Watched the premiere last night, I think I called it pretty well to my expectations. The set design, color palettes, and feel of the worlds exceeded what I saw in marketing, I was pleasantly surprised with the environments, VFX, and characters for the most part, but there are indeed some glaring issues holding it back from being great. I think it will end up being a fine show, but unfortunately, Star Wars does not need fine. In fact, I would say fine hurts Star Wars at this point. They need big wins to restore some brand image. Is it fair to place that much pressure on The Acolyte? Probably not, but it’s reality, something has to come out to unify the fanbase if we want to see Star Wars stay at the forefront of the mainstream.
Why do we want that?
I made a number of different points here, so I’m not sure which one you’re asking about. Assuming the final sentence about Star Wars being at the forefront of culture, I think when it does that it’s proof of its outstanding and well-liked content. Star Wars has gone through many different periods of being a cultural phenomenon and it’s always produced great content in those eras. As a big fan, I want that to return because it means good shows/movies/games/stories and increases the probability of getting new and better content in the future.
The audience reviews for the Acolyte are very low so far. I disagree with a lot of what’s being said against the show, but overwhelmingly negative waves of reviews aren’t good no matter which way you frame it. That doesn’t bode well for investors pulling the trigger on future High Republic era shows or an Acolyte Season 2. Even if the criticisms aren’t fair and aren’t a direct critique of the Acolyte itself, but are instead a general protest against Disney, the money movers don’t make that distinction. They see: “Acolyte got bad reviews and had bad word of mouth online, it didn’t make enough money, scrap related future projects” compared to “Acolyte got great reviews, positive reception on social media, got us x # of new Disney+ subscribers, give us a season 2”.
I want Star Wars to be good/stay good. I think the Acolyte premiere was good, but a lot of people don’t (again, much of that is for alternative reasons, but money talks). I’d personally like Disney to focus on projects that have a higher chance of unifying the fanbase and possibly bringing Star Wars excitement into the mainstream of culture once again. I think the Acolyte is intriguing, but it’s not the project that will do that. Skeleton Crew is not going to do that. The Rey movie isn’t going to do that. Even Andor brings in only a segment of fans and won’t do that. I think a very faithful Old Republic adaptation story would (original Tales of the Jedi/KOTOR comic series), a post-RotJ Legends Luke animated show would, live-action Clone Wars movie with Hayden/Ewan/Ariana would, Darth Bane trilogy novel to film adaptation etc.
Maybe some people enjoy Star Wars becoming a bit more niche and having a split fanbase? If they do, I wouldn’t hold it against them if they are happy with how things are going and like the majority of content that’s released. But I’d like to see a return to widespread excitement. What project do you think would do that?