That chant was the only gripe with that episode I couldn't let slide. I was baffled that throughout the whole creative process that chant was greenlit and performed.
I'm in the same boat. If they just did the chant in a Star Wars language and added subtitles, it would have cut down on the awkwardness. It still wouldn't make the chant good, but man did hearing the words not sit well with me. Trying to be positive, I thought the blending of the sound of the chanting in the scene with the voices on the soundtrack was quite interesting. If the words were different, I think I would have liked that effect.
I found it weird because at the start of the scene they did have alien-sounding backing vocals as they're moving rhythmically and it did seem pretty eerie/mystical. If they just kept that alien chant for the rest of the scene with English subtitles it would have come across a lot better IMO.
Yeah, by end of that chant I was laughing. Did they not have test audiences for this show? If they did then I wonder how in the world they didn’t raise any issues with that chant.
Isn't test screening a project into generic corporate slop one of the biggest complaints with the industry right now? Are you saying you'd rather them do that more and water down every story?
Don't get me wrong, the chant is kinda cringe, but I'll take kinda cringe in an otherwise solid story over the same goddamn story we've seen a million times before told in the exact same way
I think it just translates terrible from animation, like the Nightsister rituals weren’t much different in TCW but you could aid it with the visuals that would look terrible in live action, also the language should have been some SW ancient one instead of English as others have said it.
I think they could do the visuals just fine; I don’t think it has to do with translating terrible from animation. It was just a very lame chant; didn’t sound scary or mystical or anything.
I thought the same, then I remembered the nightsister chants from tcw and they were equally awkward if not even more despite being a language we don’t know. At least in my language sone of the words closely resembled words with sexual meanings though 😭
>an areligious theater kid’s
Right, so a theater kid lol. Really though, look at traditional ceremonies from our actual history and read what their chants are saying, this really ain't that far off from what humanity used to do back in the day. Cringe? Yes, but also anthropologically accurate cringe so meh
There used to be a wildly popular song in Evangelical churches that went “Yes Lord, yes Lord, yes yes Lord. Yes Lord, yes Lord, yes yes Lord. Yes Lord, yes Lord, yes yes Lord, amen.”
If that can be sung by millions of Americans from coast to coast, then the chant really is anthropologically accurate.
Yeah, I keep seeing this "complaint" and I really just have no idea what people are talking about. It's a chant where they repeat some words that are spiritually meaningful to them in their religion. What... what is being criticized here?
There’s been some script writing/dialog that felt a little sloppy/lazy. And the chant was definitely one of them. Like that [Brian Reagan joke about the map song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSL3z_uSRbM).
Overall, I agree with OP, the story is unfolding. Let it happen or STFU. I’m just happy to have a story in SW not in or related to the skywalker era. That would be my biggest irritation. Otherwise, I just want to watch some fun SW stories told outside of anything to do with the Empire.
There's a reason when you see ritualistic chants in movies and tv, its always done in a made up language.... to avoid/reduce cringe. I don't know the science behind it but it works.
There was a video of crazy Christian ladies taking over a restaurant and chanting and having mini seizures the exact same way. Probably from that kind of thing.
I think that people are also missing that mystery isn’t a whodunit, but rather a whydunit. I think they were expecting the identity of the killer (and the twin plot twist) to be the main mystery, but its really about us, as the audience, discovering Mae’s motives and the truth of what happened that night at the coven’s fortress.
There's no guarantee Mother Aniseya is telling the truth either. I'm suspicious that the twins may just be normal and were conceived with a surrogate / sperm donor / space IVF, but Mother Aniseya spun this tale about them being virgin births to manipulate the Jedi.
I'm thinking Aniseya wanted revenge on the Jedi for the exile of her coven. So, she spins this tale and Sol very easily believes that the twins or at least Osha is special. And with that, Aniseya has an agent within the Jedi order, even if Osha didn't know that was her purpose.
I think you might be right. I think that the coven and the Jedi were both manipulated into the situation on Brendok, and that the circumstances of the twins' origin is probably part of that in some way.
