Star Wars: The Acolyte

Then I've seen episode one and two of The Acolyte.

Eight episodes at $180 million or $22.5 million per episode. In terms of production, I get the impression of a cheap 80s science fiction, there was nothing here that would indicate $22.5 million per episode.

Roger Corman could have made both of these episodes in the 80s for less than $100,000 each. When I have seen the first two episodes of The Acolyte, I get a cheap feeling of a bad and cheap CW production which in recent years has often had a bad script, bad actors and a low budget.

Among the actors, Lee Jung-jae was in a class of his own, otherwise there was a lot of stiff and poor acting from some of the actors, which can often be caused by bad directing.

Plot, script and dialogue were often unforgivably bad and stupid and are totally illogical. I don't understand how it is possible to write such bad scripts as we see in some TV series and movies nowadays. Has anyone at Disney approved the script before it goes into production?

I wasn't a big fan of Ahsoka, all the senators and generals were stupid and inept to such an extent that I sided with the Empire.

However, Ahsoka was much better with better actors and it was more grandiose and magnificent with many more and better effects and seemed like a much more expensive production.

To keep the review simple, the characters' behavior and the story they try to tell in these first two episodes feel bland. It feels as if it would be a sketch done by a pre-teen redrawn together by great visual artists.

The show does look and feel great. The environment is well put together as is the CGI.

Events seem to happen somewhat randomly only to forcefully push the story forward or to trigger some sort of emotion without any particular setup or explanation.

The characters feel like they would be part of the Jedi world, but they behave so poorly as trained Jedi masters.

On the other hand, it could be a story about how the Jedi order has been slacking and degrading due to them having taken over the galaxy and being in control for so long at the point in time where the show takes place.

But I doubt they thought so far considering what we've seen in these first two episodes. Let's see the rest of the show.

Quite literally the worst Star Wars project since the Holiday Special. It actively changes the Star Wars universe, the nature of the Force, and all of the canon that has come before. It's straight garbage, written by people with no respect for the franchise, and directed by people with no capability of creating a TV show. It's profoundly senseless.

Poorly written, poorly acted, poorly edited, and poorly paced. The entire show appears to be little more than a vanity project full of self-inserts rather than real characters. The decisions made by the characters don't make sense and break immersion constantly. The concepts introduced seem to be little more than whims, with no reasoning behind them and no explanation as to why they don't line up with franchise canon.

The idea behind the story may be decent, but the writer/showrunner is far too vain and inept to give it a proper attempt.

Take one of the most exciting and expansive fictional universes with iconic characters and storylines... then just tear it up without respect to its original mythos, lore, etc. That's the path of destruction that Disney has been on, save Andor, Rogue One, and to an extent, the Mandalorian.

It's sad because I'm sure lots of talented professionals worked on this. Tragically, the writing and acting is truly terrible. Special effects are great, but that's not enough to compensate for all its other flaws.

As a fan, I want to give it zero stars. Out of respect for the special effects artists, I'm giving 3.

Episode 1 was hard to watch. Writing on this series so far is at the CW level, and toward the low end of that. The casting, or miscasting perhaps, is baffling. The lead looks too young for the character she portrays, and lacks seriously in presence. The character isn't interesting to boot. What was the thinking behind assigning her this acting task? Other characters suffer from the same mismatch problems. It's as if the characters and their actors were drawn out of a hat.

Onto other issues. Dialog is clunky. As an example during a fight, one character asks another why they are there. Answer: to kill you. If killing with excess cringe were STAR WARS canon, this would be a dangerous weapon for THE ACOLYTE.

Kung-fu action is another main theme for this series. Why? It doesn't look like STAR WARS. Could we get some explanation why the fighting style is suddenly front and center?

In sum, THE ACOLYTE is a poorly written mess out the gate, and it suffers from an apparent general lack of understanding in regard to the STAR WARS universe. Overall showrunning on this one is poor.