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Voss wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
Yeah, but maps are a staple of old serial, pulp adventure stories that Star Wars is based on.

Many folks are trying to apply logic to genre conventions.

That only works if the map is cryptic or unseen. If you present the audience with a big blue map 5x larger than the characters with a glowing red path on it, you can't dismiss it as 'genre conventions.' The audience is seeing what the characters are seeing.

Its especially hinky in an overly marketed and analyzed setting like SW, where I'm sure some fanboy with the right sourcebooks can pinpoint exactly where in the galaxy that planet is, based on comparing various published maps.

Umm, Indiana Jones/Sky Captain (as well as other old serials) all feature scenes of traveling over maps represented by huge lines going across them. I guess they weren't actually "in flight" for this one (have not seen it, as I am no longer a Star Wars fan) but still trying to pay homage to the classic genre staple?

Probably a stretch. Thankfully, I am not invested in being right or wrong on the subject.

It's more that one wonders how anything stays secret in this setting when there's a map leading to literally everything.

Because the McGuffin somehow is constantly a map.

Like the idea of maps is fine.

But there's too many damn maps around here XD

Getting super close to The Acolyte coming out.

I remain hype, but also wondering what’s happened to Skeleton Crew.

Looking forward to The Acolyte myself.

Skeleton Crew was delayed for whatever reason and is supposed to come this year instead of late last year.

I don't think there's a more precise release date than 2024 yet.

Not a great sign when promos for the Acolyte have one of the actors inaccurately saying Anakin blew up the Death Star and the focus on it being how it's not "good vs evil" when that's basically the fundamental conflict paradigm between the Jedi and the Sith. Then again I'm not surprised when it's being made by Weinstein's former personal assistant.

An actor's knowledge or lack thereof of the background details of the franchise they are working in is not an indication of the quality of the production. See: Harrison Ford, and his complete and utter disinterest in anything to do with Star Wars.

 insaniak wrote:
An actor's knowledge or lack thereof of the background details of the franchise they are working in is not an indication of the quality of the production. See: Harrison Ford, and his complete and utter disinterest in anything to do with Star Wars.

Gotta say that's coming off as copium from you Insaniak, considering that the key difference is that it would be more forgivable if they weren't trying to pass it off as them being knowledgeable/a fan about the source material or trying to hype up their role in the show by saying that, whereas Harrison Ford has always been quite open about basically seeing Star Wars as a paycheque type deal. At least for Ford he's just doing his job as an actor, if Charlie Barnett can't even do basic research to convince people he's a so-called fan before spouting off factoids that are clearly wrong, I can't imagine they'll do a good job convincing me in their role, you know the "act" in actor.

It's like me pretending to be a big WW2 buff in a historical film in that time period and saying I have personal connections to character I'm playing, but then saying, "My favourite part of the Battle of Stalingrad is how the Nazis won and it led to Winston Churchill and FDR becoming gay lovers". Kinda hard to take the production seriously if vetted promo material like that comes out.

Or he just said the wrong name, and you're building a mountain out of it.

As fans we often feel like actors must love everything they work in and know it inside and out. The reality is for many actors its a job and whilst they might enjoy some parts of that job, it doesn't have to include things like the lore, story or whatever they are working with.

Another thing is that we tend to engage with the story in a linear fashion whilst actors might well be doing the last scene on the first day and the first scene on the last day; plus dozens of scenes, revisions, and so forth that we never see (barring the handful that make it onto the "how its made" DVD)

Heck take this short clip of an interview:




Some fans might expect him to remember every single technobabble line and some fans will focus and remember every line and so forth.

Watching the first episode of the Acolyte now.

Its... interesting, but the script is a little sloppy. JJ Abrams level of sloppy with travel times and people missing the obvious.



The Jedi of this era seem to be masters of arrogance and conclusion-jumping. So I expect a lot of 'from my perspective, the jedi are evil!' type nonsense.

The 'bad guys' also seem to be inherently stupid, as the episode ends with a flat declaration of something that is completely contradicted by the start of the episode.

