(The Disneycember logo is shown, before showing clips from The Acolyte)
Doug (vo): When I first saw the trailer for The Acolyte, I had no interest in it. It looked dull, it looked flat. There's already a few too many Star Wars shows, so I just didn't plan on checking it out. Hell, I wasn't even going to do a Disneycember on it. But then came "the divide". Yeah, you know what I'm talking about, the divide between audiences and critics. (The show's Rotten Tomatoes scores are shown, with critics giving the show a 78% and audiences giving the show an 18%) Critics seem to love it, audiences seem to hate it, and I...love it when this happens. I love going in saying, "Hmm, where am I going to land in all this?" The reason being, either way I look at it, I'm probably going to have a good time, because the only thing I love more than good Star Wars is bad Star Wars. Oh, yeah, I love me some pee-yousa, some Wookiee porn, some branches that stop professionally trained assassins. I guess it's like Shyamalan. I like it when it's good, but I love it when it's bad. So I made a conscious decision to sit down and watch the entire series, and...boy, can I tell you, it's not worth the praise or the hatred, 'cause this is the most boring thing I've seen from Star Wars in a while. It was a slog to get through this. It was everything I assumed it was going to be from the trailer and so much less. My God. What happened to getting passionate about things that were actually interesting to get passionate about?
Premise[]
Doug (vo): The story takes place 100 years before the prequels...which, boy, for a $180 million show, it sure was dull-looking 100 years ago...where an assassin is taking out Jedi. The catch? She isn't using a weapon, so the Jedi can't use weapons either, because that's part of their code...even though she's clearly using a weapon. She has these knives. Why doesn't that count? If Michael Myers came at me with a kitchen knife and the police are like, "Well, did he have a weapon?", I'm not going to say no, I'm going to say, "Yeah, he had a kitchen knife!" What...what's wrong with you? Well, anyway, this Acolyte is taking out Jedi with her "not weapons," and it just so happens she has an identical twin sister. Yeah, it's one of these stories. And I will give credit, they don't do the #1 stupid thing I think everybody thought they were going to do, where the whole galaxy thinks she's the bad guy, and they're going to chase after her throughout, like, most, if not, half the season. And, no. Like, episode one, they're like, "Hey, we know it's not you, let's find the real killer." That's cool, that was very nice to see. This is Mae*, played by Amandla Stenberg, and she meets up with her old Jedi master, Sol, played by Lee Jung-Jae. She left the Jedi life behind her, but she knows that her sister is involved killing all these Jedi, so the search is on to find out why and who it is that's secretly calling all the shots.
*Osha is the former Jedi, Mae is the Sith who kills the Jedi.
Review[]
Doug (vo): All right, so on the surface, this doesn't sound that bad. I mean, there is a mystery, we don't usually get that many mysteries in Star Wars. And it isn't just asking what happened in the past to cause all this, but also, "Who's this evil mastermind Sith who is pulling all the strings?" And while I won't say the mystery is obvious, it does go the exact direction you would think a show like this would go. I mean, okay, I'm not going to pretend I knew who this person was at the beginning, but maybe an episode after they were introduced, I put together who it was. And the mystery of what led up to all this is also not the most difficult to piece together. Okay, I'm not going to pretend I knew, like, all the details or anything, but don't you know there's going to be, like, a misunderstanding between the two twins, and the Jedi did something wrong, but they weren't intentionally evil, it's just some sort of screw-up or reading a situation wrong and they try to cover it up and...? All that goes without saying, it's what are they going to add on top of it to make it interesting. And the answer is...nothing. Like I said, this is very much a whole lot of nothing.
(Footage focusing on the show's acting performances is shown)
Doug (vo): The acting in the show is beyond wooden. I mean, okay, I'm not going to act like they act so bad, it's hilarious...
Mae: Brendock Tree is so beautiful.
Osha: I don't want to do the Ascension!
