Thread by @sawyeurism on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "I broke down crying about The Acolyte tonight. I've been grieving privately for days and I needed to let it all out. This show means more to me than words can say. It made me feel seen as a female Star Wars fan, and as a woman who is taught by society to hide her rage. I grieve for the show, for not knowing if I will ever know what happens next, for the characters, and for the cast and crew who put their heart and soul into it. I grieve for Leslye Headland, who was brave and bold enough to tell a different kind of Star Wars story. I grieve for my friends and peers who felt represented by this show in ways they've never felt represented by Star Wars before. I fear that the fandom will cease to exist, that this show will be forgotten, and my sincerest hope is that we will rage on as proud fans of The Acolyte for many years to come. I love The Acolyte. I always will, no matter if we get a continuation of the story or not. I'm completely gutted that this decision was made, and I hope that whatever executive made this decision sees that it was the wrong one. And no, I do not care to hear that you think I'm a crybaby. This is my truth. These are my feelings. #RenewTheAcolyte #SaveTheAcolyte"
These are the same people who go on about "white fragility"
Weird. When people who care about good writing and canon point out how shit Disney Star Wars is, they're told that it's for kids and they're idiots for caring so much about it
Leslye Headland Claims That The Head Witch Turning Into An Ashy Dementor Was Actually Her "Transforming Into The Force" - "Not only does Aniseya transform into this wraith, but she begins transforming Mae as well. Later in the episode, Koril, another one of the witches, is able to use this ability as well... This is just another corruption of Star Wars and more proof that George Lucas was 100% right that the current people running the Star Wars ship at Lucasfilm do not understand Star Wars and certainly do not understand the Force. Lucas stated at the Cannes Film Festival, “I was the one who really knew what Star Wars was … who actually knew this world, because there’s a lot to it. The Force, for example, nobody understood the Force.” He added, “When they started other ones after I sold the company, a lot of the ideas that were in [the original] sort of got lost. But that’s the way it is. You give it up, you give it up.” As for how he defined the Force, Lucas explained during a writers meeting for Star Wars: The Clone Wars, “The only way to overcome the Dark Side is through discipline. The Dark Side is pleasure, biological, and temporary, and easy to achieve.” “The Light Side is joy, everlasting, and difficult to achieve. A great challenge. Must overcome laziness, give up quick pleasures, and overcome fear which leads to hate.”"
'Bone Tomahawk' Producer Claims 'The Acolyte' Showrunner Leslye Headland Used To Be Based And "Would Have S**T All Over The Acolyte For Its Stupid Gender Motives And Dumb Physics" - "Sonnier, who also produced Run Hide Fight and Terror on the Prairie posted, “The Acolyte makes me sad on many levels. Star Wars is awesome. Was awesome.” He continued, “I discovered Leslye in a 15 seat theatre on Santa Monica Blvd back in 2007. Like Greta [Gerwig], I locked arms with this woman and forced Hollywood to pay attention to her. Leslye was so frickin’ based back then.” She would have s**t all over The Acolyte for its stupid gender motives and dumb physics like fire in outer space,” he added. Sonnier then stated, “Last saw her in 2017. And she was still her old self. But her reboot of Heathers (co-starring an even younger Brett Cooper !!!) soon got cancelled. Very publicly for all the wrong dumb reasons. And it really shook her spirits. I saw her lean into modern victim mentality more with Russian Doll on Netflix, and really no turning back from there…” He then speculates she got woke in order to be accepted by Hollywood, “Hey look, we all get older, we all gotta pay the bills, and the world cracked. I get it.” “But it is just sad to see someone I managed for over 8 years, and cared so much about become the very thing she and I would mock mercilessly for a decade,” Sonnier concluded. Headland made it clear she is indeed a proponent of woke ideology now and claimed she felt sad that people reject queer ideology... She then added that she was the one who was indeed sad because her show was being dismantled, “It makes me feel sad that a bunch of people on the internet would somehow dismantle what I consider to be the most important piece of art that I’ve ever made.”... She also addressed critics of the show describing the lesbian space witches she introduced in the show’s third episode as lesbian space witches. She said, “They’re in a matriarchal society. As a gay woman, I knew it would read that their sexuality is queer, but there also aren’t any men in their community. So a closeness between the two of them would be natural. It seemed plot-driven.”"
