r/saltierthancrait

Reading others thoughts on Acolyte and the direction things have been going, it all feels like an iteration on GLSW instead of an expansion on it. They've taken aspects they like, that they want to work with, but they jettison or ignore other aspects, this causes rather fundamental problems, but management seems oblivious to the problem.

Using the sequels as an example, you have the OG cast basically reset to episode 4, then quickly discarded, but then things come back to the same basic premise as the end of episode 6, but with a new cast. Instead of resetting the original cast and negating their accomplishments, why not just move to a time where they've passed. Luke and Leia could be Force Ghosts. Han too? I dunno. But keep their arc in place, drive forward, but instead they iterated on the originals with a couple small changes. Why? It muddied the universe. Is Palps dead? Is there another Clone? Are clones force sensitive? Why not make ramming ships? If Kylo and Rey are a dyad, wouldn't killing one kill the other? Or are they just a dyad sometimes? Why was this introduced? How'd she become so good so fast? Why was Luke a hopeless dick and not the New Hope he once was?

The characters are the same, except they're not. They've regressed instead of grown beyond where we saw them last. The growth of the new cast is done at superspeed where we have the new hope able to stand toe to toe against Darth Vader 2.0 without any training. In his opening scene, he is able to stop a blaster bolt and paralyze a Rebel soldier, something Vader was never shown doing, but a person without any training, just parkour/stick skills, was able to match him in lightsaber combat.

It's a different version. They updated the software from Windows 10 to Windows ME SWE. The Star Wars you kind of recognize, but it's changed in meaningful ways, and not always for the better.

I first dived to star wars content more than 4 years ago. Clone wars, rogue one, and rebels. I really enjoyed all three especially rogue one. Now after seeing all the new stuff I can watch like mandalorian, acolyte, boba fett etc I thought of revisiting the two animated series I mentioned.

On my first watch I enjoyed CW, maybe a 8/10. Some arcs were really awesome like maul and savage episodes. Somehow I didn't think the other arcs were bad, I only remember hating the underwater arc. Now, I think more than half of the stories are just really mediocre if not boring. Feels like it aged like milk for me. The good ones were still good, but I had to skip watching many episodes after reading the summary on the wiki. I just read the long explanation of what happened (surprisingly it is very detailed) and watch the some clips on youtube. It felt like my brain gets tired waiting for an episode to finish and barely something happened.

I don't think I was burning myself out. I "finished" the 7 seasons in 2-3 weeks and with some episodes just reading what happened (and again the summary is detailed).

So finally to rebels. I actually haven't watched the last few episodes, I remember just reading the synopsis too. I probably got bored back then.

I remember enjoying rebels just as much as clone wars. I remember ahsoka returning and maul as well. Besides that, I didn't think much of it. But now that I'm watching season 1 again, my dislike for some or many of the episodes in clone wars just get reaffirmed. It's so nice to finally follow a set of new characters and better yet in a new "setting" with no more clone wars as the premise.

It's so nice that these characters "feels" like characters. The clone wars had so many characters, but having to jump between episodes to see them again can be tiring. And personally, I thought anakin and obiwan couldn't compare to even rex.

It's so nice that these characters feel so lovely. I'm at episode 11 and I can't wait to see more of Sabine, Hera, and Kanan (sorry ezra).

Well that's all. It's too early to tell, maybe I'd be disappointed later. But so far and from some I remember, I know this story will be more fun in my experience.

I think I used the right flare please let me know if I need to change it. Honestly i only read one book from it, Shadows of the Empire. But something that always stuck with me was lord Vader being so strong in the force that he could use it to heal his body. However the dark side is fueled by hate and anger. So whenever he did this he would be overcome with joy causing him to loose his connection to the force and revert to his mangled self. That could have been something really cool to explore if Disney wasn’t so hell bent on destroying everything that came before.

There is a school of thought that this show is irredeemable. And that is fair. Some decisions certainly are irredeemable.

The question I have is, reading comments across various social media and reddit, is there a path to making this show good Star Wars? So what would ya'll do to "FIX" this show? My list would be....

