What is the reason for The Acolyte (2024 series) having poor reception among Star Wars fans?
07.06.2025 02:29
This happens in The Acolyte, by the way! People just give up on their previous motivation without hardly an explanation because ‘things need to happen’. It’s why the show failed. When you track how “no” is being used, you can clearly see that it’s being used without real justifications to make characters, the setting, and the plot turn on a dime without real consideration to the big picture of this story or the big picture of all of Star Wars.
or,
Return of the Jedi spends a good portion of the entire film explaining the truth of the matter AND THEN making it critical to the story moving forward: Luke’s goal was to be a Jedi like his father; now that he knows his father his alive, captive to evil, and a fallen hero, what is Luke’s vision of being a Jedi now? The rest of the movie shows us through Luke’s interactions and compassion.
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Darth Vader betrayed and murdered Anakin Skywalker
Hollywood is at a tipping point where they HAVE to start changing. And how much they need to change is still up in the air. But there does come a point where you can’t deny that some movies/shows are failing miserably and others are still successful and not admit why. YouTubers would have no ammunition and no sustainability unless there was something to pick at. This also makes TV and film creators huffy, and understandably so. We’ve sacrificed a lot in our lives to be in this town, in this industry, and a lot of people out here think that because they are making this product, they should be the one-and-only authority. But what YouTubers have reminded them of is that there’s a relationship between someone making a product and someone consuming that product, and if you don’t invest into your consumers, eventually they walk. It was fine to ignore them when they had no other options and you couldn’t hear them rejecting you or the product. That is not the case anymore!
Hollywood (and what I’m really saying here is the very liberal/progressive professionals who have moved to LA and work in the industry and use the programs of this industry to influence culture directly) has an amazing track record for changing culture. If you were some disgruntled person from a town you were discriminated against, (perceived or real) you can bet your butt that if you become a writer in Hollywood, you either demonized the people who tormented you or wrote yourself into your work as a heroic figure, or both. This is why Hollywood tropes were formed: how many times have you seen on screen a female vice president or in charge at a male dominated field? How many times does a “Christian” get painted as a zealous weirdo? How often are gay couples painted out as more loving and even better parents than straight ones? Now look at these reverse: how often do you see bad gay parents or extraordinarily toxic gay relationships on screen? What about a purposefully incompetent female leader? How about some liberal ideal about our borders be shown to be wrong? This is part of training and re-education, especially if it can be slipped into kids’ shows. It’s almost like propaganda… “This is how the world works.” Can gay people bad parents, women make terrible leaders, and conservatives be right? Absolutely, but you’re not going to see that depicted much in Tinsel Town because that’s not really how you change culture to be the way you want it to be. Hollywood, (through the mediums of television and film) have transformed the world in more radical ways than any other informational medium in the history of the world. Some of it was very good, but not all of it, and the point I’m making is that ‘Hollywood’ got really comfortable being a monopoly as the voice of culture and they’re only now realizing that all the voices that shut out found a way to be heard, and in a BIG way: they have a fight on their hands now and they really don’t like it!
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Person 1: “Man, it sucks that we’re both made of balloons!”
Most of what’s come out of Lucasfilm keeps doubling back on itself with “No” and the audience isn’t dumb. “No” isn’t a lot of fun, and just like in improv, no one really wants to watch or be in scenes with someone who tries to dominate every scene by negating the work of everyone else.
When defenders of this show present themselves in the comments, they’re usually using the same three tired arguments: 1) The Appeal to Mediocrity/The Villainization of Lucas’ Work, (ie. ‘The Acolyte it wasn’t great but it also wasn’t that bad’ or ‘Well, the Prequels kinda sucked, so why don’t we cut this some slack’), 2) The Cry of Subjectivity, (‘I liked it, so tough!’) or 3) This is about isms, phobes, and anti-something.
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D-Lucasfilm - “Nah, let’s have her foist her kid on Luke to raise. And while we’re at it, let’s make sure Han is a deadbeat dad.
