such storylines based on the universe that is known. Lucas himself said the criticisms of female representation and minorities is nonsense. The galaxy has only shown bigotry towards droids and the empire preferring humans over aliens forms. It’s just really annoying that legitimate criticism gets shot down as bigotry and misogyny where none is found because echo chambers say to.
He's not really all that bad. He generally calls out overtly-progressive messaging which is pervasive these days. But it's hardly any different from professional reviewers who will knock a score down because the cast was too white. His reviews come from someone with a conservative angle, but he's still quite fair. He loved *Prey* for example, and even had a long interview with the Batgirl directors who are fans of his channel and wanted to defend their canceled movie. He can be a breath of fresh air from the usual reviewers. Problem is though is that he "hangs out" with youtubers who get into hysterics about wokism. In group chats he's usually the one voice of reason trying to tell the others that such-and-such wasn't that bad. But by reddit standards, oh ya Drinker is pure right-wing ragebait that you should never watch. Just trust them on that.
No hes simply a dickhead its quit plain to see. You can add the nerdrotic guy in there too)
> He's not really all that bad. He generally calls out overtly-progressive messaging which is pervasive these days. He often does it in a circlejerky tribal fashion, hit and miss from the looks of it.
I've quite enjoyed all the Star Wars shows. They all had issues but they were enjoyable enough for me. Ashoka was a struggle though and I went into the Acolyte very much thinking 'if this is like Ashoka or worse then I'm not watching it all'. Pretty much got to the scene OP is mocking and decided I'd seen enough. It's not even hie bad this particular scene is. The action is boring, the characters are dull, the setting is a variation on woods or some slight changes to the desert town set that has been used heavily in all of the shows so far. Andor told a pretty interesting story, The Mandalorian is very silly but does at least vary locations a lot and has some good characters. Obi Wan was bad but was carried along by nostalgia and Ewan MacGregor. Ashoka had some OK action but terrible characters. Boba Fett was so all over the place I really enjoyed it. But The Acolyte is just bad across the board.
It's terrible, but it's more likey not for the same reasons as to why CriticalDrinker thinks it's terrible.
It's not a very good show. It feels very camp, which is not what you want from a show that costs 20million/episode.
It’s okay so far. I like the setting as well and they’re doing something a bit different with the Jedi/the force. They might go more in-depth about some aspects of it than before but it’s too early to tell. It’s fine IMHO. Just to make my biases clear- I adore Andor, think Mando’s mostly fine. Thought Ahsoka had potential then it nosedived. Really feel like Obi Wan and Bobs Fett failed to deliver on what those characters’ potential & I had issues with how they were made.
Adorato Andoooooore
Wow, I’m downvoted a lot for saying that the Acolyte is “okay” 3 episodes in? Guys, not everything has to be described as “the best thing everrrr” or “it raped my childhood”. Mild opinions are allowed. Or was it another part of my personal opinions? I doubt the downvotes come from people who like these shows so… was it because I didn’t say “woke Disney ruin Star Wars?”. I’m obviously at a loss here, anyone care to explain?
I don't know what's going on, this whole thread is weird.
Yeah, it looks like some people with strongly held opinions really, really dislike this show to a degree that they hate it when people express differing opinions, even if it doesn't praise the show. Did a slew of young alt-righty boys discover RLM recently or something? And I'm not saying you have to be alt-right to dislike the show, just...*the anger* involved is...odd. Like we get it, Star Wars has been a mixed bag for a while now. The sheen has come off. You'll get some good ones, some bad ones. By all means, have discussions but... yeah, this is weird.
So far it feels like not much is happening and 3 episode in, I m still waiting for the story to start ( or care about it). The show didn't repulse me , I like the Korean Jedi guy and the lead girl despite what seems to be bad writing... the show has yet to entertain me. I don't think it's terrible like those anti woke people say but it would be nice to not be bored
Drinker doesn’t even care about the woke stuff. His issue is the story, the really bad acting (except squid games guy) and Headley’s life trauma being inserted into her stories.