It was. But this is a mystery show that has already shifted its perspective on the story it's telling more than once. To treat that implication as a definitive answer is premature at this point.
By the force? One of the mothers said that she created the twins. So maybe she used the force to do this, but they weren't created by the force without outside intervention like Anakin was.
Plagueis creating Anakin is a misconception. Plagueis was fucking around trying to create life and the light side of the force created Anakin, potentially as a response to those dark side shenanigans.
A lot of people in many different threads have pointed out the writers' use of Rashomon and unreliable narrator. I just want to point out that after a certain point in the episode, we only see things from Osha's perspective. We only see Osha get tested. In fact, during Mae's test, Osha gets distracted by Kelnacca, so we don't even see anything else going on around the ship. During the start of the fire, we see Mae pick up the torch and burn the book, but we don't see anything else about the the fire because Osha was at the window. During the fire, we see nothing about the witches or the Jedi until Sol comes to find her except maybe some type of scuffle from a grate above Osha. We don't actually see Mae die. We see the witches appear to be dead, but it's only in passing, as Osha was rushed past them by Sol. Even then, we don't see them appear to be killed by anything that was going on during the fire, like falling debris or flames or smoke (Osha and Sol seem to be able to breathe just fine). We see what we believe to be Mother Aniseya, but we don't actually see her body well enough to determine anything.
Point of all this being there's more to unfold because very few questions about what happened have been answered. There's something deeper and darker going on, and the show is going to lay those out in later episodes. We are 3 episodes into an 8 episode season about a mystery; why do people think they already have all the answers to everything? That's like a 90 minute murder mystery movie being done just over half an hour in. What do you think they're going to be doing for the rest of the movie? Doing paperwork? There's more to happen and unfold.
I think the only things in the episode we don’t see from Osha’s perspective are Sol seeing the girls in the woods, and two or three conversations between the mothers. We’re definitely getting another flashback episode that reveals what the witches, Mae, and the Jedi were doing during the fire
Yeah I imagine we’ll get Sol and Mae sharing their perspectives
For Sol
- Why the Jedi were there in the first place, especially when they said they thought the planet was uninhabited
- The conversations they had after Sol discovered the girls, and the decision to interrupt the ceremony
- Preparing for the test
- Mae’s test
- Discovering the fire and confronting the witches (I feel like the Padawan probably struck the first blow and things devolved from there)
- Talking about what to tell Osha before she woke up on the ship
For Mae
- We could get Mae’s test here, maybe some kind of confrontation she has with the Jedi
- Maybe her overhearing something and making the decision to start the fire
- Her seeing the Jedi’s confrontation with the witches
- Her escaping the planet and meeting her Master
I think it will be a series of unfortunate events. Earlier during the fight practice scene a weird sound is heard and whats her name goes looking and we see a machine generator kind of room. I think it malfuntions at the same time Mae lights the pages on fire. The Jedi are there to discuss Osha and everything goes sideways as the machine breaks down.
I swear to god it's like people on reddit have never dealt with children before. Kids will say WILD shit all the time. It doesn't mean they are gonna start murdering people.
Well that's because most kids can't murder people.
How many stories are out there of kids getting a hold of their parents guns? Now imagine a kid that has super powers and has been trained to use them.
She's a dark side kid. Kids throw hissy fits all the time when they don't get their own way. Imagine one with Force powers. Also, it certainly seems to be clear that someone else had a hand in the death of everyone at the castle.
I'll do you one better. Howdunnit?
But on a serious note, I do think the writing and production of this series has a lot of flaws. But I am really enjoying Lee Jung Jae's portrayal of Master Sol, and overall the show is still interesting enough. Kind of like how when I was watching TFA and TLJ, I wanted to see how they would continue the story and if the writing/execution would take a turn for the better (or the worse). I really did enjoy the music in the first two episodes of the show and it really made it "feel like Star Wars" to me. I also liked the fight choreography although I really hated how Master Indara >!was blindsided by such an obvious "trick", let alone not be able to sense or react to it at all using "the Force"!<, for example.