• Less characters. Focus on Sol and Qimir.

• Keep the apprentice but cut out the twin part. That just does not work.

• If they want to keep the Vergence in the plot. Have the setup.

  • Jedi Council senses the Vergence. The plan is if located they will setup a new Jedi temple at this location. Ship crashes.

  • I think they should have just made the witches Night Sisters. Have setup somewhat the same, Sol things the girl will be ritual sacrificed but through bad sequence of events, he rescues girl and kills witches.

  • Later in show, the apprentice finds this out, and this causes her to quit Jedi. I dont know how the Sith story would dovetail in but maybe you have it where he is trying get into the Jedi temple they built on the planet or something. Like the Darth Maul, Vader story on The Clone Wars, with Ahsoka (what a wonderful episode that was).

• Classical Star Wars music. Scored by Gordy Haab.

• Cute droid -> thumbs up

• Cute creature -> thumbs up

• Manny as Sith villain -> thumbs up

• One director and writer team for whole series. Other than production efficiency I really don't understand why these shows have so many different writers and directors for each episode.

• Disney+ needs to drop the whole series. If you are going to shoot it like a movie that's how it needs to be released, as a block. OR

• Disney+ needs to learn how to do episodic television. They need to get producers like Miller & Gough that understand the medium of television. All this time they still don't get it. Shows at times feel too short and have awkward endings.

• Every show needs a Hero. A good guy. They call it "Fan Service" but its OK to give the fans what they want. Luke Skywalker kicking ass. That is OK. Every show does not have to subvert expectations. Sometimes its ok to not take a lot of risk, and just make classic Star Wars. Lets just try that ONE TIME and see how fans react.

I watched the behind the scenes of TLotR: TFotR recently, and the amount of care everyone had for the books is admirable. It was great to see the amount of passion the producers, writers, and Peter Jackson had, and their joy in being able to craft the film adaptations.

I know this topic has been overly discussed by now, but Disney’s choices in directors and writers is horrendous compared to what these big franchises deserve. I don’t understand why they can’t choose to profit and be happy with delivering content they can be proud of.

The stark contrast between the care that went into TLotR and carelessness that goes into modern Star Wars struck me. I knew I didn’t like what Disney was doing, but I’d forgotten what it’s like when it’s done properly.

As an aside, TLotR films cost ~$95M each, which is like $160M today. One thing that stuck with me was how they used extremely detailed costumes, especially all the orc armor from what I remember.

All ,

The heir to the empire audiobook is on spotify, check it out if you haven't. It's pretty cool. Maybe one day star wars will get sold, and they can make a new sequel trilogy based off this series 😁

This is almost a post not worthy of this sub due to relevance, but GRRM unintentionally ripped the Acolyte showrunners to shreds in his most recent Notablog about dragons.

He rants about creative liberties being taken with details of dragon heraldry and iconography in the shows and that he views the inconsistencies as a huge gaffe. He explains how a touch of realism and consistency is important even in fantasy. I wont summarize the whole thing but he finishes with "If you ignore canon the world you've created comes apart like tissue paper."

Woof.

And he was talking about something as minor as details on Dragon banners, not something as bananas as reinventing an established character because "birthdays arent important"

...is that The Father did not choose a side.

He was a terrible Father, actually. Look, I get it, you love your children, but how in the hell do you justify allowing your Son, who was apparently a supercharged darksider, to continuously attack your Daughter?

Capitalization intended, as everyone in that episode gets the 'The' treatment because they're supposed to be Important Things or People. But to him, they were not The Son and The Daughter, they were his children.

This is probably kind of confusing if you haven't seen the Mortis episodes in the Clone Wars animated series. But basically Anakin and Ahsoka find Mortis, a planet with lots of weird Force stuff going on (oversimplification, whatever). There are 3 entities: The Father, The Son, and The Daughter. The situation is that The Son and The Daughter are constantly fighting. They are extremely powerful Force users, and aligned with 'the dark' and 'the light' respectively.

According to The Father, anyway.