Doug (vo): Okay, sometimes, it is...but most of the time, everybody's underperforming. I just don't believe anything these people are saying, I don't believe they're really in these scenes. And part of that might be, they're not really written that interesting. Like, I don't know. Tell me a few things about Mae. What do I know about Mae? Um...she fixed ships. I mean, okay, I do get her backstory, but it doesn't define her a whole lot as a character, nor her sister, Osha, who...both kind of have a big change halfway through, and it doesn't feel earned. It comes out of nowhere. I'm just like, "Okay, I already don't know a ton about these characters, but I know they wouldn't just flip like this, like, out of nowhere." And neither the story nor the writing supports it at all. It's another example of commentary that you can totally do, but like I've said over and over, it's being done way too much nowadays, especially at Disney, where it's very, very direct. This can only be interpreted as one thing, and I won't give away what it is, but it is pretty obvious by the end. It's very clear who the Jedi are supposed to represent, what the message is they're trying to get across. You can do this kind of direct commentary, you just...can't let it override the characters and story, and that's what I'm seeing so much from Disney nowadays. They are so focused on crafting this incredibly obvious message that they think is really subtle, that they overlook why we're supposed to care about these people or the story.
(Footage focusing on Sol is shown. At one point, clips from a Jackie Chan film is shown, as well as a clip of Splinter from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem)
Doug (vo): The one actor I'll give a little bit of a pass to is Lee Jung-Jae. Now, I've never seen Squid Games, but even I know this guy's like a huge international star. And this is one of his few journeys into American television. And there's about half a good performance here, and the half that doesn't work isn't necessarily his fault. There's clearly a language barrier, like, half the time, he'll emphasize words that aren't supposed to be emphasized or his accent will be a little too thick, it's hard to understand what he's saying. But the other half of the time, he does a really good job, and the accent can sometimes add a Ken Watanabe feel to it. Like, it adds more weight and dignity to what he's saying. Like, you know when Jackie Chan started out, everybody loved him for the stunts and how he was so upbeat, but nobody was really going to hire him for voice-over work. You know what I mean? But now, people are, and he's actually not bad at it. I'm not going to lie, I kind of dug him as Splinter. So I get the feeling if this guy keeps going in America, he could become something really cool.
(Footage focusing on the other characters and the sets is shown)
Doug (vo): Everyone else, though, completely forgettable. Hell, everything else is completely forgettable. I can't believe this show cost $180 million! These sets are so claustrophobic, and even when they go shoot outside, it doesn't seem like they do a ton of it. Like, is it just Disney doing reshoots and saying, "No, no, no, let's change this up. No, this has to now match whatever Star Wars thing we're going to release later"? Like, how are these budgets so crazy? Like, yeah, I know it's supposed to be 100 years in the past, but I think of, like, Avatar and Korra, and there's 100 years in between those, and both those worlds still look amazing. They could have done something like that.
(Footage focusing on the fight sequences is shown)
Doug (vo): I guess I can say the fighting is pretty cool. Like, they got some neat moves that they utilize in this. I like that helmet that a lightsaber can't destroy, that's really cool. And, yeah, I guess the kung fu thing, I'm not the biggest fan on. Like, I get it. They're supposed to be fighting without weapons, but can't they combine it a little bit more with the Jedi thing? I mean, I see Carrie-Anne Moss here, I'm just going to think of The Matrix. Everybody is. They're just doing kung fu. But if you had it where maybe she never blocks, she just keeps ducking out of the way, or using the Force to push back the opponent, maybe that'd be something. That would look really cool, but also keep to what the Jedi's all about. Something about just seeing straight-up kung fu doesn't quite look right.
(A few clips focusing on Mae and Osha are shown)
Doug (vo): With that said, there's a ton of things you can easily nitpick, like, how do these sisters have almost the exact same hairstyle, even though they're literally lightyears apart? But sure, Star Wars from the beginning has a ton of things you can nitpick, and it hasn't kept that close to the continuity. I'm obviously not going to let that destroy the entire show for me.
(Shots of Ki-Adi-Mundi and Mother Aniseya are shown, along with two images, one of Leia kissing Luke from The Empire Strikes Back, and the other of Asajj Ventress and a Nightsister from The Clone Wars)
Doug (vo; speaking sarcastically): Oh, wait, I'm supposed to. Yeah, turns out, I was hating this show for the wrong reason. I thought everybody hated it because it was boring and dull, but...no. It's, "This penis guy wasn't here in the past! There's lesbian witches now in Star Wars!" Oh, no, we can't allow that! We're a galaxy of incest and proud! Christ, imagine if there was a whole planet of witches that kept the men submissive. (Speaks normally) Yeah, the culture war bullshit extended to this, too, and like a lot of people, I'm exhausted by it.
