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The revelation of Darth Smiley’s identity was something that I found out about 3 weeks ago after falling down a reddit rabbit hole that had set photos and such. Pretty hilarious.
The combat was cool (minus the Kung-fu) and the killcount was impressive, but this show has no concept of distance/space. People had to be guided to the Wookie’s hideout in this dense forest, but if someone runs off they always catch up/run into whoever they need to run into…
Spoiler:
So this whole thing hinges on the Jedi not taking offbrand Ezra Miller(Qimir) into custody after they found out that he helped poison a Jedi Master and probably killed the original shopkeeper? There is a lot of dumb gak that happens very convienently in this show. .
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2024/06/26 02:33:13
"Sometimes the only victory possible is to keep your opponent from winning." - The Emperor, from The Outcast Dead.
"Tell your gods we are coming for them, and that their realms will burn as ours did." -Thostos Bladestorm
So this whole thing hinges on the Jedi not taking offbrand Ezra Miller(Qimir) into custody after they found out that he helped poison a Jedi Master and probably killed the original shopkeeper? There is a lot of dumb gak that happens very convienently in this show. .
In the setting where a Sith Lord was effectively controlling the entire senate, and doing so while literally sitting right in front of the most powerful Jedi of the age, yes, sometimes the Jedi don't make the best decisions. Yoda even mentions why that is.
If 'stuff happens simply because it's essential to the plot' is a problem for you, you're in entirely the wrong franchise.
We now know who our Sith is. But not if he’s the only one, or who they actually are, and whether or not they played a hand in the fire.
Given they’re demonstrably pretty handy, and have nifty “beskar with knobs on” armour, they themselves must’ve been trained by someone.
Twin Magic was kind of expected.
Some very cool lightsaber fighting. Less frenetic and pointlessly showy compared to Revenge of the Sith too. I’m particularly taken with how our Sith worked his armour’s lightsaber knacking trait into his fighting style.
Three episodes to go, and I’m still not sure what the end game is, or whether anyone truly has plot armour. As I’ve said before? For a Star Wars show that’s a really refreshing feel!
Fed up of Scalpers? But still want your Exclusives? Why not join us?
This is the first time in Star Wars where we've seen opponents fighting with lightsabres where they're not just pointlessly hitting each others sabres endlessly.
For once we have an opponent actually trying to get inside someone's guard and hit the body, or disarm their opponent.
That's a refreshing change and worked well.
Doesn't mean there aren't still loads of issues with this episode but it was the best one so far.
The action that makes up most of the episode is really strong. The villain turns out surprisingly more compelling than I expected and regularly subverted expectations of where some characters were going. Plot contrivances to let the story continue were pretty annoying and the twins dialogue is incredibly rough, but overall good stuff.
StraightSilver wrote: This is the first time in Star Wars where we've seen opponents fighting with lightsabres where they're not just pointlessly hitting each others sabres endlessly.
For once we have an opponent actually trying to get inside someone's guard and hit the body, or disarm their opponent.
That's a refreshing change and worked well.
Doesn't mean there aren't still loads of issues with this episode but it was the best one so far.
Well yes, I think the common analysis is why wouldn't you use these things as rapiers rather than broadswords...
But even allowing a hearty suspension of disbelief.... how is a simple costume swap possibly going to convince your sister's mind reading mentor that you're her? Mae's plan seems.... problematic even in the regular world. You can't just pick up the mannerisms and speech patterns of someone you haven't seen in 10 years well enough to impersonate them enough to fool a regular friend. Nevermind one that can read your thoughts and emotions.
Ah well, let's see where they're going with this. BORTLES!
Klawz-Ramming is a subset of citrus fruit?
Gwar- "And everyone wants a bigger Spleen!"
Mercurial wrote:
I admire your aplomb and instate you as Baron of the Seas and Lord Marshall of Privateers.
Orkeosaurus wrote:Star Trek also said we'd have X-Wings by now. We all see how that prediction turned out.
Orkeosaurus, on homophobia, the nature of homosexuality, and the greatness of George Takei.
English doesn't borrow from other languages. It follows them down dark alleyways and mugs them for loose grammar.
But even allowing a hearty suspension of disbelief.... how is a simple costume swap possibly going to convince your sister's mind reading mentor that you're her? Mae's plan seems.... problematic even in the regular world. You can't just pick up the mannerisms and speech patterns of someone you haven't seen in 10 years well enough to impersonate them enough to fool a regular friend. Nevermind one that can read your thoughts and emotions.