He's basically trying to stop them fighting, and can periodically put them in a magical Force 'timeout' in a thinly veiled yin-yang circle thing. He tells Anakin he's the only one who can do this, but he's getting tired, and that Anakin needs to stay and take over or there will be galaxy-sized consequences.

He's not siding with either sibling. This is likely supposed to be a profound statement about the nature of the universe. The rest of the episode goes on to show how stupid he's being, but I digress.

Anakin is naturally skeptical. He and Ahsoka stay overnight. Shit happens. LOTs of potentially canon-breaking shit, like Anakin getting a vision of his future. The Son fucks with everyone and eventually kills Ahsoka and The Daughter (who clearly doesn't want to fight him GEE I WONDER WHO THE AGGRESSOR WAS). Ahsoka is revived. The Son dies. The Father dies.

This is never mentioned again in any meaningful way in the series. It's referenced in Ahsoka's show.

The impact of Mortis, however, has echoed through canon, and has led to some misconceptions about how the Force works that I think The Disney Writers are trying to, well, force.

The problem with the Mortis solution is that The Son is 100% on the Dark Side. I don't care that he cried over his sister. It doesn't erase what he's done. And The Father's been enabling the bullshit for who knows how long.

Consider the obvious metaphor: The Son and Daughter are the Dark and Light. If they are frozen and not doing anything (what The Father did), there is peace. But they both still exist. That binding circle is a symbol of wholeness. It implies that the Dark is necessary.

It implies that the extremely evil asshole Son is necessary. It's saying that evil is necessary, that The Dark Side is necessary.

The Dark Side is still evil, right?

Right?

Because the Dark Side is the quick and easy path to power. It is a positive feedback loop of every painful, toxic, negative emotion and disease of the spirit. Those who use it do not love. They covet. They crave power, at the expense of everything else, of everyone else, because it excludes everything but The Self.

One could say that the Sith loathe attachment. After all, people get in the way. Friends are useful, but potential rivals.

Love brought Anakin back, in the end, thank fuck. Anakin loved his son. He chose a side. But thanks to Mortis and The Father's warped idea of 'balance' we now have an idea of the Force as a clumsy light/dark metaphorical magic system where one cannot exist without the other.

Mortis started it. We saw it again in TLJ: remember the Ach-to(sp?) mural? Fml

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: There's no such thing as The Light Side, there's just The Force and the Dark Side. Do you hear me FILONI?

...

....and yes this is in response to Acolyte Things why do you ask. Stop it, Disney. We don't need to balance good by doing more evil.

EDIT: Even if the entire Mortis arc is All Just a Dream, it still touches on How The Force Works. Disney is digging into almost the exact same imagery Mortis uses. TLJ used the same imagery.

May them rest in peace (Sol is as good as dead to me).

But damn this show.

The level of incompetence the Acolyte is beyond The Last Jedi. Something I didn’t think was possible.

The Last Jedi corrupted the canon. The Acolyte does something beyond that. It is trying to corrupt the audience.

What is good is bad.

What is bad is good.

Can you imagine if in A New Hope Tarkin went into Leia’s cell and showed her his dong? Or in Attack of the Clones, we see Dooku visit Padme and Dooku shows her his dong.

This is exactly what Acolyte did. Osha was a prisoner on a deserted island. Qimir knew she was following him. He purposely showed a girl prisoner his dong. How is this acceptable for Star Wars?

To make things worse Leslie Headland said it had to be this way to make Qimir look vulnerable. Really? So the only way to show vulnerability is to show your dong to an imprisoned girl?

And to top it off? Osha is enjoying the show. She doesn’t even attempt to look away but literally stares at it. This is a guy who literally just tried to murder your sister. Did murder your two friends and brainwashed your sister to become a mass murderer. This is the guy YOU ARE LUSTING FOR?

This is absolutely disgusting and corrupting. Leslie is no stranger to this. For years she was the personal assistant for Harvey Weinstein.