(Two images, one of April O'Neil from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, and the other of Morph from X-Men '97, are shown)
Doug (vo; sounding bored and annoyed): Oh, Ninja Turtles is going to suck 'cause April's black now? Okay. (The Rotten Tomatoes score for Mutant Mayhem is shown, with critics giving it 95% and audiences giving it 90%) It was fine. Oh, you're going to boycott X-Men '97 because Morph goes by they/them? Okay. (The Rotten Tomatoes score for X-Men '97 is shown, with critics giving it 99% and audiences giving it 94%) It's absolutely amazing, but that's outside your echo chamber, I can't help you. It's the boy who cried woke. It doesn't mean anything anymore. I'm going to judge something by the character and story, not what extremist checkboxes are being marked off.
(While various clips continue to show, we see several clips from Star Wars: The Clone Wars)
Doug (vo): With that said, I have no idea how this got a good score on Rotten Tomatoes either. Like, this is clearly, clearly, clearly bad. Could it be the critics are also judging something by these extremist checkboxes just for the other side? I guess, but I feel like I've seen other movies and shows that had a lot of that left-leaning stuff, but still got bad reviews. (Rotten Tomatoes scores of Eternals, Black Christmas, and Velma are shown, with them all classified as "Rotten") Well, I did see some critics say that they thought it was okay, but mainly, the thing that pulled them through was the ideas. The idea that the Jedi isn't always perfect and good. But here's the thing, Clone Wars tackled this better than this show did. It dedicated a lot more time and had a lot more interesting commentary. Maybe critics just haven't seen the show. I mean, it took me a long, long time to get into it. I remember people saying it starts off slow, even kind of bad, and then it gets good, and there's just a million episodes, so maybe they just couldn't find the time. I don't know. But whatever, I'm talking about it because I feel like I have to talk about it because everybody has talked about it, and probably for clicks, honestly. I mean, you know that rumor that critics are paid off by Disney to give them positive reviews? Which...if that's the case, I would love some of that money. (The Disneycember logo is shown briefly) I've literally dedicated an entire month to you. I'm starting to wonder if it's the other way around, because there are so many videos hating on this show that I'm really wondering if Disney paid them off to get people to hate-watch it...which, if that's the case, I would love some of that money. I've been hating on modern Disney long before it was popular.
Final thought[]
Doug (vo): So, in my opinion, yeah, just watch Clone Wars. Everything they're talking about here is done so much better there, and there's a lot more episodes. So much of them standing around on these brown, bland sets, just talking back and forth, explaining the message, is nothing compared to just Ahsoka walking away at the end of this one episode. That still sticks with me. That is just so ingrained in my mind, more than anything in this show. Hell, even when it looks like they're going to have an interesting idea, like, there's a Wookiee Jedi in this! Holy smokes, I want to see a Wookiee Jedi! And they get rid of him like almost instantly. That's kind of what they do, they take anything that could be interesting, they make it instantly dull. The episode where they go back and they talk about what did happen on that night, not only can you figure it out really quick, but they practically play half of the previous episodes you saw before with it. Like, yeah, we saw all this, why are we listening to all these lines again? Like, we can put it together! It's bad, and not a fun kind of bad. Everyone I know who watched it and isn't into one extreme side or the other pretty much says the same thing: it's nothing. It's not worth any of the attention it's gotten, except perhaps the budget. I mean, seriously, what is going on with Disney and these budgets? This just does not look like it cost as much as it did. Go back to working within limitations, find clever workarounds for the budget problems...sometimes, it actually helps the story and characters...and give us an interesting world we want to live in, not a world that relies on a past interesting world that we wanted to live in. It's by no means the worst Star Wars thing I've ever seen, but I think it's pretty clear why this isn't getting a season 2.
(A scene showing Mae coming across Qimir is shown)