The Acolyte cost a staggering $670k per minute of footage and garnered over a billion less minutes watched than every other Star Wars show. How is anyone surprised it was cancelled? : r/StarWars - "Come on. Don't insult ChatGPT like that. This program can do miles better than whatever hell the Acolyte writers crawled out of."
The Acolyte cost a staggering $670k per minute of footage and garnered over a billion less minutes watched than every other Star Wars show. How is anyone surprised it was cancelled? : r/StarWars - "As the Acolyte has shown us, it's very obvious that Headland's contribution to the writing and directing of that show is null compared Lyonne's and/or Poehler's, without them, her quality control falls off a fucking cliff. Unless if she had an aneurysm between the production of Russian Doll and the Acolyt, it's quite obvious that Disney (Kathleen Kennedy if we're being honest) failed to properly vet her true talent before giving her a blank cheque."
"Just like her decision making in bringing on greenlighting Rian Johnson's plans for Episode 8 that turned into a dumpster fire that left JJ with nothing but a husk to try to salvage for Episode 9."
The Acolyte cost a staggering $670k per minute of footage and garnered over a billion less minutes watched than every other Star Wars show. How is anyone surprised it was cancelled? : r/StarWars - "'wrote movies, tv shows, had an emmy nomination,'
She participated in the writing of movies (which were average at best), and had her hand in one successful show, which was really the passion project of the main actress. Star Wars is a multi-billion dollar IP, when vetting I would expect that you hire someone with at minimum's Tony Gilroy's credentials (Cutting Edge, Devil's Advocate, Bourne Series, Michael Clayton, etc). I expect industry juggernauts like Jonathan Nolan, Peter Gould, Frank Darabont, Aaron Sorkin, Hawk Ostby, etc. Headland is not worth giving a blank cheque to for one of the biggest IPs in Hollywood, even with her current "qualifications"."
"Not sure why you think Leslie got a "blank check", there are 17 credited producers (with six being executive producers, two co-executive producers and two consulting producers)"
"Sounds like they spent too much by having 17 producers"
An insight here is that when left wingers talk about "qualifications", they are talking about positions held (which can be due to nepotism, affirmative action etc) rather than achievements. Which is why they keep claiming Kamala Harris is qualified, and that DEI hires are qualified (since the DEI hires were DEI hire-d for previous roles as well)
The Acolyte cost a staggering $670k per minute of footage and garnered over a billion less minutes watched than every other Star Wars show. How is anyone surprised it was cancelled? : r/StarWars - "'Not sure why you think Leslie got a "blank check", there are 17 credited producers (with six being executive producers, two co-executive producers and two consulting producers), seems like there was a lot oversight by Disney to me, without inside knowledge it's hard to fully know what actual power she had in the production in regards to budget alocations, having the power to say no to producers notes and that jazz. There are many reasons a tv show fails and it's not always on the showrunner, of course she signed her name on it and deserves the brunt of the criticism.'
We can infer this through multiple comments made by Headland and Kennedy. As well as certain production choices. Headland being able to hire her wife despite her lack of acting credentials and poor performance. Here Her immediately accepting Headland's pitch after a simple rough outline through an unsolicited meetup at Star Celebration that was allegedly booked through a cold email... Her saying that this Headland's personal story... In addition, we can look to Kathleen Kennedy's process in general, both Gilroy and Favreau described her involvement as hands-off/subservient throughout the first season of their respective shows. For Andor I would post a source on the Mandolorian but it's mostly relegated to rumours. If you're trying to claim that Kennedy micromanaged Headland's show, and/or Headland's creative process was hampered in any way, then you'll have to show me the evidence, because as far as I'm concerned, the Acolyte was her passion project, and Kennedy did nothing to suppress that. In other words, she gave her a blank cheque... But that's the neat part, they actually did have available, highly talented producers. See... McCarthy's TV Show credentials: John Adams, House of Cards, and Ballers. Disney promptly proceeded to drop her contract for no reason, and was sued as a result. In addition, you're seriously making the claim Disney is incapable of hiring talented and prolific writers and producers?... No one should get their chance with Star Wars, no. I fail to see how this is controversial, not wanting unproven amateurs to work on one of the biggest entertainment IPs of all time is perfectly acceptable.