It's definitely a rough episode one, suffering both from feeling like the script was rewritten too many times without ever being a holistic onceover to make sure all the different parts worked together, and the consistent problem of modern TV being a slave to set pieces even when the arrangement of those set pieces doesn't make any sense.

Plus there's just clear lines where it feels like this show was at some point a completely different show, or even two shows, that were rewritten sloppily.



Like, I am eager to see a show set in a different era and to see a new cast of characters with limited options for Dave Filoni to insert gratuitous cameos and lore references, but man the first episode of the Acolyte is a rough watch.

The kind of rough watch that will either a) be the harsh start to a good show that ultimately becomes more than the sum of its parts, or b) pretty gakky TV.

And the first few minutes of episode 2 are not an improvement in the janky pacing and sloppy scripting department. The show really feels like someone took two scripts and slapped them together at some point and never did a proofread to make sure the whole thing worked.

Episode 2 is just weird. I appreciated the initial distraction, but then there was just... an open window.

And the incompetent, powerless flailing, which is a bad look for the antagonist.

And again, everyone just accepts everything at face value.

I'm a little puzzled as to why, at the height of their power, this group of jedi is rattling around in an old junker ship that seems to have more in common with the Falcon than something top of the line.

----
I did like the fairly casual use of SW pieces and species. There was even a Selkath from Knights of the Old Republic in the background. But they didn't make a point of drawing attention to 'memberberries, SW things are just quietly on the set.

It honestly feels more and more like 2 different series/film projects that were collapsed into 1 and no one ever did a proofread of the script. That's just something jarring all the way through the first two episodes, not so much in the production but the plotting.

 LordofHats wrote:

Spoiler:

Like the whole bit with the ship crash. Where are the two Jedi who arrested our girl? Why weren't they on this ship? Why did they leave the transport of a high profile prisoner to an automated ship and more importantly, when they showed up on one ship, where the hell did they go when that ship left? How did they get back to Coruscant in the same amount of time it took our girl to not get there and crash, but still have enough time for the escaped prisoners to be caught? Were time warps just a regular part of the galaxy at this stage in time?.

.

Time has always been a bit wonky in Star Wars... but as for the other thing -

My think on The Acolyte.

I generally liked it, though agreed it jumped around a bit more than I'd like. An establishing shot of the Jedi ship being different from the prison transport ship would have gone a long way. It makes complete sense in hindsight but it's not presented in a way that's easy to follow.



Overall though, I'm liking what we're seeing. The Jedi depicted here are FAR closer to what I would have imagined before the prequels. The overall trappings of the High Republic make for a setting I'm happy to see more of. I like the cast and the mystery is intriguing enough that I look forward to learning more, even if its not got the writing chops for me to expect to be impressed by the answers.

 LunarSol wrote:
I generally liked it, though agreed it jumped around a bit more than I'd like. An establishing shot of the Jedi ship being different from the prison transport ship would have gone a long way. It makes complete sense in hindsight but it's not presented in a way that's easy to follow.

I was less confused about multiple ships than I was about why, after something clearly unthinkable (to them) has happened, they wouldn't just have prioritized personally taking the 'person of interest' back with them immediately. Green boss jedi was also clearly in the camp of 'let's not spread this news around,' so... yeah. Giving more opportunities to spread the news around was an odd choice. Though I guess they had to take the tavernkeeper back, since they dragged him out to the backside of nowhere space.

I do wonder if they decided that the prosthetics and/or CGI for the first padawan (didn't take the time to figure out which method they were leaning on more) was just too much to deal with in terms of time/inconvenience or money, so cut her and several scenes that would've made the beginning a little smoother for the audience.


On the subject of green boss jedi, this is probably the primary character (not actor, character), that bothers me (though the 'local temple' jedi in ep 2 were also... meh). For a jedi master, she's almost aggressively un-empathetic and un-intuitive, with little appreciation for anything but the appearance of wrongdoing being inherently wrong. She's either a terrible two-dimensional character or there's going to be a 'shocking' reveal that she's the ultimate bad guy (which would also be terrible character writing).

The overall trappings of the High Republic make for a setting I'm happy to see more of.

