TV Series Review: Star Wars: The Acolyte (Disney+, 2024) *No Spoilers*

TV Series Review: Star Wars: The Acolyte (Disney+, 2024) No Spoilers

I can't say I was particularly excited for Disney+'s Star Wars series, The Acolyte. Not because I haven't enjoyed previous Star Wars based series - most have been fine - mostly because it's a Jedi focused story.

For me the Star Wars prequels dulled the specialness of Jedi characters in the universe. Suddenly every character was, or could be, a Jedi. They were no longer mysterious beings, you just needed a better than average Midi-chlorian count and you could be a Jedi too.

Even worse was that Jedi were supposed to be formidable fighters, yet so many Jedi characters were there to be 'red shirts', no more formidable than anyone with a sword.

So, a show where everyone's a Jedi, wasn't really doing anything much for me in the lead up to it.

The Acolyte is set about 100 years before the prequels, and begins with an assassin, hunting down Jedi who were all part of some great tragedy, many years earlier.

Investigations into who the assassin is uncovers more than anyone could have imagined.

It's fair to say, this show has its fair share of Jedi 'red shirts' too. That aside at least the key fight sequences are levelled up with more than just lightsaber duels. Finally we get to see Jedi's incorporating their powers into fights a lot more as well.

That pretty much sets the tone for what this show becomes. It doesn't seem like it contributes anything to Star Wars lore but it is filled with interesting ideas, moments, and even a couple of characters, by the end, that I, at least, would love to see turn up in another show or movie, just not a season 2 of this.

Which is not to suggest it's a bad show. All the acting performances are fine (don't let anyone tell you the acting is bad, it isn't). For me the stand out performance is by Manny Jacinto as the Stranger.

I say that because, once I realized it was the same actor who plays Jason in The Good Place, I was like wow! That's quite a one eighty turn for actor roles for him - and he's great in this new role.

Amandla Stenberg is also a stand out as Mae. In fact it is Mae and the Stranger I'd love to see turn up in something else. Again, just not a season 2 of this. Any other Star Wars movie, or series, would be great. Either of them just randomly show up out of left field. That would get my attention.

I feel The Acolyte starts out strong and then just peters out with its story. The big, tragic event, that eventually is retold and played out over the course of the show, doesn't quite live up to the weight of it being felt by the characters in the present.

It's not entirely clear if the assassin is going after Jedi for revenge or to level up as an acolyte, and everyone has a different interpretation of the tragic event based upon where they were in relation to it when it happened.

Despite this, I did mostly enjoy the series when it wasn't doing flashbacks. I don't mind flashbacks, but I think one episode is nothing but flashback, in a show that is already a 100 years in the past flashback.

The Acolyte is as good as any of the other Star Wars series (except maybe Andor - and that had some frustratingly slow episodes too). If Jedi are your thing, you'll see some great use of Jedi powers during some fight scenes. Ultimately you're likely to finish up wondering what was this for?

Except for the final few moments of the last episode it doesn't seem like it's a prequel to anything. It could easily be a stand alone story that doesn't require a second season at all.

Which is why I'd rather see the two best characters just turn up in something else. I can't see anyone really praying for a season 2 of The Acolyte.

Comments

I'm Confused About Why People Prefer to Say Discombobulated?

D iscombobulated. Is a word that I think someone rediscovered about three or four years ago (maybe more because the pandemic years have thrown out my sense of time) and now I hear it a lot. It's not a new word by any means, but when I started hearing multiple celebrities using it in everyday sentences, I actively had to look up what it meant. Define it with as many synonyms as you like but essentially it's just another word meaning 'confused'. Seinfeld Quotes: Quotes.net The words are pretty much interchangeable. He was discombobulated by too many choices. He was confused by too many choices. My confusion is the length of the word. It's unnecessarily long with too many syllables. There are many other words that mean confused, and therefore also mean discombobulated. Most of them are shorter and easier to say. So why not just say 'confused'? Perhaps discombobulated sounds more intelligent, maybe? Hawaii Five-0 Quotes: Quotes.net I've noticed it gets us...

The Princess' Butterflies - Using an AI Image to Video Generator to Animate Art That Started as a 23 Year Old Rough Pen Sketch

B ack in October of 2023 I used Prome AI's Sketch Rendering feature to color a 23 year old rough pen sketch I did of a princess watching butterflies, sitting next to a waterfall in the forest. You can read more about that in my previous article, The Princess' Butterflies - Using an AI Art Generator to Color and Enhance a 23 Year Old Rough Pen Sketch The three images I used to create my final image (bottom right). Notice how closely the AI has followed my line art sketch (top left) but in the first image (top right) has misinterpreted the waterfall as some kind of large tree stump. Prome's render of the artwork was pretty good but I did end up creating a composite image myself from two of the best renders, to get my final image. Since then AI Image to Video has come a long way, particularly when it comes to creating animation from artwork and maintaining the art style for the whole generation. AI still does much better with turning photographic images to video but I found ...