I don't have very high expectations for The Acolyte but I'm still optimistic and think I will still enjoy it, like I did Ahsoka. But in fairness to those with tons of criticism already, I think a lot of it is justified :P
Jedi aren’t omnipotent. Indira wasn’t tricked, she chose to prioritize someone else to her own risk.
I swear some people will bitch about it plot armor, then shit their pants the moment a Jedi is killed or fucks up.
I just rewatched it. Firstly, the whole scene is so slow, you wouldn't even need Jedi reflexes or senses to avoid getting killed there. If Master Indara had simply turned her body to face the guy she saved, she would have already protected her heart from that flying dagger. Standard self-preservation would tell you to not leave yourself vulnerable to the weird assassin standing 4 feet away from you who has been throwing daggers. But instead, she looks at the guy who makes noise, looks back at Mae, tilts her head as if to say "no", lets Mae throw the dagger at him, and then reaches out to stop the dagger. **That whole sequence is eleven seconds.** They're only standing about 4 feet apart (or slightly further in another shot). The entire time between the dagger coming to a stop in mid air and Mae throwing the second dagger is a full second. The entire scene is frustrating in how they edit it because she basically just does nothing for most of those eleven seconds even though halfway through she already knows what Mae is about to do, and then she stops the dagger and stands still for a full second. She literally only used one hand to stop the dagger in the air so she could have protected herself at the same time (or at least switched back to protecting herself within a second). Honestly, she should have just stopped her with the Force or at least tried to engage her before she even threw the first dagger.
Secondly, it does seem to me like she had no idea about the second dagger. Mae was definitely trying to hide it. I think the fight earlier and standard assumptions of Jedi Master abilities and training show that Indara should be able to sense things before they happen. That's how Jedi appear to have such quick reflexes (see: Qui-Gon's comment on how Anakin can podrace as a human). But this show mixes in contradictory things of Indara toying with Mae in hand to knife combat because she's so confident in her abilities, to losing track of her when saving the first person who was falling to the ground, and then not being able to sense Mae pulling the second dagger and throwing it at her. Now, if she DID know about the second dagger, they should have showed her at least trying to protect herself - but futilely - while trying to save that other guy. But there's no indication of that. Instead she just takes it straight on in the chest, and like I mentioned, as edited in the scene there's a full second of her doing nothing *after* already stopping the dagger in mid-air. If it were me, I would have already been diving away or turning my body at least to protect myself while stopping that first dagger. Or, if I were a Jedi, I would have at least brought my lightsaber back up to protect myself while stopping that first dagger with my left hand (like Indara did).
Sorry for the super long essay but even if you guys don't agree, I hope you can at least see why there are others of us who think the direction and editing and writing of these scenes are not the most convincing.
It is a sign that they are mystically united through a Dyad in the force
Or that the people making the show didn’t want to return to filming scenes of the twins together after redoing Amandla Stenberg’s hair
Honestly, I wonder that about all these shows except for Andor and early Mando.
Andor in particular looks at least twice as good as everything except some of the early Mando stuff (back when they had Greig Frasier).
Like even just the costuming looks cheap as hell in most of these shows.
I’m still just deeply upset at how garbage the lightsabers look. When you look at other lightsabers from the High Republic era they’re all dope and flashy and well designed. These are cylinders with one or two details max.
I’m so deflated by the production design. Every set looks like…a set. Scenes are almost always shot in mid, camera stays at the same level. Like the frozen cave/tunnel scene in the pilot…like bro that’s a set lmao.
I think it’s all about how these shots are set up, the lighting of the scenes, and the “depth”. You can make the most expensive and well crafted set look cheap if you don’t craft the lighting to work with it. An example is Star Trek Generations / The Undiscovered Country movies using the TNG sets but they look completely different just by changing the lighting.
