Down to the final scenes on Book 2! Just need to add some Mando’a into the conversation with Armorer and touch up the ending sequence. Books 3 & 4 will be finalized next week as well!
Really good news, Acbagel. What I had already seen from you is almost perfect, I’m very much looking forward to see the end of your vision.
Thanks, Kada! That’s very kind. I am excited to share the final films with you and everyone else soon! I still get 4-5 requests every day on Reddit to watch these films which is wild to me. I’m happy to see a lot of the pacing changes resonate with folks.
On the update side of things, unfortunately I got extremely ill the whole last week and missed 8 days of everything except laying in bed… So I’m a few days behind on Book 2, but still made a lot of progress before I got sick, so I’m about halfway done updating that film, aiming to have it done by Friday night. Heres the first half changelog for updates:
Fixed aspect ratio bug on a couple early shots
Added new night sky transition from Grogu to Boba, really like the storytelling beat this adds.
Deleted Boba wincing and looking away from civilian getting beat by swoop gang, replaced with a different shot of him tactically watching
When the Village Lady says “I’m sorry” and Mando replies “This is the way” in regards to him always wearing his helmet, I cut Mando’s line and use his silence and nod as a response now. TitW doesn’t seem to fit here, and the line is overly abused later in the series so removing early unnecessary ones helps preserve the impact.
Added new Din line to Grogu “Stay here”
Fixed a harsh transition in Sorgan cantina
Re-recorded a couple Din lines for consistent delivery
Balanced volume levels after the train raid to be more in line with the previous scene
Raised volume of Boba speaking to Pyke leadership
Altered transition between Boba and Din walking around Mos Eisley, the doors are now in sync for a cool looking visual transition between characters
Lightened Nighttime scenes on Tatooine Fennec attack
__
So that gets me about halfway through the review of Book 2, I’ll post the rest of the changelog on Friday and hoping to drop it then and then get to Book 3 & 4 next week (they don’t need as many updates, so I think I can finalize both of those), then it’s on to finishing Book 5!
That video is in 4k, so I can make an attempt to mask out only Luke’s face and try to replace it. Worth a shot since it is such an improvement.
Finished reviewing Book 1 yesterday, I didn’t have any plans to update that one since I did that months ago, and upon rewatching I’m still 99% happy with it (aside from the lower resolution of these earlier films). Reviewing Book 2 right now, have a week long work trip so probably end of next week for final release of that one!
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention one thing. There is a Youtuber who further improved the Luke Deepfake made by Shamook, at the end of the second season of The Mandalorian. This Youtuber enhanced the movement of the lips, adding a little more emotion to Luke’s “robotic” expression. Personally, I think it came out really well, and it could look cool in your movie, Acbagel. Here is the link:
It is indeed an improvement, but did he ever release those VFX for public use? I don’t see anywhere to download his clip, and that video is extremely cropped and watermarked so it would be very difficult to do anything with it.
Hey Acbagel, hope you had a nice holiday season. Just checking in to see if you started tinkering with the final two books again yet. No pressure, just generally curious as this was one of my favorite projects on here and season three of Mando combined with Book of Boba Fett are definitely the material that need the most help. Also, did you watch Skeleton Crews and if so, what did you think of it in general?
Darth! Thanks for checking in. I just finished my last video for Star Wars: Supernatural Encounters on my channel, and sadly, Legendscon 2 has been cancelled (where I was going to be able to show my videos, sad!) so I am officially back into full-time production on finishing The Way of Mandalore. I am starting by watching all of my other films start to finish, with a goal of releasing the full series in early spring.
In the meantime… I DO have the new The Way of Mandalore poster to reveal! The OP has also been updated with my new custom poster here, feel free to download for your own servers!
Really proud of that poster design. I tried to incorporate elements from EVERY season of the show into this, so seamlessly blending Boba, Din, Grogu, Tatooine, Nevarro, and Mandalore! I love how it turned out.
As far as Skeleton Crew, yes, I watched it. I thought it was a fine kids adventure story. For what it was, it was well made. I am not particularly fond personally of side-stories that don’t contribute much to the Star Wars mythos and lore, but I would say it was impossible to actively dislike SC. It was a good show that accomplished what its goals were. I will probably never rewatch it but I don’t have any ill feelings toward it. But I desperately want Star Wars to move back into sagas, epics! Give me the legend of Ulic Qel-Droma, a dark Quinlon Vos story, live action Republic Commandos etc. Not tiny mini-stories almost entirely disconnected from the saga. But that’s just me!
Hi, I thought your project was really cool, especially regarding the Boba Fett changes. I haven’t seen your edits yet, but I saw that you’re adding AI-generated dialogues to the project. I’d like to suggest an idea related to Cad Bane. I haven’t read the entire thread about this edit, so I apologize if what I’m going to say has already been discussed.
So, I thought Cad Bane’s introduction was really well-thought-out in the series. He’s set up as a major adversary for Boba, but audiences who’ve only watched BOBF don’t know anything about the history between the two, and the series makes no effort to give a little more context to their past together. So one idea that crossed my mind was that it might be interesting to have Boba have a nightmare or something with Cad Bane, maybe with Cad throwing a few intimidating lines in the dream. Maybe, if possible, produce some lines of Boba talking about Bane with Fennec or someone else, so that Cad represents a threat to Boba, an unresolved issue, or even a trauma. Ultimately, something that plants a seed so that the audience becomes emotionally invested in the final fight between the two, as if Cad represented a past that Boba was killing off and wants to forget forever, or something like this.
In other words, nothing too elaborate, just to really give a little more context to Bane.
If you find the idea interesting, there is this Cad Bane fan film, where you could take some frames to perhaps use in your edits:
https://youtu.be/PKQHDEIK9kU?si=Psh8_1IGkxqaWcgl
I am aware that the Bane used in this fan film is quite different aesthetically from the Bane in the series, but perhaps the frames shown at 12:48, 6:30 ou 1:04 could be used, especially if used in a dream sequence, as some distortion effects could be used on the images if necessary.
The only problem is that I don’t know exactly what Bane represents to Boba Fett, because as far as I remember, in Clone Wars, there is no record of a difficult relationship between the two or anything like that, to the point of causing a big feud between them. But even so, I still think that it might be possible to improve even a little their dynamic shown in BOBF, through the use of AI.
It’s worth investigating, as the showdown does feel pretty random and there isn’t proper emotional build-up so it all ends up feeling rather hollow. However, I would say my film inherently addresses this to a degree because this moment isn’t the giant climax of the end of an entire show like it was for BoBF, it’s just an event that happens to drive Boba toward Mandalore. So by lowering the stakes a bit in the placement of the events, it doesn’t feel as much as a letdown. But I’ll review that fan-film and see if anything can be utilizied.
Should have Book 2 updated and released here in the coming weeks!
How does Kylo get the Falcon at the end of the movie? Lando and Chewie have it at the battle, then Kylo gets it to bury the sabers?
I envision that scene taking place many months or even years down the road. If I were in charge of a movie or novel set in that time period, I would have it focus on Kylo as he tries to make amends for his sins. I imagine he would roam the galaxy for a time alone, become miserable as the guilt haunts him, and then finally seek redemption in the light side. At some point he would reach out to Chewie (who was essentially his uncle as a kid) and apologize and say he wants to visit Luke’s homestead, culminating in the scene from the end of my film. Chewie wouldn’t just give him the Falcon, so I think he’d still be on the ship. Would actually be a fun VFX project to have him there in that final scene somewhere, maybe standing by the ship!
My thoughts through the first 3 episodes:
Pros:
Higher than average production quality at last
Enjoyable nostalgia based memories of being a Star Wars fan as a kid
Good child actors!
Fun/light hearted adventure that’s easy to watch
Cons:
I don’t care about the story in general or any of the characters at all… And that’s not to say I don’t enjoy the episodes when I watch, but if you told me the rest of the episodes wouldn’t even air, I wouldn’t be disappointed in the least. It’s not a bad show, and I realize as an adult EU fan I’m not the primary target audience here, but it’s certainly not the Star Wars that made me fall in love with the universe when I was a kid. I support side stories like this in general, but also I think we miss the beauty of how kids ALREADY connected with the OT/PT even those were more serious stories. We don’t need to venture so far into trying to appease one segment of target audience that we lose the incredible ability that Star Wars already had to bridge all age groups. I fell in love with Star Wars because seeing Yoda die in RotJ helped me process death when I was 6 years old. I fell in love with Star Wars because seeing Anakin as an isolated/lonely teen helped me process my own identity in middle school. I fell in love with Star Wars because it taught me universal lessons about life through mature stories that challenged my worldview.
Hey Acbagel,
I figured we would hear again from you soon than later. Glad to hear you are working on projects you are passionate about. I’d like to check the Supernatural Encounters work project out as well someday. I am still very much looking forward to Book 5 and 6 when you finally have the time and creative drive to finish this project out strong. Please take your time and we will continue to watch your career with great interest. Have a nice weekend and may the force be with you!
Thanks, for the support! I do miss interacting with all you guys here and brainstorming and working through things. Though the Supernatural Encounters and discord has been just as fun engaging with! And I’ll soon get to meet some of my all time favorite Star Wars creators like Kevin J. Anderson and Chris Avellone because of my side project there, so it’s been worth it for sure. Like I said though, I’ll be back here full-time soon to finish this up, I haven’t forgotten or lost the desire to finish it properly.
I did see one of your premiere’s on youtube for your visul novel project. I think that’s awesome. It’s not really my thing but as I was watching I had the thought of “This is the future of filmmaking.” You’re a pioneer!
I also showed my wife your Mandalorian series for the first time (1 through 4). She has not watched Mando/BOBF at all. She did enjoy it a lot, and said that she would not have given the TV shows a chance otherwise. Although she is similar to me, at parts we wanted it to move even faster (which I know most of the audience on here is not like us). The Mayfeldt plots in book 1 and 4, we felt could have been cut. However I know the runtime would have required you to restructure everything else to do that, so we arent gonna give you too much grief. But overall she wanted to commend the work you’ve done and thank you for making the series watchable.
We are excited to see 5 and 6! I have not even watched your old Book 5 because I am waiting for your new version. I am very excited because the Boba Fett stuff is my favorite.
An aside, after watching your Book 4 which introduces live action Ahsoka, we then watched Kai Patterson’s Ahsoka movie. That worked really well imo
That’s really cool! Thanks for sharing. I have my own ideas for Ahsoka that I’d love to explore sometime, but I think I’ll wait for Season 2 and Mando/Grogu movie so I can properly integrate everything into a cool Post-Skywalker-saga saga. I’ve been wanting to make Andor edits too, but also was waiting for Season 2 of that, so my lineup is going to be: 1. Finish next Chapter of Supernatural Encounters December '24, start back up on TWoM and finsh it Q1 '25, then start Andor in April/May '25 as S2 releases.
It is incredible how Acbager can make a fantastic series into incredible films. The Way Of Mandalore is one of the best Star Wars fanedits I’ve ever seen and I’m excited to see the way he will re-edit Season 3 since it is the worst part of the series.
Wow, friend! That’s so very kind of you. I really appreciate you sharing that. I can’t wait to share the last 2 movies with you guys!
No shade your way, but probably because there are already so many fan edits of Kenobi, plus everyone is anticipating pixeljoker95’s edit.
Lol, yeah I guess, I’m also very new at all this.
That’s ok! We all start somewhere. If you want to generate some conversation with your ideas and edits, it helps to put some time into writing out the specific changes you’re going to make. Rather than “rearrange some scene”, write out the exact plan and why you think that will help. Or propose some ideas, post some clips, and ask for feedback 😃 Hope you have fun too!
Take all the time you need. Just glad to hear that it’s still in the works, albeit on the back burner. I’ll definitely be checking out this new project you have been working on, had no clue!