'Craig Mazin never worked on a 100+ million dollar production before and worked on a bunch of average productions prior to his big hit in Chernobyl, by your hiring logic he was an absurd pick for The Last of Us tv show.'
Chernobyl is arguably the best miniseries of all time, heads and shoulders above a show like the Russian Doll lmao. Yeah, I think we should make exceptions for generational talents. If you want to make the argument that Leslie is a generational talent, have it.
Edit: lmao he blocked me"
The Acolyte cost a staggering $670k per minute of footage and garnered over a billion less minutes watched than every other Star Wars show. How is anyone surprised it was cancelled? : r/StarWars - "I don't know. When people make excuses for a show with a lot of CGI, they say, "CGI is crazy expensive!". Then when people make excuses for a show with little CGI, they say, "Practical effects are crazy expensive!". Okayyyyyy. The fact is that they shot some scenes in an old abandoned industrial plant, a couple scenes in a cool seaside cave, and some scenes in a forest that could have been anywhere. I mean seriously, go on YouTube and nearly every "lightsaber fight" fan film is shot in a forest. I don't think "shooting on location" really explains $180 million in this case. Also throw in the fact that there was no top-dollar Hollywood A-listers to pay, so I don't think the money went to actor or director fees. I think they just... hired too many rookies, and didn't give them oversight. 🤷♂️ Either that, or there's just some straight up money laundering or tax fraud in the mix."
The worst merchandising opportunity “character” in Star Wars : r/saltierthancrait - "According to Headland she had him disable the ship to give him a 'hero moment'. In fact, listening/reading/watching her interviews has only made the experience of this series worse. Update, I didn't want to subject everyone to a full interview, but here is a snippet ."
The worst merchandising opportunity “character” in Star Wars : r/saltierthancrait - "The interviews each week felt like a justification and explanation of all the things that didn't make sense within an episode. Additionally, it felt like headland was making it up along the interview.
interviewer: [...] they moved there, and then decided to create the girls, or they moved to Brendok specifically to create the girls?
headland: It’s a really good question. It’s also a backwards question because we haven’t confirmed that the witches created them. [laughs]
interviewer: [...] What can you tell us specifically about the nature of the vergence on Brendok?
headland:[...] The girls themselves are not a vergence in the Force. They needed…again, however they got here…the act of creating them was going to need amplification. [...]
interviewer:[...] Why would that make them stronger, a.k.a, “the power of two,” and not weaker if they’re two halves of one whole?
headland: The girls are guinea pigs. They’re patient zero for this sort of power. It didn’t work perfectly. [...] Aniseya could only do so much. She’s not powerful enough to create one person. The twins split, Aniseya’s power split, [...]"
The worst merchandising opportunity “character” in Star Wars : r/saltierthancrait - "The fact she explains every single aspect of her show in interviews is very off. You'll notice most writers, when asked something like "Did X character kill Y character because they hated them, or took pity on them?" They'll respond without giving a direct answer because they want the work to speak for itself. Shows a lack of confidence or a lack of how seriously she takes her work."
"It was the same thing with the Halo series, every interview turning into some long winded explanation of everything, and it gave the impression that even they didn’t understand it. People aren’t asking you to explain something because it’s fascinating, people wanna know why you would write it like that because it makes no sense."
" Halo, while flawed, is 100x better than Acolyte - and most of the SW material Disney has produced. At least the characters don't talk and act like mindless automatons."
The worst merchandising opportunity “character” in Star Wars : r/saltierthancrait - "Isn’t it crazy how much Headland has to explain to the audience outside of the show… I don’t know if she realizes if you write the script and story well, we will all understand it inside the show."
