Mini Series The Acolyte 1.05 - Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)

Right, but generally, the clearer and simpler something is, the fewer varying interpretations there are. For example, Mae saying “I am turning myself into Kelnacca so we can team up against my master” is clearer than “I’m turning myself into Kelnacca.” The latter will receive much more varying interpretations than the former.

And bank robberies are far from clear or simple. They are really confusing and shocking events, often with masked people involved. So that’s not the best example of a clear situation.

 

I am quite well-versed in Star Wars lore. Although not so familiar with this era. Qimir weirdly portrays himself as some sort of victim there. While it is something sith might very well do "I'm weak so weak" it seems bit weird meta-commentary after all this anti-jedi sentiment of this show earlier. Jedi kidnapping children, being hypocrite and now "suppressing freedom". By simply not allowing murder spree of their kind. Sol makes sense here but Qimir doesn't.

His entire plan makes no sense. If he thinks it's 100 years too early why to train Mae to kill the jedi in the first place? His entire plan makes no sense from sith point of view. He shouldn't have started all this murdering jedi if all he wanted was to train acolyte.

He did so in secret without jedi intervening at all before she very publicly started killing the jedi. Entire premise of this show just makes no sense from the sith point of view. Mae could've easily killed jedi in secret but she went to public places made a big deal about it and messed up everything. It would've been easy to kill jedi on mission by luring them our to wilderness. She should've started with Kelnacca who was already alone in the jungle. Entire attack on Indara in the noodle house just makes no sense if the plan was to avoid publicity of the sith order to begin with (while it was a cool scene otherwise). When that episode came out I expected that this sith has plan to become public before the grand plan. Apparently he now doesn't which makes this original setup of the show inconsistent with it's own continuity and larger canona as whole.

Unfortunately this show has premise that makes no sense from the sith point of view. Sith makes a problem to himself and complains about his own idiocy to jedi who are idiots too. But sith being the larger idiot since he trained acolyte who has no idea of how assassin works. In secret not proudly proclaiming "Attack me!" I expected that they explain this away but they don't. They create huge inconsistency in sith plan.

Oh you are right that jedi are not impregnable. And they shouldn't be. But sith being uber warrior is not exactly how they have been represented before. Never before they have taken over 5 jedi alone in canon. They were more powerful than ordinary jedi though. Since they were master level as apprentices already. Sith in Lucas movies used to be powerful and have tactical genius. In Disney era show they have become tactically inept but have been compensated with more raw power. This is internal inconsistency with original movies. If apprentice sith in movies would have had raw power of Qimir Dooku should've killed Anakin and Obi-Wan easily in front of the Chancellor, Maul should've cut down Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan instantly when he appears from the door to be on the same power level as this Qimir character. But neither of them didn't. Sure we can explain that Dooku's age and Vader's and Maul's injuries prevented them from reaching their full potential but still even as "well-trained" and uninjured Darth Maul had to fight two jedi and managed to kill only one of them in TPM. Does that mean Maul is exceptionally weak sith?

And padawan Jecki being so much better fighter than knights is internal inconsistency in this show. Unlike Anakin she is not the chosen one yet she seems better trained than her trainers. It makes very little sense. Maybe she is just naturally stronger in the Force of course so this inconsistency can be explained, but instead I would've rather watched competent jedi fighting sith than bumbling fools. I laughed at how bad the jedi were here. They were comically inept fighters.

Clearly not. Sol defeats Qimir. Were you not watching?[/QUOTE] It was insinuated that Sol used dark side against him. But true Sol and Jecki are powerful here. Yord and the rest of the fool jedi are not. This is internal inconsistency I talked about. Why other jedi, which are supposedly more experienced than Jecki are so damn bad. Kelnacca especially. He didn't even defend himself.

 

This was obviously what my original post was implying, but apparently I should have clarified that no, I don't think that all the posters in this thread are flat-earthers, so that we could rule out that possibility.

 

Gave it a nine. Jecki was worth sacrificing for the Qimir reveal, but I'm still upset about Yord.

Knowing that such a bloodbath was the intention from the get-go helps. I'm not usually a fan of senseless violence and darkness, and there were moments in the episode where I grew concerned that we would be expected to revel in all the carnage, but I needn't have worried. Everything worked to sell its story beats. Like all the best Star Wars, it walked up to the edge, glanced over, but didn't jump.

Stunning choreography, and incredible performances across the board, from one of the best casts ever assembled.

What the heck did you do, Sol...?!

 

I don’t think it is really worth discussing fighting strength of characters as if they are
Pokémons with a point based skill system. Reality doesn’t look like this and neither should film. But … I don’t think that the Sith was incredibly good. Well trained certainly, but the Jedi of this age haven’t had a lightsaber battle in a while and it clearly showed. Sol and by extension his Padawan seemed to have prepared for it a little better. Clearly he is a fighter. The other Jedi though? Including Yord? Looked like a bunch who happily had passed their advanced lightsaber class after a weekend course with Ki-Adi Mundi. Like policemen take advanced courses at a shooting range, but are no way suddenly qualified for SWAT because of it.