I know you need more time with Book 6, but if memory serves me correctly, you were holding off releasing Book 5 because of a handful of scenes you were undecided on including in Book 5 or 6. Out of curiosity, did you make a decision, and can we expect Book 5 somewhat soon?
That’s correct, it’s mainly the Grogu reuniting scenes that are holding me back from being able to release Book 5. Since I take Din to Ossus 2 times now, I have to 100% make sure each shot is unqiue, and I don’t have the finalized scene for Book 6 and don’t know if I’ll need one of those scenes for Book 5. Along with the fact that I haven’t finished editing Act 3 of the Battle for Mandalore, which might affect a few scenes of dialogue in Book 5.
The current intention is to go through the previous films for final release then get to Book 5.
Book 1: The Mandalorian (Released Apr 12, 2024, FINAL)
Book 2: The Reckoning (currently working on final release)
Book 3: The Tribes (waiting on final release)
Book 4: The Way (waiting on final release)
[Book 5: The Apostate](waiting on re-release with new edits from Book 6, ~98% complete)
[Book 6: The Return] (Production in progress, ~70% complete)
Hey, everyone! I appreciate people asking for updates still. The simple truth is… I was having more fun working on other things for the past 3 months. I’ve been animating the Star Wars: Supernatural Encounters book into a visual audiobook experience and uploading to my YouTube channel. The author of that novel has loved it so much that he’s going to show my work at his booth at LegendsCon next year, so I’ve been very hard at work bringing that project to life. It takes me ~60 hours per video, and I’ve made 3 so far… So that’s where the editing time has been, sorry to those who are more interested in The Way of Mandalore! But passion drives the creativity.
Does that mean this project is cancelled and will never be completed? By no means! I’ve still opened up the files every couple weeks and slowly worked on some scenes, finished vfx removing Grogu in all of Plazir 15 final scene, trimmed some fat out of Book 6 to get closer to the intended runtime, and re-did some Boba lines. I am still 100% intending to finish this series, I just don’t know exactly when that will happen. I’m going to shift more time into editing it instead of the Supernatural Encounters project, but not full time effort just yet. Thanks to everyone still following and anticipating release, I still get another 3-4 requests from people to watch every single day. Sorry it’s taking so long to complete, but it will be finished soon ™!
Put one of my groomsmen into the ground today. 28 years old. Lost his mind in the realm of drugs and mental illness. It started with weed at far too young of an age, then weed turned to hallucinogens and psychedelics. His brain, his very reasoning, wittled away under the influence of such chemicals. Whether you believe this in a real spiritual sense or not, he began to tell us how he would speak with demons. He changed. Complete incoherence and mental psychosis followed. He tried every treatment plan under the sun. We tried so hard to offer help, show him love, but he didn’t accept. He grew to only desire the surreal, the desire for life and reality slipped away, no matter how much you were there for him. The demons in his mind took his life.
Hard to find solace in such awfulness. Cherish the good memories you are able to have with your loved ones, accept that sometimes there are forces outside of your control that you can’t beat yourself up over, and always, always, show one another true love.
RIP Brother, I will miss you until the end of my days.
Sent to everyone!
Thanks for the great review and feedback! I definitely agree with a lot of those points. This edit is ~3 years old now and I’d do some things differently now, so when I get back to re-editing my ideas I’ll be making many of the changes you suggested.
Is Luke still alive somehow in the universe of this fan edit?
“No one is ever really gone”. You’ll see Luke in a different life by the end, but no, he is not still physically alive after the end. I made these edits in a One Canon/Crucible Canon in mind (https://boards.theforce.net/threads/the-crucible-canon-merging-eu-and-new-canon-as-smoothly-as-possible.50053287/), so while in Disney Canon TRoS takes place in 35 ABY when Luke isn’t yet so old, my film takes place in 65 ABY after all of the Legends storylines, leaving Luke, Leia, and Han to pass away in their 80s-90s here.
Can you render and save your pre-Alpha 3.5 hour cut? It might serve as a good basis for those of us who’d like a two movie version of season three… 😉
Haha, the struggle of not having enough content for two strong movies, but too much for one… The stuff I just cut out that I’m referencing are very superfluous scenes in my opinion. I just removed the “Droid bar” scene in Plazir, and trimmed down some of the briefing scene Boba gets from the palace droid. That saved me 5+ minutes right there. So little things that maybe add a tiny bit more context to the world, but ultimately have nothing at all to do with getting the clans to retake Mandalore. And for a saga finale, I want to avoid some of what I thought Episode 9 did wrong by focusing waaay too much on the little individual events rather than wrapping things up on the grand scale.
Hey, your work sounds amazing. Just wow how much time you spent for this project. Would be honored to get a link to watch it.
Greetings from Germany.
Greetings! Thanks for watching, I sent you this project and the Sequel Trilogy that you requested. Hope you enjoy!
Su’cuy vode! Can’t believe I missed mando’a being added, kandosii! On that topic however, in the original folders I received I checked in book 1 but it hadn’t updated to include the special edition. Do I have outdated folders? And to mirror everyone else here, can’t wait for the final updates!
Su’cuy tug’yc! If your link leads to a folder with a poster and trailer, that should be the special edition version. You can check around 18 minutes into the film to make sure they’re speaking mando’a there. But I’ll DM you again just to make sure.
Hey Acbagel, just checking in to see how things are progressing. I know last time you posted that Book 6 was in an almost pre-alpha phase. Have you been able to problem solve some of the issues you were running into with the sequence of events, etc. Has a revised Book 5 been locked in or are things still shifting due to you tinkering with Book 6? Don’t mind viewing clips if you need an extra set of eyes/ feedback. Eagerly looking forward to this cut. Also, do you think you would even attempt an edit of The Acolyte? I wish you the best and may the force be with you!
Hello, Darth! Progress went a little slower than anticipated, my company had to move offices and that took me out of production for a whole week, but I got some good time in the last few days and I’d say I’m right on the edge of having a full alpha cut completed. I watched the first 1.5 hours of the film last night and made some additional cuts and touch-ups. The pre-alpha was still sitting at over 3.5 hours, so I have a good portion I’m forced to cut out. It’s a little bit painful making cuts on things I worked a long time on, but sometimes it’s simply necessary. My Plazir-15 storyline dragged on far too long and I had to trim it down quite a bit. Some of Boba’s sequences needed cut down a bit too for better balance with Din’s scenes. There is just a lot of story to work with and I need to find the right flow for it all, trying to keep it focused on the main theme of gathering the clans to retake Mandalore but having some side adventures along the way. We’re getting closer! I could release some small clips from the Mandalore base battle soon, I’m really loving how I’ve paced some of the segments.
The main hold-up with releasing Book 5 is that my Din and Grogu reunion in Book 6 uses parts of the travel scenes to Ossus. So since I haven’t 100% finished the sequence in Book 6, I don’t have an exact split of the scenes worked out yet to avoid repeats. Once I get through that, I’ll be ready to re-release 5. I just received the first draft of my final release poster yesterday and it’s looking amazing! Exactly as I sketched it out. The artist is very talented. It’ll look like a very high-quality rendition of one of my other posters… Really excited about it!
Regarding The Acolyte… I don’t know. I won’t say never, but I’d be more motivated to work on Ahsoka, Kenobi, redo my Sequel Trilogy films, etc. I do think it would be vastly improved by an edit and I certainly have ideas, but I don’t think it adds much to the Star Wars mythos. I’d have to entirely recontextualize the events to feel good about releasing that story, and it sounds like a fun challenge, but I don’t have the passion for deep diving into that show right now. It took me ~3 years after The Last Jedi before I could stomach watching it enough to start doing an edit haha. I’m friends with Movies Remastered and have helped him on a couple of his edits, so I’m currently doing some Sith eyes tracking on Qimir for him, but that’s as much as I can handle right now! Maybe one day…
According to MSW, proper filming starts in 3 weeks, but they already filmed some key scenes in secret recently. Most likely just the scene or two where Mando himself will be unmasked, since Pedro has to prioritize Fantastic Four this summer.
Temeura Morrison just apologized for canceling some fan events in Perth, so he’s probably headed to film some Boba scenes!
I’d love to reply to every single bit of that, I’ll just say different strokes 😄
I’d definitely welcome it! Always appreciate different perspectives from people with different backgrounds from me, and perhaps different reasons for liking Star Wars in the first place than me. Some of what I say in my review I consider objective (such as poor scene transition effects, low-quality CGI/green screen, structural issues in episodic formatting), and other parts I certainly acknowledge as a subjective opinion (whether a character had a satisfying arc/conclusion, if an actor’s performance was done well enough, how it meshes with other Star Wars themes).
An interesting tidbit from recent interviews with Leslye and Manny is that there was an idea to have them kiss at the end (and they shot it, even!), but it didn’t feel earned and the actors suggested the hand hold we see in the final version. Genuinely perfect wrap-up of their arcs for this season
Haha, well I’m glad it was at least toned down from that… I’d be curious to at least hear your opinion on 2 points as someone who seems like you enjoyed the show.
Regarding this romance, I truly have difficulty seeing how these types of “relationships” aren’t seen as anything other than abusive Stockholm syndrome reactions. Osha has no idea who Qimir is, and within a 48-hour span she: watches him murder her colleagues for the given reason of “they can’t tell anyone I exist”, is kidnapped while unconscious and taken to an unknown planet and placed in a cave, is exposed to his nudity, is encouraged to kill her former mentor in cold blood by embracing the dark side. I understand dark side romances, they can be twisted, but it really seems like the natural reaction would be for Osha to HATE Qimir and want to kill him as she falls rather than forgive him for all of that insanity and want to serve him. How does an ending of mutual attraction/interest/respect make sense to you as a “genuinely perfect wrap-up of their arcs”? My mind is unable to even go there for a second, I can’t fathom it.
Is there a justification for the cover-up lie that makes sense to you that I am missing? Or is it just something you don’t mind as a “flaw” in the show and can look past it? To me, writing consistency and coherency is the #1 most important aspect in my enjoyment of a production. 10x more than any battle or VFX or setting or music or anything. So having this resolved/explained would do wonders for me.
I’ll do another analysis of viewership numbers in a few weeks once another few data points from Nielsen come out, so instead of a preface this week, I instead made another thread about the future of Star Wars in a post-Acolyte world where we’re discussing potential storylines following this conclusion. Let’s finish this show out with my last review until the holiday season with Skeleton Crew!
The Acolyte - Episode 8: The Acolyte (I’m not repeating myself, that’s what this episode is called!)
For reference, I do not use the modern review scale of 7.5 being “average”. A 5 is average. Refer to this scale for all of my ratings. I am going to be reviewing this episode individually, and also giving the entire show a final rating in each category.
Pacing and Structure
Without the intro and credits, we received 41 minutes and 21 seconds of new content in the conclusion. That brings the entire show to a runtime of 4 hours, 27 minutes, and 15 seconds, averaging ~33 minutes/episode. I was much more pleased with the runtime this week as it was well above average. It is astonishing how much more complete each episode feels when it’s not 26 minutes like in previous weeks. The pacing got off to a rough start with a jarring opening that didn’t feel like it flowed naturally from last week. It directly continued a scene from 2 weeks ago, and the flashback week completely disrupted the flow of that cliffhanger. I don’t think it’s a good move to rely on answering cliffhanger endings from multiple weeks prior. But once we got through the awkward opening and intro logo, things started to move smoothly with Mae’s escape from the ship. Past the 10-minute mark, we get some attempts at tension building by “slow” scenes of Vernestra talking to a senator, Osha and Qimir talking, and Sol wandering Brendock. These 10 minutes before the fight scene starts aren’t a bad idea, but I did think they were drawn out without adding anything we didn’t already know, and they ended up derailing some of the excitement. Once the action begins with the lightsaber duel, we’re brought back to life, but then hampered again by a much slower and repetitive Mae/Osha discussion and spar. The audience’s interest is most definitely in the Sol and Qimir duel, so the cuts back to slow conversations were not interesting. After an entertaining battle, we get WAY too long of a walking sequence with Vernestra and her squad. Her character takes up about 25% of the screen time in this episode, and I have consistently found her to be the dullest part of the entire series. She did play an important role in this episode, so I don’t fault them for giving her proper plot impact, but every scene she’s in just moves at snail speed. I thought we were finally going to see her do something other than sulk around hallways and have her confront Qimir for a duel with that heavily marketed lightwhip… but no, she just talks and walks. Overall, the pacing here did feel like it led to a conclusion and it was better done than the average Acolyte episode. I’d put this in a similar category to episodes 3 & 7, where I do like the overall runtime, but certain scenes are paced too slowly. Due to the very short average runtime and awkward pacing throughout the entire season, I’d give the whole show a 3/10 on the pacing.
