Spoilers Star Wars: The Acolyte [Spoilers]

[Reef]

Don't worry, if Star Wars stays true to form, in 10 years time we'll have a library's worth of wookiepedia articles telling us every little excruciating detail about any witch who was on screen for more than a second. Names, backstories, and how they're all somehow tied to a Skywalker....

 

[Zardnaar]

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.

I liked Sol until episode 7. Then he died.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I liked Sol until episode 7. Then he died.

That was the intent. He appears to be regular heroic type until we gradually learn about his past. Then that should cause us to re-examine his earlier actions. If you look back he was clearly starting going off the reservation as early as episode two, because of his obsession with Osha (and Yord, who initially appears to be a lawful stupid prig, is actually right), This is comparable to Macbeth, who is a war hero who only starts to go off the rails when he is persuaded that he deserves to be king (and who is say say Duncan isn't a bad king?)

And that might lead us to re-examine Qui-Gon, who is rather similar to Sol...

There is a nice circularity to it, since Lucas borrowed some elements from Throne of Blood for Star Wars, and that was a Japanese version of Macbeth.

 

[Belen]

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.

I would add Julius Caesar, Henry the IV, and Henry V.

 

[Maxperson]

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.

Bigger and furrier than normal Star Wars?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

For movie versions I would rate the Denzel Washington Macbeth on Apple+ higher than the Patrick Stewart version on Prime. Heresy I know.

 

[Maxperson]

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

That's true, but after the end reveal of what happened the night Osha was taken made it clear that it was pretty much all Sol's fault. It didn't make sense for meditation Jedi(can't remember his name) to kill himself over it.

 

[amethal]

For movie versions I would rate the Denzel Washington Macbeth on Apple+ higher than the Patrick Stewart version on Prime. Heresy I know.

Or for something completely different, there is the Oddsocks 45 minute livestreamed comedy version, performed during lockdown.

Oddocks Macbeth

(I'd suggest skipping the first 4 minutes of intro, but not skipping the cast intro, which takes about a minute after that)

 

[billd91]

That's true, but after the end reveal of what happened the night Osha was taken made it clear that it was pretty much all Sol's fault. It didn't make sense for meditation Jedi(can't remember his name) to kill himself over it.

Sol may have initiated the conflict by insisting on contact in the first place, but Torbin's impulsive race back because of the confirmation of the vergence precipitates the final and mass-fatal encounter. For someone as young as him, that might have been a lot of guilt, whether 100% on him or not, to carry.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

That's true, but after the end reveal of what happened the night Osha was taken made it clear that it was pretty much all Sol's fault. It didn't make sense for meditation Jedi(can't remember his name) to kill himself over it.

Suicide almost never makes full "sense" to outsiders unless it's to avoid punishment/capture, which it wasn't, so I definitely don't see that as a flaw or error.

For someone as young as him, that might have been a lot of guilt, whether 100% on him or not, to carry.

Yup. And there were a very large number of apparent deaths, and many years of lying and lying and lying to their fellow Jedi, at Indara's behest, which really cannot have helped. He failed as a Jedi and as a person, but Indara didn't let him get properly rehabilitated or fired or changed to a non-mystical role in the Jedi order, because she forced them to hush it up, allegedly for the sake of the child, but I really feel like there was a huge element of protecting both Sol and herself there. When Mae came to him, and he knew Indara was dead, perhaps he realized it was all unravelling, and he no longer had to pretend, so given this chance, he could just die and be done with it.