The Acolyte (live action series set in The High Republic era) - a general discussion thread — Page 7

Some speculation about what the “Sith” said at the end of Episode 1:

The Jedi live in a dream. A dream they believe everyone shares. If you attack a Jedi with a weapon, you will fail. Steel or laser are no threat to them. But an acolyte, an acolyte kills without a weapon. An acolyte kills the dream.

Delivery was kinda awkward, but this little speech says a lot. Clearly this speaks to modus operandi of the Sith in this era. They failed to defeat the Jedi conventionally centuries ago, so instead they must find a subtler way to defeat them. While I think this little speech speaks to current situation with the show, I can also see this being a thing Sith tell their acolytes in general. During their time in the shadows, perhaps the Sith send their acolytes to do their bidding, accomplishing missions to slowly chip away at that dream.

It’s possible this whole assassination plot is going against the wishes of the Master Sith, who I’m assuming we actually haven’t seen yet. But, I wonder if the Sith are manipulating Mae to kill these Jedi in order to begin chipping away at the facade of the Jedi Order. I think the ‘dream’ speaks to the way the galaxy views the Jedi, and how the Jedi view themselves. I think it will be revealed that the Jedi hold some responsibility for what happened on the twins’ home planet, and if the public finds out about it it would be a scandal. I think the Sith may be trying to slowly sour public sentiment of the Jedi. And on the other side of things, perhaps they know this scandal will lead the Jedi to become more dogmatic like we see them in prequels, and even more tied with Coruscant and the Senate.

I also get a sense that this philosophy has involved into an actual tradition that Sith have for their acolytes. We’ve seen Mae/evil twin reach for her target’s lightsaber during their fights, and her targets have commented on her fighting them without a weapon. It seems like Mae having to resort to her blades or poison is something she’s reluctant to do. She told Qimir she is going to kill a Jedi without a weapon to please the Master, but I wonder if in order for an acolyte to earn their lightsaber (and/or officially become a Sith apprentice), they have to kill a Jedi with their own weapon. And that weapon becomes their red lightsaber.

If this is too spoilery let me know and I can hide this comment. Just thought it would be fun to speculate!

adywan said:

After being pretty “meh” after seeing the trailers, i was surprised at how much i liked the first 2 episodes. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but to me it actually feels like Star Wars, unlike BOBF, Ahsoka and the latter part of Mando. The acting & dialogue is fine, which the trailers somehow made it seem prequel level bad, but it isn’t. And thank GOD we finally have colour back in Star Wars and not that horrendous desaturated & over dark grading that’s plagued the majority of the TV shows so far. The only thing that feels a bit off to me is the ending of both episodes. They don’t seem like an episode ending. It’s seeming to be aimed at editing into one long movie that has been chopped up into episodes more than an episodic formula.

Sadly, the dark side of the fandom is ripping it apart. The usual " Woke" bullshit comments are everywhere. Slating the show because of its female lead, the fact they mentioned " two mothers" and other crap. If it’s not white male lead they don’t class it as Star Wars. Wankers. I’m so fed up hearing how Star Wars is dead, just because it doesn’t follow their narrow minded bullshit. No one is allowed to just enjoy it any more without all their vitriol. I’ve seen so many commenting on how they refuse to watch it but will review bomb it wherever possible. Then attacking fans who dare to say they like anything “Disney” Star Wars.

This show has started out pretty well. It has my interest. I LOVE the score and i think that’s one of the reasons why it feels more like Star Wars to me. It feels very Willams to me. Although i don’t mind the different style scores in things like the Mandalorian, it seems to take away something for me. The Acolyte is probably the first TV show that i rewatched the first eps in the same day.

It doesn’t help that the creators and actors go out of their way to publicly say that they’re trying to make people mad on purpose

Acbagel said:

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?

What was it with the cutting of these?

Did they just give it to the Intern or what happened? I really hope this is not a sign of what is to come.
I don’t want my movies and TV shows to feel like TikTok.

I found the dialogue somewhat perfunctory, but the style and concept excites me a great deal. I’m looking forward to seeing where this goes.

I’m gonna wait and see on this one. I just can’t count on a D+ series to wrap up nicely. It’s the show I had most hope for since that big annoucement, so I’m rooting for it.

adywan said:

Sadly, the dark side of the fandom is ripping it apart. The usual " Woke" bullshit comments are everywhere. Slating the show because of its female lead, the fact they mentioned " two mothers" and other crap. If it’s not white male lead they don’t class it as Star Wars. Wankers. I’m so fed up hearing how Star Wars is dead, just because it doesn’t follow their narrow minded bullshit. No one is allowed to just enjoy it any more without all their vitriol. I’ve seen so many commenting on how they refuse to watch it but will review bomb it wherever possible. Then attacking fans who dare to say they like anything “Disney” Star Wars.