Structurally, this episode worked well as a conclusion. The placements to get everyone back on Brendock where it all began is a good idea, and this definitely felt like it was meant to wrap up a season. Not a series, however. I am not going to include any definitive future prospective seasons in this review, but I have to judge it both as a self-contained story and as a potential setup for future stories. This finale 100% relied on cameos for its biggest moments. You shouldn’t put two major characters in here for 3-5 seconds each just for flippant reasons. These moments felt impactful for the few seconds, but without any payoff whatsoever, it doesn’t feel like they belonged in the episode itself other than to tease for a future season. Especially having the most prominent one happen 25% into the episode, only never to be referenced again ended up as more of a distraction and false anticipation for the next 30 minutes, ultimately leaving me feeling let down when the most interesting concept of the whole show is nothing more than the tiniest snippet. Aside from the cameos, the episode was structured well with a clear beginning, middle, and end, so I appreciate the completeness of the overarching picture, even if many of the specifics are left unresolved. Unfortunately, I cannot give a high grade to the overall structure of the show as it is genuinely one of the worst-structured storylines I have ever seen. I thought the entire mystery box plot mechanic failed miserably, the flashback episodes completely derailed any bit of momentum we developed, and I thought this entire series would have functioned much better as a single 2.5-hour film or perhaps a 2-part release of 2 hours each. So due to the terrible placements of the flashback episodes, and multiple episodes feeling like they should have been combined into one (1 & 2, 3 & 7, 4 & 5), I would give the structure of the show as a whole a 2/10.
Dialogue and Writing Quality
As the show concluded, the main thing that stuck out to me in this category is that all dialogue from every character sounds very much the same. Listen to the cadence of how Sol speaks vs how Osha speaks vs how Vernestra speaks. They deliver extremely slow and deliberate lines, taking time to emotionally emphasize certain words. Even Qimir, Indara, and Jecki, all speak relatively similarly. Yes, they choose different words and have minor personality differences, but the deliveries are quite common. Can you remember a moment of fast-talking high-energy conversation where lots of words are said? The subtitle file for this show is going to be very short. Anyway, this episode remains middle of the road here as the show has done as a whole. It’s not trying to accomplish anything intellectual with the dialogue and simply serves to communicate basic exposition and thoughts. It’s quite elementary, even down to someone like Vernestra who is seemingly involved in the political realm and you’d think she’d be able to deliver more artistic or charismatic sentences, but her lines are along the lines of, “The man who killed your mother was a Jedi. He was my friend. And he did terrible things.” That’s as basic as you could possibly get when trying to communicate an idea. There is no nuance. There are no descriptive, softening, or emotive words. Adjectives are banned. “Why use many word, when few word do trick?” Most of the dialogue in the show looks like that, just trying to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible without any nuance or emotive words. I mentioned this in previous weeks when disagreements arose. There are never any thought-out objections to ideas or plans. Someone may briefly voice a disagreement, but actual discussions and back and forth are non-existent. For example, in a supposedly very emotional moment, Osha asks Sol, “Why didn’t you tell me?” And he responds, “They would have sent you away. You were too old. They never would have let you become a Jedi.” (I don’t even understand this dialogue because she did become a Jedi at that same old age? Not sure what hiding the mother’s death had to do with her age or her ability to train as a Jedi) Yes, Sol communicates proper emotion with his tone and facial expressions, but the vocabulary of these characters rarely matches that. We need some additional human language in between there. Anything at all to create a more natural speaking tone and conversational approach. Overall, this show was below average in the dialogue but I can’t say it was actively bad, just felt empty and void of deeper thought. I’m giving it a 4/10 in this category.
Now we have the complete storyline… I have reserved a great deal of criticism for the writing due to the “mystery box” nature of this plot. I wanted to give it a fair chance to unfold and not make any pre-judgments. Now that we have the full picture (save some possible future connections that aren’t exactly relevant to the sequence of events here), I thought that the specifics of the storyline in this episode, as well as the show as a whole, were an absolute mess that forced you to turn your brain off, ditch all logic and reasoning, and not look at or think about any of this deeply because it simply cannot and will not hold up to any degree of scrutiny. When I squint, I can see the big-picture story Leslye wanted to tell. I can even more clearly see the themes and messages she wanted to communicate. But on camera, on my TV screen, this entire show seemed like it was the first draft copy on a whiteboard and the connective tissue hadn’t even been written yet. The big-picture events are here, and I actually think they could have worked well, but the intermediary glue and connecting plot devices in no way justify or explain how the big-picture events happen. I could write endlessly about what I don’t think worked in the writing department, but for the sake of time and sanity, I want to focus on three main points.
Tasi Lowa, Yord’s Apprentice who was investigating Indara’s killer in episode 1. She investigated the initial murder scene and interviewed eyewitnesses of Mae’s attack on Indara. Every single piece of evidence pointed to Osha/Mae, nothing could’ve possibly indicated Sol. Can you imagine how bewildered she would be to hear this news? Surely she’d think something was amuck?
The bar owner from episode 1 who positively ID’ed one of the twins and dozens of other bar patrons who saw Mae walk up to Indara and threaten her in a combat stance.
The entire outpost of Jedi on Olega who are WITH Sol the entire time when Torbin is discovered to be dead.
Eyewitnesses on Olega like the young girl who was bribed to let Mae into the Jedi outpost.
Ki-Adi-Mundi and everyone in the room during that scene who watches footage of Mae ATTACKING Sol. Did Vern delete this footage…? Even assuming so, isn’t that MORE suspicious since multiple Jedi would testify to the exact same thing? Sol was not using a single act of aggression against Mae. CLEARLY, she was the aggressor trying to kill him. Like what possible explanation is there to point to Sol as a deranged fallen murderer according to the dozens to hundreds of pieces of evidence from Olega? And if the cover-up is that Sol used Mae to murder the Jedi, that’s even more unbelievable because everyone in this show has commented about how she’s not that strong and looks slow, she’s way outclassed by Sol without a weapon on camera, yet we’re supposed to believe she has murdered 3-4 masters and an entire squad of elite Knights in lightsaber combat. No.
Bazil. He is friendly with the Jedi and saw EVERYTHING. There is no way he’d defend Vern here.
Everyone on the Brendok Jedi team that saw how Sol didn’t have any self-inflicted wounds, and then suddenly Sol’s body is gone and didn’t return to Coruscant so they’re unable to perform an autopsy. Did this group of 11 other Jedi not discuss amongst themselves like “Hey, did you move Sol’s body?” “No… Did you?” “No…” everyone glares suspiciously at Vernestra
Any Jedi who arrested and processed Mae. Since apparently, they believed she murdered Sol, they told her as much, and then Vernestra waited until she was on Coruscant to make up this lie.
Every Jedi in the Temple who can confirm Sol’s whereabouts at the time of all these murders. Folks, this is not like Sol is within a 30-minute drive and could sneak out, kill a master, and make it back to Youngling Class in time (though this show does indicate starships can enter orbit and teleport across the galaxy in mere seconds). The accusation is that he was stealing starships, or has some unregistered personal starship, flying across the galaxy, killing Indara, sneaking around Olega and being involved in tons of other events and killing Torbin, sneaking to Khofar and killing half a dozen Jedi and Kelnacca, then flying to Brendock to kill himself. Sol. SOL. The softest, sweetest teacher… COME ON.
Of course, Vern knows the actual killers of Osha/Qimir could easily present evidence and wreck her entire scheme if desired. And we’re supposed to believe Yoda looks at all of this, gives Vern a thumbs up, and moves on.
Any way that I try to understand this cover-up, I cannot begin to fathom how it’s believed by even a single member of the Council, let alone the entire Order and Senate. Sorry, but you are required to suspend reality and sensible writing in order to accept this cover-up plot device. It makes absolutely no sense in-universe. It’s a good idea for a story on paper, but the idea itself was not fleshed out in any sensible way.
Sol’s Guilt - Poor Sol. Read my earlier reviews and you’ll see that he was a character I actually liked for much of this show until they turned him into an absolute idiot here in the end. He confesses to Osha that he murdered her mother without trying to explain why he did what he did. I thought he had indisputable probable cause so this entire arc has never resonated with me. Mother Aniseya, a dark side using witch, was turning into a demon-looking monster with sharp teeth, dissolving a child who he thought was Osha (who wanted to be freed from this world), there was mention of the fire, and thus Sol was trying to protect Osha, as well as himself and Torbin who had been previously violently attacked. So let’s say even if Sol would 99% be justified for his actions in a court of law, even in a Senate tribunal outside the Jedi Council, let’s just say he still carries some guilt from that night because, yeah, I guess it would be traumatic (though the events here do not seem that much greater than any ordinary Jedi mission where death occurs. These guys train their entire lives for situations exactly like this and have presumably seen worse already as a Jedi Master). So he has been wanting to tell Osha the truth and he’s been wanting to explain himself to Mae for 16 years. So here he finally gets the chance to talk to his beloved Osha, the closest thing he will ever have to a daughter, and out of nowhere she just murders him by force choke without even wanting any kind of explanation about why he confessed to killing her mother. The man she has looked up to as a father figure for years upon years for most of her life. And Sol, being an idiot, lets her kill him, lets her fall to the dark side, and ruin the rest of her life by walking away with a child-killer. Even if you want to say it’s “loving” in some twisted way for Sol to just let Osha “be herself” or something, Sol watched Qimir butcher a squad of Jedi like a day or two ago. He watched him gut Jecki, a child. Does he not care enough for Osha to stop her from being seduced to the dark side by a deranged mass murderer? I get that Leslye wanted to tell his story to show “flaws” in the Jedi or something like that (and see the KOTOR comic line if you want an actually fantastic deployment of such an idea), but like above, the idea looks like an idea on paper and not one that makes sense as a sequence of events in a very interconnected plot. Sol’s entire character arc was a massive letdown
Mae/Osha’s Fate, and the Light v Dark - Why doesn’t Mae just decide to stay with Osha in the end? After ALL this, Mae is just going to give up everything, her memories, her very existence essentially, all so Osha can go train with Qimir in her place? The whole show Mae has been killing people and causing chaos to get what she wants, and now what she wants is for Osha to… replace her in life itself? I guess Osha has been dealing with this anger inside of her all this time, so she fell to the dark side in a few hours and went from a sympathetic sister to a cold-blooded murderer, willing to then mind-wipe her own sister in order to get what she personally wants, which is… training in the dark side? With the man to murdered her friend Jecki, who apparently she had at least a slight romantic interest in. On paper, this seems to show that the dark side is extremely corruptive and it looks like this should be a dark and depressing storyline, but the tone of all of these events is not at all reflective of that. The tone seems to want us to sympathize with Osha and see the Jedi as in error, and Qimir as justified. The show attempts to paint every good decision as bad and every bad decision as good. The true heroes are Mae and Osha because of their love for each other (though it’s not loving at all to let your sister get mind-wiped) I’ve talked about flip-flopping character motivation every single week, and this was just the culmination of it all. Nothing in this storyline of the twins made sense up until this point so it’s unsurprising, but I would have at least had some respect for the plot if it somehow figured out a way to have it where Qimir got the twins to fight each other for the right to be his apprentice. That would be the true nature of the dark side. Let’s show what a real Sith apprentice would be willing to do to get that coveted spot. I think the arc of the protagonist of this show is beyond any sort of rational explanation when you try to break down what each sister wanted. I don’t think there is a human on earth that could sit down right now, and beginning til the end tell me what Mae wanted and did and what Osha wanted and did and come up with a coherent explanation of these events. Again, I see thematically what Leslye wanted to do here, but the events are incoherent nonsense.