The worst merchandising opportunity “character” in Star Wars : r/saltierthancrait - "So saving a serial killer from your own boss is a « hero moment » when he hired you specifically to sniff her and find her…"
The worst merchandising opportunity “character” in Star Wars : r/saltierthancrait - "Explain how this is a “ hero moment”? By stopping Sol from capturing or killing the psychopathic murderer?"
The worst merchandising opportunity “character” in Star Wars : r/saltierthancrait - "That’s hilarious. She thinks we should consider this little rat a hero? He actively contributed to the death of Sol and allowed the Sith to continue. He is a villain. But that just goes to summarize the Headland’s twisted logic."
"It's pretty clear the perspective of the show is that the Jedi are the baddies. Still don't understand how that got approved but is been fucking hysterical watching Disney in real time realizing how colossal of a fuck up this was."
"Headland: From my point of view the Sith are the heroes!"
Meme - SirSnipeyy @SirSnipeyy: "The Acolyte apparently got cancelled due to backlash from racism and bigotry, so I ask the question. Then why is House of the Dragon still going pretty strong? Diverse cast. Non-binary lead playing a female surrounded in a male dominated political landscape… Because it’s good"
The Acolyte Is Proof That Star Wars Needs Fewer Fans At The Helm - "The problem with Star Wars is incredibly easy to pinpoint—Dave Filoni. He’s a diehard fan above all else, enamoured not only with George Lucas’ work but his own contributions, constantly finding ways to bring back fan favourite characters even if it doesn’t fit the story being told... Having nothing but fans at the helm has ripped away the core message of Star Wars as we watch a man play with his action figures instead. This is why The Acolyte’s controversial approach is so refreshing. Last month, showrunner Leslye Headland told AV Club that she wanted to hire people who “are not necessarily the die-hard, cutthroat fan” that she is to bring in a new perspective. Filoni and the other Star Wars shows could learn a lot from this approach, even if the idea of outsiders stepping into this world is seen as an invasion by a fandom who hoards their love of this franchise like it’s going out of print."
This aged well
'The Acolyte' Fans Refuse to Accept Show's Cancellation While Forgetting Its Huge Budget - "The comparison to other Star Wars series is stark. Obi-Wan Kenobi’s production costs were half at $90 million, while Ahsoka and The Book of Boba Fett had budgets of over $100 million and $15 million per episode, respectively. The Mandalorian and Andor, both highly rated, also had substantial budgets but evidently managed to pull in the numbers needed."
rachelrobinsonsupernova on X - "Reminder that people hated the first two seasons of the clone wars, yet it got 7 seasons and is beloved because of those later seasons. People didn’t like rebels season 1 and now it has 4 seasons. Y’all don’t give shows time to find their footing anymore"
The first season of The Clone Wars wasn't great, but it wasn't The Acolyte levels of bad.
The Most Expensive Animated Series In TV History - "George Lucas wasn't shy about how much he wanted "The Clone Wars" TV series to succeed. In an interview he gave during the early days of the series' first season, he ballparked that each episode's production cost around $1 million. In 2008, this type of budget per animated episode was probably unprecedented. Fans have speculated that over the course of the series, as the creators learned how to make the show more efficiently, the "Clone Wars" budget decreased"
$1 in 2008 was $1.40 in 2024, so the Clone Wars had a budget of about $1.4 million an episode in 2024 dollars, vs almost $23 million for The Acolyte. And it almost surely got a lot more views too
We never had an issue with diversity. : r/CriticalDrinker - "Their failures are blamed on the fans not accepting what they produce. Good show/movie/game = good reviews. Bad media = bad reviews. Don’t let them gaslight you. We liked Iden Versio. Gina Carano. Oscar Isaac. Danny Trejo. Temuera Morrison. The list goes on."
"Greef Karga, Moff Gideon, Cara Dune, Fennec Shand, Boba Fett and Din Djarin are all "diverse" characters by Hollywood's definition, and they were all immediately accepted by fans in The Mandalorian. If your show is well made, in good faith, and not designed to push an agenda, fans will clearly accept any race or demographic of actor."