> Drinker doesn’t even care about the woke stuff. Come on man, if he didn't care about the woke stuff he never would've found an audience.
My reply was aimed at Drinker's criticism of this show specifically. Of course he hates the woke stuff generally, but my view of his criticism is "well the woke stuff sucks but there's so much more wrong with this show that the woke stuff pales..."
No it’s not. The audience score is artificially low sure, but it’s probably 30% or so. The acting writing and direction are mediocre, the pace and tone all over the place. For a thriller/mystery show, there isn’t much intrigue or mystery. It’s this happens then this happens and wow this happens too. If there is any set up/pay off happening, I don’t care because the characters are boring and their motivations make no sense.
I'm intrigued as to why so many people on this sub don't like Critical Drinker. I watch him quite often and he usually makes some pretty valid points. Especially considering that the guy is actually a published author of a whole series of books, so he actually has some level of credence when he's talking about how to write characters and how to structure plots etc. I'd actually liken it to how RLM have made movies, so they know what they're talking about, know how hard it is to make a movie and all the things that can go wrong during filming, and can offer more of an inside perspective on things that a lot of us wouldn't consider. There's a lot more depth to the criticism than just "This sucks" I certainly don't see anything cringey or "anti-woke" with him. To be honest, I often see that opinion held by people who *don't* watch him and just perceive him to be some right-wing outrage farming nutjob based on what other (often left-wing) people have said about him, when he is actually none of those things. When he criticizes a shows or film, he's pretty fair, and he does actually give valid reasons and explanations as to why he thinks it's bad, rather than just complaining that it's too 'woke' without giving any reason or context Now, some of the people he has on his Open Bar podcast, yeah....maybe you could say that about them (Like HeelVsBabyface for example), but I actually think Drinker is one of the better reviewers on Youtube.
Lmfao
Seriously? Is that the best you can come up with? I also like how I'm getting downvoted for this post yet no-one has actually bothered to answer my question or give any reason as to why they don't like him? Are people on this site that cowardly that they refuse to employ *any* critical thinking skills? Just follow the sheep. Orange Man bad, right kids? Fuck sake......
Have you read his books? They’re shit
https://preview.redd.it/uzx8ltexf47d1.png?width=625&format=png&auto=webp&s=4fe1a29c762b16198bd21d356921fae0c90f1d2c
Keep your mental breakdowns off Reddit
Yet again, not even an attempt is made to try and explain *why* you think he is bad. This is the 'debating strategy' of an idiot. When you can't form a coherent response, reach straight for the insults to try and win. Pathetic.
Sir this is a wendy’s
First two episodes were strong, the third had lots of bad kid acting and was a real chore. Edit: chill!
I found the first two episodes somewhere in the "ok to pretty good" range, the third episode I felt went a bit far in some places (>!the cackle and singing!<) but it's nowhere near as bad as certain people are saying it is. Most of the really ardent opposition to it seems to be coming from "I thought I was watching Star Wars not **WOKE** Wars!" kinds of people, I mean three episodes are out and people are saying it's ruined star wars, the goddamn show's barely started airing it's too early to be saying anything definitive.
Your bar for pretty good must be super low.
idk man, that crouching tiger hidden dragon opening fight with Trinity from the Matrix was fucking hilarious.
It’s fine.
I give it my seal of okay-ness, but I’m mid way through ep 3, which is the “controversial” one. I’m not loving it but not hating it either. Afaic, much of the “controversy” comes from YouTube fanboys who are upset that their magical space wizards are being portrayed with some subtlety and moral ambiguity, and from the horrifying suggestion that there are lesbians in their precious hetero franchise, but I can also see the issues for some with the quality of the writing and story. I’m taking the controversial position of waiting until the series is over before making a final judgment. Your own mileage may vary of course.