I need to stop. I could expand this list 10 more points rehashing previous criticisms that didn’t culminate well here. But I think I’ll just move on. Look, this show does some things well, its higher ratings are in other categories below. Everything in this show isn’t terrible, but the writing and overarching storyline truly demand you to turn your brain off and not think. At the end of the day, all writing and storylines have both objective and subjective elements, but for me, I have to be honest and give this show a 1/10 in this category.
Production Quality and Creative Direction
This show remains rather small in scale, and we have gone to the same location multiple times now, so there’s not always a ton to comment on in terms of new production and creativity. The standout design was certainly the asteroid/ice field surrounding Brendok. The concept was great and served as a unique obstacle to creating entertainment value in this escape sequence. It was certainly appreciated rather than just having an empty orbit for the setting. I can’t say it looked incredible or anything though, as when you review this multiple times, you can see the editing tricks they used in order to mask some of the challenges of such a setting. The objects in space are extremely blurred, which makes sense for a high-speed chase, but it doesn’t do anything to help the beauty of the scene. Even with a vast field, it still manages to feel small with tons of close-up shots both inside the ships and outside. The green screen work with the actors was not very smooth, and the depth perception was very wrong when you’d see a shot of Sol or Mae up against a cockpit window. The ship designs looked good, though they functioned more like cars driving on the road rather than free-floating spaceships. One of the shots reminds me of the movie Cars when Mater and Lighting go “tractor tipping” and the farming vehicle tries to run them over. Overall, it was a good sequence, but not stunning in any way. The various senate chamber rooms looked extremely industrial rather than diplomatic and had many odd colors inside. Tons of purples and reds and dark blues, I just didn’t understand what the aesthetic was. The fight sequences had great VFX throughout and continue to be the production highlight of the show. I’ll mention it here as well, while we only saw a glimpse, the Plagueis model looked great. Perhaps the CGI wasn’t perfectly crisp and textured, but they didn’t necessarily need to do that here. Many had big concerns about how a Sith Muun would look and some were calling for a species change because it would look “too goofy”, but his model was really great and I’d love to see it utilized again in some manner. The wipes and overall editing of this episode were less bad than previous weeks which were the worst I have ever seen in Star Wars, so I’m glad to see that corrected here. There were a few distracting cuts, but much improved from the lows. Overall, this show has done an adequate job of production quality. Nothing has been spectacular, there have been some low moments, but also some that I think perfectly served their purposes. Carried by the combat VFX and lessened by poor green screen integration and distracting post-production editing, I give the visual quality of this show a 6/10.
As far as the creative direction of the episode, again I have to give props for the very competent integration of a Sith Muun. The music, CGI model, and movement all looked very good. The ruined Brendock set did a good job of showing natural overgrowth over the decades, and the sets did a solid job of being transformed. I was quite disappointed in the lack of creativity in the designs of Vernestra’s Jedi squad, however. There are 12 Jedi standing in this plaza, and every single one of them is human aside from Vern. I thought I maybe could see some tiny horns on one that make him look like a Zabrak, but it’s very clear, and even then, it’s a human-adjacent species. They all have some very wacky hairstyles, face paint, and tattoos, but it’s a bunch of very obviously dressed-up humans. We got a Kel Dor in a previous battle, and these Jedi do not do a single thing so I’m not sure why the alien designs are so stifled here. Such a perfect chance to feature 75+% alien species from the Order, but it’s so bland. Additionally, I do not enjoy this trend of every single Jedi having copy-paste yellow-brown robes. The PT did great with the diversity of costumes and colors on robes, and I’m not sure if this is purely a High Republic thing, but if it is, I can’t understand why that suddenly changes in 80 years. The other costume I need to highlight is Vern’s “wedding gown” outfit she dons at the end in order to look… important? I don’t know, but it looked like a placemat for my dinner table with some roughly sewn symbols on it. I have listened to the costume designer discuss her ideas in interviews, and I’m simply not a fan of her vision for Star Wars costumes. It looks like highfalutin posh goofiness instead of historic Star Wars aesthetics. The clash of Vern’s robes on her black and red “emperor’s chair” was obviously thematically intentional, but sometimes it just doesn’t need to be that deep. George Lucas made Luke’s 2nd lightsaber green because the blue was blending into the Tatooine sky too much when it was blue. Sometimes just make things look good rather than going way over the top. The Sol v Qimir was wonderfully choreographed once more and I hope to see more from this team, though I’m interested to see if they’re able to expand beyond the kung-fu style that marked this show. I do have to point out that I despise the usage of slow-mo in combat scenes like this. It looks terrible and things are way cooler when we see their speed in real time. Imagine the PT duels cutting to slow motion and spinning cameras when Maul kicks Obi-Wan off a ledge or when Dooku cuts off Anakin’s arm… In contrast to the mostly great Qimir duel, the Mae v Osha fistfight was the worst battle sequence of the series. That’s obviously a difficult concept to pull off with one actor and a stunt double/CGI, but it did not look good in any capacity. This is a hard category to score overall, because for the most part, the fighting was the best we’ve seen in decades, but the general creative inspiration was missing. I saw next to nothing that made me feel like I was experiencing a new era for the first time. I suppose it’s so close to the PT that it can’t look increasingly different, but it also didn’t look like the PT. I don’t think the overall ideas for creative design meshed well, especially compared to the concept art that has come out, it just missed the mark and nothing looked visually awe-inspiring. Overall, since I have included choreography in this category from the beginning as combat is an art, this category gets a 6/10.
Performances and Characters
Amandla Stenberg just could not deliver the depth of performance needed to sell this episode, and in the role of Osha and Mae, it has severely hampered my ability to connect with these characters. She genuinely tries to display emotions like anger and sadness, but fails to convey them realistically. If she had delivered a great performance with the twins, maybe I would have felt something differently about their arc or at least been able to feel what they seemed to be feeling, but there was a true disconnect in the acting/directing here. At the end, when they’re saying goodbye, it’s obviously trying to make us feel sorrow for them, but I simply never do. I’m nothing more than bored as I watch yet another fip-floppy and wooden delivery. The flat performance of the primary protagonists of the show is one of the greatest failings of the series and of the finale in particular. The Acolyte really relied on her to deliver something special, and granted, it’s a very difficult task, but I have to be honest and admit she just doesn’t accomplish what was needed to sell it. Side characters like Lee Jung-jae and Jacinto are indisputably the stars of the show, even if the character motivations were very confounding at times, the performances made nearly every scene with them engaging. Compare any scene with Sol or Qimir to one where Osha and Mae are talking to each other and it’s day and night. Unfortunately, not many other actors were even given a chance to shine and I thought some of the talent was wasted. You bring in proven actors like Carrie Ann Moss, Dean-Charles Chapman, and Dafne Keen, yet they’re barely allowed to show their great skills. Whereas Rebecca Henerson as Vernestra was hired due to familial relations rather than talent as this character, and somehow surpasses Amandala for the stiffest and most boring performance I have seen in a very, very long time. I really would like to give this category a high score due to some phenomenal acting skills from a few characters, but half of the screen time goes to performances that are very low-rated so I have to score the acting of this show no higher than a 5/10.
Mae / Osha - An indecipherable mess of a character, where two distinct personalities are impossible to identify (I guess this lines up with them being one mind or something). Far too much screen time leading to the most boring scenes in the series, no discernable character arc, weak abilities, unbelievable actions, etc. 2/10
Master Sol - Massive potential with a fantastic start to the character. Unfortunately is completely ruined by the end, and I lose all sympathy for him due to idiotic decisions and weakness of will and spirit. It is impossible to look up to this character anymore after his conclusion. 4.5/10
Jecki Lon - Right when she was starting to get interesting, she was removed from the show. A bit wooden, but did well enough for me to enjoy the few scenes she was in, and had a cool duel. 6/10
Yord Fandar - A bit weaker with Jecki on the interest level, was kind of intentionally written as a stuck-up dumbass and not supposed t be very likable. Somehow got a cult following on social media, I guess because of his body? This character needed a lot more growth, he was a nothing burger. 4/10
Master Kelnacca - A huge wasted opportunity. A wookiee Jedi master is a great idea, but he wasn’t even a real character. No discernable traits or personality, no spotlight, first combat scene was cut, and we barely see him after the second. Just wasted all around. 3.5/10
Master Torbin - A complete failure of a character. I cannot begin to understand his decision-making as a padawan, how he excelled so quickly as a Jedi after the events of the flashback to become a master, and why he decided to take the vow and kill himself. Truly a mess of writing here. 1/10
Master Vernestra - Stifled by an absolutely atrocious performance, given lines and actions that do nothing to develop her, setting up an impossible to believe cover up, marketed with a lightwhip only for it to get used for 0.8 seconds to kill a CGI beetle, and locked up every scene she was in. 1/10
Master Indara - Extremely boring Jedi portrayal, no-nonsense but also no personality. Not much to say in terms of character arc or growth. She goes by the books and dies in under 20 minutes of screen time throughout the whole season. 3/10
Qimir - Bright spot in this show, carried by great acting and mysterious aura. Not a fan of the costume design whatsoever, but was an intriguing character nonetheless. Background was not explored nearly enough, and I truly wanted to see any sort of exploration into his background or dark side nature. This entire show should’ve been about him. He should’ve been The Acolyte. 7/10
Mother Aniseya - Solid performance and interesting voodoo-esque cult leader. Nonsensical decisions lead to her death and head-scratchers aren’t good for making for interesting characters. 4/10
Mother Koril - Extremely grating and annoying character, unreasonable, hampered by poor acting, character disappears with no arc whatsoever 2/10
Overall, there were many forgettable or terrible characters, one half-great character, and one really good one. Show gets a 3/10 on it’s characters.
Conclusion
Finale Episode rating: 3.6/10 (I’d call it “pretty weak”, but not “terrible” or “decent”)
Pros:
Sensible episode structure giving ways for all characters to end up where it all started
Another great lightsaber duel
Strong emphasis on the themes it was trying to convey (even if I disagree with them, I recognize that it communicated them)
Cons:
Extremely disappointing and unsatisfying payoffs to mysteries
Character motivations and arcs that are inexplicable
Obnoxious cameos and “tune in for season 2!” revelations
Best scenes:
Worst Scenes:
(Special mention: I got physically repulsed when Osha and Qimir held hands. STOP with these creepy sexual harassment-looking relationships with our villains. Reylo, Qimirsha, GROSS. Genuinely, deeply, unsettling and repulsive. The fan art from people who like the ST and The Acolyte wanting to “ship” these abusive relationships with male murderers and young women in power-imbalanced roles blows my mind away. I have to pretend it’s not real life where people actually support this shit.)
Series Rating: 2.2/10 (I’d call it “Very bad”, but not “unwatchable” or “kind of bad”)
They should stop making weird garbage. Any time period, any genre, just stop with the bad scripts and low quality productions. Ideally in a movie format. But they couldn’t even get Obi-wan and Boba Fett right, and those were basically impossible targets to miss. Maybe their current infrastructure will collapse and it can be started over, but it’s hard to imagine.
I understand the dislike for some recent productions, but what is “weird garbage” to you is someone else’s introduction to Star Wars and their absolute favorite storyline. I am hoping this thread can be somewhere that folks can analyze the Star Wars fandom itself and speculate specific ways to ensure better financial and critical success. Any particular storyline you’d like to see represented in theaters? What would you do if you were in charge of selecting the next movie to produce?