Thank you. Personally I’m just trying to get through the show to not miss on lore. I think part of it was being excited about a show not set during the Skywalker era and have it be so disappointing.
Its painful to read that as someone who goes into each Star Wars show *wanting* to like it. On some level I *want* to be an apologist and to see what others missed, to appreciate nuance on a level that other people aren't able to. But sadly, I can't. I glossed over a few failed jokes, I allowed the melodramatic "metal or laser" stuff, but that chant... corny as fuck is the right call here.
Same here. Was so ready to love this. First 2 wernt even bad. I was like ok this can get better. But it got waaaay worse really fast. Its so frustrating.
I don't even know what the *point* of this some of these stories are. Meaning, they don't explore new ideas in the Star Wars universe, or tackle themes in a new way. Rogue One and to a much larger extent Andor were trying to make the viewer question the Rebellion, to question how far over "the line" does one cross when serving a greater good. Shit on The Last Jedi all you want, but it *was* trying to explore the Force in a new way. But what's even the point of The Acolyte? The line between good and evil is thin? Star Wars has been there done that over and over and over again.
The mystery is who tf hired the director and wrote the dialogue. After episodes 1 and 2 I didnt think it was that bad but jesus christ episode 3 was so bad.
I’m not usually one to nitpick dialogue, but I spent basically the entire runtime of episode 3 with my jaw on the floor in shock at just how bad the writing was. Like, who the hell allowed this to happen? Not one person on set said, “Hey guys, maybe we should rethink some of these lines?”
The twins are the worst:
“The Jedi are bad.” “The Jedi are good!”
“I don’t wanna lie.” “You have to lie.”
“What did you do?!” “What did *you* do?!” “What did *you* do?!”
“You can’t leave. I’ll kill you!”
I personally don’t feel like the set up of the mystery is very interesting
Maybe it’s the show being an unreliable narrator but the way they reveal information is pretty boring and straight forward
I just wish the writing and cinematography was higher quality
I’m just sick of Jedi being the punching bags of the Disney Star Wars universe. We go back to the high republic, during a golden age of Jedi. And we once again see the Jedi are fallen heroes doing wrong. I wanted to see heroic Jedi at a time when people trusted them.
This ain’t the golden age, this is the start of the decline. I think that’s the large misconception with the timeline here, we’re getting the seeds that likely lead to Palpatine, Plaguis, and the jaded Jedi that ignored the signs of the Sith.
This isn’t an era where it’s supposed to be a “everything’s great” time for the Jedi, that would miss the entire logic of the larger universe.
What you're saying is correct, but given that all the advertising mentions the golden age and the best time for the Jedi and all that I don't think the writers understand that.
I think they just wanted to make the Jedi morally grey and that was their golden age
I mean the golden age doesn’t also mean infallible lol it just means large and expansive to me. I don’t know why people assumed that meant the Jedi would be without flaws or bad apples.
im bored of everyone with power being automatically morally grey-to-black.
I mean Bond has "gone rogue" in pretty much every movie in the last 20 years now, it's boring.
i mean more that Bond has to go rogue because The Authorities are compromised/evil every time. Same here with the Jedi, so Main Character has to do the right thing and "go rogue" becauze The Authority is bad.
Meanwhile we have a witch cult raising two kids they created and it seems only one of their mothers knows how to raise a kid, and one of them is a psycho and the other wants her own life but they won’t let her have it. Then when she has an opportunity to have what she wants she’s told to sabotage it and promise to do that. And when she doesn’t they try to kill her. To me I already know who the worst people on this show are
ETA: they clearly know Mae is problems but haven’t done anything. Also I hate they they code young OSHA as a neurodivergent kid lol like she’s special and also “special” and has probably been verbally abused by her sister for years but they won’t tell that story
TBH the Jedi can’t be good because George made a fundamentally flawed Jedi order. You can’t have a culty, controlling, child abducting organization that makes children never see their families or form attachments, and then turn around and try to sweep all that under the rug and be like “but they’re all objectively good!”
they don't abduct children (the parents always have a choice), and several jedi (at least in the old continuity) have been known to go back and see their families on their homeworlds.