Ah well, let's see where they're going with this. BORTLES!
It ok, the little dog guy is coming up behind & knows somethings up.
I'm sure he'll bark out a warning at the right moment.
The Senate: The dark side is a path to many powers some would consider unnatural.
Anakin: Like what?
The Senate: Like face tanking light sabers.
Anakin: Woah!
But even allowing a hearty suspension of disbelief.... how is a simple costume swap possibly going to convince your sister's mind reading mentor that you're her? Mae's plan seems.... problematic even in the regular world. You can't just pick up the mannerisms and speech patterns of someone you haven't seen in 10 years well enough to impersonate them enough to fool a regular friend. Nevermind one that can read your thoughts and emotions.
Spoiler:
The show has a lot of issues with fake mysteries. It also has issues with setting those things up only to resolve them immediately. In this case, I don't think they're doing themselves any favors cliffhangering something that is so obviously bollocks or setting up an alternative means of revealing that Osha isn't Osha but Mae in disguise! It's kind of overblown and I don't think neither a quick wrap up nor actually trying to play it out is going to feel satisfying.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2024/06/26 20:36:03
Nehekhara lives! Sort of!
Why is the rum always gone?
But even allowing a hearty suspension of disbelief.... how is a simple costume swap possibly going to convince your sister's mind reading mentor that you're her? Mae's plan seems.... problematic even in the regular world. You can't just pick up the mannerisms and speech patterns of someone you haven't seen in 10 years well enough to impersonate them enough to fool a regular friend. Nevermind one that can read your thoughts and emotions.
Ah well, let's see where they're going with this. BORTLES!
We now know who our Sith is. But not if he’s the only one, or who they actually are, and whether or not they played a hand in the fire.
Given they’re demonstrably pretty handy, and have nifty “beskar with knobs on” armour, they themselves must’ve been trained by someone.
Twin Magic was kind of expected.
Some very cool lightsaber fighting. Less frenetic and pointlessly showy compared to Revenge of the Sith too. I’m particularly taken with how our Sith worked his armour’s lightsaber knacking trait into his fighting style.
Three episodes to go, and I’m still not sure what the end game is, or whether anyone truly has plot armour. As I’ve said before? For a Star Wars show that’s a really refreshing feel!
Spoiler:
With Lord Smiley actually calling himself a Sith, they've set up for either Sol to not make it off the planet, or for the council to just not believe he's actually a Sith. Going by the casualties in this episode, I'm guessing they'll go for the former option.
But yeah, that was a very cool episode, and the armour and its effect on the fight was a really nice twist.
It would make for a very interesting move if none of the Jedi characters survived this. I mean we've got nearly all of the group that found the twins dead, the hunting party dead bar one including two characters that got a fair whack of screen time.
Honestly, if Osha turns out to join Mr Sith Man I'll be disappointed in how paint-by-numbers this show has turned out to be. "Oh here's a mystery" - mystery is solved the next episode.
The showrunner supposedly wants three seasons to play out her story, so I'm guessing ...
Spoiler:
...Mae kills Sol to get back in Qimir's good books, with the aim of her and Osha together killing Qimir and running off into the sunset... and whether or not that winds up being successful, we'll find out in the last episode of the season that Qimir is just the apprentice.
Or not. I generally suck at guessing where a story is going to go, so we'll see how wrong I am, I guess.
So this whole thing hinges on the Jedi not taking offbrand Ezra Miller(Qimir) into custody after they found out that he helped poison a Jedi Master and probably killed the original shopkeeper? There is a lot of dumb gak that happens very convienently in this show. .
In the setting where a Sith Lord was effectively controlling the entire senate, and doing so while literally sitting right in front of the most powerful Jedi of the age, yes, sometimes the Jedi don't make the best decisions. Yoda even mentions why that is.
If 'stuff happens simply because it's essential to the plot' is a problem for you, you're in entirely the wrong franchise.
I don’t mind a Sith Lord developing a personality over decades and inveigling his way to power through obfuscation, deception and agents that allow enough seperation that said Sith Lord can rise to such heights in plain sight.
Not taking a person into custody after they confessed to help making a poison that killed someone, knew the killers motivations and is told by local obese Jedi that he’s an unknown person and not the original shopkeeper (so probably killed that person), is pants on head writing. Dude is clearly involved in the conspiracy and is left under the surveilance of obese Jedi and comically escapes. I don’t mind Qimir being the Sith, fooling everyone with his cowardly rogue act, I just think the overall execution was dumb as feth, bordering on insulting. It could’ve been written better.