I’m of the opinion that quality trumps quantity. The Mandalorian was a landmark moment, it had the whole world invested in Star Wars again. When it came out the attention to detail, quality and presentation was clear. As they’ve tried to latch onto that success and spin-up more and more concurrent projects they’ve all suffered in some way on the quality front, with Andor’s first season being the standout exception.
I’d like to see a return of a focused approach; tell a story, move on to the next one. The limited series idea has merit vs. films, but it has to be a script written for the format. If the story requires a film format, have the guts to stick to it, even if it’s a Disney+ only release. I’d much rather one quality project a year than three or four mediocre or compromised ones.
I agree with this to an extent! Back in GL era, it was quite focused on EU material surrounding what George was working on at that time/had worked on before. The KOTOR project was the biggest deviation we had ever seen, and amidst the PT, it was a wildly successful choice. I think 1 show, 1 film, and 1 game/year is a very achievable goal. Rotate these toward the preferences of the various core fan groups and I think we’d start to see a better trend in quality/viewership/reviews. Thanks for your thoughts. What do you think would be the best “one story” to focus on next? (Let’s be realistic and think past 2026 projects that are already slated)
Great write-up Acbagel!
Unfortunately I don’t think simply making “a little something for everyone” (i.e. different things for different people) is enough to unite the fandom, as each group generally seems to think Star Wars should only be made for their tastes specifically (even if not everyone admits it). Doesn’t help also that a ton of YouTubers nowadays make an entire living from hating Star Wars, no matter what it does.
Of all the groups you mentioned, I’m in the one that you described as “not very protective, fine with whatever direction Disney takes.” I honestly think at this point they should just keep doing whatever they’re doing, cause people will get mad no matter what. There was a time when even ESB was divisive, ffs!
It won’t necessarily unite the fandom, but it will at least satiate them to a degree. Right now I’d estimate you probably have 30%-60% of Star Wars fans saying they’re not pleased with the direction of the franchise (I know this is a wide range, but it’s pure speculation so I have to guess and be generous on either side. Either way, it’s a significant portion of dissatisfaction. If you read the study linked in OP, Star Wars consumer demand has decreased by 54% since 2020). OT purists have been mad for 2 decades, EU enthusiasts have been mad for a decade, GL Star Wars fans are up and down on the recent stuff, Disney-supportive folks are generally happy with recent years and glad for new stories, and casuals have been consistently tuning out post-2019. I think by throwing bones to various groups and hopefully crossing over here and there to satisfy multiple groups at a time, you’d foster a less angsty environment. They may never love one another, but if you give each group any semblance of real hope for something they want to see, then they’ll stay distracted enough to stop clawing each other’s eyes out.
Indeed, each group selfishly wants what they want and there’s nothing wrong with that. I would like nothing more personally than for Disney to announce that their Canon timeline is disbanded and they’re going back to the EU, similar to how they first did it with “Legends”. But do I think that would be “best” for the Star Wars brand? Not at all, and I think I have the self-awareness to say even though I selfishly want that for myself, I think that doing that would create even more rifts and fracture support for the stories I want to see. I want Disney to make a lot of money telling good stories so they can keep investing in quality production. There has to be a balance in strategies to accomplish this.
Yes, the YT/media “grift” must be entirely ignored by Disney. I won’t say the biggest YTers will hate “everything”, small sects will, but the algorithm does not support small sects of grifts. I run millions of $ in YT ad campaigns/year at my job and watch tons of channel trends, I am quite in tune with how view bumps work. The Acolyte is making people a LOT of money and they are milking it for all it’s worth, but the algorithm will soon move on to other content and the rage bait will move to another topic. Probably another franchise. These types of viewership spikes in “grift” channels did not occur during The Bad Batch, TCW S7, or Andor. I’ve done in-depth studies of a particular channel that during the ST era was capitalizing on the hype leading up to 8. They were making extremely positive and supportive videos pre-TLJ, and it was a nonsense “leak bait” channel that was pure made-up speculation, but they framed it as if they had “sources” feeding them info. The views were going WILD. I spoke directly with this channel and they sent me their earnings numbers. They were working 1-2 hours/day and making ~$150k/year. Post-TLJ, this channel rode the algorithm to capitalize on the controversy of the film, and then again after TRoS, and now the channel focuses solely on the “woke culture” in Hollywood. They have grown 5x and I’m sure their earnings are scaling quite well. This is obviously a channel to 100% ignore. The individual told me they genuinely don’t care/believe what they’re pushing and they just do it as a job to make a lot of money. I think these channels are very easy to identify, ignore, and not even take into consideration when looking at strategies for successful Star Wars.
Amidst a fascinating compilation of studies from Stat Significant about the uniqueness of the Star Wars fandom, I want to start a discussion about where Star Wars can go in future projects that could create unity and growth. I’m opening with my personal analysis of the state of the brand, and want to keep track in this OP of various recommended projects to track ideas and see what eventually comes to pass.
The State of Star Wars in a Post-Acolyte World
As I reflect on the state of Star Wars after the last 7 weeks, it has become clear that this fanbase is truly unlike any other in existence. It is an unruly beast with many heads, akin to some Biblical creature in Revelation. How does one tame (or at least direct the aggression of) this wild beast into a well-behaved pet? Disney+ has been hemorrhaging billions of dollars over the last few years. Star Wars hasn’t been in theaters for nearly 5 years, and it has been nearly 8 years since there has been a movie that was not extremely divisive and also financially successful (Rogue One). The High Republic sales are astronomically lower than previous EU, and modern video games have been released at a snail’s pace. We’ve also seen one of the most successful original streaming releases of all time in the Mandalorian, had numerous big money-making films like TFA, received critically acclaimed and successful “Jedi” games, and had some great additions to comics and novels in the canon timeline. This is of course a natural ebb and flow of a multi-billion dollar effort. It isn’t unexpected, and such a large purchase and integration is bound to have times of trial. However, there are clear signs of the uniqueness of these challenges. The present divisiveness has grown into a festering wound that I would like to see addressed before things get worse.
The OT v PT war of the early 2000s was our first glimpse at what was to come (the mini-controversies of RotJ feeling more “childlike” are microscopic bacteria compared to what is visible today), and today’s divisive battle makes that initial trilogy duel look like toy soldiers in a sandbox. If any semblance of unity or shared enjoyment is the goal (and perhaps it’s not, perhaps Disney is simply done with certain sects and wants them to fade away into the abyss) then the path forward must involve a concerted effort to understand and address the diverse expectations and preferences of the fan community. I hope the goal for Star Wars is still to tell timeless stories that deal with issues that cause us to question and come away with positive understandings of spirituality, mortality, peace, love, selfishness, emotion, reason, etc. All of this value is taught through a fantastic sci-fi fantasy setting with depth in lore and vast buckets of technologies and species. I think this worldwide phenomenon of Star Wars is still waiting to be utilized and by acknowledging past missteps and actively working towards a more unified and satisfying narrative approach, the franchise can regain its cultural footing and continue to inspire and captivate audiences around the world.
This preface analysis aims to dissect the current state of the Star Wars fanbase, identify the core groups and their unique perspectives, and propose strategies for fostering a more cohesive and harmonious community. Only by embracing the richness of its diverse fanbase and catering to the various cliques can Star Wars hope to chart a course toward a brighter, more inclusive future.
Core Groups of Star Wars Fans
The Star Wars franchise, spanning nearly five decades, has cultivated a diverse and passionate fanbase. However, this diversity has also led to deep divisions among fans, each group with their own preferences and criticisms. Understanding these core groups is essential for fostering a passionate community. Here, I identify five main categories of Star Wars fans and explore strategies to bridge the gaps between them.
1. Original Trilogy Purists
Characteristics: These fans hold the OT as the pinnacle of Star Wars. They often critique changes made in special editions and may be skeptical of new additions to the saga, such as the PT, and animated projects.
Preferences: Practical effects, 80s nostalgia, original storytelling, and the character arcs of classic heroes like Luke, Leia, and Han.
Challenges: Resistance to new characters, ideas, and storylines that deviate from the original trilogy’s tone and style.
Solutions and Specific Projects -
Restoration Projects: Restore and release the original theatrical versions of the original trilogy on Disney+. This project can be announced in Year 1 of this plan and released in Year 2, providing OT Purists with access to the untouched classics. (GL has said he doesn’t necessarily care for these to be re-released, but somehow, some way there has to be a way to get these made available on D+. You would instantly buy massive favor with this sect if these were readily available for viewing on their home devices)
Spin-off Series and Films: Develop a series focusing on the untold stories of original trilogy concepts. For example, a series exploring a Stormtrooper’s journey in response to the Death Star’s destruction, a Rebel Pilot’s missions in the Galactic Civil War that culminate at RotJ (Rogue Squadron, the “top gun” themed film seemed to be a perfect fit here), or even use an existing character like a young Wedge Antilles. This can be pitched in Year 2 and released in Year 4.
Tribute Documentaries: Produce a documentary series, “The Legacy of the Original Trilogy,” featuring never-before-seen behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with cast and crew. Film new interviews reflecting back on “the good ol’ days”. This can be announced in Year 1 and released in Year 3.
The reality is that this group already feels disenfranchised, and at ~40 years out from their conception, they are genuinely dying out and cannot carry the brand forward. But they should be absolutely treasured for eternity and be given a respectful send-off.
2. Expanded Universe Enthusiasts (Here I am, Lord. Uh, I am a member of this sect is what I mean)
Characteristics: Devotees of the now non-canonical Expanded Universe, rebranded by Disney to be known as “Legends”. They appreciate the depth and complexity added to the Star Wars lore through books, comics, and games. Open to different storytelling methods and perspectives, but needs to respect big-picture Star Wars themes.
Preferences: Characters like Grandmaster Luke, Mara Jade, Revan, and Darth Bane, and events such as the Yuuzhan Vong War or Mandalorian Wars. Essentially, prefer the “ruleset” of the 80s-00s and do not like seeing much changed from what they know.
Challenges: Discontent with the Disney acquisition and subsequent rebranding of all the EU as non-canonical, receiving no new production (Except SWTOR, I still see you, sweet prince), and do not enjoy having aspects of beloved stories being mildly adapted into “lesser” versions in Canon. Ie: The Solo movie poaching minor arcs of the EU book trilogy while ignoring the core story and pacing of said trilogy.
Solutions and Specific Projects -
EU Characters Faithfully in Canon: Introduce beloved EU characters into the new canon through series and films. This cannot be done in a way that deeply alters or lessens their previous storylines. Place these characters into situations that don’t alter their previous arcs. Let fans continue to personally headcanon ways for EU and Canon to co-exist. For example, bring Mara Jade into a Disney+ series exploring her life pre-EU introduction in the timeline. Use her in Canon stories around big events in the EU. Announce these projects in Year 1, with a release in Year 3.
Animated Series: Develop an animated series that faithfully adapts popular EU storylines like the OG Tales of the Jedi comics and doesn’t get close enough to Canon to interfere with it. I would additionally look at diversifying the animated art styles. TCW style is great, but not conducive to all storylines. Look at how Visions diversified the studios. I can see something like Arcane for this project. Announce in Year 2 and release in Year 4.
Re-cast and Tell EU Stories Set in the EU: I’d put this 5-10 years down the line… but recast Han, Luke, Leia, and create the EU Thrawn trilogy/NJO. Don’t worry about Canon integration, just openly release some EU stories set in the EU. No reason we have to forget these beloved storylines just because TLJ Luke exists. Let each sect keep their beloved stories. Thrawn Trilogy is the most influential EU project of all time. The Heir to the Empire novel alone sold 15 million copies, which is roughly equivalent to 20% of the tickets sold for Return of the Jedi. This statistic alone highlights the substantial fanbase dedicated to the Expanded Universe, and that is just one single novel. You would print money moving from this trilogy to NJO in live-action.
