There’s so much fear, hate and suffering surrounding the Internet discourse of The Acolyte that it’s tempting to let this review fall to countering arguments rather than critiquing the show itself. It would be much easier to review without all that noise and to be fair it would also be much easier to watch and enjoy.
The Acolyte has its flaws, but perhaps surprisingly they’re not the same flaws that The Internet is crying about.
About 100 years before the events of The Phantom Menace, a group of force-sensitive witches raise two girls. Things are a bit creepy and cult-like, but it’s a simple life. Until one day Jedi with noble intentions drop by and the stories of the two girls spiral out in different directions. Osha is taken in by the Jedi and Mae, presumed dead, falls in with some bad influences or “Sith” as the Jedi might call them. That’s diving ahead in the plot a little, but the show gives up on its advertised murder mystery premise in the first episode.
The show has some fantastic performances. Lee Jung-Jae as, “Aren’t you a little emotional for a Jedi?”. Amandla Stenberg gives contrasting performances for both Osha and Mae and Manny Jacinto showing stellar range (and also arms) compared to his The Good Place character. There’s a bunch of side characters of wildly varying believability and likability.
These are just the kind of characters Marvel fans (I know, bear with) have been asking for. Not so one-dimensional – there is light in the darkness and darkness in the light. A concept that has always been present in Star Wars, just maybe not to the extent where so many viewers are questioning the status quo. Acolyte sets up a world on the edge of the Prequel movies, where the Jedi are to find out they’re in the army now and their order is about to fall “down” down, while Sidiouus is offering “Whatever You Want” to Anakin.
There’s some excellent action with a new pre-sequel combat style. There’s a clear influence from Kung Fu movies with some cool-as-all-hell moments that don’t quite go full anime.
The biggest issues I had with The Acolyte were the pacing and the episode format. Some episodes are a tight combination of plot revelations and thrilling action. Others are a meandering shuffling of chess pieces getting ready for the next killer episode. We also get full episodes of flashbacks with no framing which grind progression to a halt. One other episode is only 25 minutes long and was clearly meant to be part of the following 30-minute episode. This was all exacerbated by the weekly release schedule, thankfully it’s all up on Disney+ now and ripe for binging.
I’d also have preferred a proper ending over the sequel bait and teases we do get. Doubly so as reports are suggesting that we won’t get a second season.
The Acolyte has plenty of plot twists, some surprising and some so surprisingly obvious it seems unfair to call them a twist. It was nice to get some Jedi stories free from the Skywalker Saga – in the same way that Star Wars Visions did. If nothing else this show provides fuel for countless discussions on topics from different interpretations of the Force to “How important is canon to storytelling?”.
The Acolyte won’t be for everyone but do yourself a favour and ignore the online discussions until you’ve watched the series. Form your own opinions and find your own joy.
Platform: Streaming on Disney+
Leave a Reply