Interesting. For the 'High Republic' everything seems clunky and worn. Back to the grunge of the OT, rather than polished shininess of the prequels. I think that's a deliberate decision aimed at the audience, but it feels weird for a 'golden age.'

Voss wrote:

The overall trappings of the High Republic make for a setting I'm happy to see more of.

Interesting. For the 'High Republic' everything seems clunky and worn. Back to the grunge of the OT, rather than polished shininess of the prequels. I think that's a deliberate decision aimed at the audience, but it feels weird for a 'golden age.'

I see the opulent wealth of the prequels as more of a sign of systematic corruption and early collapse (and early CGI). Things in this show look worn, but largely it feels like everything is functional. People generally seem to have faith in the system and while the Jedi are regularly shown to be quick to abuse the Force to get to the truth, they seem to be focused on what is just over the letter of the law. Things aren't perfect, but people seem pretty happy and content with the status quo. That's often a better sign of the height of a society than the level of tech they have.

 LunarSol wrote:
An establishing shot of the Jedi ship being different from the prison transport ship would have gone a long way.

That was kind of there, though, in that they show the Jedi ship* arriving, and the prison ship being a completely different ship. And Yord says that Osha will be transported on a prison ship, just to make it more clear.

*a two seater Vector starfighter, which is why they didn't use it to take Osha back themselves.

 insaniak wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
An establishing shot of the Jedi ship being different from the prison transport ship would have gone a long way.

That was kind of there, though, in that they show the Jedi ship* arriving, and the prison ship being a completely different ship. And Yord says that Osha will be transported on a prison ship, just to make it more clear.

*a two seater Vector starfighter, which is why they didn't use it to take Osha back themselves.

If it’s only a two seater, what ship did the bartender arrive on?

I presume the Prison Ship is something that’ll be deployed from a central hub, and do multiple pick ups.

Also the Chair Pilot Droids were a nice design touch.

 AduroT wrote:

If it’s only a two seater, what ship did the bartender arrive on?

Good question. Either he was in the cargo hold, or they've just added a three-seater version to cannon.

Or he came on the prison ship, but then he's stuck finding his own way home, presumably...


Edit - three or four seater is the most likely explanation, since the ship shown in the show is slightly different to the Vectors shown in previous High Republic material.

 AduroT wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
An establishing shot of the Jedi ship being different from the prison transport ship would have gone a long way.

That was kind of there, though, in that they show the Jedi ship* arriving, and the prison ship being a completely different ship. And Yord says that Osha will be transported on a prison ship, just to make it more clear.

*a two seater Vector starfighter, which is why they didn't use it to take Osha back themselves.

If it’s only a two seater, what ship did the bartender arrive on?

Episode 1 suffers incredibly from how the Star Wars universe has a clear and universally understood time warp in play, thus why none of the characters ever ask any obvious questions about time or distance, even though the entire plot for that episode sure has an incredibly questionable grasp of time and distance and the entire question of Osha's innocence/guilt seems answerable by doing some basic time and distance math. But that's because there's a time warp and characters magically appear wherever they need to be to move the plot forward.

Just normal plot stuff. Clear up by the end of episode 2, sort of.

I'd also point out, and I double checked to be sure I wasn't crazy;

Episode 1 (Yord is right there): Yord, who Osha says knows all this, brings up the loss of Osha's mothers and sisters. Explicitly.
Episode 1 (Yord, with a wtf face): Osha has a twin? That's not in her record.

Bitch, you grew up with her. She never mentioned her sister was twin? None of you knew this sister was a twin. That's actually a plot point in this show? The show, where none of you, ask any basic questions about the murder you're all so interested in and none of you bothered to do any math on how Osha could have slipped off her ship in we don't know where, gone to another planet, murdered someone, and then flown bac-Oh right. Time warp. Never mind.

This show has incredibly sloppy writing through the first episode. Like the sloppiest writing of any SWs product since ever I think. Like it's really sloppy. Episode 2 is an improvement, but if 2 hadn't dropped a bunch of curiosity bombs over its course I'd probably have decided the show wasn't remotely worth it because the writing is just so sloppy.

