Television | Star Wars
‘The Acolyte’: Great Premise and Action, Poor Set Design and Dialogue
When the Acolyte was first announced a couple years back, I won’t lie: I was beyond excited. The era before the Star Wars prequel trilogy had always fascinated me, being almost completely masked in mystique, and I latched onto every bit of lore from this era I could get my hands on.
When The Acolyte was announced to be the furthest back Star Wars has gotten, I was ecstatic. An official TV series set before the prequels was everything I could’ve dreamed of. So when it came out, I eagerly watched the premiere with my full attention with high expectations.
Were my lofty hopes met? Yes and no.
The Acolyte is set 200 years before the events of the Star Wars prequel trilogy. At this point in time, the Sith are all but wiped out, the Jedi are at the peak of their power, and the galaxy is experiencing a golden age of peace and prosperity.
This fragile serenity is breached when our main character, Osha, an ex-Jedi, is framed for the murder of one of her old masters by a mysterious cult of dark side users who have set to eliminate various Jedi across the galaxy for an unknown, nefarious purpose. Osha must reconcile with her friends and acquaintances from her time in the Jedi order to stop this mysterious plot to rip apart the galaxy.
This premise right here, holy fuck, is it amazing.
A Scooby-Doo, Sherlock Holmes sci-fi serial killer murder mystery with Jedi and set in the distant past of the Star Wars universe sounds incredible. And the show mostly delivers on this insanely cool idea. The action sequences, twists, and character interactions build up to an interesting narrative that so far has kept me on the edge of my seat and listening along for any clues.
The one thing that hinders my enjoyment and childlike wonder is the horrible dialogue.
Every character dialogue sequence is incredibly scattered, filled with lazy transitions and poorly strung together conversation filled with corny jokes that at best, are barely funny and at worst, patronizing.
And when character discussions aren’t grating or choppy, they’re annoying and demeaning, filled with constant rephrasing and restating of important information. This series treats you like a child. Its dialogue feels like it’s specifically written for an audience without any media comprehension whatsoever. It is so frustrating to watch a series that doesn’t trust its viewers to retain any information it throws at you, and instead tries to feebly entertain with repeated dialogued and jingling keys in the form of poorly written jokes.
The set pieces at play can also be quite questionable at times. Makeup can be sloppily done to try to convey alien species, and leaves me with a just human character with face paint. It’s a little shoddy, a little scuffed, and kind of takes me out of the experience when I see it. However, this isn’t as big of an issue as its dialogue.
But set pieces the series does well, it does well. The hand-to-hand combat aesthetic and action sequences are breathtaking when all is said and done. The camera angles perfectly capture the action while well-choreographed martial art-based combat is beautiful to look at and a feat of filmmaking and design that looks like something straight out of a Bruce Lee flick. I’ll go as far as to say the action is so good it even covers up some of the poor set choices most of the time.
This show has its flaws, but it does not deserve to be review-bombed as hard as it is. Audiences are acting like this is the worst thing that has ever come to television, babbling and spouting drivel about its nonexistent issues regarding its “stupid premise” or “one dimensional characters” or “forced wokeness” that make me highly doubt people even watched the same show I did.
Acting like this series is worse than the sequel trilogy and the worst thing that has come to Star Wars is the definition of pushing it. It isn’t perfect, but the whole show isn’t even out and people are acting like it’s finished for Disney’s Star Wars. Do people not remember jaw-dropping stories of ‘The Mandalorian’? ‘Andor’? ‘The Bad Batch’?
The Acolyte so far has been fairly quality, and I can only see it going up from here. Keep in mind that only 3 episodes are out and what you perceive as bad characters and poor writing are simply establishing the baseline for a more fleshed out plot. Frankly, it’s embarrassing to watch people trip over themselves to pour shit out of their mouths in a sloppily put-together attack on a fairly quality show. I’m not saying it’s perfect, but many issues I’ve heard about it are ridiculously overblown or straight-up not true.
So please, give ‘The Acolyte’ a chance. It’s not the dumpster fire everyone seems to think it is.