And I have to say I like that. Because it shows the Jedi aren’t static. There is the decentralized Warrior Monk Jedi of old who turned into a more organized an controlled version which then slowly drifted from War to Police duty. And by 100 BBY not many see a point in training lightsaber versus lightsaber. Then in the clone wars they militarize again and that is their downfall as military is a practical solution to the ultimate spiritual problem. The Dark Side. Just saying … I felt it worked. These Jedi ain’t no warriors. Sol and his inner circle clearly being the exception.

 

I voted this 5/10. Action was rather enjoyable at times. Especially duels between Jecki, Sol and Qimir.

Starting duel was real buffoonery though. Had to pause it at times to laugh at how inept fighters those jedi were and to wonder where Sol and Jecki disappeared to.

I have been criticizing this episode harshly evoking a lot of people defending the writing choices here and often even trying to deconstruct terms like "inconsistency" or "bad writing". They are what they are. Both are clearly visible in this episode. It is inconsistent and poorly written. In my opinion the worst episode yet. I was positively surprised by first 4 episodes actually. I expected this sort of buffoonery and now it happened. This series makes no internal sense. Character motivations are unclear making them uninteresting to follow and hard to relate to.

Sure we all have right to our own opinions. Both positive and negative. This show has become pawn in the cultural war raging in media and haters of this show have used all sorts of arguments to diss this show. Making it hard to say own opinions without being met with ad hominem arguments.

But setting that aside as viewer with no real interest to hate this show for political reasons I felt disappointed in this episode. I honestly expected better. I think action was alright for the most part but motivations behind it were not and how it was edited it suffered greatly from decisions they made. This episode ruined expectations I had for this show.

And no I don't hate this show because ethnicity or sexual orientation of actors and writers (I honestly don't care) but blatant inconsistency of the sith plot and motivation of the bad guys became clear now and it bothers me. It was now established that Sith doesn't want to be revealed yet. Then this whole mission to train acolyte to publicly kill jedi becomes illogical venture and makes sith self-defeating no matter how overpowerful they are in battle. (Also you cannot kill jedi with steel and laser and killing Indara with steel and Kelnacca with lasersword lol)

This is so weird how writers somehow don't realize this that their entire premise of the show is inconsistent with motivation of the bad guys. They have no reason to do what they are doing if they actually have a grand plan to destroy the jedi (as is insinuated they have) and motivation to remain secret (which they blatantly work against making their acolyte as public and visible as possible in episode 1 of the show).

I don't think witches themselves or even their ability to create life ruins Star Wars in episode 3 but it surely had same inconsistency problem when rewatching (Force is not a weapon, then using it as weapon, portraying them as poor parents yet expecting viewer to sympathize with them) but sith are even more inconsistent here. They complain about being revealed after revealing themselves by a pointless murder spree of jedi executed in very stupid manner.

It was strong decision to kill so many characters so early but still it would've made better impression if they would've been characterized a bit more. Now I noticed I don't really care of them much. Even for Jecki my reaction was almost the same as Qimir's. "Oh that was it's name?" Okay she was young and promising jedi so shame on that... anyway. I feel that she was not really a character but place holder for a character a W.I.P. and when she dies it's just that okay we didn't actually get a real character of her... too bad. Same with Yord.

In the first episode they were interesting "These could be jedi I can care about" Then their disappearance in episode 3 revealed I didn't really get invested in their characters after all since in episode 4 my reaction was "Oh these were part of the show right forgot about them..." and now they die I am like "Okay they could've been someone I cared about but I guess they are dead now so too little too late..." I guess they were okay but not that I really can miss character I didn't get to know very well.

These were my honest emotional reactions to these characters and it's not what I would like to feel. Good writing fleshes out characters quickly and makes audience to sympathize with them even in one episode. Sol is the best character of the show since he is sympathetic. Except now it seems they plan to make him the bad guy. Deconstruction for the sake of deconstruction is tiring and boring in the story. Yet this show seems to try this angle for the jedi and sith.

But they have been unsuccesful to make me question that jedi are the good guys and sith and witches bad guys. Witch convent gave me seriously worrying culty vibes and I felt like children are not properly cared for. Especially when mothers complained more about Osha's lack of motivation to be witch than Mae's violent and psychopatic tendencies. Sith appears lunatic mass murderers who want freedom to kill everyone they see fit.

It's a shame since more morally grey stories of Star Wars would've been interesting to see. Like Andor for example. But this show had potential to do something interesting but it doesn't live up to it's potential. That's what I feel sad for.