I see Insaniak's SW apologia for the recent poor offerings is in full force. Still think that the promos leading up to this show weren't a reflection of its quality so far?

 LordofHats wrote:
The show, where none of you, ask any basic questions about the murder you're all so interested in and none of you bothered to do any math on how Osha could have slipped off her ship in we don't know where, gone to another planet, murdered someone, and then flown bac-Oh right. Time warp. Never mind.

Or they did do that, and the Neimoidian ship has hyperspace-capable shuttles and was near enough to Ueda for it to have worked, but none of that was really necessary to mention at that point in the story. It's a space opera, not a crime procedural.


Yord not knowing about her twin is admittedly a little odd, but also not really... people surviving trauma don't always share details of it with their friends.

To be clear, I reserve the bulk of my criticism for Episode 1. Episode 1 is very weird.

Episode 2 improves, and I at least am intrigued enough by the clues dropped in that episode to keep watching because I want to know the answers to the questions.

1 just stands out for being very sloppily written, and part of me wonders if they retooled the script mid production and had already filmed some expensive CGI they decided to use anyway (like a certain starship crash) even though you could easily cut most of what happens in episode 1 completely out of the show and I don't know that you'd even notice its absence.

I mean, the whole cast basically gets on the 'Osha's sister did it' train so freaking fast, that we even bothered with questioning it at all feels like needless padding that makes the Jedi characters look kind of stupid for not actually investigating the crime that started the plot.

Episode 1 is bad. Maybe the worst Episode 1 of an SW show ever.

But 2 is legitimately better, and better enough I do want to see if 3 can continue the trend.

But dear god is episode 1 just bad.

 Grimskul wrote:
I see Insaniak's SW apologia for the recent poor offerings is in full force. Still think that the promos leading up to this show weren't a reflection of its quality so far?

Nope, I enjoyed it.

More to the point, I enjoy Star Wars in general, and would prefer to view it through that lens. I really don't see the point in continuing to watch a franchise I don't enjoy just to pick apart all the things I hate about it, so I don't do that.

But you do you.

 insaniak wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
The show, where none of you, ask any basic questions about the murder you're all so interested in and none of you bothered to do any math on how Osha could have slipped off her ship in we don't know where, gone to another planet, murdered someone, and then flown bac-Oh right. Time warp. Never mind.

Or they did do that, and the Neimoidian ship has hyperspace-capable shuttles and was near enough to Ueda for it to have worked, but none of that was really necessary to mention at that point in the story. It's a space opera, not a crime procedural.

Eh. This is a genre mash-up, like a lot of the Marvel stuff. A lot of this _is_ a crime procedural, or is at least set up that way. The fact that they also get direct insights from the fundamental force of the entire universe but still don't ask obvious questions or double check a crashed ship is downright baffling (we see jedi catching on to false or misleading statements or 'bad feelings' all the time). Especially since they did go and pick up everybody else and sent probe droids. Then they double down and nobody but Sol bothered to to take five seconds to investigate the very obviously false claims of criminals they had in custody. That's either bad writing or somebody at Jedi Precinct Corsucant is in on it.

Well, thats me re-subscribed to D+ for a short bit.

Voss wrote:
Eh. This is a genre mash-up, like a lot of the Marvel stuff. A lot of this _is_ a crime procedural, or is at least set up that way.

Even if it wasn't a crime procedural, it's overtly playing up a mystery box plot.

You can't drop a mystery box in front of an audience and then demand that they not look at it too hard because it's 'just a space opera.' The whole story is a literal 'why done it.' It's at least done that part well, but the foray into a 'who done it' in episode one was asking to be called out for not having its own ducks in a row.

Ob-Wan Kenobi didn't just magically journey to Kamino. He actually investigated and looked at evidence.

That's right.

I'm saying Attack of the Clones was better written than that episode was. Attack of the damn Clones. Easily the most sloppily written of the prequel films managed to do this right and didn't fall back on 'it's just a space opera' and expect to get a pass for not showing its work while hyping up a mystery.

/rant