Can I just say thank you for this. Traversing the internet, it seems impossible to avoid contact with that whole hateful eco-system and it is genuinely depressing. Just seeing someone else talk about it gave me a little sigh of relief.

henzINNIT said:

I’m gonna wait and see on this one. I just can’t count on a D+ series to wrap up nicely. It’s the show I had most hope for since that big annoucement, so I’m rooting for it.

adywan said:

Sadly, the dark side of the fandom is ripping it apart. The usual " Woke" bullshit comments are everywhere. Slating the show because of its female lead, the fact they mentioned " two mothers" and other crap. If it’s not white male lead they don’t class it as Star Wars. Wankers. I’m so fed up hearing how Star Wars is dead, just because it doesn’t follow their narrow minded bullshit. No one is allowed to just enjoy it any more without all their vitriol. I’ve seen so many commenting on how they refuse to watch it but will review bomb it wherever possible. Then attacking fans who dare to say they like anything “Disney” Star Wars.

Can I just say thank you for this. Traversing the internet, it seems impossible to avoid contact with that whole hateful eco-system and it is genuinely depressing. Just seeing someone else talk about it gave me a little sigh of relief.

Frankly, I usually avoid responding to any discussions with a ‘culture war’ aspect, but aye, well said.

I think a lot of the recent content was only watchable in Fan Edits (or might be in the future)

BoBF, Kenobi, Mando S3, Bad Batch, RoS, TLJ, Solo… It adds up and I think the damage done is not reversible.

So Star Wars will either die, be rebooted or become a more niche franchise. (Or multiple of those after each other)

Less content with less budget would probably mean more creative freedom and also force the creators to be a bit more creative and focus more on story than on action. Not the worst outcome. A reboot is risky, but it is what corporate thinking dictates when things keep getting worse. Personally, I would be ok with a new, streamlined and more coherent version of the Skywalker Saga. The mainstream might also respond to it if the last Star Wars content was long enough ago. There would definitely be backlash though and it would not be a sure hit thing.

Let’s just hope for the best. Honestly the franchise had lost me and then fan edits of these last releases that improved the material is what brought me back in. If it wasn’t for that, I wouldn’t bother with Star Wars anymore.

Acbagel said:

Vladius said:

Acbagel said:

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?

I think that reasoning is kind of circular. You’re saying that we should want it to be popular because it’s good, and it’s good mainly when it’s popular. I think it should be good first, and the popularity shouldn’t matter. Popular things tend to get worse over time because the people making it forget their roots, or someone else takes over and doesn’t understand why it was good, or the people coming in are just hopping on a bandwagon and end up demanding unwarranted changes.

In the time between 1983 and sometime in the late 2000s/early 2010s, Star Wars was always sort of “niche” to some extent and almost always had a split fanbase. Most original fans were split on whether or not they liked the EU and whether or not they liked the prequels, and you had many splits in opinion on various EU projects as well. The quality of EU stuff went up and down all the time, but it had very little to do with what average people on the street were thinking about Star Wars. The original trilogy was very well-liked, the prequels were treated as a funny oddity, and maybe your dad or your uncle or one of your coworkers was way into reading all the books and comics, and if you liked video games you had a nearly constant stream of great games coming out. But that was all. It was very decentralized, for lack of a better term.

Disney is putting out the equivalent of EU projects and expecting all or most of them to be blockbuster hits that justify their investment. Putting the quality of most of them aside (medium to awful), they’re inviting direct comparison with the original movies and prequels in a way that none of the EU stuff ever did. They’re making high, high budget movies and TV shows and promoting them out the nose at every level. Of course they’re going to come up short, even if they were competent at it.

When Star Wars was “niche” and divided and there was a book or a comic or a game or an RPG supplement you didn’t like, you just ignored it and moved on, or if it messed with another story you liked, you got mad about it on a message board like this one. Constant big budget movie and TV releases are exhausting and ultimately a more shallow experience, and there’s no reason to want them for their own sake.

If you’re talking about a mainstream view of it then your only points of comparison can be other times in the Disney era (2015 for example) because this is the only era where it has worked like this.

StarkillerAG said:

2. “It’s by DISNEY… and it’s NOT Andor?! It MUST be bad! REVIEW BOMB!!! REVIEW BOOOOOOOOMB!!!”

