The Acolyte

The acolyte isn't the worst thing thats happened to Star Wars by any means. However, it resembles something that was fan made and written over a weekend. The acting and production is college level at most. You'd think with a budget that was almost double of Ahsoka's they would have been able to come up with something better. I have no clue where the money went to be frank, because it didn't go towards hiring any talent as far as acting goes. Maybe they went with lower level actors/actresses to go all out on the production, but if that was the case they failed. The money 100% didn't go to the writers, they had to of bought this story off Fiver.

I hoped for the best when they announced the actors and actresses. I was hoping for good story telling and character development but I don't see anything like it. I'm not some Angry White Guy, I'm African American and this was a Huge Disappointment for the stars you placed in the line of fire.

"More of Us Campaign" was a waste of time.

"Star Wars is not for Everyone" it has a core audience and fan base and telling us to deal with Diversity, Inclusion and Equity- where it was already a thing is ridiculous. Billy D Williams wasn't a diversity hire- he was a skilled actor. There were powerful women characters and they were developed to a point we cared about them and got to know them. This series lack depth.

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.

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.

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.