The Acolyte

Episode 1 was hard to watch. Writing on this series so far is at the CW level, and toward the low end of that. The casting, or miscasting perhaps, is baffling. The lead looks too young for the character she portrays, and lacks seriously in presence. The character isn't interesting to boot. What was the thinking behind assigning her this acting task? Other characters suffer from the same mismatch problems. It's as if the characters and their actors were drawn out of a hat.

Onto other issues. Dialog is clunky. As an example during a fight, one character asks another why they are there. Answer: to kill you. If killing with excess cringe were STAR WARS canon, this would be a dangerous weapon for THE ACOLYTE.

Kung-fu action is another main theme for this series. Why? It doesn't look like STAR WARS. Could we get some explanation why the fighting style is suddenly front and center?

In sum, THE ACOLYTE is a poorly written mess out the gate, and it suffers from an apparent general lack of understanding in regard to the STAR WARS universe. Overall showrunning on this one is poor.

I love Star Wars. I grew up on the original trilogy. I can remember being so excited when Return of the Jedi previews were aired on TV and even more excited when my family and I were in the theater and the scrawl started. I like the prequel trilogy well enough. And while I did like the Force Awakens, I admit the following movies had their faults. Some pretty big ones, actually. But the acting was always pretty top notch (Anakin Skywalker being the exception).

All that being said, the acting in this series is a failure. I want to acknowledge that Lee Jung-jae was fantastic. He put this show on his shoulders and carried it all the way through this season. The exact opposite can be said for the "star" of the series, Amandla Stenberg. She is quite possibly the worst actress I have ever seen on any screen, big or small. She is not believable in any scene she appears in, regardless of the mood or tone of that scene. She has single-handedly ruined this series for me. And the fact that she has to pull double duty makes it even worse. While the characters she portrays are twins they clearly have different personalities, their lives having taken very different courses. But unfortunately for the viewer, you must interpret that separately from what you see, as Amandla plays both characters the exact same way... poorly. She is near constantly wide eyed for no discernible reason and it looks as though you can see her mind telling her that she is supposed to be expressive, but the expression looks more like constipation rather than anything going within the script.

I was excited and looking forward to a Star Wars series with an African American female leading character to drive the show. I could not have been more disappointed in the result. I'm sure they don't want to recast for a potential second season, but they should strongly consider it.

While the story itself seemed interesting enough and if you're willing to overlook some pretty glaring moments of "why would they do that?" then it's not a horrible entry into the Star Wars canon. But you really have to dig deep to look beyond the atrocious acting out in by Stenberg and a couple other cast members.

Take one of the most exciting and expansive fictional universes with iconic characters and storylines... then just tear it up without respect to its original mythos, lore, etc. That's the path of destruction that Disney has been on, save Andor, Rogue One, and to an extent, the Mandalorian.

It's sad because I'm sure lots of talented professionals worked on this. Tragically, the writing and acting is truly terrible. Special effects are great, but that's not enough to compensate for all its other flaws.

As a fan, I want to give it zero stars. Out of respect for the special effects artists, I'm giving 3.

I'm just baffled who this series is aimed at? I get that reinvention is a good thing, but the conflicting and contradictory nature of so much of this show seems almost designed to annoy people that like Star Wars. Is the play here that they are trying to alienate the current fan base and instead find a large new audience? I really don't think this can possibly work. It's really starting to feel like just making something people that like Star Wars would actually watch is something they are actively trying to avoid.

It's kind of depressing on so many levels. It's now starting to feel like the brand that Star Wars was is just not what they want Star Wars to be. When I think about the endless stories they could make instead, that would not exclude new audiences and still excite old audiences, it's just bizarre how we end up here. With such a middling show that seems to be made for an imaginary audience.

I guess the good thing about trying to alienate an audience is that eventually all of us feeling disappointment and then writing about, it will just stop caring anymore so there will be less people complaining. Maybe that's what Disney want?

I started watching this with the hope to be entertained. I was disappointed. When the Jedi said to a complete stranger "yes my child?" I knew the writing was going to be bad. The characters are forgettable and unlikable which causes me to have no interest in any of the actions of plots of the show. Only two episodes in and I decided to look at the reviews and saw 10s...these are obviously fake and it's just pathetic to see people doing this. This is horrible entertainment. The effects should definitely be better since it's easy to tell they put a lot of money into it. Instead they should've put more money into a neutral and invested writer to lead the writing department. Extreme HARD PASS. Watched the latest...wow how these horrible writers and set designers getting these jobs?