Review: The Acolyte

It’s not a secret to anyone who has listened to Stories Across Borders or read any of my other articles that I’m a Star Wars nerd. That being said though, I don’t have the highest opinion of the collective fanbase.

Every time a new piece of Star Wars media comes out, a very vocal part of the fandom cannot wait to jump on it, pick it apart and slander it online and off. Now, I’m not saying that media shouldn’t be critiqued - you might have noticed that this article is labelled as a review. However, there is a big difference between constructive, useful criticism and substanceless vitriol. I take no issue with people making well reasoned critiques. I don’t have any problem with people not liking a piece of media. But I do take issue with the subset of the Star Wars fan community - and with fandoms as a whole - that get up in arms about anything that deviates from what they want in such an acrimonious, petulant, spiteful and unfair way.

Which brings me to The Acolyte. I don’t think I have ever seen so much unreasonable and unfounded hate directed at a story in the Star Wars universe. Not towards the prequels which have been overly criticised to death and are only quite recently seeing the respect they actually deserve. Not for Solo, or Rebels, or The Mandalorian. Hell, I don’t think even The Rise of Skywalker has been lambasted this much and that’s a movie I would argue actually deserves it.

So, with that being said, I’m going to be formatting things a little differently than in previous reviews. I’m going to start by taking a look at some of the common complaints I’ve heard about The Acolyte and examining how merited those criticisms are. Then I’ll give a summary of my own thoughts.

To be clear though, I’m not suggesting I am an objective observer. I have my own biases and it’s impossible to objectively review art outside of the most raw technical aspects of its creation. This is entirely my own opinion. I personally believe I’m right in my examination of things, but that’s how opinions tend to go. That being said though, I will do my best to be fair to both the critics and to the creators of the show.

Spoilers ahead!

It Doesn’t Understand the Lore

I’m going to start with this because it is by far one of the biggest complaints I have seen and by far one of the ones I find the most confusing. Now, in fairness, as much as I love Star Wars, there are definitely millions of people out there that know more about it than me. Listening to ten minutes of one of my Star Wars episodes on SAB makes it abundantly clear that Jay and Jon (my co-hosts for that cycle) are much more knowledgeable than I am. But I like to think I am reasonably familiar with the source material even if I haven’t read every Legends book or comic known to man.

So, here is where my confusion comes from; as far as I can tell, The Acolyte is constantly making use of the existing lore of the Star Wars universe and adds very little to it that is particularly new. Even the most controversial choice - Mae and Osha’s origins as being life created by manipulating the Force - have existing precedent in the canon. Now, I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this choice. You can argue that it takes away some of the importance of Anakin’s origins, even though we could get into the subtle differences between the two. But George Lucas created this concept in The Phantom Menace and alluded to some other tangentially related stuff in Revenge of the Sith. This wasn’t some ass-pull new addition from Leslie Headland, the precedent was there. We don’t have to like that it was used, but it was very much an existing element of the canon already that was an available part of the writers’ toolkit.

It isn’t the only thing either. Qmir/The Stranger’s use of cortosis to protect against and temporarily deactivate lightsabers is something that was used in Legends content by the Sith. The Great Hyperspace Disaster is a deep pull from Star Wars lore, but it also is invoked in The Acolyte as the reason why Brendok should have been lifeless. The idea of a “vergence in the Force” - the suspected reason Brendok is not lifeless is also invoked in The Phantom Menace and existing canon.

Speaking of hyperspace though, Vernestra Rwoh is a prominent character in The Acolyte. She is a character with a long history in Legends who has now been brought into the canon and with her, things related to her most-likely. Her strange visions in hyperspace, use of a lightwhip, the name of her ship and even her general personality and demeanour all seem on-brand for the character as I understand her.

The ending of, what I am hoping was just season one, of the show even tidies up the loose end of the question of why the council in The Phantom Menace don’t believe the Sith have returned. All of the Jedi who witnessed The Stranger are dead and can’t reveal he was there. Rwoh knows he was there, but we know she’s not keen on sharing the truth with the world at large and she doesn’t necessarily know he’s a Sith.

