5.5/10 trailer for me. Feeling pretty neutral about the show in general, but remain a little bit intrigued. It didn’t match the tone of the poster though…? I don’t know, I’ve watched the trailer 5 full times and something felt a little off or shallow with the trailer itself, but it certainly wasn’t bad. For some reason, the lighting/presentation of the sets still doesn’t fit with the “feel” of a George Lucas set/lighting/background/costumes. I know they can’t really perfectly replicate it with the differing technology nowadays, but there has to be a way to resemble the grand scale of a Lucas set piece. Do the shots still feel… flat or like they’re missing something? Even with this, I am interested to learn more about the show and will follow with cautious optimism.
This is a great question. This is the kind of thought that makes me want to make a Star Wars fan film, even if it was more of a proof of concept film, that was just about trying to replicate that Lucas/Original Trilogy look. There may be fan films out there that do this but I feel like I’ve never seen it. Instead of things looking clean and modern, go for the aesthetic of an older era.
Since I watched this Acolyte trailer, I’ve actually been thinking a lot about how why most of the time Disney Star Wars doesn’t “feel” like Star Wars, and one thing that I concluded was that I think that the production teams are totally missing that the eras of in-universe Star Wars history need to match the real-life decades of which they were originally produced. For example, any OT Empire vs Rebels content should have a '70s-'80s feel in terms of dialect, speech patterns, hairstyles, and costumes, whereas your prequels era content should have a '90s-'00s vibe with all of those things. Everything Disney produces, no matter the placement in the Star Wars timeline, feels like the real-life present day with modern lingo and fashion. Star Wars culture evolved in universe in a different way than our world due to how George filmed the movies non-chronologically, but Disney has been completely unable to replicate that.
The High Republic should’ve tried to replicate like a 1920s America vibe, or since it appears to have a bit of Eastern influence and design perhaps a 10th-11th century Japan vibe, or just base it on some other era of the real world that gives this whole High Republic era in Star Wars a distinct feel rather than just another 2024 Hollywood replica. Instead, we get another Black male character with the modern-day “Killmonger cut”, and if you’ve read any of the other High Republic content it’s got multiple female characters (one black and one white) with the half-shaved head + combover hairstyle that modern Hollywood loves to depict “masculine” females with. These aren’t overall design choices that make The Acolyte and the High Republic era feel unique. I think without George, the Star Wars production teams have been missing the value of having the eras of Star Wars feel unique in and of themselves, as we now have Sequels content and OT content and High Republic content that all feel like ~2020 America.