Showrunner Leslye Headland Claims Osha Killed Sol In 'The Acolyte' Because He Was Imposing "Benign Sexism" On Her - "In an interview with Collider, Maggie Lovitt asked Headland, “What’s so interesting about that moment, where Osha kills Sol, is how much is conveyed even while he’s choking on his words. Also, and maybe this was my impression of it, but my first thought was, ‘He doesn’t even give her the agency to make this choice herself because he’s accepting his fate.’ It just adds so much more insult to injury. You can’t even let her get a satisfactory kill because you’re like, ‘It’s okay.’ It’s so good!”... “The daughter has to surpass him in some way,” she explained. “She cannot stay a little girl or an adolescent or young adult. She has to, at some point, say, ‘I reject what you have told me I need to do to make you proud, to follow in your footsteps.’ She has to do that.”... Headland appears to be confirming that the entire show is about her own personal experiences rather than any kind of universal experience between fathers and daughters. She’s actually affirmed this in the past. In an interview with The New York Times, Headland stated, “I have a very strained relationship with my youngest sister, and I feel like one of the reasons it is strained is that we both see each other as the bad guy.” “And if I was going to tell a story about bad guys, it seemed to me that the place to start should be a familial relationship where one person is adamantly convinced of her correctness and the other person is also adamantly convinced of her correctness,” she continued. “We don’t speak. I think this will be a surprise to her.” Interestingly, later in the Collider interview, Headland provided more evidence to this theory. Lovitt commented, “I think that’s what makes villains so compelling because there is that little piece of every writer in the villains, kind of pushing an idea that they have harbored within them. The villain is a great proxy for getting those feelings out.” Headland responded, “Absolutely. I very rarely put myself into the protagonist because I think the protagonist has to be the protagonist. They might have a sprinkling of me, certainly Osha and Mae, the family conflict, the switching of sides, being really certain that you know one thing, the betrayal of the father, the rejection of the fraternal protectionism, and saying, ‘I am now my own person.’ That stuff I definitely relate with, but The Stranger is my shadow self, for sure.” In a previous interview with Collider, Headland also revealed that Qimir is an avatar for her."
More of feminism's puerile contrarianism
'The Acolyte' Showrunner Leslye Headland Explains Why She Views The Sith Villain As An Avatar For Herself - "what Headland is referring to is what Qimir tells Master Sol in the show’s fifth episode when Sol asks him what he wants. Qimir responds, “Freedom. The freedom to wield my power the way I like. Without having to answer to Jedi like you. I want a pupil, an Acolyte. But this one went back on our deal. She exposed me. So, now I have to kill every single last one of you. I don’t make the rules. The Jedi do. And the Jedi say I can’t exist. They see my face, they all die.” This moment in the show was one of the few compelling moments that felt true to Star Wars. It’s because the idea of freedom she is talking about is in reality slavery to passion something the Sith do indeed engage in, and it is indeed wrong to do. Author Patrick Deneen notes this idea is found in liberalism. He explains, “The basic presupposition of liberalism, as I understand it and I think as the tradition of political philosophy and theology would understand this, is that liberalism is ideally about the completely and truly free human being. Freedom in the modern sense. Freedom from any kind of obstacle or that which prevents us from achieving what it is we wish, what our will would desire.” Deneen then details how this idea contrasts with virtue, “Of course, this is in contrast to the classical and the Christian understanding of liberty, as you know well. … And that for much of American history, certainly for much of, of course, Western history, even if that modern view wasn’t predominant there was a kind of practice that came alongside its more ancient understanding,” he detailed. “And those practices were basically practices we would think of as the practices of virtue. In other words, the capacity to be self-limiting and learning to be self-limiting, which, of course, is very deeply in the Aristotelian tradition, very deeply in the Christian tradition.” He continued, “But when your definition of liberty becomes the freedom from or the freedom to do as one wishes then those older practices and even institutions that taught us a kind of self-limitation, those now have to be either eliminated or changed, redefined.” This idea of freedom that is contrary to virtue is perfect for a villain, and it’s not the first time we’ve ever seen it (think Brave New World). However, given Headland sees Qimir as an avatar for herself, she tries to twist this objectively evil ideology to make it somehow good or at the very least “morally grey.”"