Even in episode 7 the corruption continues. The mother witch rapes the mind of a teenage boy. Seductively she touches his chest and tells him she can give him whatever he wants. An older woman who literally has a childs mind captive is not only mind raping him but also showing sexual attention to a minor.

Then we have Sol who is made out to look like a pedophile in episode 7. Really? He felt a strong connection to Osha after observing her for 5 minutes? Snooping around. Peeping Tom. He sounds absolutely desperate for Osha to be his padawan. He sounds absolutely obsessed with a child. Does this not seem sick and twisted?

Corruption.

And the Acolyte is glorifying these sexual predators. What kind of message is this show preaching to kids? Thats its cool to show your dong to a girl that you are holding captive. Its okay for an older woman to intimidate and seduce a boy. Its fine for a 40 year old man to obsess over a young girl.

The Last Jedi destroyed Luke Skywalker. But this show is trying to destroy the viewer

I get the sense, from the show itself and Headland’s interviews, that the Acolyte is attempting to emulate Andor in its conception of good and evil, namely that those poles don’t really exist and that everyone falls somewhere in a gray zone. It’s not trying to say that the Jedi are bad and the Sith are good, as I’ve seen certain people argue, but it is attempting to blur the lines. Andor portrayed an ugly Rebellion whilst humanizing the Empire; the Acolyte attempts to do the same by emphasizing flaws in the Jedi and highlighting virtues in the Sith.

This attempt is a catastrophic failure. The Jedi aren’t flawed, they’re stupid. And the show attempts to defend the rights of a man who would commit mass murder if allowed the freedom!

Andor’s Dredra Meero is an awful person. She closed the fist of the Empire around Ferrix; she did not hesitate in the slightest to torture a civilian; she was willing to shed bloods for her goals. Her motivation? All she wants, to the extent of our knowledge, is to advance her career, achieve prestige and power. Her ends are entirely selfish, and the path she treads is void of moral constraint.

And yet, many of us rooted for her, at least initially. Because she wasn’t a cartoon villain cackling as she revealed her grand evil plots, she was a person. A person who happened to be working for the Empire, straining against an environment hostile to her success, frustrated with her patronizing and incompetent colleagues. She was an underdog who succeeded through her diligence and stubborn persistence. She was relatable. She was human.

Qimir could’ve been much the same: a human first, and “Sith” second.

I don’t hate what they did with him in episode 6, not on principle. The show had for about five seconds done something new and interesting with the Sith that we had never really seen before: we got to witness him do very normal human things like eat and bathe. These mundane actions help lend Qimir an additional dimension beyond “Sith villain”; it makes him feel more like a realistically well-rounded person, the same way Dedra felt. It even serves to make him more frightening because he’s no longer just a monster, he’s a human monster who is mundane in many ways, who makes rational decisions, and is coldly aware of the process behind and implications of his actions.

Or, it might’ve done all that, but of course the Acolyte is the Acolyte and this attempt at presenting a complex three-dimensional human being has, so far, been an unquestionable catastrophe. The process should’ve been built up over multiple episodes, nourished by intelligent writing and stimulating dialogue—not crammed into half of a 30-minute episode, propelled entirely by stupidity and one’s base desire to suck dick. I don’t dislike the idea of a romance plot, but if you are going to do it, please for the love of the Force make it believable. A slow-burn, a gradual seduction. Not…whatever the hell episode six was. Then expand on the philosophy held by Qimir/the Sith in ways that sound reasonable and sensible, throw in a couple situations where Qimir is the scrappy underdog, and you’ve got a villain that’s more sympathetic, believable, and easy to root for.

1. He apparently was so mentally immature and bored he couldn't handle a few weeks of collecting plants and wanted to go home really badly.

2. After being mind controlled and exposed to dark side temptations, he ignored his master's commands and ran off to fight the entire coven alone.

3. After the events of Brendok, he has PTSD stemming from multiple sources (lying, murder, fighting a Jedi Wookie lol).

4. And only after 6 years the Jedi Council thought he would make a good Jedi Master? Which he shortly after decided to screw off and go into sleep mode? Or worse yet, he attained the rank while he was meditating?