The Acolyte Sounds Rudderless And BORING!

Disney needs to hire better PR people to promote this show as the ones right now are failing. The latest creation from the decay of Star Wars and Lucasfilm is set to be The Acolyte, a T.V. show all about…Jedi, peace, and inconsequential villains.

Maybe it’s just me, but I thought the whole purpose of storytelling was to create conflict for heroes to overcome.

Star Wars’ newest live action show, The Acolyte, has been getting a lot of headlines and coverage this week as it nears its 2024 release date due to the showrunners and actors talking all about how peaceful and unassuming the period the show takes place is. And, as I’m sure you’ve guessed, I think that just sounds like a recipe for disaster for a live action television show set in the Star Wars universe.

Now, just getting this point out of the way, there’s no problem with setting a story in a peaceful, relatively calm era of the Star Wars galaxy/lore as massive space battle, huge galactical armies fighting against one another, and hordes of Jedi battling Sith is not necessary to make a great, compelling, and emotional show. Just watch Andor and the first two seasons of The Mandalorian (Season 3 is crap) if you don’t believe me as those periods were also without massive, galactic-scale conflict.

It’s not about the sheer size of a conflict that is important, but rather how compelling, relatable, emotional, and meaningful the conflict and story is.

However, I’m getting a feeling this story just lacks any resemblance of emotion or stakes given how little emphasis the cast, crew, and producers have talked about the show thus far. In fact, I’m actually really nervous that this show might be one of the worst Star Wars products ever seen given how much headlines and talk about the show centers around the character’s ethnicities and “first time in a Star Wars show” rather than…the characters.

Oh, and when the showrunner Leslye Headland says, “We’re looking at a time period where there is peace throughout the galaxy. It was very challenging and interesting to make a Star Wars with no war in it. So, the question became: Well, what should the show be about if it’s not going to be about galactic conflict?“, I’m not filled with too much confidence.

As I said, the sheer size and scale of any show, and most definitely a Star Wars medium, should not be dictated by whether or not big battles and galactic war are ongoing, but rather how greatly and profoundly the conflict impacts the characters. Does that description of the main plot sound too enlightening and gripping as you’d expect from a Star Wars story?

No, I don’t think so.

I’m not saying that storytelling is easy or anything as its most definitely not, but competent and dedicated writers really shouldn’t be all to burdened by not having a massive war raging on in the background to tell their tale.

They shouldn’t look to the nature of Star Wars as anything else but a highly enjoyed, beloved fantastical steppingstone for their tale into the sci-fi genre, but it doesn’t seem like that’s what the focus of this show is about when Headland also says things like this, “I think that what makes this show different and interesting is that it’s from the perspective of the villains of Star Wars. These are people who are using the Force in their own way, dipping into the darker sides of the Force and are doing it without being sanctioned by the larger institution, which, in this case, is the Jedi.”

I’m sorry, but that just doesn’t sound like an interesting tale when the Prequel Trilogy is literally about one of the most iconic and villainous characters in cinema’s history descending down his dark path. What do you mean this show is “different and interesting because it “is from the perspective of the villains of Star Wars?” That’s what the first three movies of the main trilogy are about!

Nevertheless, the time period of the High Republic has the potential to be interesting if they tap into the exploration of the Outer Rim, but it doesn’t sound like that’s where the story is going. It sounds like its going to be some strange examination of Sith characters in a positive light against the oppressive and villainous nature of the Jedi order…or some dumb reconstruction that Hollywood loves doing nowadays.