YouTube Personality Grace Randolph Turns On Lucasfilm's 'The Acolyte,' Says Episode 7 "Was Awful" After Claiming Criticism Of Show Was Hate Speech - "Randolph’s about face on the show is quite dramatic. Back in June after the first two episodes premiered, Randolph was calling the majority of people criticizing the show “grifters.” She wrote on June 6th, “I think it’s funny that anti #TheAcolyte people are yelling ‘SHILL’ at anyone who likes it. Yet the hate is largely being driven by people who are making money off of it – aka ‘GRIFTERS.'”... Randolph was still singing the show’s praises in the lead up to the fourth episode... In fact, in her Episode 6 breakdown, Randolph was continuing to sing the show’s praises"
'The Acolyte' Finale Viewership Is 41% Below 'Ahsoka's' Finale And Over 50% Below 'Andor's' Finale - "Data from Nielsen reveals that The Acolyte’s finale viewership was 41% worse than Ahsoka’s finale and over 50% less than Andor’s finale... Of note, the show’s two episode premiere had 488 million minutes watched according to Nielsen. That means that total minutes watched between the two-episode premiere and the season finale declined by over 30%. And remember, Nielsen does not just factor in individuals who watched the finale, it factors in all episodes watched for the entire week. That means it factors in individuals who binge watch the entire season. So, even with individuals binging the entire eight episodes the show still had less viewership than the two-episode premiere. One can only conclude that the show saw people rapidly abandon this show after watching the first or second episode... When comparing the show to more recent Star Wars releases, one can see just how poorly this show performed. As noted by X user NowItsKnown, the show’s finale performed worse than every single live-action Star Wars show released on Disney+ before it including Ahsoka, Andor, Obi-Wan Kenobi, The Book of Boba Fett, and The Mandalorian... As pointed out by NowItsKnown, these piss poor viewership numbers for The Acolyte explain why showrunner Leslye Headland was begging people to watch the show and take part in social media campaigns in order to get a second season greenlit."
Obviously it's sexism that Andor got renewed but not The Acolyte
New Viewership Data For 'The Acolyte' Confirms Star Wars Fans Are Abandoning The Franchise - "On top of this, X user NowItsKnown also points out that Andor released on a Wednesday while The Acolyte released on a Tuesday. That means that The Acolyte had an extra day of data collection during its premiere week compared to Andor... It’s abundantly clear that viewership for Disney Star Wars shows on Disney+ have fallen off a cliff over the last year."
'The Acolyte' Has Big Discrepancies in Rotten Tomatoes Score & Viewership Data - Here's Why - "Screenrant’s analysis, albeit on a small sample, suggests that a significant portion of those reviews are AI-generated, essentially bogus, and not genuine critiques. Moreover, the sheer volume of reviews surpasses that of all seasons of ‘The Mandalorian’ combined. Does this imply that ‘The Acolyte’ has more viewership than ‘The Mandalorian’ overall?"
Are Male Fans Responsible for 'The Acolyte's 14% Rotten Tomatoes Score? Kathleen Kennedy was Prepared for It - "‘Andor’ stands out as one of the best ‘Star Wars’ shows, currently boasting a 96% score on Rotten Tomatoes and an 86% audience score. Despite featuring strong female characters, ‘Andor’ presents them in a more nuanced and developed manner compared to ‘Star Wars: The Acolyte.’ There’s also the recent release of the ‘Fallout’ adaptation. Despite being primarily female-led, it’s been widely praised as a successful video game adaptation and one of the best in the genre’s history. The show currently holds a 93% Rotten Tomatoes score and an 89% Audience score. The demographics don’t explain this success, as the Fallout franchise traditionally has a much larger male fanbase compared to female fans. Similarly, ‘Furiosa,’ a recent ‘Mad Max’ spinoff starring Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth, has garnered high ratings from both critics and audiences. While not as financially successful as hoped, it has been well-received, particularly by the predominantly male fanbase... its initial viewership numbers were notably lower compared to ‘Ahsoka,’ another female-led project with respectable scores. Perhaps next time, PR teams should study the marketing strategies of successful projects like ‘Furiosa’ and ‘Fallout.’ It might be wise not to alienate your core audience while attempting to deflect criticism onto them for weak storytelling and mediocre plots."