The Acolyte was clearly made by people with a love for the franchise and who either already had a lot of knowledge of both Legends and the canon or who made a point of learning that lore for the show. If your biggest complaint is that a show made by people clearly well-versed in the lore doesn't “get” Star Wars, I can only wonder if you actually watched the same show I did. Is a brief cameo from Ki-Adi-Mundi really such a slight against the canon given how much the creators clearly do understand and use the lore?

It’s Too Woke

I didn’t want to have to get into this, but there really isn’t any way of addressing a lot of the criticism of The Acolyte without talking about it. To start with, let’s be completely clear. There is nothing wrong with telling stories about being a person of colour, part of the LGBTQ+ or otherwise not straight, white and cis. There is nothing wrong with acknowledging the years of prejudice those groups have faced and telling stories about those struggles. But, for the sake of argument, let’s pretend that for some reason it is wrong to create media telling those stories.

The Acolyte isn’t doing that. It’s just not. It’s not making a political statement about being of colour or about being LGBTQ+. It isn’t shoving propaganda or an agenda down your throat. It isn’t critical of the systems of power that systemically enable the continuation of discrimination against minority groups.

The show does have a diverse cast. That cast is led by a black woman and an Asian man. Most of the supporting cast are also women or people of colour. There is a pair of lesbian women who play a small but important role in the story. These people do, in fact, exist in the canon just as they do in reality. But that is it. They exist. There isn’t any deeper political message there. Even if there was something wrong with telling stories about being a PoC or being LGBTQ+ (there’s not), that is not what is happening in The Acolyte.

Star Wars has often been a lot better than other media of its time when it comes to representation. Leia is one of the best written characters in Star Wars. Characters like Chirut and Lando are compelling. But let’s not pretend that the majority of Star Wars media isn’t written around characters and actors who are straight, white and male. If you aren’t angry about a cast that skews in that direction, you have no business being angry about a cast that skews in the other instead.

As we have established The Acolyte is not a story about demographics and is not an attack against any specific demographics, I can’t help but suggest that making the presence of gay characters or cast members who aren’t white men the crux of your criticism isn’t the most objectively valid route to take. Even in the twisted hypothetical world I proposed, you would still not be making a valid complaint.

The only reason to be upset about the demographics the cast and characters fall into is that you have a personal issue with people of that description. And, if you can suspend your disbelief for a 900 year old green man, virgin births, faster than light travel and an evil space wizard who shoots lightning from his fingertips, but not for the mere existence of a lesbian couple or a black female lead, you are the problem.

I’m not saying that you have to like The Acolyte because it’s diverse. Diversity isn’t a shield against valid criticism - and we’re going to be getting into some of that shortly. However, if your major issue with this show is with the orientations, races or genders of the people in it, you’re not a critic, you’re an asshole.

We Were Misled About the Tone

Less common, but something I have seen a decent amount of, is the comment that the trailers and promotional interviews misled us about the tone of The Acolyte. More specifically, that audiences were led to believe the show would be tonally much darker than it ended up being. I don’t personally agree with this criticism, but I do think I understand where it’s coming from.

For a lot of people, a dark story is about grit and violence. If you ask someone to name a dark story they might talk about Game of Thrones, The Last of Us, Spartacus or The Walking Dead. These are shows that are dark, gritty and hyper-violent and they don’t shy away from making the death and violence gruesome, brutal and unclean. 

So, while I would sayThe Acolyte does trend towards more grit to its combat than a lot of other Star Wars media, I wouldn’t say it’s as brutal and dirty as the violence in any of the other shows I just mentioned. I think if you were expecting a piece of Star Wars media to step into the same arena as those shows, you were setting yourself up for disappointment.  Star Wars, despite the implied brutality of its universe and the weapons within it, is always going to toe that line because it’s intended to be consumed by people of all ages. Going too viscerally violent would, in the eyes of Star Wars’ writers (and its creator), hurt the brand. Whether that is actually the case or not is debatable, but it’s the reality of the situation. 

But, do the trailers or other promotional materials ever really suggest that’s what we  were going to get? No.

The trailers tell us we’re going to be dealing with a murder mystery primarily, maybe dabbling into some flaws in the Jedi and conspiracies. They show us some dynamic, exciting and very Star Wars action too.

The show itself tells us the story of a murder plot against certain Jedi, the four who were involved in a cover up and conspiracy that directly affected the lives of our two protagonists. It goes on to explore the tragedy that led to that conspiracy and examines some flaws in the Jedi order highlighted by those events. It also gives us some great action scenes including one in which a whole group of Jedi get absolutely mowed down by a Sith. It’s pretty much exactly what we were led to expect by the trailers.

