Trying to post on my phone is pretty frustrating, but they put out another poster for The Stranger today.
The main problem with the twins in the Acolyte is that, to me, they haven't seemed much more than a MacGuffin to get to the Jedi vs Witches vs Sith stuff - what exactly am I rooting for as an outcome, that Mae is punished but isn't a Sith pawn, that Osha forgives her sister and learns the truth?
I'm not sure if it is poor acting or they just haven't asked her to ramp up the emotions that much for either Mae or Osha, but both characters seem to have a bit too much of an "oh, this is happening" affect in what should be a highly stressful situation - their reunion, Mae's quest and attempt to get out of it, Osha's presumed anger about Mae's actions, etc. I guess I'd like to see more rage from Osha after the whole thing with Mae as a child resurfaces, or more conflict from Mae about what she is doing, to fully embrace the characters.
Questions I'm pondering: Did Mother deliberately create twins or was that an accident? If deliberate, was she trying to Balance the ThreadForce with one dark and one light child? If you can create children from scratch, why stop with one pregnancy, esp if you're not the one that has to be pregnant?
That last one probably goes for Palpatine as well, now that we have reasonable confirmation Anakin wasn't a creation of the Force itself but probably Palps and RoS regrettably confirms his interest in multiple clones.
I was under the impression the pregnancy was very difficult to achieve so not something they could whip up any time they felt like it.
@fac I think I'm way more into the plot than the acting, except Qimir really demanded attention. But I plan to re binge when the finale comes out, maybe I'll view the acting with new eyes.
Also, only one of the twins actually completed the 'Ascension' ceremony, right? What exactly does that entail for Mae that it doesn't for Osha? Is that where the forehead tatt comes from?
Ohhhh yeah, I think you're right. I can't wait to binge the whole thing again in a couple weeks. I watched the latest episode twice already.
Plllffftt... I don't care about this show. I genuinely don't think there's much in the way of bad acting here, I want to be clear about that. This show just feels very much like it was approached from the perspective of having an idea, but no characters. Like a fantasy writer that does a TON of world-building and then writes a shallow, terrible book entirely as a vehicle for the world-building they did. Yeah, the fourteen pages of infodumping about your magic system was really cool, but it would be way cooler if there were any characters in your book that I cared about.
That's how I feel here. There's some cool moments. Some nice spectacle. Stuff any SW fan would enjoy seeing on screen. But I don't CARE about any of it. If they cancelled the show right now and said 'no more episodes' I would legitimately not care. Not even a little bit. That's not a problem with acting - but it's a huge problem with the writing. Again, because the entire show seems focused on the ideas they want to explore that the characters are kind of just incidental to.
I do want to give mad props to the choreography in the latest episode, though. There were too many hard cuts, but I attribute that to probably having fairly complex choreography and not enough time for the actors/stuntpeople to learn it all. OR the problem is just the same problem a lot of shows/movies have where it's simply the modern convention to film a fight scene and then chop the ever living shit out of it so it looks like total garbage.
But man... whoever put it together deserves more work. Employ this person (people) for all future Star Wars projects with lightsabers. Holy shit. Maybe the best lightsaber fight in all of Star Wars, from a technical standpoint (or tied with the finale of Kenobi? I'd have to watch that one again). Sithy McSithpants' technique was so good. Tight movements, keeping the blade on line most of the time. He and the Jedi did very little of the swirly twirly, no stupid flips and other nonsense. If we're expected to view lightsabers as laser-swords, used similar to how you'd use an actual sword (and that is definitely what we're conditioned to expect) then I can't see too many ways to do it better. The person that choreographed this fight has a pretty good understanding of how swords move and -why- they move that way, and employed that knowledge pretty damn well. THRUSTS. We don't see nearly enough thrusts in other saber fights.