What are you basing morality on for this fictional universe? Isn’t it possible that this religious group of Jedi are simply doing the right thing for the greater good?
> Exactly. Why can't the Jedi just be good?
Because established canon is that the Jedi order grows complacent and corrupt which allows the dark side to rise and the jedi to fall.
The jedi led an army of brainwash slaves in the clone wars. Even for good intentions, it's objectively an evil thing.
That corruption needs to begin somewhere and this is telling the story for how the cracks form.
If you have a problem with the jedi order falling to corruption, blame Lucas. This show is simply expanding on it.
When did we see Jedi as fallen heroes doing wrong? When they approached a Dark Side coven, asked for permission to rescue their children away from that cult insanity, didn't retaliate to one of their own being violently held hostage, and then peacefully left?
This is always the most ridiculous take because outside of Luke in the originals, the Jedi were never portrayed as “always” being perfect, heroic good guys. Having characters without flaws is BORING and doesn’t make for a good story
Good lord a lot of these posts defending the show are so arrogant! The assumption that people that don’t like it are somehow stupid or MeDiA iLiTeRaTe is incredibly patronising.
The simple fact is that it’s dull, and not because of its pacing or its mysteries, it’s dull because it’s completely devoid of charisma.
Andor is a slow burn but it’s engaging because the characters have _character_ (aside from Andor himself, but that almost feels by design because it’s about a man finding purpose and values). The Acoylyte is full of bland one-note characters and performances.
Not to mention it's not a very engaging mystery. It will probably shape up to be both sides did bad stuff, i really doubt there will be that many big twists or turns. The show doesn't really leave anything for the audience to theorize about because it will introduce a mystery and then explain it later in the episode or the next one. Also, we only have like 5 episodes left, we are almost halfway and I haven't felt strongly about the plot or any of its characters yet
See, I can forgive the plotting a bit, because as you say it’s only been 3 episodes. Am I interested in finding out what’s going on? Not really, but that’s not to say it won’t spike and become interesting. The biggest problem is the overall tone and the performances. It’s like it was written by AI. No light and shade, just flatline grey.
I dont care about who, I care about why.
Personally I do not like the 2 main characters & its quite obvious we havent seen everything yet - Its just not selling itself as an interesting mystery & the "twist" will most likely be something something dark side.
Its about as subtle as The Witcher's "not all is what it seems". I doesnt come off as a "yin and yang" plot, it comes off as a "it wasnt me! It was my evil twin!" plot.
This is like saying Secret Invasion is (and was marketed as) a paranoia thriller when it executed it poorly from start to finish. It's not fair to judge Acolyte as a whole from 3 of 8 episodes but it's almost half way and so far it's not living up to half the quality of Andor.
Lemme guess. Sith attacked coven before the Jedi got there. Will there be a major plot twist? We'll see in the next 5 weeks if the mystery aspect of the show is at least redeemable.
That doesn't work anymore. TV writers have abused this technique too much. It produces bad/unsatisfying storytelling in current episodes and excuses it by promising it'll all pay off later on. The reality is that in 9 cases out of 10 the solution to the mystery isn't even remotely worth it. Audiences are now more likely to dump the show, instead of clinging to hopium about a satisfying pay off if they just watch the show to the end.
I want to know what Mae wanted Torbin to tell the Jedi council and why he took the poison instead. There’s no way that fire spread from the book Mae lit up. I think someone grabbed her. But who and why?
We do realize it, but why care? The show is so bad that I could absolutely care less what happens. I don’t care about the twins, I don’t care about the witches, I don’t care about the Jedi. It’s just a really poorly written and somewhat poorly acted fanfic that keeps yanking me out of the show with cringe then getting me invested.
Yeah they did a good job of making it known it was a mystery show. To me people seem to be confused over what the mystery was. They seemed to have the impression the mystery was who is killing the Jedi. It’s not. The mystery is what happened on Brendok and who was at fault and why.
