Mini Series The Acolyte 1.02 - Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)

Another 8 for me, love this show.

 

Apothecary.

 

He dodged Mae's surprise attack from behind his back and instantly overpowered her. He knows the location of all the Jedi Masters Mae wants to kill. He knew the weakness of Master Torbin and instructed Mae on how to get to him. "The Jedi justify their galactic dominance in the name of peace... but peace is a lie" thats Sith philosophy and straight up a line from the Sith Code.

He also knew Osha was not Mae even though Mae herself believed her sister was dead -- that is even assuming Mae ever told Qimir she had a twin sister. Qimir would have no reason to suspect Osha yet somehow he knew.

None of that lines up with the "former smuggler" story. And overpowering a trained Force user who killed Jedi Masters in a surprise fight while unarmed is very suspicious.

Sol says Mae doesn't know who her master is and that he took great pains to hide his identity, but Qimir seems to be the one giving her directions and instructions. If he is not her master then its a huge red-herring.

 

Surprised no one’s commented on a genuine laugh out loud moment when Sol asked who is he and Qimir replies I thought he was with you. Good stuff.

 

That and the Neimodian grunting/ disgust at the Jedi arrival were the funniest moments. Followed by “Nothing, he’s…Yord.”

 

Episode 2 not as strong as the first, production value still good but not as many original designs. I can see why they would think the silent meditating Jedi was a good concept but in execution it’s dull. Mae’s fixer/scoundrel guy is a serviceable entry but hardly memorable, there’s no charm or chemistry between them. Compared to episode 1 which had a fair bit of story laid out as a setup, episode 2 doesn’t really progress anything. A little bit of exposition here and there to fill in the characters’ histories but the main plot doesn’t move forward.

Action scenes are not bad but a step down from the premiere. Overall this felt like a filler episode in a series that probably can’t afford more than one of them. I’m giving it a 6, which may be harsh considering it still looks very good, but it just felt boring to me.

 

I also preferred the first episode. The scenes on the apothecary’s planet felt especially…I don’t know. TVish. There was a sitcom-like vibe to it, at times.

 

Slow start but it got better. The core mystery is intriguing enough and they're pacing things well enough to keep me hooked.

Sol's cool and I really like Jecki. Her and Yord work well as two padawan's with a slightly competitive edge.

The score is excellent, although I was half-hoping it was going to be stylistically different to the OT/PT to reflect a different age. Korngold as opposed to Zimmer, if you take my meaning.There was more than a bit of AOTC in the orchestration and harmonic movement.

A part of me wonders whether to wait until all episodes are released and then have a binge. The only thing keeping me from doing this is I can't put up a score vote if I do that!

7/10 - very good. Kenobi level but not yet up there with the best of Mando or Andor.

 

Finding it hard to gauge the audience reaction to this show so far. Obviously there are the grubs who decided to hate it as soon as it was announced, and critics have been moderately positive overall, but what does the ordinary Disney+ subscriber think?

 

Rotten Tomatoes is getting hilarious... the critics score is an outstanding 93% certified fresh and the audience score dropped from 47% yesterday to 33%...
... if I was believing that I would start to question my understanding and lifelong passion for the seventh art... I mean I must be very dumb to enojy that eheh...
This is getting out of hand negative comments everywhere and hate... disgusting...

 

Even though on the other end it may mean that if i like it very much, audience hates it and critics like it very much... I may not be "mere audience" anymore but I must have ascended in the Olympous of recognized critics right?

EDIT: BTW they are also severly bombing Doctor Who who has a critic's score of 96% and audience is 35% too bad I cannot extract data from the RT database to compare angry reviewers because I am almost sure these are the same people for both shows...
...here again I am with the critics

 

I was hoping for a score that was much more of a departure from the saga style, ala Mando, Andor and Ahsoka. It was a bit derivative and bland, I think. More Asian-inspired would have made a lot of sense, given the martial arts stylings.

 

The audience score is definitely worthless when sites allow review bombing.

 

Theory: the vision of the Master that we see at the end of episode 1 is an illusion/projection. We know Mae can’t identify her master because of some influence and I think it’s so that she never realizes that the master is very close to her socially and physically speaking. So she could act unwisely with the illusion that she is far removed from the master and imperil herself and others should she ever act against his wishes.

 

Better than Kenobi. No logic fails and people actually die from being stabbed. Even if it's just a knife.

 

It's definitely the most esoteric thing to come out of D+ so far and I'm really curious about how general audiences are receiving it too. I know that from speaking to some of my very casual-fan friends and coworkers, the timeline-jumping of the different shows and movies can be pretty hard to keep track of and this is the biggest jump backwards yet, completely unanchored by any familiar characters or iconography save the presence of Jedi and lightsabers. Like Andor, I think word of mouth is going to end up being the biggest driver of the show's success (if it ends up actually being WoM-worthy as the weeks go by).

 

Well, yes, I’ve been saying that for years in that you should like what you’d like and really not form real opinions on something unless you have watched it

 

I never give reviews on RT and I just did because I decided I had to counter the bombing eheh
I am curious to see episode 3 and what it will bring...

 

Really enjoyed the first two episodes. I came into this show with little expectation, not in a negative way, but this is a completely new set of characters and that’s a refreshing change. Andor worked similarly with the majority of the characters being new

Is it just me who couldn’t help but think of Shrek yelling get out of my swamp when the Wookie Jedi stumbled across those two people ?

 

Oh, I absolutely agree. It reminds me of the unhinged rant I went on when people kept talking about why Darth Vader taking his grandson as a Sith apprentice was so problematic. I stood at a Q&A microphone and said that anakin Skywalker died in the light and there is an agenda to someone higher up convincing him that his legacy was one of darkness and he was never redeemed. And that’s the short story of why I punched the air in victory when I was right.

 

Most engaged I’ve been with a SW series since Mando season two. The quality jump from Ashoka to this show is absolutely staggering.

 

So far the series is off to a good start I feel like this is the closest live action Disney project done in the style of the Prequels which is great because I love the PT.

+ I was made up to see Neimodians return and they didn’t disappoint
+ Zygerrian Jedi - correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t this the first time we’ve had a species from an animated series appear in live action?
+ The shark guy, please tell me it’s a Karkarodon (Riff Tamson’s species)?

- Too many human characters that’s probably my only complaint up to now.