Well… I mean… to be fair, if you adopt this attitude, then statistically you’re likely to be correct.

Mild spoilers, obviously:

So I start watching the first episode, and the first thing I start thinking is how surreal it feels to be watching Trinity start fighting Matrix-style in a Star Wars show. Clearly there’s also some inspiration from classic Asian martial arts films here. But at least Trinity isn’t wearing black leather with sunglasses and riding a motorcycle while using the Force to freeze bullets in mid-air. The opening fight scene certainly plays with audience expectations, making us wonder when somebody will finally pull out a lightsaber. But I like how the Jedi abstain from igniting their lightsabers until shit gets real. Unlike the Prequels, where they ignite their lightsabers every time someone sneezes.

Other random observations:

• Name dropping Nar Shadaa
• Is this the first time live-action Star Wars featured magnetic zero-gravity boots?
• I’m glad the Nemoidians no longer have their dumb accent, but I hate that they speak English. I know the Prequels are to blame for this, but I hate how Star Wars has significantly reduced the use of alien languages and subtitles in favor of using accented speech to denote “other-ness” ever since Phantom Menace.
• The Nemoidians look better than they did in Phantom Menace.
• We see a fire burning in the vacuum of space but it behaves like it’s burning in an oxygen-rich atmosphere. (I tell myself to just shut up when I have such nerdy thoughts)
• I like how the Jedi don’t all wear stupid Tatooine robes.
• Coruscant looks kind of… I don’t know, low res? I’ve always wanted to see a modern depiction of Coruscant with state-of-the-art CGI, but none of these Disney+ shows manage to surpass early 2000s CGI. Coruscant never looks as good as Blade Runner (the original and the new one).
• Jedi Younglings still suck. The child acting sucks and it reminds me of how tragic it is that Star Wars is forever saddled with stupid Prequel Jedi lore.
• For a Force user suspected of murdering a Jedi master, they sure don’t put much effort into restraining Osha when locking her up in the prison ship. Vader wanted to freeze Luke in carbonite just to transport him safely, and Luke was barely even a Padawan. Here we potentially have a powerful, highly dangerous assassin that can kill with her mind, and they just slap some handcuffs on her and throw her in a cell with ordinary criminals.
• I like the music - it’s clearly inspired by classic Williams riffs
• I like how Osha concentrates hard but fails to use the Force initially, showing that mastery of the Force degrades over time when unused, like a physical muscle or skill. When Osha’s Force powers fail, she resorts to MacGyvering her way out of the cell. (How old am I that I still think of that reference?)
• Osha saving that unconscious prisoner with the face-hugger attached to his mouth is a nice example of “show don’t tell” implemented correctly, letting us know Osha is actually a good person unlike her psychotic twin sister.
• A lot of people are complaining about the pacing, but I didn’t notice any pacing problems, at least in these first two episodes.
• At the end of the first episode, the secret Sith Lord delivers a monologue saying that a Jedi can’t be killed with a weapon, so an Acolyte must kill without a weapon. This sounds like the beginnings of some really interesting philosophy, but we’ve already seen that Mae actually can kill a Jedi with an ordinary throwing knife. This seems thematically dissonant. (We course correct later when Mae fails to kill Torbin with a conventional weapon, but succeeds in guilting him into suicide.)
• They make a big deal out of the possibility that Osha might be guilty of killing a Jedi Master because some local identified her. But this should be really trivial to clear up, since Osha has a very solid alibi. She was working as a mechanic on a distant starship, which would have logs, surveillance, etc. Fortunately, the mix up is quickly resolved in episode 2 anyway.
• They drop the line “Peace is a lie”.
• The Jedi really take to their role as the “RPD” (Republic Police Force) with their megaphones and high-powered floodlights in the sky. I mean, I know the Jedi have always been basically supernatural cops since the Prequels, but “Guardians of Peace and Justice” from a more civilized age never really conjured up imagery of a helicopter hovering overhead casting down blinding floodlights while screaming orders over a megaphone, saying stuff like “This is the LAPD! I mean Jedi! You are under arrest!”.
• I like the Japanese-style forest with the Wookie Jedi, but other than that the locations are mostly just bland, generic, “Galaxy’s Edge” type stock Star Wars “frontier towns” that we’ve seen a million times before across various Star Wars media. For example, I can’t tell the difference between the first location where Mae kills Indara and the second location where Mae and her chemist friend kill Torbin. These two locations seem indistinguishable to me, yet I think they’re supposed to be different planets.
• The identity of the Sith Lord that trained Mae is fresh fodder for some old-school Internet nerd speculation. Is it Darth Plagueis? An apprentice of Darth Bane?? A reincarnation of Exar Kun??? A Knight of Ren?? Ren himself? Stimpy? Supershadow?? The amount of completely stupid possibilities is endless. (Most likely it’s a new character, which is for the best.)