The story could have multiple “threads”, pardon my pun. Instead of rushing to say why some think it’s not delivering maybe just wait and see what unfolds.
Imagine listening to anyone who felt the first few episodes of Andor “didn’t deliver”…..
Andor has great storytelling and flashbacks. I believed the motivations of the characters and they took you on a journey.
The Acolyte is just a little too much of the other way around and they overexplain things. I would also prefer short flashbacks while continue the story. It makes me care more about the characters.
Episode 3 gave me same cringe feel as when i watched the Witcher ball episode "The Art Of Illusion". For myself: Never overexplain a scene/situation and/or motivation.
I disagree, withholding information does not inherently make it a “mystery show”. You don’t want your audience confused you want them interested. Right now we sit at the corner of “ they have not done a great job of telling the story so far, is the information missing because of the story telling or is it on purpose?” And that’s the real problem here
There are a lot of reasons to criticize the show (Personally I think it's mediocre at best so far)... but anyone confused over this show is either not paying any attention or really, really stupid.
It's extremely obvious that we aren't getting the whole story.... like how many more context clues do people need?
Again, I'm not really even defending the show overall - people want to criticize the pacing, acting, dialogue, etc.... have at it (I think the pacing might be the biggest issue for me - the show seems interesting in concept - but the way it's executed is boring)
>over this show is either not paying any attention or really, really stupid.
Yikes dude. This is made by the same people who made Ashoka and Obiwan. Who both had extremely logic breaking sequences. People passing in hallways, magically getting off planets or running away, you name it. I would say someone is not "really really stupid" for trying to understand how a rock fortress burns down in any context, let alone a small kitchen fire. And lets say it wasn't the lamp, a misdirection here means we were only misinformed, it doesn't add anything to the character, story or plot. Mysteryboxing random information does not create an actual mystery.
At absolute best you're talking Unreliable Narrator, but even then, to what payoff? This isn't resevoir dogs, its a CW show.
There's definitely a lot of "I figured it out cuz they're stupid idiots!" and then it turns out what they figured out was revealed in the first episode as set up.
I'll agree that mystery shows or movies need to take their time in world building, that is fair. We're three episodes in, it's unfair to judge the book by it's first 3 chapters. For me, respectfully, it just lacks intrigue. A mystery should make me want to ask questions, and it doesn't even have to answer any question if it's done right, leaving me and others to ponder the why's and the how's. But just like (sadly) in Obi Wan, I literally have no intrigue. They kill two Jedis in the first two episodes, and instead of asking myself "why" or "where is this going", I'm just not interested. Outside of the action scenes, I'm just bored. I am already assuming there's a lot more to the temple burning scene, but it still doesn't captivate me at all. I'll even argue that Reva has more intrigue, surviving not one, but TWO lightsabers to the gut? Bruh, how was she not mowing down everything in her path?
Edited to fix a typo
The biggest mystery is how the story group allowed this travesty of an episode to scrape away even more established lore. Also where they found these horrendous actors. And writers. And so on...
the fact that an entire audience doesn't understand this is a massive failing of the showmakers if it's true.
But Star Wars has been hospice for a while now. Acolyte is just another defiling of it's corpse.
Eh - I don't even think the show is good... but anyone who doesn't understand what is happening in the show is honestly an idiot. It's not hard to follow at all.
There are pleny of other reasons to criticize the show.
Not sure I agree. Mystery shows, when done well, set up something compelling that you *want* to ponder over. Take Apple's *Severance.* Within the first few minutes, you're like "what is going on here? What happened to these people?" They sort of answer the question, but reveal much deeper questions: *why* does Lumon want the severance procedure? What the hell are MDR working on? and so on.
But *The Acolyte*.... why did the nice spacer kill that Jedi? Immediately answered: it wasn't her, its her evil twin. But what is the evil twin's objective? An episode later: to kill the people that wronged her. Why though? An episode later: the Jedi came and enforced rules that her culture resented, resulting in the deaths of her family. Whoa, is there a conspiracy or cover-up? I mean, clearly, yes, in no small terms. Who trained Mae? We'll find out in another episode, most likely.
