Spoilers Star Wars: The Acolyte [Spoilers]

[MarkB]

It has thise issues yes. I just found it more fun than say Book of Boba Fett or RoS.

Yeah, but so is staring at a blank screen for 45 minutes.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I dunno. Yes, he deliberately thrust his lightsaber into her discorporating form, but he looked pretty surprised when it killed her. I got the sense that he hadn't intended to kill her. Perhaps he was just trying to stop her from getting away. Either way, his guilt was indeed eating him up inside.

It's not uncommon for people to be surprised or immediately regretful at their own actions. You know this.

It doesn't mean that they "didn't mean" those actions. Countless people in history have stabbed or shot someone and then gone "OH GOD WHAT HAVE I DONE!", even though they very intentionally pointed the gun and pulled the trigger, or attacked with the sword/spear/dagger.

They're still murderers, they're just surprised that they were actually capable of murdering someone. Sol reactively instinctively and emotional. His bizarre and creepy greed/possessiveness towards a small girl (!!!) overwhelmed his decency and logic, and he intentionally stabbed someone who he was well aware he'd probably kill. As soon as he'd done it, he briefly came to his senses

So maybe it's, in US law, "murder 2" rather than "murder 1", but it's still murder. In the UK because we do crimes differently it might be manslaughter, but in the UK, you can be sentenced to basically the same sentence as murder for manslaughter if it's bad enough, and that's the kind we'd be looking at.

Especially as the whole thing was essentially "in the commission of a crime". The Jedi came to a planet that wasn't a member of the Republic (even if in a once-Republic system). Directly against the orders of both their direct report, and the Jedi Council, they violated their own laws and customs, and decided to a home-invasion/kidnapping of a small girl, and they were certainly about to take her across... well... more than state lines.

As for guilt, he definitely felt it, but he also gave himself infinite excuses, so I think it was just more out of control emotion freewheeling through him.

 

[Belen]

It's not uncommon for people to be surprised or immediately regretful at their own actions. You know this.

It doesn't mean that they "didn't mean" those actions. Countless people in history have stabbed or shot someone and then gone "OH GOD WHAT HAVE I DONE!", even though they very intentionally pointed the gun and pulled the trigger, or attacked with the sword/spear/dagger.

They're still murderers, they're just surprised that they were actually capable of murdering someone. Sol reactively instinctively and emotional. His bizarre and creepy greed/possessiveness towards a small girl (!!!) overwhelmed his decency and logic, and he intentionally stabbed someone who he was well aware he'd probably kill. As soon as he'd done it, he briefly came to his senses

If you ignore the dark side black smoke and the effort to turn a young child into black smoke. It could be argued that the saber attack was in defense of the life of a child.

For me, it is all just lazy writing where they really have not done enough to care either way. They did not spend enough time learning about the witches and their culture for me to care. They wrapped a "tragedy" into a lame mystery and I do not feel any sense of tragedy. There was zero reason to get invested or care about the characters in the show. The characters were largely paint by numbers to serve a plot that was weak.

There were elements that interested me and I would have enjoyed a show about Smiley Ren and his efforts for vengeance against his old master.

I was left feeling like the entire thing was a mess pulled apart by warring objectives.

 

[Zardnaar]

Yeah, but so is staring at a blank screen for 45 minutes.

From a certain point of view (couldn't resist).

Going to rewatch Obi Wan, Mando S3 and Andor. For more up to date comparison.

I suppose after 20+ years of Legends I'm used to dire star wars.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

They did not spend enough time learning about the witches and their culture for me to care.

Yeah, just look at all the backstory Shakespeare gave the witches in Macbeth!

What, there was none at all?! What a lazy writer!

 

[Zardnaar]

Yeah, just look at all the backstory Shakespeare gave the witches in Macbeth!

What, there was none at all?! What a lazy writer!

Haven't read Shakespeare. It leans into care factor. They never developed them as a tradition or individually so care factor is 0.

And then they all died.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Haven't read Shakespeare. It leans into care factor. They never developed them as a tradition or individually so care factor is 0.

And then they all died.

The point is, it is Sol’s story. He didn’t “care” about them either. So he didn’t care that he murdered them.

But I recommend trying to catch a few Shakespeare plays (it’s written to be performed, no read). It’s the foundation of a huge amount of English literature, it’s not only The Acolyte that draws on it extensively.

 

[Belen]

Haven't read Shakespeare. It leans into care factor. They never developed them as a tradition or individually so care factor is 0.

And then they all died.

The witches in MacBeth were a plot device. The witches in Acolyte were central to the story as Mae and Osha came from that community.

They could have increase runtimes to do more backstory.

I did not really care about Sol either. He was a bit more developed and well acted but I struggled to find any reason to care.

The characters in Acolyte had little depth and then they died.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The witches in MacBeth were a plot device. The witches in Acolyte were central to the story as Mae and Osha came from that community.

Mae and Osha are not the main characters (at least for season 1). It’s Sol’s story, and Sol knows nothing about them - important plot point.

They could have increase runtimes to do more backstory.

The runtime would have been (roughly) fixed from the start. They had to fit the story into the space available, not stretch it to be as long as possible.

I did not really care about Sol either. He was a bit more developed and well acted but I struggled to find any reason to care.

The characters in Acolyte had little depth and then they died.

Exactly. There purpose was to die, so spending significant time developing them would have been a waste.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Exactly. There purpose was to die, so spending significant time developing them would have been a waste.

Yup. We're not supposed to be agonising or hand-wringing over the deaths of most of these characters.

But I recommend trying to catch a few Shakespeare plays (it’s written to be performed, no read). It’s the foundation of a huge amount of English literature, it’s not only The Acolyte that draws on it extensively.

I would particularly recommend Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, The Tempest, Othello and Romeo and Juliet as the plays of his that have probably been most influential on drama (not just Western drama either) and the English language. It is wild how much of what we say and how we say it basically originates with Shakespeare. Even just seeing 2-3 of them can make a real difference to one's understanding of drama I think. Really helps to see them on stage performed well I think, but that's not something everyone has easy access to. I say this particularly because Hamlet can go very easily from fascinating to kind of dull depending on the quality of performance. Macbeth is rather more robust - it's a lot harder to screw up and rather designed for scenery-chewing (I saw a really fun performance of it at The Globe last year, with the witches as three men in crime scene tech outfits - sometimes with gas masks - and Estuary accents, which worked bizarrely well!). A lot of the movie versions are, like, at least acceptable. Better than nothing! Romeo + Juliet was certainly more compelling than any stage take of the same I've seen.