 

Most Jedi featured in canon are more experienced then Luke in the Return of the Jedi, Anakin, Ahsoka, Ventress, Savage Oppress in the Clone Wars or even Obi-Wan in the Phantom Menace. But being part of the Yoda > Dooku > Ectera master apprentice chain is more important. No reason to be surprised if Osha and Jecki, who had a kickass master are gonna prove closer to their master in kicking ass then other Jedi.

 

The Acolyte is badged, and is written as a part murder mystery/whodunnit, so one of the obvious consequences of that is that motivations/character choices are often purposely left unclear/opaque as to create, or support, a wider sense of 'mystery'. So ultimately one has to separate the deliberate facilitation of mystery from the unintentional consequences of characters that seem to behave irrationally or suspiciously (which is very common in the genre).

Ultimately the success of this is largely dependent on the payoff to the mystery i.e. the 'reveal'. To date, I think this is by far the most interesting SW TV series, even if not technically the best... and given I found the ST to be wholly inadequate on all counts and the existing TV series content hit and miss, I'll take The Acolyte and deem it a success thus far (for me).

 

Not sure why anyone has an issue with Jecki holding her own against Qimir for a minute before being triple stabbed as though a Padawan "who isn't Anakin" could never fight back when there's literally Obi-Wan in Episode I...

 

A hugely entertaining episode. I feel obliged to add a qualifier though... I am a big fan of Godzilla (this ties in, sorry!) but there are certain Godzilla movies where, having watched them a time or two, I tend to fast forward through the "human scenes" to just get to the cool monster fights, and I feel that this episode is a bit like that. LOVED the light saber battles. LOVED 'em. Jecki rocked! Some really good fight choreography. Could watch that all day, and will doubtless rewatch this episode even if, ultimately, I never rewatch the series. Purely on the basis of seeing some major lightsaber duels, a great time.

I'm not sure the characters' motivations and actions hold up to scrutiny, even with some "head canon". At times Qimir is trying to kill Mae and at times he isn't. Mae was going to surrender but now she's not. There's a lot of that inconsistency, which has come up before.

Some quibbles - When Yord jumps back in the fight and temporarily shorts out Qimir's saber, Sol has all kinds of time to get back in the fight but for some reason stands back giving Qimir plenty of time to kill Yord. The lag was, for me, very very noticeable.

When Sol is about to kill Qimir, and stops because Osha cries out, I can buy it. It's a quick, spontaneous thing. However, to simply stand back and allow Qimir to rearm himself because the Jedi don't kill unarmed opponents? Uh... no. Did Qimir say "I surrender"? Did he give up? Nope. He literally rearms himself in seconds. The idea that a Jedi code of chivalry requires you to step back in an ongoing fight every time your opponent drops their saber or blaster, so they can rearm themselves and continue to threaten you and others just doesn't work for me. Sol should at the very least have Force-grabbed Qimir's saber. (That moment raised something discussed way back in ROTS days...what does it mean to imprison a Sith Lord? How do you go about it? They are, for all practical purposes, a super villain - super reflexes and speed, telekinesis, mental powers, in some cases Force Lightning).

How does Sol not sense that Osha isn't Osha?

This is less a complaint than an observation - not sure how to go about it without ruining what was, I am sure, meant as a surprise, but when I saw the Jedi's sabers shorting out I thought maybe this related to something I vaguely recalled reading a LONG time ago, about how red sabers could sometimes short out the "cooler" sabers used by the Jedi. Took me a bit to see that the shorting was related to Qimir's helmet and "bracer". From what I have been seeing online, a fair amount of confusion from viewers re the apparently super rare metal that can do what we saw. Again, not sure how you explain that in the context of the show.

So, for me, a great episode because of the extended fights. We'll see how I feel when the story resumes as, with the end approaching, it still appears to me that the series is going to paint the Jedi as dumb and corrupt, but we'll see.

PS - Probably of zero interest except to me (sorry) but last year, when my wife, dog and I went camping, we got swarmed at night by some very aggressive light-sensitive hornets. Fortunately no one got stung, or carried off , but lacking lightsabers there was a mad dash for the tent. Well, two, as the hornets were still hanging around at 3AM. As soon as I saw the "bug scene" that came to mind.

 

Well it is true that there is still 3 episode to explain motivations of the character better but I don't see how they can redeem Qimir as consistent actor anymore. He is extremely dumb in his actions and while he has ultimate power in battle his skills of planning are extremely poor. Maybe they establish manipulator behind him Sith master. This is the only hope now. But if he remains the main bad guy of this show it is pretty doomed in my eyes.

Gonna watch the rest and say what I think honestly. This show has so far been better than BOBF and Kenobi but is about to fall on their level. Ahsoka was also disappointment to me. It's sad how bad Star Wars tv is now. Mandalorian had promise in first two seasons after that only Andor has delivered.

