By now, Star Wars has become the science-fiction franchise to hate. No one really talks shit about Star Trek or Doctor Who. And let’s be honest, that first season of Star Trek: Picard wasn’t the best. And if you take all the original Star Trek movies, only half of them are any good. They used to call the first Star Trek movie “The Motionless Picture” for the slow plot. The Next Generation movies only have one decent movie – First Contact. That’s 10 movies with only four good ones. Not even half of the movies are considered good.
So why is Star Wars held to a standard that it’s got to be done one way or it’s totally terrible? What’s strange is that Star Wars owes a lot to Star Trek and as Disney has expanded on the universe, it’s led to more characters and more storylines. And even though I don’t care for Andor, so many people like it. Maybe the second season will improve on what didn’t work the first season.
Following the disappointments of the sequel trilogy, Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni gave us The Mandalorian. But even the last season was met with criticism. And many people hated The Book of Boba Fett, Ahsoka and Obi-Won Kenobi. So, it was no surprise that The Acolyte would be met with the same vitriol and animosity. I admit the show isn’t the best but it didn’t deserve the online hatred especially when most of it was directed at the fact that show was created by Leslye Headland who also is the showrunner. It also has a black actress, Amanda Steinberg, in a dual role as twins.
Let’s face it. Star Wars fans are some of the biggest prejudiced, racist, misogynistic bigots we have. It seems they have forgotten that the Jedi Council and the Rebel Alliance was for everyone, not just human beings who were mostly white. I mean Yoda was basically the de factor leader of the Council and the Alliance was led by a woman Mon Mothma and Princess Leia later became a general.
The main plot of The Acolyte isn’t the best, which is a huge problem with SW series. It’s more of a murder mystery as the Jedis investigate the murder of a Jedi Master Indara (Carrie-Ann Moss), by Mae (Steinberg). It’s not much of a whodunit but it delves more into the past as both Mae and her sister, Osha, were living as children in an all-female coven of the witches of Brendok. They were approached by Jedis who wanted to test them before they were to be inducted into the coven.
However, there was a violent disagreement between the two sisters as Mae wanted to join the coven and Osha didn’t. Eventually, one of the Jedis, Sol (Lee Jung-jae), helped Osha get to Coruscant where he was informed by the Jedi Council to train her as a Jedi. Mae was thought to have died along with the rest of the coven. This is why Osha finds herself initially being hunted by the Jedi for the murder of Indara.
It’s a complicated story that isn’t always the best. Of the eight episodes, it could’ve very easily condensed. But considering Andor had three episodes almost an hour long each of him in the prison, I wonder why people have the same issues with this or other series. Oh, it’s because they’re not male-dominated. Everyone wants to blame Kathleen Kennedy for what she has done to Lucasfilms. But they don’t recall that Cassian Andor is one of the most boring characters in the SW universe. My suspicion is if they informed people it would also focus a lot on Mon Mothma, many of them would’ve review-bombed it which is what they’ve done to The Acolyte.
I liked the SW original trilogy. I even saw those Ewok movies when they first aired. I didn’t really care for them. But it seems that once Episode I: The Phantom Menace opened over 25 years ago, people felt like they were betrayed. You’d think George Lucas wiped his ass after Thanksgiving weekend with the Dead Sea Scrolls. I think that was what Rian Johnson mean in The Last Jedi where Yoda destroys the Jedi writings. I’m probably one of the few people who will openly admit that TLJ was the only good sequel movie because it took the franchise into a different world.
What do people want? They want the same thing but different like The Force Awakens which is basically a reboot of A New Hope. Even Lucas was smart with the original trilogy to pass the story ideas off to other writers and directors. Need I remind people that for most of the late 1970s and 1980s, the Star War movies were considered family -friendly movies?
Just because The Acolyte doesn’t rise to the standards of middle-aged people in their 40s and 50s, it doesn’t mean the other properties are tainted. No one is putting a blaster to their head and telling them to watch it. Maybe so called SW fans have realized that they don’t talk about how much they hate it, they won’t get the attention they think they deserve online.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 