Don't like it? Don't watch it! : r/GeeksGamersCommunity - "I can honestly say just hearing news headlines about how the actress released a dance video "clapping back" at the "haters" is all I'll ever need to know about the show. That's all anyone needs to know you can literally extrapolate EVERYTHING ELSE from just that one fact."
"Clapping back has gotta be the absolute dumbest word created lol I'd love to hear her logic about how dancing like a clown is letting the "haters" know. I saw it n was like "oh look, she's even dumber than I thought" and moved on"
Don't like it? Don't watch it! : r/GeeksGamersCommunity - "We wrote star wars for people that aren't star wars fans.... Why is this failing?"
"Also see rings of power"
Breaking News : r/saltierthancrait - "Tonight on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire:
Why was the "hit show" The Acolyte cancelled after season 1?
A: The fans are toxic. B: It is too avant-garde for the feeble-mindedness of Star Wars fans. C: It was way ahead of it's time. D: The premise is ridiculous, it looks like a low-quality fan film (minus the passion), it disrespects the source material and Disney doesn't want it to be discovered as a money laundering scheme."
"The review bombing excuse is my all-time favorite. If Star Wars YouTubers and reviews on rotten tomatoes, etc. moved the need at all then Andor would be the most watched show in television history based on the love it got on YouTube and review sites. Guess what? Didn’t make a difference for Andor and doesn’t make a difference for acolyte. Those nerfs may have a few million subscribers but it’s irrelevant."
Breaking News : r/saltierthancrait - "Want to know why I didn’t watch it? Pretty simple. Because Kenobi, Ahsoka, Boba, and Mando. Failure after failure after failure and they’re all hyped up the same way. I’m not sorry, Disney, that you lost so many fans as you bungled your way to the bottom. Not many perpetual fuckups get 10th chances in this world, even the extremely wealthy ones. You have fucking failed."
"Yep. This is it (at least for me.) Mando started out great, but has lost a step. Boba Fett had potential, but man did they drop the ball. Ahsoka was “meh.” Should have just called it “Rebels” and went from there. Terrible implementation of Thrawn unfortunately. Kenobi was boring - yes that was that one scene toward the end, but it didn’t make up for all the other issues. I REALLY WANTED to like all of these after the first few season of Mando were good. I watched them all, and they all let me down. When the Acolyte came around, I was just done. Mediocre fatigue. Andor had been the only really good SW lately."
"I think people didn't like how the marketing gaslit and deceived. People just stopped trusting disney to make a good product and didn't trust anything telling them it was good because saturating media with false praise has become the status quo."
"Your first paragraph really nailed it. Every show IS exactly the same. A month or so before release is when they start with the “Toxic fans ALREADY hate this and are sending racist DMs to the actors!” which is followed by the “You’re not watching it the right way if you hate it, shame on you” articles. And ultimately the mean fans are still responsible for the show being canceled"
"Mando is a depressing case because the first two seasons were good and then they supremely fucked it up"
Breaking News : r/saltierthancrait - "I love this mentality.
Bro, did you watch [Enter Name of the Series]
Um yeah, but after episode six I kind of lost interest and stopped watching.
Whaaat? Tf are you talking about? It's the greatest thing since [Enter Super Popular and Succesful Series Name]. Come on, give it a chance. It gets better!
Geez... Okay, if you say it, I might try again. Where does it get better?
Around season 3. But season 4 is absolute masterpiece!
Are you out of your mind??? I'm not wasting 25 hours of some shitty writing to wait till series hits off! GTFO of here, man...
Screw you bro, you don't know what you just lost, fucking hater!"
"That's the same as the people who say, "Oh, you have to give this comic series until issue #10 to see if it gets good..." Um, what? I don't owe you a year to get your ideas together and get your crap going. If it's not compelling reading pretty much from issue #1, then I stop buying. Where does all of this entitlement belief come from??"
Breaking News : r/saltierthancrait - "You know the show is absolute garbage when we all forgot Mae’s opening lines to the show were “attack me with all your power!! And does a stupid wannabe kung fu stance, all table side where a waiter would stand and take your order….so fucking cringe. And stupid writing."