 

A truly succinct defense of mediocrity.

But joking aside, I do think this got the balance of tension, stakes, consequences and purposefulness quite right.

 

Just got around to watching the episode, and honestly, that was heat. Didn't think the show had that in it. Sick lightsaber fights that I've been craving since Revenge of the Sith, and Darth Qimir is very entertaining. Unfortunately the weak point of the episode was the drama between Mae and Osha, which is not great since they're the main characters. 8/10 for me.

 

It's hard to deny that my interest is mainly for Sol, Qimir, and the now deceased Jecki and Yord.

Mae at least has clear desires: at first wanting revenge and then wanting to reunite with Osha -- although what she wants now with Sol is anyone's guess.

But as others have pointed out elsewhere, the main character Osha doesn't really want anything interesting yet that drives the plot. She seems to have wanted to return to life as a mechanic with Pip, but that desire isn't strong enough to stop her from being dragged into everything. That means she's been a very passive character.

And now she's being dragged off with Qimir. I wonder if her discussion with him will finally unleash a desire that will strongly affect the plot/events.

So while the actress is doing a good job, the writing is failing her so far.

 

How is Mae hiding her forehead mark?

 

It seems to me that Mae and Ohsa are just drifting with the events.

 

Osha, sure but Mae has definitely made most of the events happens. It's her revenge quest that is the plot, the Kelnecca death and the Sith revealing himself to the Jedi is the one exception. This parent trap situation too is entirely one of her making, Qimir is just capitalising on it.

 

Is "that was heat" the new "that was fire?" Or does heat mean a little less great than fire? Just trying to understand what the kids are saying these days. Thanks. And if you're on my lawn, get off of it.

 

Old man yells at clouds,

 

Huh. So maybe in the end Sol will be killed and the green Jedi lady will blame everything on Sol?

 

I've likened it to the Jedi Council version of the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, and I'm totally down for that. It makes Qui Gon & Anakin all the more tragic.

 

YES! Exactly! Mae giving up her quest for revenge against the Jedi once she learns that Osha is alive massively undercuts the idea the idea that she's killing Jedi because she blames them for the death of the coven. Mae is willing to give herself up to the Jedi once she learns that Osha is alive. That, again undercuts the idea that she was killing them because of what they did on Brendok.

Taking Osha's place also doesn't make a lot sense given that just a few hours before she was trying locate a Jedi, Kelnacca, so she could turn herself in. I guess after Osha rejected Mae, Mae flipflopped AGAIN and is back on the "kill the Jedi" train because she's probably going to blame the Jedi for turning Osha against her? Man...that's just way too many flipflops in a VERY short amount of time.

Though I like how badass Darth Qimir is I think it would've been more impactful if the master was revealed to be Mother Koril. They established that Mother Koril didn't like the Jedi invading her coven, they showed her playing mind tricks with a Jedi, and her coven were killed and her daughter Osha was taken away from her by the Jedi, or so it seems. All of that is great setup/motivation for her to be the master who wants revenge against the Jedi.

As it is, with Qimir all we get is a generic, "I'm Sith so I want to kill the Jedi so I can be free to be a Sith!" That's not as personal as Mother Koril's motivation could've been and as such it's not as emotionally compelling. It seems Qimir also has a personal beef with Sol that we'll learn later, but man, we're five episodes into an eight episode show and they still haven't fully established what the bad guys motivation is.

On a related note, what the heck was the whole point of Qimir trying get Mae to kill a Jedi without a weapon? What lesson is that teaching and why? At this point I don't really care that much and I wouldn't be surprised if we never learn. That said, I also won't be surprised if Qimir says that the way to kill a Jedi without a weapon is to get them to betray their own beliefs. While this show has done a clear job at showing that the Jedi are very easy to kill with a weapon I suppose Qimir might reveal that making the Jedi lose their faith is a better way to kill them?

 

He isnt the main bad guy... that's almost certain... and I wouldn't be surprised if that were David Harewood.

I think it does make sense... I suspect, given that Osha has effectively rejected Mae, that Mae is now on a quest to expose the Jedi (which is why she's concealing her identity). I'm assuming that Mae believes she can win Osha around if she exposes what the Jedi did on Brendok, and in order to do that she either needs to get to Coruscant, or she's going to try and trick Sol to reveal the truth en route to Coruscant. Either way, that's the direction of travel IMO.

 

I suspect the next episode will do a lot to tell us what Mae's motivation is in leaving with Sol. Maybe she is wanting again to kill him. Maybe she just wants a quick ride as far away from Qimir as quickly as possible. Maybe she has a plan to win Osha over that requires her going with the Jedi.
I also think there is a chance that Mae is hoping Qimir will turn Osha against the Jedi, and make it easier for her to recruit her sister when they meet again.