The “No” in the cloud city scene where a new condition is added:
Luke wants to defeat Darth Vader for killing his father.
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Interestingly enough, I don’t think Hollywood and the primary media are entirely wrong when they say, “the show failed because of hateful youtubers.” But that’s a half-truth that deflects a new reality of how Social Media has finally created a platform where TV show and Film influence has actual competition and for the first time since TV and Film were made, an actual antagonist pushing back!
Person 1: “The Force is…”
For Luke’s goal of being a Jedi like his father, here’s the facts going into the scene:
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Bit of a showstopper, right? Imagine being the first person and getting that response! I’ve been in games where stuff like this happens and it takes wind right out of you; now your idea is trashed and you have to come up with something else on the spot while also knowing that the person you’re working with has no trust in you or what you were thinking of building.
There is now an actual competition for your online attention for entertainment that can compete with TV and film; there is no “captive audience” anymore. This is new: Hollywood truly does have an antagonist and these antagonists don’t have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to make their money, they just have to crank out an entertaining video about something Hollywood made or rebut/comment on an article someone wrote about that show or film. And people in charge of TV and Film HATE how countless algorithms keep pushing more of this content into people’s faces. If I click on a video from someone who didn’t like “The Acolyte”, YouTube will show me 40 videos of other people saying the same things. I could easily end up watching hours of content on YouTube and never watch the show… my mind could already have been influenced and made up!
Yes to all of the above… AND… they’re either the same person or they’ve been swapped in terms of which is Luke’s father.
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Person 2: [“No”] “Balloons are dumb.”
Steve Martin liked to say, “Be so good they can’t ignore you.” Well, I think the opposite is true, too, and we’ve gotten to a point where a lot people who were in the middle, (politically and ideologically) who may have been very vocal and supportive of progressive ideals a few years ago have now started walking it back a bit because the body count is finally in and too bad to ignore.
“No… I am your father” doesn’t negate every fact that came before it: it’s not like Darth Vader says that Luke was immaculately conceived, or that Luke’s father was never a Jedi, or that Obi-Wan was just an imaginary friend of Luke’s, or that Luke’s parents were nobodys/were the Emperor’s children or clones. It doesn’t change a rule of the setting, (he doesn’t say there’s no such thing as Light and Dark), etc.
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See how that worked? The first person puts out a fact that both partners are made of balloons, and the second person acknowledges that as a fact and then added a sly little note based on the characteristics of balloons and people. Balloons have thin, pop-able skin, so if we’re made of balloons, then we’re thin skinned people. That’s thinking on your feet, making good analogies and connections, and it’s why improv can be really, really fun!
D-Lucasfilm - “No they didn’t.”
And now you know the reason why The Acolyte didn’t land well with the vast majority of Star Wars fans. It’s not really surprising: The Sequel Trilogy is exactly the same way:
Why do I feel worthless most of the time?
Person 2: “Yeah, I don’t want that to be true, in fact, I’d like to make a show where I paint them out as victims. Kind of.
Didn’t this fail because YouTubers killed it?
I’m all for making new Star Wars content, but you gotta use your head! So many of the favorite Legends/EU content for Star Wars for decades may not have always been great, but they did try (and succeeded with) a lot more “yes, AND”. And that’s why even if they weren’t perfectly in line with Lucas’ work, a lot of it was beloved. Not all, but a lot.
D-Lucasfilm - “No it isn’t. Let’s divorce them and make sure we have no good romances. Except for maybe something toxic.
“Leia and Han are an awesome couple, and love is fun in movies!”
Because it just wasn’t a good show.
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Person 1: “Man, it sucks that we’re both made of balloons!”
“But, really, the real villain here is RACISM/SEXISM/ANTI-[Fill in the blank here]!!!”
Person 1: “The Jedi are the good guys!”