This show cost $180+ million and the writing is dogshit. But still weirdly better than the last few D+ offerings.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2024/06/27 01:58:00
"Sometimes the only victory possible is to keep your opponent from winning." - The Emperor, from The Outcast Dead.
"Tell your gods we are coming for them, and that their realms will burn as ours did." -Thostos Bladestorm
If we learned anything from the first two episodes of the show, it's that the Jedi are really stupid and don't follow police procedure, or basic sense.
At least the episodes have generally improved as we've gone forward, though I just find the execution overall to just be so humdrum.
It's not Book of Boba Fett bad, but honestly, that's not that much of a milestone.
EDIT: Also I'm both pleased to be right that you-know-who was more than he appeared, and annoyed that the answer was the mostly blindly obvious in the whole show, second only to the non-reveal identical twin reveal.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2024/06/27 02:38:58
With Lord Smiley actually calling himself a Sith, they've set up for either Sol to not make it off the planet, or for the council to just not believe he's actually a Sith. Going by the casualties in this episode, I'm guessing they'll go for the former option.
Spoiler:
He doesn't call himself a Sith. He says there's no name for what he is, but the Jedi would likely call him Sith. At face value he's just taunting the Jedi for their (supposed) narrow-minded views and screwing with their heads.
Whether we should take him at his word is a different matter. Yoda certainly has a thing to say on the subject. But we still have no confirmation that he is or isn't a Sith.
Nehekhara lives! Sort of!
Why is the rum always gone?
I mean I know that KOTOR isn't exactly canon but the Sith Empire literally showed up out of nowhere and then attacked Coruscant because they Jedi got complacent.
Oh yeah, then the entire build-up to the Clone Wars happened as well.
Correct. KOTOR is set about 4000 years before the OT. This is about 100. No real overlap.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Gert wrote: I mean I know that KOTOR isn't exactly canon but the Sith Empire literally showed up out of nowhere and then attacked Coruscant because they Jedi got complacent.
Oh yeah, then the entire build-up to the Clone Wars happened as well.
Not exactly hard to imagine.
I mean, I wouldn't call it complacency. You can't really plan for someone to find a 30,000 year old sentient factory that farts out a constant stream of Star Destroyers.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2024/06/27 21:22:57
LordofHats wrote: If we learned anything from the first two episodes of the show, it's that the Jedi are really stupid and don't follow police procedure, or basic sense.
I mean, our very first introduction to the jedi and how they do things involves one who is hiding for his life and the safety of the child he is supposed to watch over, whipping out a lightsaber in a bar brawl, in a town crawling with Stormtroopers.
An awful lot of the complaints that I've seen about the Acolyte are trying to hold Star Wars to a standard that it never actually met.
Counterpoint; Episode IV was good and people will forgive good things their sillier faults.
Things that aren't good on the other hand will be lambasted for everything, even things other media would be forgiven for.
And honestly that's just not on the level in my eyes. In Episode IV it's made out like most people don't even know what a lightsaber is (Luke lacks basic knowledge of what the Jedi were), so it's not that flashy when Obi-Wan uses it. The idea the Empire is hunting Jedi in this era was introduced by media 40ish years later and I'm not going to fault Episode IV for a continuity problem modern Star Wars introduced.
In Acolyte, this guy is basically suspected of being an accomplice in a string of murders, but no one bothers to hang onto him or try to get information out of him. But of course, that might get in the way of the plot. Can't have that. Which I point out again, is something Attack of the Clones did better. When Attack of the Clones is beating you in the narrative department, you've got problems.
This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2024/06/28 01:03:25
LordofHats wrote: The idea the Empire is hunting Jedi in this era was introduced by media 40ish years later ...
It really wasn't. There was background material at least as early as the '80s talking about Vader's main job being the hunting of jedi.
When Attack of the Clones is beating you in the narrative department, you've got problems.
I think I would have to disagree that the movie that has the jedi, already aware that things are being manipulated by a Sith Lord, discovering a clone army seemingly ordered in secret by a dead Master and using a Bounty Hunter who tried to assassinate a senator as a template, simply saying 'Yup, seems legit', or Padme reacting to Anakin slaughtering an entire tribe of Tuskens by saying 'Oh dear, have a hug, you poor thing...' is any better than the Acolyte in the narrative department, honestly.