I enjoyed the first 2 episodes for the most part. The surreal vision that Osha has of her evil twin in the first episode is a bit… much, but it’s serviceable.

Overall, not bad. Seems like this show has promise. It doesn’t have that same “Andor effect” where you quickly realize within like 10 minutes that the quality is next-level, but it also isn’t anywhere nearly as bad as the Filoni stuff. It’s like a 6.5 or 7 out of 10 so far, but it grabbed my interest and I look forward to more episodes.

‘The Acolyte’ Blasts Onto Disney+ With 4.8M Views In First Day Of Streaming - a Deadline article
 

'The Acolyte is off to a promising start on Disney+.

The new Star Wars series launched on June 4 with two episodes, generating 4.8M views in its first day on the streamer. That makes it the biggest series premiere on Disney+ this year.

Disney+ doesn’t generally release viewership data for series after just one day of streaming. In August, the streamer said that Ahsoka drew 14M views in its first 5 days. As of now, The Acolyte is on track to zoom right past that benchmark, but it’ll need to sustain similar viewership over the weekend in order to do so.

The streamer can be a bit inconsistent with its viewership data, generally. When Percy Jackson and the Olympians debuted in December, Disney+ announced that series’ six-day viewership tally. However, releasing the viewership for one single day of viewing does indicate that Disney+ feels quite confident in The Acolyte‘s ability to keep performing well.’

That is pleasing to read. The review bombing is really sad to see, especially the review bombing before the series was even aired. Toxic grifters got to make some $$$ and keep the algorithm and their subscribers engaged and happy, I guess? Sure, reasoned criticisms, or the show not appealing to you is cool, but it is probably worth noting that many people who are knocking the show for not holding with their own politics, beliefs or views aren’t actually talking much about the show itself, if at all. It is “Disney this”, “Disney that”, or the usual key buzzwords often used by that relatively small, yet vocal, band of fandom. Pretty much the same stuff we’ve all often heard and seen before. And not much about what is happening on the screen in the show.

On here, so far most of the reviews are generally positive. Nearly everyone who has seen it and commented thinks it is around the “decent” or “good” categories overall? That the show has potential, and are looking forward to the next episodes, albeit with some issues raised.

Channel72 said:

[snip]

Cool post, Channel72. I always enjoy reading your stuff on here (even on the rare occasion I disagree). ACBagel, henzINNIT and StarkillerAG posts too, though nearly everyone here is cool and adds something to the discussions.

This.

They bait people and then cry wolf when they get poor ratings.

Vladius said:

adywan said:

After being pretty “meh” after seeing the trailers, i was surprised at how much i liked the first 2 episodes. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but to me it actually feels like Star Wars, unlike BOBF, Ahsoka and the latter part of Mando. The acting & dialogue is fine, which the trailers somehow made it seem prequel level bad, but it isn’t. And thank GOD we finally have colour back in Star Wars and not that horrendous desaturated & over dark grading that’s plagued the majority of the TV shows so far. The only thing that feels a bit off to me is the ending of both episodes. They don’t seem like an episode ending. It’s seeming to be aimed at editing into one long movie that has been chopped up into episodes more than an episodic formula.

Sadly, the dark side of the fandom is ripping it apart. The usual " Woke" bullshit comments are everywhere. Slating the show because of its female lead, the fact they mentioned " two mothers" and other crap. If it’s not white male lead they don’t class it as Star Wars. Wankers. I’m so fed up hearing how Star Wars is dead, just because it doesn’t follow their narrow minded bullshit. No one is allowed to just enjoy it any more without all their vitriol. I’ve seen so many commenting on how they refuse to watch it but will review bomb it wherever possible. Then attacking fans who dare to say they like anything “Disney” Star Wars.

This show has started out pretty well. It has my interest. I LOVE the score and i think that’s one of the reasons why it feels more like Star Wars to me. It feels very Willams to me. Although i don’t mind the different style scores in things like the Mandalorian, it seems to take away something for me. The Acolyte is probably the first TV show that i rewatched the first eps in the same day.

