Anyone who knows me knows that I am a big “Star Wars” fan. I’ve probably seen just about every single thing Star Wars has produced. I’ve even played the LEGO Star Wars video game. That’s why, when I heard that Disney was releasing a new “Star Wars” show, I knew I had to watch it.
The first two episodes of “The Acolyte” aired on Tuesday, June 4 — and viewers are already divided. It seems that while most critics love the show, many audience members dislike it.
Rotten Tomatoes gave the show a high score of 93% while the average audience score sank to 30%.
“The story, the behaviour of characters, the music, the atmosphere, all misses the mark by a mile,” said one Reddit user.
Here is my general review of the first two episodes — plus what everyone else is saying.
What is ‘The Acolyte’ about?
“The Acolyte” explores a different side of “Star Wars.” The story takes place long before the events of “The Phantom Menace,” as the Deseret News previously reported. This means that each face is relatively new. Familiar stars include Amandla Stenberg, Lee Jung-jae and Manny Jacinto, with several other actors portraying both human and non-human characters.
According to Cosmopolitan, there will be eight episodes in total, with the final episode airing on July 16.
The story focuses primarily on twin sisters Mae and Osha, who are both played by Stenberg. “They share a tragedy in their childhoods that has left them with very different feelings about the Jedi knights, who in the High Republic time frame are comfortably ascendant across the galaxy, before their later tribulations in the ‘Star Wars’ films,” per The New York Times.
Both sisters manifest these opposing feelings in different ways and ultimately go down two very separate paths.
The first two episodes feature scenes that are familiar to “Star Wars” fans: striking martial arts and lightsaber fights, cantinas filled with a variety of aliens, spaceships hurtling through space and Jedi knights training at the temple on Coruscant.
Is ‘The Acolyte’ good or bad?
Overall, I’m still not sure what to make of the show. I finished the first two episodes feeling mildly interested, but not blown away. The fight scenes were cinematically striking and impressive, but the characters lacked depth — which was aggravated by the occasional strained dialogue.
In other words, I thought the episodes were good, but not mind-blowing.
I felt that the series contained all the elements of a great plot — the variety of aliens and planets, the use of “the force,” the vivid costume designs — but the story itself felt forced. The familiar energy of the “Star Wars” universe wasn’t apparent, at least immediately.
According to The New York Times, the missing energy is “the visceral pull that ‘Star Wars’ can summon in its best moments ...” but it doesn’t present itself in “The Acolyte.” “Characters speak in platitudes about loss, grief, loyalty and revenge, and the cast mostly works down to the level of the dialogue.”
Others think differently. One Rotten Tomatoes critic said, “Star Wars hasn’t felt so pregnant with possibilities since the announcement of the prequel trilogy back in the 1990s. Even if a single show can’t realize all of those possibilities, viewers will find themselves tantalized.”
Another critic found the series “excitingly refreshing” because of the time period in which it is set.
One Forbes critic disagreed, contending that the majority of Disney’s “Star Wars” productions, including “The Acolyte,” have fallen short. “They have just enough redeeming qualities to prevent them from being truly terrible. Mostly, they’re just bland and forgettable and lacking the great charm and heroics that made the original trilogy such an iconic entry in the history of cinema.”
I plan to see the series through and watch the story unfold, because who knows? Maybe the best is yet to come. Plenty of “Star Wars” shows have defied expectations. Like Han Solo said, “Never tell me the odds.”