Second Sunday Skateboard Session Ep 2 - Some Improvements

TET heelflip - looking better but still not a land. A s of writing this I've stuck to my plan of filming myself skate every second Sunday. By the time this post goes up I will have three episodes done. As part of that goal I am also skating more between episodes, about every second to third day for an hour, practicing Braille's Skateboarding Made Simple, Volume 1. That said, I'm not posting these videos here immediately after they're posted to my @TETLife YouTube Channel because I only post an article once a week, and that would make every second article a Sunday Session post. These posts are really so I can add some additional thoughts after the fact, and, of course, because this blog is about all things that interest me, of which skateboarding is one of them. In episode two I had intended to speak to camera more than I do but my driveway is right next door to my neighbor's shed/workshop, and I get a little self-conscious if I'm not too sure whether he's th...

Boom Crash Opera Born Classic But Not Again

Boom Crash Opera are an Australian Band that reached the peak of their popularity in the mid to late nineteen eighties. They are a band that I knew about at that time but was never really excited by until they released their ill fated double album Born and Born Again in 1995 (Album cover pictured). At the time of its release I was very much into emerging Australian musical acts and was also looking out for new sounds that were different and had kind of a futuristic/electronic sound. Artists that I was buying at the time included; Swoop , Nine Inch Nails and Pop Will Eat Its Self . As well as a really interesting release by David Bowie, the concept album, Outside . Born was a fairly radical departure for Boom Crash Opera (BCO). The first single, Gimme , was often compared to the sounds of Gary Glitter, particularly his single, Rock n Roll part 2 , because of the pounding drum loops. Watch the video below. My favorite single from the album is dissemble which probably went now...

Australian Federal Election 2025 - The Australian Democrats (Please Like Us Again) and The Greens

Image: Reve AI T here's not much to be said about the current Australian Democrats other than in 2025 Australian election, in May, they'll be out there hoping they win a seat... any seat... 'please like us again!' The Australian Democrats For just over two decades, from the late seventies onward, the Australian Democrats were the third most important party in the Federal government (if you don't count the National party since they've been on that coalition ticket with the Liberals for as long as I can remember). In fact, once I moved away from the Labor party, they were my top pick until the party slowly imploded in the early 2000's from a series of unfortunate events like leaders defecting to other parties, and a highly publicised incident of drunkenness, bullying, and abuse from a male party leader to a female colleague. It's been two decades since then (and that guy's with the Greens now)... please like us again! That aside, the party is still t...

The Australian Federal Election 2025 Could Be a Win For Independents

Australian Democrats founder, Senator Don Chipp, embodied the role of minor parties holding the balance of power with his quote of "keep the bastards honest." Photo Manipulated Caricature by TET. A s of writing this, the actual Australian Federal Election date has yet to be announced, as our Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, attempts to keep the focus on the fallout of severe weather events in Queensland, however it's looking likely that some time in May is the safest bet. Despite this, all parties have been hard at campaigning, with smaller parties, and in particular, conservative independent candidates, seemingly rallying together to make sure people know how much influence they can have just by preventing the two major parties (Labor and the Liberal/National coalition) from having a majority in either (or both) houses of parliament. They're also doing their part to make sure voters finally understand that preferential voting works in everybody's favor over one ...

Making an Effort to Be a President Trump Free Zone - Final Rant (I Hope)

I hope the American people, who voted for President Trump, get the full experience of what they thought they voted for along with what they're actually getting. Now may be a good time for them to learn to speak Russian because if World War Three does break out, it's not beyond possibility that it'll be the USA and Russia against the rest of the world, as Trump appears to be emboldening Russia to dig in on their attack on the Ukraine. China, may opt to stay neutral, or even join forces with the rest of the world because they've been quietly winning an economic war with so many countries, they may not care so much about the USA. Especially since President Trump wants to bring manufacturing back to America and impose tariffs on every country exporting anything to the USA. After that fiasco meeting President Zelenskyy had in the Oval Office with President Trump I've pretty much had enough. I'm not writing about what new dumb ass thing Trump's doing this week. ...

TET.Life (The Extraordinary Tourist Life)

Search This Blog