Breaking News : r/saltierthancrait - "And no matter your opinion on inclusivity, it’s a niche market that wants to watch a lesbian sci-fi witch collective’s mama drama. I’m not saying people shouldn’t be challenged with new and interesting characters and storylines. I am saying that if you focus on just that and shout it at people, while also forgetting to include some cool stuff that appeals to EVERYONE, yeah they may peace out and grumble. And that’s before you fuck up by ignoring and rewriting canon."
"It’s not as though lesbian space witches were not already a thing in Star Wars - we have the Night Sisters of Dathomir. No, these were different lesbian space witches with their own poorly-explained but apparently much-maligned ideas about the Force."
Breaking News : r/saltierthancrait - "I didn't even realize she had feelings for the padawan girl until the villain pointed it out after killing her. Like.. good job with that onscreen chemistry. The other same sex couple, might as well have been divorced, kinda shitty co parents? The only person that had actual emotions... was Sol. Who was the one person you're like "hey buddy, you're supposed to be like a serene pool of emotional control. You keep making Anakin faces though" And then you have this Master Jedi who apparently exists in a perpetual state of indestructible meditation because he has such control over the force. Yet, apparently he's still in emotional 15 years later because the defeated some witches actively trying to kill them? Tried so hard to like this. It's so gd bad"
Breaking News : r/saltierthancrait - "Why is Disney shitting the bed so often?"
"Well when you have an almost monopoly on the industry, why bother trying"
"If they keep shitting the bed this much that monopoly won’t hold for much longer."
"I’m just amazed when people, including grown ass writers, haven’t seen Star Wars in 2024."
"They're the kind of people who still spat on the 'nerds' for liking anything while mainstream culture got past that 10-15 years ago. No wonder they can't connect with a modern audience - they are uncurious and backwards."
"To be honest it seems like the comment you responded to would work as a direct answer to this question. Actively choosing to have people work on Star Wars who avoided ever watching it - and telling them to keep avoiding it - is exactly how you shit the bed on a Star Wars project."
"This is a very simple answer. In the 80s, the industry simply pursued whatever was popular. Top gun spawned a million "iron eagle" style knockoffs. Terminator spawned a million alien robot knockoffs. ET spawned Mac and me. Indiana Jones spawned a hundred indy wanna-bes. Die hard spawned the phrase "die hard on a.....". Studio execs simply followed the money to what was popular. But not today. John wick was massively successful. Maverick is one of the biggest movies ever. Where on the John wick knockoffs? Where are the maverick style reboots? Crickets. Why? Because the 2020s execs don't follow the money. They only want THE RIGHT MONEY. from THE RIGHT PEOPLE. they literally would rather the movie fail then have to "pander" to the people they hate. Kathleen Kennedy doesn't make content for millions of people. She makes content for an audience of about 200: her peers that she meets at parties and events. No one claps you on the back and tells you how virtuous and brave you are for making John wick. Disney content isn't about the audience. It's about the people MAKING THE CONTENT. The actual story is irrelevant. It's about how brave and pure and virtuous the creators are. Because look at this show they made, isn't it brave? Same with the audience. The acolyte super fans, all 57 of them, don't care about the content. They care about themselves, and what good people they must be for watching such a virtuous show. If I watch this show, I MUST be a good person, right?......right?"
"This is the point exactly. Leslie H was like “the acolyte is my story.” That’s great for her, but LGBT (insert appropriate pronoun) make up less than 10% of the US population. I think a lot of people are reaching the point where it’s getting really old when almost every single movie has to have a non-Caucasian female actress in the lead role in a country that is still 60% Caucasian. Snow White isn’t even white in the new movie. Like for fuck sake it’s that horrible to be white? Disney is radicalizing people that were previously not invested in this issue at all."
Meme - "DON'T LIKE? DON'T WATCH IT!"