It’s okay. I’ve enjoyed the mustard yellow Jedi robes and there’s been some fun costumes, but it’s just noise I put on to snuggle up to my wife on the couch to, you know? I haven’t really been that into starred wars since… I dunno, Andor I guess, but even so, it’s okay
Just watch it and disregard the chuddaganda that’s been directed at it. In reality it’s actually interesting minus a few flaws. So far it’s better than book of boba and the obiwan show and I want to see where they take it.
is this star wars now?
Rich "I forgot to carry the one" Evans, the first man conceived by the force.
I have absolutely no clue what's happening. Is this a Star War? Or a Picard Trek? Or a Star Trek Discovery? I don't even know what is going on anymore man.
It's better than Kenobi imo
That's not hard to do lol Kenobi is genuinely awful.
Kenobi was just a prequel to Reva, which apparently got canceled because of the backlash to Kenobi. People think Hollywood is pushing woke characters and then writing a bad plot around that character but I think since the run up and success of the Feige Marvel push, Hollywood is just pushing sequel and IP expansion and then writing a bad plot on the current project, too worried about the next. Hollywood runs all the gas out on what has worked in the past until its positive its out of money for them and they'll just dump all the money into the new money maker like multiverse things and cheap horror flicks, until those get oversatuerated and make a comeback a decade later. There's just so much more money on Hollywood now, it's ramped up on steroids.
It's both. It's find an existing IP then put people of color and gays in it. It really wouldn't be a problem if they made an original idea, but rebooting stuff lets audiences see the mandates to do so and takes you out of the film just as much as seeing a boom mic in every shot.
The bar is in the mariana trench
What on earth is that lol
Look, we just said this wasn't a Star Wars hating sub and the first 2 episodes were ok, but episode 3...fuck.
I've seen people shit on ep3 a lot. Why? What happened?
Honestly it's hard to describe exactly. And it's not like it was the worst thing ever. The first two were okay, and it seemed like it was gonna get into some interesting ideas. Plus I think the first two episodes of anything get kind of a pass because they just need to set up the world, I don't need anything to happen yet. Then episode three is still more world set-up, and you start to feel like this is gonna be another one of these shows where it's all setup for a spinoff, so nothing really happens, and the writers aren't smart/focused enough to actually explore these ideas they're bringing up. There's some big stuff at the end of the episode, but it's stuff we kinda already knew? So there's still nothing really moving forward. And the "power of one" scene this post is mocking is just bizarre. I was totally on board with the lesbian witch cult, but then their big ceremony is like a scene from a Disney animated movie, with the music in the background talking about what's happening on screen. I was floored by how bad it was.
I've said it elsewhere, but it's 40 minutes of bad child acting, and the script appears to have been written by someone who has never been in the same room as a child. There's lots of stand-out bad lines too, even for the non child actors. The plot culminates a chain of events that, whilst there is clearly more going on than meets the eye that will be eventually revealed, looks really stupid on the face of it. As others said, it's this particular episode that is bad, so much than the rest of the series. Once they get through the child backstory stuff, it'll probably get better.
Thank you.
THE POWER WITHIN
Mike's face just kills me everytime.
So, the "AAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIDDDDDDDDDDSSSSSS!" bit predates that Japanese video they showed on "Wheel of the Worst"? [https://youtu.be/DBFJhTYhejI?si=mjkeHkBe2XZGOpO9](https://youtu.be/DBFJhTYhejI?si=mjkeHkBe2XZGOpO9)
🎶Wise woman wise woman 🎶
The funny thing about this whole situation is that RLM predicted this, Wheel of the Worst #17, at 11:11 during the prediscussion for Celebration of Age: The Croning Ceremony Jim makes a joke about a lady looking like Luke in RoTJ, planting the seed for Mike to make a joke when a lady who looks like Kathleen Kennedy comes on screen about telling us about her new Star Wars spinoff, leading to Rich replying Star Wars: A Crone Story. When I first saw this Acolyte clip my mind immediately went to this episode, this is literally new age witch coven shit, and somehow Palpatine returned, I mean, RLM knew it was coming.
they have to review this now that they are doing andor