And, you know what? Osha and Mae’s story is dark. Mae watches her mother die, her whole coven get killed by feedback from their mind control, accidentally burns down her home and is left for dead by someone who is supposed to be a protector. Osha is then raised by that protector, Sol, who chose to save her over her sister and is led to believe that the fire Mae started killed everyone she ever knew or loved. She is so traumatised by those events that they never stop haunting her - and she doesn’t even know the truth about how it all actually went down.

It’s not the darkest Star Wars has ever gotten. It’s not the kind of visceral brutality a lot of people expect when they hear a story is going to be dark. But, a lighthearted romp The Acolyte is not. I really don’t think anyone was lied to or even accidentally misled.

The Writing Was Bad

Of all the complaints someone could make, this one is the one that perhaps requires the most examination. As I have said, I did enjoy The Acolyte. However, I do think it had some notable flaws that are worth discussing. I think that this criticism can primarily be broken down into two categories: characters and plot.

As far as the characters go, once you prune out the bigotry, there are still some relevant critiques to be made. For its short run time, The Acolyte’s cast of characters is enormous. The core cast consists of Osha, Mae, Sol and The Stranger. However, only a small step down from them is a supporting roster of Jecki, Yord, Vernestra, Indara, Torbin, Kelnacca, Aniseya and Koril. There’s also a slew of minor characters like Bazil and Tasi and cameos from Ki-Adi-Mundi, Yoda and Darth Plagueis. For eight episodes with fairly short run times (usually 35-45 minutes), that is a lot of characters. We don’t need to worry so much about minor characters and The Stranger is left intentionally mysterious - but the motivations, strengths, flaws and personalities of the core cast are generally left pretty implicit. We can infer a fair amount from the general attitudes of characters and how others respond to them, but not much else. I think The Acolyte would have benefited a lot from showing us more about what drove certain characters to do what they did and how it affected them in the present. It also would have been nice to see the characters get to develop their relationships with each other more - something that would have made Yord and Jecki’s deaths hit much harder. Leaning more into Osha’s feelings about her failure to become a Jedi would also have added a lot to her character. The characters here had a lot of promise, they just needed more space to breathe.

The plot faces a similar problem. The plot conceptually is really interesting and goes to some compelling and intriguing places. However, the more complex a story is both in the plot and its themes, the more time is needed to properly explore it. While the big mystery did last through most of the season, there was never a lot of room to let the audience sit with it and ponder it. We got a big reveal pretty much every episode and I would have liked to have seen more questions raised and intrigue built rather than giving us the premise and systematically filling in the puzzle. The story is solid - and there are still things left to be explored, but it felt rushed in its execution.

Most of the issues in the writing then come down to the same thing. The Acolyte was a very ambitious story that didn’t have the room to live up to those ambitions.

What Do I Think?

With all that out the way, the question becomes, what do I think of all that?

I said at the beginning that I liked The Acolyte and that I felt a lot of the criticisms I have heard about it have little basis in reality. I still think this is the case. Most of the big complaints I have heard are either straight up wrong or based on issues with the critic rather than the show. That being said though, the vocal people screaming vitriol into the abyss of the internet don’t provide a shield from actual criticism in their wrongness. The Acolyte isn’t a perfect show.

The biggest flaw with The Acolyte is that it feels rushed. A story that should have been a slow burn filled with intrigue blasts through its mystery in seven episodes that aren’t particularly long and the characters don’t have time to exist outside the context of reaching the next plot beat.

The Acolyte is far from being the best piece of media ever. But it’s also far from being the worst. It’s not even the worst piece of Star Wars media. It’s an ambitious story that didn’t have the room to properly spread its wings and so it made do with what it had. This leaves us with a decent and compelling addition to the Star Wars canon that, while far from bad, could certainly have been better.

I hope that Disney aren’t listening to the comments made in bad faith and are instead listening to more legitimate criticism. I hope it gets a second season because there are still parts of The Acolyte that I’m eager to see explored.

I’d recommend ignoring the haters and giving The Acolyte a try. You might like it, you might not. But it’s worth giving it a chance divorced from the mess it has left in its wake online.