Star Wars has always been full of holes, things happening because of plot requirements (Episode 4 is also the movie where two droids, after crash landing on Tattoine, are conveniently picked up by Jawas who sell both of them on to a farmer who just happens to know, and live within walking distance of, the person they need to find), and poor narrative choices. Some were there from the start, some were introduced by later material contradicting or invalidating earlier material. The secret to enjoying it anyway has always been to just not take it all too seriously.
The alternative is, of course, to watch everything that is released and complain endlessly about its flaws... and if that's really how you want to spend your time, then you do you, but I'd really recommend just going and watching something you actually like, instead, because Star Wars is unlikely to ever reach the standard you're holding it to. It's not that sort of franchise, and never has been.
My impression with Obiwan's scene with the lightsabre is
1) Jedi are so insanely rare by this point in time and for such a long period that they are myths and most people have no idea what a lightsaber is. They know that its strange and different and that was likely what was reported to the Storm Troopers, esp as they were also with two droids. Strange people doing strange things with two droids when the Troopers are looking for droids - that's easy to add up.
2) Obiwan already tried some subtle force move to dissuade the two people and it failed - when he tried to get the drink. The sudden violence left Obiwan in a fight situation and he doesn't carry a blaster - so he lashed out with his only weapon to hand - the lightsaber.
Now you could argue that he should have Force Powers and basic hand to hand combat skills. However he likely just wanted to be in-out fast. Plus he's old and hasn't honestly fought for a very long time. All that adds up to likely going for the energy blade over anything else. It's quick; gets the job done and no one dares starts a brawl
It really wasn't. There was background material at least as early as the '80s talking about Vader's main job being the hunting of jedi.
So, Episode IV can be criticized by looking at extra materials, but Acolyte can be criticized by its own internal logic?
is any better than the Acolyte in the narrative department, honestly.
You say that like my point isn't that Attack of the Clones is a low bar, but Acolyte is lower.
The alternative is, of course, to watch everything that is released and complain endlessly about its flaws
I suppose I could always try my hand and complaining endlessly about about people complaining endlessly about flawed media, but I'd recommend that it's okay to like something other people dislike and telling other people how they should spend their time is kind of self-centered and rude.
But you do you.
For better or worse, needlessly complaining about media is now part of pop culture. I don't really like it either, but I also think the Acolyte just isn't that good and is far from a victim of needless complaining. It's a janky show that may yet pull off a better ending than its start, but that start is still pretty bad.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2024/06/28 03:49:28
This episode was definitely better than the previous two. That's not saying much, but at least it had some momentum and seems to be moving the plot forward with some degree of urgency. That said:
Spoiler:
The "mystery" of who the not-Sith is wasn't much of one, but was treated like some big reveal (for example, the dialogue about taking off the mask, the way he's eventually revealed from behind Cheetarah). The problem is the extreme lack of candidates introduced so far. I feel like if they wanted to go this route they should have spent more time building up an actual mystery. I'm also not sure if they wanted the deaths of almost all the Jedi to be some sort of shock to the audience, but I think the pacing issues highlighted a few weeks ago lessened the impact here. We spent a it of time with...uh...no idea what their names are now...the other two Jedi who weren't strictly just redshirts. but taking a whole episode out to do a flashback, then having a short episode before this one robbed them of the chance to really develop those characters and make their deaths more meaningful.
Speaking of deaths, the plot armour on show here is most impressive. On multiple occasions here various characters could have been killed or captured but just weren't. They tried to go with the idea of the Sith urgently trying to chase down Mae a couple of times, but given the offhand way he deals with the redshirts it felt really contrived. Not capturing the Sith was just a weird moment of utter ineptitude. It's interesting to see Sol lose his cool at that moment, but there's a huge gulf between not killing unarmed enemies and just letting the dude go.
I really, really hope the switching of the twins is resolved in the first couple of minutes in the next episode. It's such a dumb idea on the surface of it and while Mae has been portrayed as somewhat naive, she's veering into outright stupidity at this point. I just hope it's not contagious. They even pointed out in this very episode that Master Sol can read people's thoughts, when the Sith first refuses to take off his mask. Then there's the whole face tattoo issue, combined with the fact that cutting our hair short with a lightsaber probably isn't going to cut it for any but the most superficial disguise. In the very first episode Trinity recognised Mae from the tattoo, and she had no reason to even think she was alive at that point.
It's frustrating because there are some seeds of some interesting ideas here, in terms of both character and world-building. The Acolyte seems to be struggling to stick the landing so far and there's not a lot of runtime left to resolve things.
