The Acolyte
Stream on Disney+
Episode: 8 thirty two to forty two minute Episodes
Rated TV-14
A hundred years before the Empire the galaxy is experiencing a time of peace, but it is about to end. A mysterious fighter trained in the force is hunting down Jedi Masters and killing them. This starts an investigation that could lead to discoveries that will havefar-reachingg implications for the galaxy and the Jedi order.
Themes:
The Jedi Order, the Galactic Republic, revenge, LGBTQ, murder, painful memories, mystery, peace, witches, tests, conception, secrecy, twins, conception, masters and pupils, the council, anger, death, acolytes, honor, following orders, intentions, trust, motherhood, love, anger, accidents, cults, politics, the force, power, and loss.
Language:
“See you in hell…” is used in episode eight.
Stuff to be aware of:
LGBTQ - One character is mentioned as having, “mothers.” There are two female characters that talk very closely, and one rubs the others face romantically. One character asks about another if an alien, “Is he, or they, with us?”
Violence - Typical Star Wars fighting. A woman is stabbed in the chest by a throwing knife, bleeds, and dies. One character drinks poison and dies. One child starts a fire in a room to kill another child. There is a room full of dead people. A large bug-like creature gets chopped in half by a lightsaber. There are several dead Jedi in episode five. While several Jedi fight the villain some are seen being stabbed by lightsabers. Dead Jedi are seen lying on the ground multiple times. There is a fight scene where a Jedi Wookie scars up a young Jedi’s face. In episode eight a character is force choked to death.
Scariness - There is a creature that looks like a starfish that is attached to a man’s mouth. Some of the alien species look a bit freaky. A little girl’s eyes go black and she mentions “I’ll kill them all.” A child has to escape a room on fire. In episode, four there are some large bug-like beetle creatures that attack the group and there is a mysterious bad guy with a scary-looking mask. In episode five the villain is in most scenes and his presence is meant to be intimidating and scary. A character gets carried off by the bug-like creatures from episode four. In episode seven, some characters get possessed and their eyes go black. There are also a bunch of characters who chant and sway with black, pupilless eyes.
Sexual - A man undresses and swims in a pond. Only his legs and bare chest are seen. He tells a female, “if you’re not going to join me can I put my clothes back on.” Be the end of the season two characters seem to be romantically interested in each other and hold hands in a final scene.
Overall:
The setting is really neat since we don’t have any shows or movies set during the time period in betweenn the Old Republic and the original movies. There are some good fight scenes and some great special effects, but this show has been a letdown story and character-wise . It was a mess from start to finish, but more on that later.
As far as families watching it goes, outside of the normal Star Wars violence, aliens, and creatures there isn’t much visually that would be more intense for a child that has watched the Star Wars movies. However, depending on the exposure you want your child to have to LGBTQ+ themes this may be one you choose to avoid.
Before I start listing all my opinions, I will say there are some spoilers below. You’ve been warned. While this show had some awesome fight scenes and it was amazing to see how a kyber crystal turns red with the hatred and anger of its wielder, the story was all over the place. Many of the character’s decisions often made no sense. Here are my thoughts in bullet points.
The story seems to be designed around making the Jedi look bad. Having an agenda and basing the whole story around it is never a good idea. Is this a commentary on organized religion being bad? Since Disney acquired Star Wars they have done a great job of taking our beloved Jedi and making them stink and look bad. Well done Disney.
There is something about the lighting and the costumes in the show that make this look like a cable television show.
No matter how bad the writers try to make Sol look bad it doesn’t work. The witches have been in many a Star Wars story at this point. They are not good guys. If a witch was turning into black smoke and making her and a child disappear wouldn’t you intervene? Sol was protecting children from a dark side witch cult, I can get behind that. Mistakes were made, but all the lying and coverups seem unjustified.
The writers seemed to want to create a story in which you were not sure who to “root for,” however this was not well executed. This idea made for a very confusing story. I found myself not liking any of the characters. Are we supposed to root for the good guy who went bad?
All the covering-up that takes place in the story and the covering-up of the covering-up doesn’t make sense and is confusing.
In later episodes there seems to be a big deal made about Mae and Osha not being twins, but being the same person. This was not explained nor did it make sense. At the same time, does it matter?
The characters that end up going to the dark side and the characters who came away from the dark side did not feel warranted or earned. It just felt like what needed to happen for the creators to tell their story.
Vernestra is the real villain by the end, but some of her actions make no sense because we likely don’t know all of her crimes, but why did they bring Yoda in? Are we going to deconstruct him and make him someone who covers up Jedi crimes? I don’t like where this is going. Is Yoda going to be part of the reason the Sith came to power?
With Darth Plaguies making an appearance and children being created from the force it seems we are heading into how Anakin was created. This is annoying because the big draw of the High Republic was to tell stories that could stand on their own and not be linked to everything else that had come before.
Sol getting force choked seemed weird and unneeded. I think it was supposed to be edgy and tense, but it didn’t work.
The actress that plays Mae and Osha has only one or two expressions and sometimes this hurts the emotion that needs to be conveyed with loss, turning to the dark side, and hatred.
Bazil sabotaging Sol’s ship makes no sense.
Qimir and Osha leaving Mae and wiping her memories makes zero sense. Why not take her with them? If we get a season two maybe the writers wanted to easily separate the twins putting them in the opposite spots they started in?
I guess some of the things mentioned about could be explained in season two, but a few sentences of dialogue could have fixed some of these issues.