MAC on X - "Each #DisneyPlus #StarWars show season finale draws lower viewership than the one before. Not including #TheMandalorian S3 finale, but resuming with Ahsoka's. #BookOfBobaFett-885 Feb 22 #ObiWan-860 June 22 #Andor-674 Nov 22 #Ahsoka-575 Oct 23 @wdwpro1 @ValliantRenegad @KinelRyan"
Meme - Loyalists of the Galactic Empire: Somehow returned: "'Our enemies are small, insignificant, and utterly incompetent. But also extremely powerful and dangerous'
NPC: *upset*
NPC: 'You're a worthless, vocal minority, and SW doesn't need you' *chip being removed*
NPC: 'The Acolyte got cancelled and it's all your fault!' *click* *chip being replaced*
NPC: *upset*"
Meme - *James Franco First Time*
*Acolyte Fans upset by the cancellation*
EU Fans: "First time?"
Meme - *Soyjak with "I *heart* science" t-shirt* "YOU TOXIC HATEFUL BIGOT, ITS YOUR FAULT THEY CANCELED THE ACOLYTE YOU PIECE OF SHIT, I HOPE YOU FUCKING DIE YOU TOXIC FASCIST FUCKHEAD I HATE YOU PEOPLE SO MUCH I HOPE YOU ALL DIE VIOLENTLY, HATEFUL PRICKS!"
The Acolyte: Amandla Stenberg Says Cancellation Not a 'Shock’ After Fan ‘Vitriol’ - "“I’m going to be transparent and say it’s not a huge shock for me,” Stenberg continued. “There has been a rampage of vitriol that we have faced since the show was even announced, when it was still just a concept and no one had even seen it. That’s when we started experiencing a rampage of, I would say, hyper-conservative bigotry and vitriol, prejudice, hatred, and hateful language towards us.”... writer CT Jones addressed the “backlash of racism, sexism, and online abuse” that “seems consistent across all Star Wars projects — most heavily targeted at leads of color.”"
The usual excuses. Weird how the modern audience never shows up, when you'd expect that they would want to piss the "bigots" off
Stenberg: "That’s when we started experiencing a rampage of, I would say, hyper-conservative bigotry and vitriol, prejudice, hatred and hateful language towards us.” 🙄 : r/saltierthancrait - "Disney Star Wars to its audience:
Disney: "You're haters!"
The fans: "We're not, it's the way the show is written. There are lots of plot holes. Maybe you could..."
Disney: "Nah, you're haters."
The fans: "We're not, we just think the show could be better. Perhaps if the characters..."
Disney: "And, you're definitely racists."
The fans: "Really, the plot makes no sense. She wouldn't do that because it contradicts..."
Disney: "Sexists too."
The fans: "Oh for ***** sake, why don't you listen, you IDIOTS! PERHAPS YOUR **** SHOWS COULD BE BETTER IF YOU JUST OPENED YOUR EARS! "
Disney: "Well, that just proves our point. You're all angry, rude and aggressive, We need to call out this behaviour. BIGOTS.""
"Disney: *commissions another shitty show. "This one is for the fans!""
"Using the exact same formula as the last, and the exact same excuses after it inevitably fails."
"Dear Disney, We really like the show where the lead character is Mexican, and another major character is a Puerto Rican woman. But for some reason you pump out garbage while we sit and wait years for season 2. And if you wouldn't have taken the show we also REALLY liked, where we had an Emmy winning, internet daddy, Peruvian protagonist and an Emmy nominated black antagonist, and instead focused on some BS cult and an adhd yoda, then maybe we wouldn't be so salty."
"everyone loves Rogue 1 (female lead) and Andor (Mexican lead, lesbian couple). And fucking Saw Gerrera, everyone loves Saw."