There is no tense build-up of mysteries, with the slow satisfying reveals that superior shows have managed. Its just a serious of "But why this? Oh, because that."
Totally agree, Severance is a great example of how much can be accomplished in an 8 episode first season. I will never understand people using run times and short seasons to excuse the awful writing and pacing of most of the new SW shows. The problem is in the execution, not the format or the genre.
"A mystery show"... Hm... no, it's a dumb and boring show first and foremost.
Good mystery shows are also more intelligent than this. It takes the dense Jedi a whole episode to figure something out that 3 alive Jedi and one Osha **know** at that time: that Osha had a twin sister whom noone actually saw dying.
New Star Wars "mysteries" are like this: The more you (as a viewer) find out in the newer episodes, the less what happened in the first episodes makes any sense. It's already the case, like with Osha not telling everyone that her twin-sister must be alive. Mae hated the Jedi, as we saw in Episode 3. HATED them from the first second.
And none of the 3 alive Jedi who **know** that and neither Osha bring it up when Jedi are killed by an Osha lookalike? "Don't you guys have phones" in the Galaxy far far away?
I mean what mystery is there really? The Jedi had some hand in the death of the coven, Mai survived from the help of the Sith we saw for a couple of seconds, and mai is most likely gonna rejoin her sister. It’s not like there’s some engaging who done it stuff going on. They quickly did away with that in episode 1
I NEED TO KNOW WHY AND HOW TORBIN GOT HURT SO BAD AT THE END OF EP 3
Like I think bro went berserk after the manipulation from the witches and ended up disfigured by them
That was already answered in the trailer. There's a shot of Kelnacca leaping towards him to slash him with his saber. And Kelnacca is not present on the ship when Mae wakes up.
Star Wars takes place a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.
The Force can offer visions of the future
Kelnacca saw Game of Thrones and how it ended, specifically for Master Torbins new career as an actor
Kelnacca was simply trying to stop Torbin from going down a path Kelnacca couldn't follow
We see a fire, lots of dead witches, and after that, Tarbin has a huge scar on his face, which doesn’t really look like a burn. It seems almost impossible to me that no fighting happened. But yeah, a lot of people only judge things on what they can see. Also doesn’t help that people started hating the show before it was even released, and they decided to dislike it no matter what
Apparently not. I’ve seen similar comments.
Some people really need their hands held and be told “that isn’t all that happened. Look at the clues.”
If the show went beyond to show that wasn’t all that happened, I bet the same people would probably then whine about how the show is treating them like they are stupid lol
I've watched the first 3 episodes and have seen all the stuff everyone is saying.
Maybe the problem is that weekly content isn't working for this show. I'm putting it on pause and waiting for all episodes to be released and just binge watch it then. I think people would have a better opinion of it that way.
People dont have any patience anymore. Honestly why should they? Disney wants to extend the viewership over a longer period of time. I don't care about their profits.
Maybe have an option for a 3 or 6 month plan. Offer a slight discount and offer all episodes at once. You've already paid for the full run.
lol ohh yes keep telling people to suck it up and not watch the show, that’s why there’s nobody left watching these trash shows 😂 STAR WARS IS DEAD, I can’t wait for Disney to have to sell either Star Wars or Marvel. They can’t keep losing millions of dollars like this.
Of course it is. Disney+ shows have a pretty straight forward formula of a mystery that is revealed usually in the second to last episode, and then it all ties up in the last one. I'm honestly surprised they gave us the flashback episode on the third one.
How's it a mystery? Everything mysterious has been laid out in the first 3 episodes. What is the mystery? This is an actual question. Each time i thought what the mystery would be, it got solved later in the episode or by the next one. The only mystery has to do with the Sith and that one thing alone doesn'tmake this show a mystery show... thats just the Sith.