3. “George Lucas Star Wars” Defenders
Characteristics: Fans who grew up with the prequel trilogy and appreciate its story arcs and character development, particularly of Anakin Skywalker. Deeply appreciate the OT as well, but generally like the movies and maybe a couple of games and shows.
Preferences: Political intrigue, expansive world-building, large-scale battles, and the Jedi Order/Galactic Empire’s rise and fall.
Challenges: Sensitive to criticism of GL Star Wars, not fond of Canon additions that add to/alter the context of the original saga’s events.
Solutions and Specific Projects -
Clone Wars Continuation: Create an additional season of The Clone Wars to explore untold stories and character arcs. Finish Utapau arc, Son of Dathomir, Dark Disciple, untold Boba v Cad story. Move on this immediately, almost every group will love this. Announce in Year 1, and release the new season ASAP.
Continue Saga Novels: Commission a series of novels set during the GL Skywalker saga, focusing on key events and characters like Mace Windu, Sidious, and Boba Fett. Canon seems to be doing this currently to a degree, but it’s disjointed and completely up against a wall with the EU. Notice how they will not retell EU stories and they’re towing an awkward line here. Not sure what the solution is honestly, but there needs to be a new strategy for the book releases as sales are currently abysmal. Announce a new plan rollout in Year 1, with the first novel released in Year 3.
Expanded Universe Film: Produce a live-action film that delves into the complexities of the Clone Wars from different perspectives, such as a war drama. Perhaps a Quinlan Vos movie, might be a good slot for Filoni after his Thrawn movie. Announce in Year 2, release in Year 5.
4. Disney Era Admirers
Characteristics: Fans who enjoy the new direction taken by Disney since acquiring Lucasfilm. This includes the sequel trilogy, standalone films, and new series like The Mandalorian or The Acolyte. Generally pretty open and accepting of any direction, not super picky or protective.
Preferences: New characters like Rey, Kylo Ren, and the integration of modern feeling and diverse storytelling.
Challenges: “Bored” of the GL Skywalker era. Sensitive to backlash from fans of aforementioned sects and those who dislike changes in tone and narrative direction.
Solutions and Specific Projects:
Sequel Trilogy Novels: Publish a series of novels that further develop the characters and storylines introduced in the sequel trilogy. Let’s see a back-and-forth journey of Rey and Kylo in between TLJ and TRoS. Announce in Year 1, release the first novel in Year 2.
New Series and Spin-offs: Create a new series that expands on the sequel trilogy characters, such as a series about Rey’s journey to rebuild the Jedi Order (probably set before the upcoming Rey movie). Announce in Year 3, release in Year 5.
Crossover Events: Develop crossover events in The Mandalorian and Ahsoka that tie into the sequel trilogy, creating a cohesive narrative bridge. This is already being done pretty well, and I think it’s great for this group of fans. Don’t stop doing this just because of backlash from other groups.
5. “Casual” and Newcomer Fans
Characteristics: Individuals who enjoy Star Wars but do not engage deeply with the lore. They appreciate the franchise as entertaining and accessible. Enjoy it when it is culturally relevant, ignore it when it is not.
Preferences: Broad appeal content, straightforward narratives, and prominent pop culture moments.
Challenges: Lack of deep knowledge can sometimes lead to misunderstandings or oversimplifications of the saga’s complexities. Certain projects will inevitably be inaccessible to this group.
Solutions and Specific Projects:
Star Wars Introduction Series: Develop a Disney+/social media series that re-introduces the Star Wars universe to newcomers, explaining key concepts, characters, and events in an engaging way. Bring in celebrities if you need, make Star Wars feel “cool” and break whatever remaining stigmas exist. Announce in Year 1, release in Year 2.
Multi-media Experiences: Bring in new apps, games, and in-person experiences for people to engage with. Contract themed events whether at bars, theaters, restaurants, etc. Don’t let Star Wars fade into the background for this group. Let the average person have a reason to say they’re a fan by keeping it an occasional and enjoyable part of their life.
Cultural Phenomenon Moments: Sometimes you just have to get lucky here, but Grogu was the epitome of this. Produce family-friendly stories that provide standalone, easy-to-follow characters set in the Star Wars universe. To keep Star Wars in the cultural forefront, this needs to keep happening.
Many of these groups will feel they belong in primarily 1 or 2 and secondarily in another. That’s wonderful, crossover is very healthy. And of course, there will be the rare deviation of a big-time 1 & 4 that hates 2 & 3 and deviates from all norms. I have certainly missed some things here and perhaps am too broad already, but for the sake of being able to generally keep track of things, let’s move on. Let’s look at some big-picture proposals on how to bridge some gaps between our groups.
Strategies for Unifying the Fanbase
1. Equal Respect for All Groups
Strategy: This needs to be first and foremost, but any and all projects need to be respectful of all the groups. If you’re going to massively rewrite an EU character to tell a new Disney Canon story with them, you need to first celebrate their EU arc and clearly identify this as a new timeline and not just a slap in the face. We have seen complete EU erasure to the point where it’s not even acknowledged outside of republished books that they bank on to boost their presently terrible print sales. And on the flip side, if an EU story is going to be told, don’t do it in a way that makes it try to come off as “superior” to a Disney canon story. Acknowledge the value of each era of Star Wars content. Official channels and influential Star Wars voices should celebrate the contributions of the original, prequel, and Disney eras without pitting them against each other. Ie, do NOT open the new trilogy following the PT with the line, “THIS will begin to make things right.”
Specific Projects:
Documentaries and Retrospectives: Create a docuseries that covers the making and cultural impact of each era, including interviews with key creators and actors. For example, a series like “Star Wars: The Legacy Continues” could delve into the original trilogy, the prequel trilogy, and the Disney era, showcasing behind-the-scenes footage and fan reactions over the decades.
Multigenerational Panel Discussions: Host panel discussions at major conventions featuring creators and actors from all three eras together. Don’t separate things so much. These panels could actors from different trilogies discussing their experiences and the evolution of the franchise. Give a “Sith Apprentice” panel with Sam Witwer and Manny Jacinto for example. Have fun with it!
Themed Marathons on Disney+: Organize viewing marathons on Disney+ that mix content from all eras. For instance, a marathon could include the opening movie from each trilogy followed by the premiere of The Mandalorian or The Clone Wars. Run themed character marathons like an Ahsoka-organized viewing list. Emphasize the continuity and shared universe of Star Wars.
2. Expanded Canon Integration
Strategy: Integrate elements of the Expanded Universe into the new canon. This acknowledges EU enthusiasts while enriching current narratives.
Specific Projects:
Thrawn Trilogy Adaptation: As mentioned above, I think this is the #1 project to get moving. Create a high-quality live-action or maybe an animated adaptation of Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn trilogy. This could be a limited series on Disney+, introducing some of the most beloved EU characters into the modern era while staying true to the original storylines.
Knights of the Old Republic: You have to take advantage of this era. Fix whatever is happening with the game remake and develop a new film or series set in the Old Republic era, incorporating popular elements from the games and comics. Remaking the games will serve to tell those specific stories, but build around them. Run a young Revan/Malak Mandalorian War show. This project could explore the ancient Jedi and Sith history, appealing to fans of the EU and those interested in new, untold stories.
Meaningful Cameos and References: Introduce EU characters in existing series without doing so in a “cheap” way. Respect and enhance the EU arcs, don’t just toss them in for name recognition and brief pops of attention on social media.
3. Open Dialogue and Feedback Channels
Strategy: Create official channels for fan feedback and discussion, promoting a sense of ownership and involvement among fans. Maybe this is unrealistic in today’s corporate-driven world that generally doesn’t mind eating the little man for breakfast, but throwing any sort of bone to their fanbase looking for feedback, or at least any sort of acknowledgment about the state of things is desperately needed. Marvel X-Men has done it in times of division, Dragonball Z certainly did it… This is possible and healthy.
Specific Projects:
Star Wars Town Halls: Host virtual town halls where fans can ask questions and provide feedback directly to creators and executives. These sessions could be live-streamed on platforms like YouTube and Disney+. Do NOT PR sugarcoat it with BS. I know that’s a big corpo nightmare, but find creators/figureheads who can openly engage with the fans. It is truly not difficult to have discussions with respectful disagreement. It’s a lost art. Bring it back.
Interactive Online Forums: Develop an official Star Wars community platform where fans can discuss theories, share fan art, and interact with creators. Moderators and Star Wars creators can participate in discussions, providing insights and fostering a sense of community. Pay some Star Wars celebs to drop in and discuss every once in a while. Star Wars feels unreachable currently. We have lost a sense of community and the beauty of old forum discussions (actually, much like this one 😃 ) social media interactions aren’t cutting it.
Surveys and Polls: Conduct regular surveys and polls on social media and the official Star Wars website to gather fan input on potential projects, characters, and storylines. Results should be shared transparently, showing fans that their voices are heard and valued.
4. Modern Storytelling
Strategy: This is simply a reality of the world, but we can’t live in the 80s or 00s forever. New content should be both innovative and respectful of the franchise’s heritage. Balancing nostalgia with incredible new improvements can appeal to both long-time fans and newcomers.
Specific Projects:
High Republic Series: This era was a good idea, but the launch was flubbed. Marketing and projects were a mess. Worst book sales in Star Wars history. Expand the High Republic publishing initiative into a live-action series or animated show, focusing on a group of Jedi and their adventures (I don’t think the Acolyte did anything to help this era whatsoever. Being set 80-100 years before the PT and primarily trying to tie into TPM storylines did nothing to this era which dates back 500+ years.) This era is ripe for fresh stories, but outside of a couple novels, we have nothing to care about. Look at how KOTOR brought the Old Republic onto the map. We need something influential like this to kickstart this era’s popularity.
Children’s Programming: Continue to make new series aimed at younger audiences that teach timeless lessons. Young Jedi Adventures isn’t bad, but it is extremely shallow and relies on bright colors and fast-paced cuts more than good storytelling. I have a 4-year-old daughter that I’d love to introduce to the beauty of Star Wars. We started watching this show together and made it through a season. She thought it was ok, got her into things enough to want a lightsaber… But then I showed her The Clone Wars. Specifically, the TotJ Ahsoka prequel followed by more Ahsoka episodes and she is absolutely obsessed now. Children do not need things so dumbed down. YJA feels like it’s directed at the attention span of a 1-2-year-old but is actually aimed at the 4-7 range. Don’t underestimate the mind of a child, truly wonderful it is! I watched A New Hope at 6 years old and was beyond engrossed with Star Wars. Bring back the timeless childhood magic by trusting the young mind.
5. Community Building Events
Strategy: Organize events that bring together fans from different groups, fostering mutual respect and understanding.
Specific Projects:
Star Wars Celebration: Expand the annual Star Wars Celebration to include more interactive experiences, such as live-action role-playing games, fan film screenings, and cosplay/lightsaber dueling competitions that celebrate all eras of Star Wars. Celebration is a great idea, but ultimately still feels so corporate, sterile, and “safe” rather than open and genuine.
Global Fan Meetups: Coordinate global fan meetups on Star Wars Day (May 4th) where fans can gather in local theaters, libraries, and community centers to watch films, participate in trivia contests, and share their love for Star Wars.
Charity Events: Organize charity events like “Lightsaber Runs” or “Jedi vs. Sith” sports tournaments where fans can participate and raise funds for good causes. These events can be live-streamed and promoted on social media to encourage widespread participation.
Collaborative Fan Projects: SUPPORT collaborative fan projects such as fan films, fan fiction anthologies, and art exhibitions. Disney can provide resources, platforms, and even official recognition for outstanding contributions, fostering a sense of community and creativity. Highlighting random fan art of current projects is okay, but again, it’s extremely basic and doesn’t feel authentic. Embrace the fanbase rather than fearing it. Core theme of Star Wars here.