But what we see in The Acolyte would be like Luke saying, “I want to learn the ways of the Force and be a Jedi, like my father”, and then in the next scene watch Luke say to Obi-Wan, “No, I’m not coming with you to Alderaan to save the princess, I have farming I need to get done,” and then going back to farming! Here’s a character who has always dreamed of adventure, just lost his only family, and has a gorgeous princess asking for help, but despite being gung-ho in the last scene, in this scene, he’s just going to walk away?
“The Rebels won at Endor!”
The Acolyte can do this form of “no” not only between episodes, but even between scenes, and sometimes, even between lines of dialogue. I found myself laughing at the screen as characters would be chasing someone in one scene, then be running from them inexplicably in the next. Or you have one sister saying how they don’t want to be split up and then follows that by threatening the other sister with death, as if dying wasn’t going to split them up permanently.
Luke’s father trained under Obi-Wan Kenobi
Do you see what happens here with a “No?” George Lucas, as the founder of Star Wars has the first line, he’s person one. He set the stage for what Star Wars is and how it works. To continue with a “yes, AND” you have to try to build off of that reality. This is where shows like The Acolyte have totally failed. A “No” done in this fashion invalidates what came before it, and when you have so much established ‘facts’ in a fiction like this, you start tearing apart the logic and ‘rules’ of the fiction. And just like a bad improv, the audience will immediately know and feel it when it happens, even if they can’t completely articulate why the scene seemed to die.
Saying this isn’t about quality and is all about racism or something misses the point: it’s entirely about quality, and The Acolyte was the most illogical and ridiculous departure of Lucas’ Star Wars we’ve seen yet. I want to remind people of this, (and the vast decrease in ticket sales for the Sequel Trilogy) to point out that The Acolyte isn’t being martyred or singled out as though all these other projects were criticism free. Lucasfilm under the direction of Kathleen Kennedy and as owned by Disney has shown a track record 12 years long now that they don’t really get it, and it shows in their writing for the movies, TV shows, books, and more.
D-Lucasfilm - “Palpatine is alive. Why? Because we said so. No, that’s literally what we’ll do: we’ll just say so, and that will be that.
or,
This is why “Hollywood” and the primary media that reports and makes a living off their work have started villainizing Social Media, (namely YouTubers). It’s because of how successful this new arena of entertainment has become as an alternate platform and a launching pad for dissenting views. And thanks to a few years of COVID lockdowns and a LOT of pushback from centrist liberals and conservatives on Social Media, the secondary media is actually becoming more popular than Hollywood and the primary media. For a lot of people, it’s easier and more ‘fun’ to watch someone on YouTube shred a TV show or film than actually watching the original program… AND it’s FREE.
Where do you take this? If you absolutely have to do a “No”, you HAVE TO fill in the crater you’re making with something good, and fast! You’ll also need to somehow salvage the logic of the scene because everyone heard that first line that you’re now disagreeing with.
“Palpatine is dead!”
Person 2: “No they aren’t.”
Where the original trilogy succeeds is that this is a narrative turning point and it’s fully acknowledged that this new fact REQUIRES actual justification: most of “Return of the Jedi” is spent reconciling this moment to make all previous facts true in light of all that’s been said of Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader… from a certain point of view. ;)
Darth Vader knew the Force (and chose the Dark Side)
Luke’s father is Luke’s dream: he wants to be like his father
I’m not going to lay out every example from the show, I’m just going to wrap up by saying that underlying issue with The Acolyte, (and most of Disney/Lucasfilm’s Star Wars) is a fundamental disagreement with George Lucas and his ‘first line’. They continually show they want to re-write or say “No” to elements of his works, without understanding how it’s killing the logic of scenes, the motivations of characters, or just wreaking havoc with the setting.
Person 2: [“Yes, AND”] “I know, right? I’m so sensitive all the time, I feel like any little thing will blow me up!
Person 2: [“No”] “What are you talking about? You’re not made of balloons.”
Person 2: [“No”] “Actually, we’re made of McDonald’s hamburgers.”