Everything just looked so crisp, clean, and tight. I was honestly blown away that something this good was in a show I was otherwise SO disinterested in. Grade A stuff. If you ever wonder what a lightsaber fight should look like, or what's wrong with other saber fights in other films and shows - watch this fight and really pay attention to how everyone is moving. More of this, please.
I'm coming around on this show, thanks almost entirely to Episode 5.
Those fights WERE great, but I wish they'd just skipped the red shirts. It just felt weaker knowing they were there just to die. I couldn't even tell you if any of them had names.
There's also the "conservation of ninjutsu" trope if you know what that means.
On the other hand, lose the kebab maneuver, so maybe it was worth it.
Those fights WERE great, but I wish they'd just skipped the red shirts. It just felt weaker knowing they were there just to die.
I think having the red shirts really helped as I thought that meant the main cast were armored, especially the order they did it - that they had established the bad guy as a threat but, as usual, the good guys we cared about were unscathed.
@fac i agree with that. He got to show his brutal efficiency, but he wasn't finished when we all expected him to be.
Yeah, I totally understand the instinct to want to just see more direct competitive combat and not be interrupted by 'and this guy popped on screen just to die.' But I agree that it's crucial to see the bad guy taking those guys down with almost zero effort. It establishes how dangerous your villain actually is, AND establishes how good your hero is because he's holding his own against this guy that is WASTING other people. You can't establish these things with a stricter 1v1 because there's no frame of reference to determine if either guy is any good unless you can actually watch a fight scene and KNOW someone is good at fighting, which most people cannot do.
@fac, that's a good point, and I did go in having been spoiled. So maybe there was a little impatience in waiting for him to finish with the Must-Dies.
On the other hand, I already knew with 99% certainly that those probably not-named dudes were going to die before any spoilers. It's the exact opposite of plot armor and equally flat.
I still hold that you could've gotten the same effect by having a shock Yord death and then getting us with Jecky when our guard was down. It wasn't so much that a named character died, but that two did, and that shock doesn't need an unsuspenseful mook wave.
However, kebab. So I'm still torn.
Honestly, when he ran through the one that isn't Plo Koon, I was a little shocked. But I didn't spoil the show for myself. But that alone made me realize, somehow, these guys aren't walking away from this. Even still, the two names were huge shocks. I wouldn't change one thing about that episode.
I actually had my first discussion about this show with someone not in my circle. At a party on Saturday, I was as you guessed wearing a Boba Fett shirt and a guy asked what I thought of Acolyte just so he could rant about how bad it is. But most of the complaints were stuff stated in here too. Some was "well, just wait for the end to see", or "ya that was Osha's perspective but wait for them to show what REALLY happened." But it's also fun how many complaints mean the movies suck too. Sith talks to a minion then ignites his saber for no reason? Solo. Group of Jedi are within feet of a sith and can't sense him? Nearly every Palpatine scene in the prequels.
Sithy McSithpants' technique was so good. Tight movements, keeping the blade on line most of the time. He and the Jedi did very little of the swirly twirly, no stupid flips and other nonsense. If we're expected to view lightsabers as laser-swords, used similar to how you'd use an actual sword (and that is definitely what we're conditioned to expect) then I can't see too many ways to do it better.
This episode was a little tedious. Why didn't Bazil tell Sol at the start? Unless Sol is the ultimate Big Bad of this show and this was the reveal. Also FACE TATTOO.
And then Smilo Ren and Osha - I'm not saying Manny is a fount of charisma, but compared to his scene partner, he's like Shakespeare. Almost everything she did was just... HEAVY STARE.
Kept waiting for Vernestra to kill the second wave of Jedi. Loved her off-screen ADR line of "let's prepare these bodies for burial" which was definitely an afterthought. I also kept waiting for her to re-animate the main characters. Those two got paid a series regular fee to just lie dead. That's an insane waste of money.
It's really hard to tell what this show is until the whole is revealed. Which keeps me ready to watch the next one, but also... I don't care, either?
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