Is there a technical term or trope for the problem with how Acolyte and Last Jedi are written? : r/saltierthancrait - " "badly" or "crap" aren't wrong per se, but they're not exactly specific and it's not exactly conducive to discussion. Anyone can just call anything crap. The main problem I can see are that they will not commit to an internal reality. Because it's NOT real, it doesn't have to pretend that it IS real. Doubly so because there are fantasy and science fiction elements. It's very post modern (not that that term is very specific) in not admitting a larger picture. Whatever is happening now is happening now and that's the only thing that matters. Under normal or even bad writing for example Chewie is loyal to han. It's as much a part of him as his fur. If Chewie is betraying han you know its a set up. But under this style of writing, there is no reality, so if someone thinks it would be cool for chewie to betray han, in it goes. It's entirely plot driven with no other interplay or consideration. The writing extends to ignoring real world physics (the rocks are on fire... in spaaace) , made up physics (The holdo manuever. Forgetting hyper space trackers are a thing. While pointing out the hyperspace tracker someone is wearing) post modern? a complete lack of verisimilitude? Plot driven/top down writing? Is there something I can point to and say "this is the problem" without copy pasting a rant?"
"I don't know if there's a full, technical term for it, but I felt the Acolyte suffered from what we called it in film school as "and then" writing. This thing happens, then then happens, then this happens, then this happens..... And so on until the end of the film. Things just happen because they're needed to in order to advance the plot."
Is there a technical term or trope for the problem with how Acolyte and Last Jedi are written? : r/saltierthancrait - "Yeah, I’d say it’s just a style that places the writer’s point of view and perhaps agenda over any overall plot logic and internal universe logic. The writer’s ideas take precedence over everything bc disney Star Wars is about everyone’s story matters (even if it isn’t widely interesting or compelling) and deserves to be told. In such an ‘all ideas are equal world,’ we ignore the reality that some ideas are more compelling to most than others. Everyone deserves $180 million dollars to tell their story just like headland. Such thinking is absurd and perhaps why headland should have just bought some action figures and mashed them together at home instead"
Is there a technical term or trope for the problem with how Acolyte and Last Jedi are written? : r/saltierthancrait - "The Last Jedi suffers from a lack of sincerity. Not taking itself seriously almost as a defence against criticism, and taking the piss out of the audience for wanting to take it seriously. Moments of genuine emotion, be it love, terror, suspense, whatever, are undermined by a joke that referenced what just happened. "well that just happened!" being the sort of lazy punch line we are becoming used to. "They fly now?" springs to mind. There was a great video on this topic on YouTube recently. Can't bloody remember who. Acolyte has a huge problem with just unbelievable writing. Characters doing uncharacteristic things because the writer can't think of a better way to move the plot along. Characters being awful at communicating the most basic things, And leaving out key details, just so there can be a misunderstanding and the plot can move along. This happened in sitcoms all the time as it is ridiculous and laughable. There's got to be a word for this other than lazy writing. Something that explains the constant unbelievable actions of established characters that make no sense in their given context to move the plot forward."
Is there a technical term or trope for the problem with how Acolyte and Last Jedi are written? : r/saltierthancrait - "In sitcoms, TV Tropes refer to it as catching “the idiot ball” when a character has to act stupid and out of character for a plot to happen. An “idiot plot” is when a plot can only happen if every single character acts like an imbecile."
"Yeah now that I've read up on that, it fits the idiot plot 100%. None of this would happen if they weren't all making idiotic and sometimes even completely random choices. The writers are unable to make the plot happen with intelligent characters so they have to be idiots otherwise it gets stuck. A character is at most, only as smart as the writer after all."
Is there a technical term or trope for the problem with how Acolyte and Last Jedi are written? : r/saltierthancrait - "It suffers from an “idiot plot” in that the plot can only move forward because the characters are idiots. As the movie pitch series so aptly pointed out this plot can’t happen unless every character has a misunderstanding It also suffers from “and then” story telling and not “because of”. For example: OSHA is arrested, and then her ship crashes, and then she meets Sol and then he suddenly believes her it’s a murder mystery that is solved by the end of the first episode so there is no mystery The mystery of who burned down the stone monastery wasn’t a mystery it was still Mae Character motivations are poorly flushed out and Mae changes her mind like a model changes clothes Smilo Ren is not nearly developed enough as a character for us to actually care about his tragic past Darth Plagueis is a pointless key jangling cameo that does nothing to serve the plot, same with Yoda The whole thesis of the show is that the Jedi are not good but the plot and motivations are so poorly written that the execution makes them sympathetic. What would you do if a giant smoke monster started dissolving a child."