Conclusion
This is my personal opinion and speculation, but I truly hope Disney can celebrate the rich history of Star Wars, honor the diverse preferences of its fanbase, and create a more inclusive and unified community. Acknowledging the value of each era, integrating beloved EU elements, fostering open dialogue, ensuring inclusive storytelling, and organizing community-building events are key strategies that I think would help bridge the gaps between different fan groups. This approach not only respects the legacy of Star Wars but also ensures its continued growth and relevance for future generations.
I want to catalog some of your ideas for projects and track if any come to light. Did I miss any Core Groups of fans? What’s your idea to change course? Or is Disney doing great as is and doesn’t need any alterations?
Great feedback all around, folks. I’m still writing some content for the review. It’s taking me a very long time to break down both the episode and season as a whole so I’ll have to push my in-depth review to tomorrow. Writing a big post for a new thread as well to generate some discussion of the many unique desired futures of Star Wars.
Regardless of what we individually think about the show, it’s undeniable that the last 2 months have been… monumental for the brand. For better or for worse, this show generated attention like nothing since the peak Sequels/Mando finale. Engagement statistics show it as the 2nd highest moment since Disney’s purchase, so we’ve definitely just lived through something significant in some way. Just trying to break down what it all could possibly mean.
When I write my review for tonight’s episode, I’ll want to preface it with a larger commentary about the show itself rather than dealing with the performance numbers, so I will make a separate post about that now. Why do I care to do this? Well, first of all, I’m a numbers nerd… I work in TV/streaming advertising for a career, so looking at channel/show performance and viewership numbers and strategizing plans based on that is what I do anyway. I think very interesting trends can be discovered, and the media industry has always fascinated me. Second, I’m a Star Wars nerd. I want good shows and I want them to do very well in capturing the public eye, so looking at how current storylines are doing helps me understand the direction Star Wars is going/could go in the future. Nielsen dropped their numbers earlier than usual this week, so let’s take a look!
Analyzing Viewership Numbers for “The Acolyte” on Disney+
Following the underwhelming ratings for the two-episode premiere, Episode 3 numbers reveal that the ratings are still tracking lower than Ahsoka but higher than Andor. The two-episode premiere garnered 488 million minutes of total viewing time. However, in the week that Episode 3 was released, this number had dropped to 370 million minutes. It is important to note that Nielsen’s data does not break down viewership numbers for individual episodes, and there may be some carryover from the first two episodes into the third week.
Comparative Analysis with Ahsoka
For a fair comparison, let’s keep a close eye on Ahsoka, which also released its first two episodes simultaneously, followed by a single third episode. I know many people think that Ahsoka is more “watchable” for people since it featured a known character, but Disney investors don’t care. They look at numbers. I’m not trying to make an argument about if Acolyte was “good” for it not featuring a known character, I’m simply trying to play the role of the Stuffy Suit looking at my pocketbook. Ahsoka achieved a Nielsen rating of 829 million minutes for its first two episodes. With the release of the third episode, Ahsoka’s viewership dropped to 487 million minutes, a figure that aligns with the average of the first two episodes. In week four, Ahsoka recorded 459 million minutes. In week five, Ahsoka saw a significant increase to 577 million minutes with the inclusion of Anakin setting social media abuzz. Keep these numbers in mind through the rest of this post and the coming weeks as we analyze trends. The structure of the two shows is very similar with Episode 5 being considered the “best” and one that generates lots of positive talk.
Nielsen Ratings for Star Wars Series on Disney+
Here are the Nielsen viewership numbers for the first three episodes of each Star Wars series on Disney+:
The Mandalorian S2:
The Book of Boba Fett:
The Mandalorian S3:
Obi-Wan Kenobi:
Ahsoka:
Andor:
The Acolyte:
Luminate Streaming Charts Comparison
I waited for Nielsen numbers to be released since they are the industry standard. However, Luminate’s streaming charts came out much earlier, and now that I can analyze multiple weeks of comparable data for The Acolyte, both Nielsen and Luminate report very similar minutes viewed (only deviating ~3-5% from each other in Weeks 1 & 2), indicating consistency in their viewership metrics. I am still going to wait for Nielsen numbers since they are primarily used in the professional realm, so I will withhold comment from the future trend that Luminate shows is coming. But with Episode 3 being one of the longest at 42 minutes, The Acolyte only managed 370 million minutes. This does not bode well for the coming trend, as many people tuned into this episode to see the “controversy” for themselves, but as many did not enjoy this episode, we will soon definitively see that they do not stick around from week to week.
Average Viewership Analysis
It’s important to understand how to properly analyze Nielsen data. “Minutes watched” can seem like a dumb data set to begin with, and when surface-level “journalists” try to paint a story without taking the time to calculate the numbers they can often come to inaccurate conclusions and lose the ability to see trends. The best way to track performance is to look at whole-season averages going week to week. We assume that each person watches an episode from start to finish (yes, I know that is not realistically the case, but we are using this as a baseline to extrapolate the number of viewers. The number of people who watched at least part of an episode is higher than the number I am about to provide as a “view”. I am working with a consistent baseline that a whole episode runtime acts as a single view. For this task, we need to focus less on the precise specifics of individual watchers and more on the overall trends of mass numbers). So to calculate a “view”, you simply have to take the total viewing minutes provided by Nielsen and divide it by the total runtime of the show.
(Mando S1 did not get Nielsen ratings, and we all know S2 was a major phenomenon success, so I’m trying to mainly compare Acolyte to recent releases post-Grogu hype. I also just couldn’t find accurate Mando S2 budget #'s for the next part of my analysis…)
From Disney’s Perspective, Cost/View
Let’s go one more step here and look at the investment aspect from a financial standpoint. Maybe we don’t necessarily care as viewers, but the money movers absolutely consider this. We are going to take the show’s budget, divide it properly into the number of episodes, and then see how much a view costs Disney.
Future Prospects
Given the significant budget and high expectations to introduce new viewers to the era of the High Republic which Disney has heavily invested in, The Acolyte’s current performance is disappointing on paper. Its viewership numbers are lagging behind other Star Wars series, and if this trend continues, it could spell trouble for the show’s future. I know Leslye has ideas in her mind for season 2, and it looks like the writing team made some preliminary drafts, but it was very obvious that it was not going to receive the green light until the Season 1 performance was evaluated. This is quite interesting compared to something like Andor which was comparable in budget/episode, also received relatively lower viewing numbers, but was immediately green-lit for a Season 2. I have looked at the Luminate Acolyte data for future weeks, and if Nielsen continues to track similarly, this is definitely headed for an indisputably terrible reception from the general public. These numbers are going to look much, much worse in 2 weeks.
Conclusion
The Acolyte’s viewership numbers indicate a concerning trend for Disney+ and Lucasfilm. Despite a significant budget, the show has failed to capture the audience’s interest at the same level as its predecessors, which were also falling below expectations. D+ has been hemorrhaging money as a platform, and we are likely to see a huge reevaluation of Star Wars production in the very near future. Skeleton Crew is going to be released later this year, but it’s been picture-locked for nearly a year already, they’ve just been sitting on it. Andor S2 and Ahsoka S2 are the only other projects currently in production. These are both still remnants of the “old way”. The future of Star Wars shows beyond 2026 is wide open and I would expect to see a very different approach.
Please recognize that at the end of the day, Disney and ONLY Disney possess the real numbers to do a proper cost/benefit analysis. I am simply working with publicly available data that I can compare between all streaming/cable shows and I try to see trends between them. Thanks to any numbers/Star Wars nerds who made it this far with me!
Great compilation of the work and progress so far. There is already a thread for this project though: https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Kenobi-Trials-Of-The-Master-Fanedit-by-PixelJoker95/id/103482
With the insane variety of articles releasing where some say The Acolyte is one of the most successful launches of a show ever for Star Wars, and others saying it’s at the bottom of the barrel, I wanted to wait for the Nielsen Data to come out before analyzing the show’s public performance. Well, the premiere numbers are out, and they’re not great… According to Nielsen’s analytics for the debut week, The Acolyte garnered approximately 488 million viewing minutes across its two-episode debut, averaging ~244 million minutes/episode (in reality, the first episode always has higher numbers than the second, so probably more like 280 million episode 1, 208 million episode 2).
The Mandalorian Season 1: Data Not Available
The Mandalorian Season 2: One episode, 1.032 billion
The Book of Boba Fett: One episode, 389 million
Obi-Wan Kenobi: Two episodes, 1.026 billion total, 513 million average
Andor: Three episodes, 624 million total, 208 million average
The Mandalorian Season 3: One episode, 823 million
Ahsoka: Two episodes, 829 million total, 414.5 million average
The Acolyte: Two episodes, 488 million total, 244 million average
The series launch is most comparable to Andor, which ended up actually improving its watch time as the season advanced due to very positive critical reviews and generally good word of mouth/social media commentary (even in light of the claims of it being “slow/boring”). So it will be interesting to watch week by week as the Nielson numbers reveal if this show had a similar pattern to Andor, or if the generally negative word-of-mouth/social media commentary and mediocre critical reviews will cause viewership to dwindle.
Either way, it’s difficult to see a world in which Disney Executives see the show as a financial success. Unless the viewing numbers skyrocket toward the end (and I don’t find that very probable), the show failed to produce high viewing numbers, good reviews, or positive public perception of the brand. Whether you personally like it or not is irrelevant to the point I’m making here, I am simply trying to view it from an investor standpoint, and from the premiere alone, it’s immediately looking like the high marketing budget did not payoff as desired and a Season 2 wouldn’t be worth the money.
The Acolyte - Episode 7
Pacing and Structure
Without the intro and credits, we received 36 minutes and 10 seconds of content this week. I also have to note, that about 10% of this episode was actually identical or nearly identical scenes from Episode 3. I tried counting up the non-unique minutes of content. It depends on how nitpicky you want to get with what counts as a repeated scene (does an angle of Sol watching Mae and Osha sing their song for 30 seconds count as new content when we’ve already seen the entire song up close?). Still, there are about 3-4 minutes of scenes that are not providing any new context whatsoever, even showing the exact same camera angles and going word for word through the same events. So with only ~33 minutes of genuinely new scenes, as with previous episodes, I ended up feeling like the overall plot was moving way too fast, the character decision-making process was far too rushed, but many scenes still ended up feeling way too slow. This was no doubt an extremely difficult episode to pace well, how do you show the same 40 minutes of events from a different perspective in an engaging way? I can say that what we ended up receiving as the attempt didn’t do it for me and the show continued its battle with itself on how to pace the plot flow in the timeline.
When analyzing the structure of this episode, I want to focus on its placement in the series as a whole as well as an individual piece. This was finally the big reveal episode. This was the one that contained information intentionally withheld from us for 6 weeks now, it was to serve as the story for finally letting us know what happened that fateful night 16 years ago, or at least, let us know what happened from Sol’s perspective or point of view. During the last 6 episodes, Sol has constantly alluded to something bad that happened. He has insinuated that it was kind of his fault, or at least needed a bit of explaining and revealing of the truth. However, this episode wasn’t structured to present the story from Sol’s perspective as he told Mae of his recollection; this was mainly a story of the Jedi perspective on the whole, especially from Tobrin’s perspective.
So rather than as a story from Sol to Mae, this episode served as a story of Leslye to us as the audience. This was written to explain the “opposite” point of view from the third episode, which gave us the perspective or point of view of the twins and the witches. And so now together we have the whole picture. We know the full story of that night, and without a doubt, I think these two episodes should have been combined into one episode that started out the season. Because these “big” revelations felt not terribly interesting, and certainly not worth the 6-week wait with all the teasing. This storyline was potentially a good start to a story but it was not a good culmination to a mystery that is revealed in the penultimate episode of a season. I simply don’t feel happy about sitting through six episodes to get this one. I would have been much happier starting the season off with some combined 60-minute intro of these scenes spliced together. That could have served as the basis for a story to come about how one girl becomes or tries to become, a Jedi after a horrible and confusing event. The other twin, thought to be dead by the Jedi, is of course found and saved by a dark sider, by a Sith, and she becomes his acolyte or apprentice. And eventually, there is this confrontation between the sisters where they both try to save each other from the opposite point of view. One tries to save her sister from the Sith, the other tries to save her sister from the Jedi. That sounds quite interesting; still not as interesting as the marketed story of a pre-TPM story about a Sith Acolyte, but I digress!