It doesn’t help that the creators and actors go out of their way to publicly say that they’re trying to make people mad on purpose

They have ruined enjoyment of things almost like they are deliberately trying to sabotage SW, and I mean fans not Kathy Kennedy. Do I like the Disney trilogy no, I did like Ahsoka and Obi-Wan. I like Andor and I like Mandalorian. Sure, quality varies. The only one I didn’t like is Book of Boba Fett. I haven’t seen Acolyte yet, I will admit I haven’t read any of the High Republic books but not because of their alleged wokeness, just because I like the old EU lore and its universe of characters more. I have read a comic book from IDW but not the longform novels, I have had Disney SW fans recommend them to me which I really don’t mind they can like what they like and they aren’t shills.

This isn’t a religion there aren’t true fans, if you are a fan of SW you are a fan regardless of who produced it.

Lucas isn’t a god he doesn’t need defending, the OT isn’t the bible. The prequel isn’t holy scripture.

StarkillerAG said:

I haven’t watched any of this show, and I probably never will (I’ve kind of stopped giving a shit about “new Star Wars” in general), but I think I can say this with confidence: those audience reviews are bullshit. The review bombing is comically obvious. Like, maybe the show has problems, I wouldn’t know, but “30% on Rotten Tomatoes” level of problems? “4.8 on IMDB” level of problems? It really feels like people just want to hate it, for two main reasons:

1. “They put a WOMAN… in STAR WARS?! And she’s… BLACK?! WOKE!!! WOKE!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOKE!!!”
2. “It’s by DISNEY… and it’s NOT Andor?! It MUST be bad! REVIEW BOMB!!! REVIEW BOOOOOOOOMB!!!”

Like, if these reviews were at all legitimate, wouldn’t Book of Boba (which is probably way worse) get the same level of vitriol? What about Kenobi, which might be one of the worst pieces of live action Star Wars media ever? But of course, Boba and Obi-Wan are male and (mostly) white, and this was before the whole “Andor is the only good Disney Star War” narrative started, so The Acolyte is the one getting turned into some sort of nerd pariah instead. Like I said, it’s bullshit.

Boba is not white, he’s polynesian. Book of Boba Fett and Obi-Wan (and Ahsoka) were absolutely despised by the same people so you must not have been paying attention. That’s actually probably why this one is already pre-hated, it’s coming off the heels of those other ones.

The reason people highlight Andor is that it was a really well done story, which is unusual compared to the rest. Lots of people also like Rogue One and the Mandalorian seasons 1 and 2. It would be nice if this was another Andor but we should remember that Andor got there on its own merits; most people had zero interest in it due to Disney’s prior reputation, and it became more popular by word of mouth.

The “women/black in Star Wars” thing is such garbage. No one thinks that. Some of the most popular characters in Star Wars are female characters, going all the way back to Leia. Lando and Mace Windu were always popular. Andor is full of diversity as well. The thing is, it’s obvious when it’s part of a DEI initiative or it’s tokenism for its own sake. It’s an aesthetic, you can just tell. The casting decisions don’t line up. For example, Riva in the Obi-Wan show. Awful character, and miscast. Even if she was written better and given less goofy actions and choreography, the actress just doesn’t pull off the intimidation she’s supposed to have. Her presence detracts from Obi-Wan being the main character in his own show. But outside the show in real life, all they can talk about is how badass and empowered she is. Telling, not showing. It’s not a massive stretch to say that diversity requirements were at least partly responsible, call that “woke” or whatever you want.

Personally, I don’t blame fans for doing review bombs in star wars productions. Star Wars movies and series from the Disney era were made in such a poor way and, what’s worse, the executives/producers indirectly make fun of the fandom so regularly, that I think it’s even normal for people who enjoy Star Wars to do this. They are passionate fans (even more, they are consumers) of the franchise, who are dissatisfied and want to make this satisfaction heard, and the review bomb is one way to do that. Even fans of this site are dissatisfied with the franchise, otherwise they wouldn’t make such radical fan edits with almost 100% of the productions that Lucasfilm releases. The whole thing just got out of hand at this point.

It’s sad that a franchise created to entertain has become a stage for agendas and political-social messages. Let’s agree, no one here fell in love with Star Wars because of that kind of thing. If the focus was on telling a good story, with good action scenes and a sincere feeling for the franchise, I think we would have fewer questionable productions at this point under Disney management, and more stories with heart.

The only Star Wars media I’ve watched recently was Jenny Nicholson’s video on the Star Wars hotel, detailing what a complete shitshow it was (good video, BTW). I think it’s best to remain in the esoterica/preservation/fan edit side of the franchise, away from all the culture war nonsense going around with the fandom.