Normal person: "OK"
"THE ACOLYTE DEAD: SEASON 2 NOT HAPPENING CONFIRMS VARIETY"
NPC: *upset*
They’ve officially reached “Godwin’s Law” levels of cope and mad. : r/MauLer
'The Acolyte's Amandla Stenberg Got Thrown to the Wolves - "Well, I’ll tell you what Lucasfilm isn’t doing. Backing up their creatives when it matters most. Here’s the nitty-gritty: Andor, which is an absolute masterpiece, did not have stellar numbers and cost more than The Acolyte. I’m even old enough to remember that Star Wars fans called Andor “boring.” However, it had a second season baked in from the jump. The Acolyte did not have that courtesy, and it was forced to sink or swim as everyone ignored that the water was full of Nazi sharks that hate women... There’s a reason why actual TV critics have been lamenting the cancellation of The Acolyte. It finally pushed the franchise in a new direction by speaking directly and authentically to female fans for the first time... it needs to give new perspectives a chance to grow instead of retreating to the same rote pew-pew-pew bullsh*t every time some nerds get scared of cooties or put on a Klan hood"
Clearly Disney needs to burn money to speak to "female fans" (of which there are very few)
Disney just killed The Acolyte - what went wrong? - " It's been fascinating to watch. Not the show itself, which proved to be car-crash viewing, but rather the entire discourse surrounding the show. Everyone involved was only ever on the attack. Before the show aired its creators and stars came out guns blazing. After it aired its critics and haters retaliated in kind. There was no common ground. Only new fronts to battle on week after week after week. The show's star even fired off a rap diss track at the show's detractors halfway through the season. This amateurish effort can be considered less of a clapback and more of a war crime against music... what went wrong? It's almost a case of pick your poison - which, in one of the show's more ill-advised plot points, a Jedi does when he commits suicide. As one of many New Zealanders impacted by suicide, I'm not convinced that needed to be depicted in the same show as space wizards and a walking gopher in overalls. The Acolyte was at pains to be the 'dark' and 'edgy' Star Wars show for 'cool' adults, but its attempts at being bad-ass only ever ended up looking try hard at best, or laughably cringe at worst; Ã la the third episode's chanting witches. In theory, a Star Wars series told from the villain's perspective is an interesting idea. One successfully pulled off in various Star Wars novels, comics and video games. But The Acolyte was poorly executed at every conceivable level. From the bewildering, borderline nonsensical scripting to the show's weird pacing, average acting and lousy costume design. There are very few things you can point to as good about The Acolyte, bar its fight choreography. Disney spent an eye-watering NZ$292 million on the eight episodes of the show's first season, ending on a double whammy cliffhanger that introduced a beloved character and a long-awaited villain in its closing moments. This grand finale, which was a spectacle of ridiculousness and irrational character choices, was the lowest-watched closing episode of any of Disney's Star Wars shows. People turned off The Acolyte in droves during its run and not even the pull of Yoda could bring them back. Under Disney's stewardship Star Wars, once a pop culture juggernaut, has been pulled into a black hole of public disinterest. It desperately needs a momentum boost to escape the gravitational force that's reeling it in... Facing this trend of dwindling audiences, Lucasfilm needs to course correct. And quickly. It will be interesting to see if they can. The bigger question is whether the cancellation of the show signifies a period of self-reflection and refocus at Lucasfilm or if it was an unemotional, purely financially-driven decision and it remains business as usual. That answer won't become clear for a while. But it's a perverse irony that it took the death of The Acolyte to finally offer Star Wars fans that faint glimmer of a new hope."
Kaguya’s Top Gal on X - "Took 300 million dollars for Disney to discover space lesbians don’t sell"
Meme - "What do these people have in common?
Q: What do these people have in common?
A: Even with all of the unfair hatred, extreme ridicule and public shaming for an acting role they played in a fictional story...they never released a diss track!...
*Macaulay Culkin, Margaret Hamilton, Billy Zane, Lena Headey, Jack Gleeson, Ryan Reynolds
Anne Hathaway, Ben Affleck, Robert Pattinson, Ahmed Best, Tom Felton, Hayden Christensen
William Atherton, January Jones, Tony Goldwyn, Anna Gunn, Paul Johansson, Jake Lloyd*