Basically, I think a better structure for this entire storyline would be to ditch the whole mystery idea. The whole Rashoman approach did not do anything beneficial for the plot and that whole attempted aspect completely fell flat. I don’t feel like the previous episodes built up to this in a way where I wanted or even needed to spend 36 more minutes here so I could know what happened that night. I don’t think there was anything shocking about how any of the events played out. I watched it and simply thought, well yeah, that is pretty much how I thought it would have gone down. It was all a big misunderstanding more or less, there was no major twist or reveal of a mystery of any kind. I MUCH would have rather had another 40 minutes of present-day plot development to have a shot at a satisfying conclusion, maybe just show Sol simply explaining in a few minutes what he did wrong from his perspective. We still haven’t seen the space dogfight/chase through the asteroid field, Leslye has said there is another lightsaber duel, so it seems like Episode 8 is going to be light on the plot and I struggle to see a satisfying potential ending.
Dialogue and Writing Quality
The dialogue was back on par with episode 3, still being a weak point in the show. This show has a routine and constant issue with characters disagreeing with an idea or solution to a situation, and then with one additional exchange of dialogue, they immediately change their minds, sometimes after one single sentence without any additional consideration or counterpoints. When I say the episodes feel “rushed”, this reason is a primary offender. The characters do not deliver lines that seem to come from genuine thoughts, they deliver lines that are intended to move the plot to the next scene. Ie from this episode: Indara says she needs to go into the coven alone because of the danger, Sol says “There are 50 of them”, Indara says “50 women and 2 children,” Sol says, “We should go as a group,” then Indara instantly says “Fine,” and they all immediately walk in together. Why even write this disagreement? What is the purpose of this exchange? The ENTIRE disagreement lasted a whopping 14 seconds, never to be referenced again. This is what I mean when I say it doesn’t feel like the characters are voicing actual real-life thoughts, they are just saying words from a page to move from room to room. And I have to mention the stand-out line, “Go, girl. Get mad.” Ahh, it’s just not good dialogue in any sense. Some of it is still serviceable and it’s not always actively bad, but I’d be consistently giving this section a 4/10 each week.
This episode had to carry a LOT of narrative weight. One of the biggest questions I’ve had in the show is why Torbin would feel so much guilt to take a Barash vow for 10 years only to ultimately kill himself. Why did his conscience so burden Sol that he felt such a moral responsibility for what happened? Why did Kelnacca essentially leave the Jedi Order to become a hermit? So let’s tackle the answers here. For Torbin, I still don’t know what precisely he feels guilt for. Sol’s is a bit more apparent with how he chose to drop Mae instead of Osha, but Torbin…? Was it because he feels like he is responsible for all the witches being killed even though the Mother actively used the Dark Side/magik to mind control and torment him? She got inside his mind and started to egg on his thoughts about… wanting to go “home” to Coruscant? Somehow this additional mental seeding of his boredom/worries caused him to act beyond irrationally. In an effort to get the Jedi Order to allow the four of them to complete the mission of investigating plants on Brendock, Torbin decides to go and abduct the twins because this proof of a vergence in the Force “is our ticket home”, but he already had blood sample proof of their unique connection to the force. Why was that report not proof enough? What would kidnapping the girls and bringing them to Coruscant accomplish? How did he think that would go down when reporting to the Council who just told him not to intervene at all…? I just cannot possibly understand what was happening here. I want to be gracious and go with the theory that his judgment is still very clouded by lingering effects of the mind control, but in the very next scene, he is shown to have “fortified” his mind and can no longer be attacked in this manner. So he rushes back to the coven, and Sol chases him, but upon arriving, Sol doesn’t convince him to leave, they just walk in together to get the kids. Witches and Mae end up dying in the ensuing combat, Torbin gets wounded, and Osha is saved. So what exactly is burdening Torbin so much that for the next 16 years? I can understand being traumatized and needing some counseling or something, but the timeline the show presented was that for the next 5 years following the event, Torbin graduates as a Padawan, becomes a Knight, BECOMES A MASTER, then takes the Barash Vow and remains in a meditative state for “over ten years”. Folks, Torbin had this big smudge on his record, recovered enough from the trauma to become a Knight and then a Master at what, 24-ish years old? That is extremely rare and would indicate that he is some sort of force prodigy, and you just don’t get that vibe AT ALL from the show. I’m sorry, but this sequence of events is kind of beyond explanation. It is very, very low-quality writing. Just to finalize this and break it down easily, please examine the story of Torbin’s character and tell me if this is acceptable:
Torbin was extremely “bored” after 7 weeks of collecting plants and wanted to go home badly. Torbin’s master confronts some witches and he is mind-controlled in a sense and the witch plays on his desire to leave. At this point, he is likely scared and bored and just wants to leave the planet. He finds out the Twins are special, ignores his master’s commands, and flies off alone to fight the entire coven himself and kidnap two kids. Sol arrives, goes in together, battles witches, fights Kelnacca, and is injured and traumatized. He goes back to Coruscant, heals (what happened to bacta tanks…? Luke did not remain so scarred and mutilated from the Wampa), continues training for a few more years, becomes a Knight, very quickly becomes a Master in his mid-twenties, then still so burdened by the night, he takes that Barash Vow and enters a complete trance for over ten years, awakes and sees Mae, instantly kills himself with poison. It’s just… No. Not possible.
I could write equally in-depth about Sol’s guilt, but it’s more of the same. At least he has the added pain of choosing to save Osha instead of Mae, but I don’t think he was in the wrong whatsoever to stab the Mother. She starts using magik to transform into a demon and “Osha” starts dissolving into thin air as he has a ton of guns pointed at his head. What the hell was he supposed to think? The Mother says she was just going to let Osha leave, but… Osha wasn’t even there? Why would she not just calmly agree to tell Sol this instead of turning into a demon-like figure? And when Sol goes to save Osha/Mae, he chooses to try to lift enormous collapsing metal bridges instead of just lifting two 40 lb girls off the bridges…? Just a lot of events that make little sense. Kelnacca’s only guilt was getting mind controlled and injuring Torbin I guess, and I’m not sure how that leads to 15+ years of solitude and depression.
Aside from the nonsensical character motivations, I was really expecting some sabotage on the reactor for the fire burning down a massive complex in mere minutes. Showing the book fire touching some wires and sparking is truly horrendous justification for an entire mountain complex collapsing to the ground. I thought we’d see some Sith involvement here, much greater Jedi guiltiness, reason for the fire, explanations of the conception, etc. I will reserve some judgment for next week in case Qimir reveals anything new, but I didn’t get the sense that we weren’t told everything.
Production Quality and Creative Direction
Not a lot of new sets here. We see a nighttime Jedi camp, a little on the exterior of the facility, and more of the courtyard. So there really isn’t much new to analyze here. All the same characters, costumes, and sets for the most part. The CGI looked absolutely terrible on the speeder scenes which were each only about 5 seconds a piece of an actor wiggling awkwardly in front of a poorly meshed green screen. There was no sense of scale whatsoever between the camp, the travel, the surrounding forest, or the facility itself. The practical effects and VFX continue to look great whenever actual battles are occurring, but the surrounding scale and depth of production look very shallow. Case in point, when the complex starts exploding for some reason, we see one single exterior shot of an explosion, then we cut back to the courtyard and there is debris everywhere. The whole setting changed, but they didn’t bother to show it collapsing indoors. I can’t blame the lack of budget here. A lot of sets felt extremely small and cheap in this episode. Also, we have some extremely obvious Automated Dialogue Replacement occurring on the opening camp scene that points to heavy reshoots/recontextualization. There really wasn’t an A/B plotline to balance this time around, so the transitions between scenes felt much improved from previous weeks. I wouldn’t say they were great, but definitely not nearly as distracting as they have been.
Not a lot of new creative direction here either. There were no new creatures or worldbuilding, no new ships aside from the speeders. I did like the designs of those quite a bit, but their CGI looks so blurry and out of place… It looks like the ship in orbit of the planet a couple of weeks ago, the one that looked like a PS2 render. The combat still is above average for the Disney productions and I was pleased watching the Kelnacca battle. He looked a bit stiff in the costume, but the acrobatics surrounding it helped a lot. I don’t think they fully portrayed Wookiee’s strength very well here though, he seemed to be physically subdued a bit too easily. Especially with Torbin’s backhand blocking and holding a full power kill swing… but it wasn’t a bad fight. No clue what they were going for with having all the other witches die when Indara “disconnected” Kelnacca. That just came off as a “Wtf, why did they all die” moment rather than a satisfying payoff. All in all, it was a rather “safe” and small-scale episode that didn’t introduce many new elements of creativity.
I do need to at least make a small mention of the end credits music… That was… a first for Star Wars. Modern pop music doesn’t really bring me into feeling like this is the Star Wars that I know and love. I like telling new stories in universe, but you have to make it feel in universe. Making people think directly of earth and 2024 culture is very strange directing. I am not at all a fan of that trend and hope it quickly dies right here.
Performances and Characters
As expected, Sol was the standout performance once more. Even through some somewhat confusing motivations like an inexplicable draw to Osha, he delivers his desires in a very believable manner. His performance as he held up the bridges was great as well, showing his depth of ability in portraying feelings like stress, worry, and love. I thought Dean-Charles Chapman gave off a pretty solid performance of a padawan as well. He is 26 in real life, but in the show appeared more to be 18-20 and I thought he gave a good effort at this role. “Trinity” just doesn’t have a character she can work with, there was really no personality to display and it feels like a bit of a waste and that almost anyone could’ve played Indara. Aniseya does a solid job at delivering her voodoo-inspired character, but Korril comes off as very forced and the anger her character has isn’t being adequately communicated in her emotional range.
Torbin - A complete failure of a character in my opinion. I cannot begin to understand his decision-making as a padawan, how he excelled so quickly as a Jedi after the events of the flashback to become a master, and why he decided to take the vow and kill himself. Truly a mess of writing here.
Sol - I don’t entirely buy the weight of his guilt after seeing this. I can understand some pain toward Mae because he dropped her, but his main flaw was his attachment to Osha, and I thought he’d been talking to Osha like he earned her scorn for something he had done. I guess that was in reference to not saving Mae? Just not too sure where he is coming from with all of this, and while he started out as a great character in Episode 1/2, I can’t say he has stayed as one due to the confusing motivations. Still above average, but it seemed like he had a lot more potential for a huge character arc than what we got. Next week could elevate him quite a bit though depending on how things conclude.
Kelnacca - This really isn’t a character beyond someone in the background. Like, try to explain his personality to me. He had no development as a person whatsoever. Disappointing as the concept of a Wookiee Jedi is awesome, wish he would’ve been in the spotlight more.
Indara - Extremely boring Jedi portrayal, no-nonsense but also no personality. Not much to say in terms of character arc or growth. She goes by the books and dies in under 20 minutes of screen time throughout the whole season.
Conclusion
I held back a handful of criticism of Episode 3 because I expected satisfying payoffs to all of the mysteries, but the payoffs were overwhelmingly disappointing. This would be my least favorite episode of the season, and while individually maybe not as poor as Episode 3, its placement as the penultimate episode of the series is disastrous for the overall pacing of the show and the potential to conclude well.
Rating: 1.9/10 (I’d call it “terrible”, but not “unwatchable” or “pretty weak”)
Pros:
Continued good choreography in combat
Some actors do well in displaying believable emotional performances
Lightsaber stabs continuing to kill people 😃
Cons:
Extremely disappointing and unsatisfying payoffs to mysteries
Character motivations and arcs that are inexplicable
Repeated scenes and poor placement of episode deflate the conclusion
Best scenes:
Worst Scenes:
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