In improv, the best thing you can do (in general) to keep the improv going is called, “Yes, AND”. A “Yes, AND” acknowledges whatever the first person did and builds off of it. The worst move you can do is a “No”; that tanks whatever’s been built and kills the momentum of the scene.
Personally, I think it’s undeniable at this point that YouTubers and people on Social Media have a MASSIVE impact on the success or failure of a TV show or Film. I know for a fact I’ve watched a lot YouTubers opinions on shows, movies, and video games before even considering just making that purchase myself, where even just a few years ago, (pre-COVID) I was pretty much always trying to see it myself. But being on sets where I saw the ideology at play, my 20 years off and on in the industry, and then a lack of time, lack of money, (and lack of faith in my own industry), definitely pushed me more towards YouTube.
However, Lucasfilm under Disney has been the story of “No”, and The Acolyte is a good example. Using the balloon line again…
Person 1: “The Sith are evil and selfish!”
Finally, having an ‘extremely diverse cast’, a lesbian showrunner, and a script laden with ideology didn’t save the poor acting on the show, it didn’t rescue the poor dialogue, it didn’t improve on Lucas’ setting, it didn’t make the plot more logical, and it definitely didn’t save the budget. Racism is a scapegoat being used to deflect the real criticism for a bland, undercooked, overpriced show.
Luke’s father knew the Force
This is why the Sequel Trilogy continually fails so hard: it keeps doing negations, ‘twists’, and retcons “Palpatine is alive” (a death we saw on screen), with as little justification as a single line. Period.
You’re seeing the industry paint these people out to be villains because… well, that’s how they see them. If you’ve been in an untouchable industry where no one truly has a platform to compete or disagree with you, and internally, you’ve kicked out anyone with the ‘wrong’ ideology, then having any real form of competition or antagonism is a huge shock and BIG threat!
Here’s the deal though: Book of Boba Fett and Ahsoka got a lot of flak for sucking, too, but they only cost 100 million dollars for their seasons while The Acolyte cost $180 million dollars, (not including the larger amount of marketing and the very long pre-production time). They were cheaper to produce, but most fans didn’t like either of those shows or Obi-Wan. Book of Boba Fett isn’t getting a season 2 either, btw, Obi-Wan is over and done, and Ahsoka is barely sliding into a season two because it cost even less than Book of Boba Fett to make.
Darth Vader trained under Obi-Wan Kenobi
It’s not that “No” can never be used… in fact, if it’s done right in improv or in writing, it can be jaw-droppingly good. But you have to know why you’re doing it, and it still needs to tie back into what’s already been founded with a purpose in mind.
Luke’s father was a Jedi Knight and a good man
“Can “No” every work? I mean, Star Wars has a pretty famous “no” in it!
Darth Vader was a Jedi Knight who turned towards evil
Now, on top of all of that, it was one of the most expensive shows they’ve made, yet also had some of the worst acting, cheapest looking visuals, and the most non-sensical, go-nowhere plot of anything they’ve made yet. And even if all that went right, you’d still have the massive problem that the show thematically wants to disagree with all of Lucas’ work in Star Wars.
Instead of breaking this show down point by point, let me tackle the root problem using improvisation games (improv) as a way to explain. This will also let you know why even if this show was a technical marvel with the best actors on the planet, (which it wasn’t; believe me, it’s not even close), it still would have been poorly received.
Thus far, the only projects that really shined in any way to almost all fans of Star Wars were Rogue One, Andor, and the first two seasons of The Mandalorian. But I’d also argue that a lot Filoni’s work in Star Wars is doing more harm than good in the long run by picking apart the setting and taking characters like Ahsoka, (who wasn’t part of the Prequel Trilogy) and trying force her into that universe even harder, even if her presence doesn’t make logical sense.
“Leia is a caring and nurturing badass! I’d bet she’d make a great mom!”
Person 2: “I’m going to stop you there, I don’t like the way you think, feel, or do things. Just be quiet and let me talk for both of us.
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