Is there a technical term or trope for the problem with how Acolyte and Last Jedi are written? : r/saltierthancrait - "There are people who profess to love it. They didn't get the memo and have no problem suspending belief and feel it's great. I think these are people who just want to be entertained. They're not worried about connections or consistency. The writing was on the level of GoT S8. Rush to get it done ASAP. It's one of the most expensive shows of all time, yet it looks like a similar budget and quality to that of BSG and SG-1. However, with that budget we could have had 4 - 12 episode (43 minute) seasons along with 4 2-hour specials. We got 1 season and about 270 minutes of show. If everything else was perfect, that kind of flaw almost draws more attention to itself. Like when I say TLJ Mary Poppins was a massive WTF moment for me. It really broke the dam. It wasn't perfect to that point, but that moment really broke everything."
Is there a technical term or trope for the problem with how Acolyte and Last Jedi are written? : r/saltierthancrait - "What your looking for is called the suspension of disbelief, link at the bottom. Basically the idea is that every story is going to have areas where things aren’t real or realistic. A most basic example is time, in real life major events can happen over months to years, a reader doesn’t want to spend a ton of time just waiting, as such a writer will condense the story telling into an unreal time frame. And in fantasy and sci-fi settings, there’s going to be large sections of unreal items like faster then light travel. So what makes it okay and not? Consistency. Basically as a writer you have to have a consistent story, if you stay consistent readers are usually willing to suspend disbelief for the story. The issue is that for every time you do something inconsistent or deus ex machina, it risks a reader stopping the suspension of disbelief, and once disbelief is no longer suspend its bad A. It means they’ll go back and judge you much harsher on things they already read B. It means they won’t suspend disbelief in the future C. They generally feel lied to and misled, as if you were trying to steal from them. So an example of this in Star Wars would be TLJ when they use a ship going into hyper speed as a weapon. The issue is that was massively inconsistent as it invalidates about 40ish years of established logic. And this was the moment most people, rather they realize it or not, got pulled out of the magic from that moment onward, nothing previous made sense and many in the audience would feel they had been deceived. Everything previous in the movie would come under much heavier scrutiny, and everything after would be as well. For the acolyte it’s a bit harder, because a large chunk of the audience has already suspended their disbelief and they’ll need to be convinced to re-suspend it(which is possible look at Andor). I’ll give a quick example, the fire in space really wasn’t a big deal. Star Wars has shown fire in space before and you could logically give it a reason, did it look bad? Yes. Was it horrible? No. But the issue is many in the audience were already suspending disbelief, and the earlier scene was kinda weird, combine that with further in the episode where they accuse the main character(who 100% had witness she was on a ship on the other side of the galaxy) of murdering a Jedi in a super bizarre fashion and yeah disbelief is suspend and a previously minor issue like the fire gets elevated"
"The fire in space wasn't a problem because it wasn't load bearing for the plot. The ROCKS being on fire on the other hand...."
"Not only were the rocks on fire, later everything seemed okay. For example, the power source/station that blew up was working well enough for the elevator. Like, did y'all forget what happened? I mean maybe that's not what actually happened, but due to the shitty writing, lack of detail, and super short episodes/overall runtime, that sure seemed like it happened."
"So… I was talking about the space fire rocks, but The point here is just going straight over heads. Yes there was a logical inconsistency there. But if everything else had been done perfectly it probably wouldn’t have mattered. Imagine everything else was even Andor level, it wouldn’t have mattered. But because they had consistent logical issues that broke the suspension of disbelief which meant every single issue became worse, which is what was being asked. That the term of his is the suspension of disbelief So yes I noticed all of that, I’m not a fan of the show, but the issue is the writing, which was bad enough to cause the audience to stop suspending belief, so that the audience would notice how illogical both the space fire and rock temple fire was"