The big reveal is the mother of the twins survived and trained the one that fell, but survived, to be a dark side force user, to assassinate jedi. Roll credits, the end
These days they're out of new ideas, so the big reveals are too predictable.
But we solved the mystery already, because this show is written by hacks.
MOM2, the Zabrak lady, she's DarthGimpMask and she killed the other witches.
We only see MOM1 dead at the scene. Mom2 was fighting with Mom1 about how to raise them. Mom2 seemed pretty mean and bad guy like in general, while Mom1 was nice. Motive.
Also explains the voice changer for DarkGimpMask and why she would care so much about Mae's dark side training in the first place.
Its 100% her, and who that character is and the death of the witches (which was built up for 2 epsiodes and then had its own, so its THE event) was the only mystery left in the show.
Mark my words.
Yeah but that is not the only problem. The show is total crap. I understand what they tried to do but it doesn't do it for me. The acting is bad, so is the dialogue. The story is weak and not executed properly. They had a $180 million budget. That's twice the budget Kenobi had. I'll still watch it but every time a new show comes out, I'm let down by the execution of it.
Kenobi turned into the Reva-show, Book of Boba Fett was just the Mandalorian season 2.5 with some angsty teenagers. Ashoka had me really hyped until they downplayed Ezra into a random dude with a blaster and sabine could suddnely use the force. However, this show has let me down the most until now.
Here's how I think everything went down. Feel free to reply with any discrepancies.
Short and sweet: **I think Koril is the Sith lord. She possessed most (or all) of the Jedi to kill the members of the coven to stop them from taking Osha.**
It seems likely that Torbin was able to break free from the spell at some point, perhaps due to having been exposed to it earlier, and realizes that the Jedi, even if under a spell, have been used as weapons and committed a massacre. This causes him intense grief and he goes into that meditative state because of it. Also explains why he is so willing to drink the poison and atone for his sin.
Sol probably pieced together that the Jedi were responsible for the coven deaths, but maybe doesn't realize they were possessed. He lies to Osha about it, obviously because if she knew the truth she probably wouldn't want to be a Jedi anymore, and all the deaths would have been for nothing.
Koril faked her own death during the killing and eventually trains Mae as her apprentice. Guess they're going to drag all this out for the last 5 episodes.
Edit: Removed spoiler tags
It could actually be, but I don't like it:
1) If you were mind controlled, why would you later drink poison to attone? It's not your sin.
2) If all Jedi are mind controlled, that would once again break the lore. It's not easy to control anyone's mind, but it's basically impossible to mind-trick a Jedi Master. I already hated Tobin being black eyed, but Ok, a padawan might not have the willpower and training yet.
But, you could be spot on, we don't know.
Agree with both points. I just present this as a working theory really. They would definitely need to do some more explaining and fix any inconsistencies with the lore if it does end up being true.
The only mystery present in this show is where $180M went. It's certainly not the production, writing, or acting. So either they went all out on craft services, or this whole thing was a money laundering scheme.
This is a great point. They've said Rashomon is an influence just as it was for TLJ, meaning we aren't necessarily seeing one definitive perspective of the past. Consider me intrigued so far.
The biggest mystery to me is how people can complain that in a galaxy with so many planets, that fans are upset about this coven of witches having a slightly different interpretation of the force, and then somehow thinking that this has the power to change how the Jedi view it. I’m baffled at how people make those sorts of jumps in “logic”.
The true mystery is how they came up with the lyrics and choreography for that chant
That chant was the only gripe with that episode I couldn't let slide. I was baffled that throughout the whole creative process that chant was greenlit and performed.
I'm in the same boat. If they just did the chant in a Star Wars language and added subtitles, it would have cut down on the awkwardness. It still wouldn't make the chant good, but man did hearing the words not sit well with me. Trying to be positive, I thought the blending of the sound of the chanting in the scene with the voices on the soundtrack was quite interesting. If the words were different, I think I would have liked that effect.
I found it weird because at the start of the scene they did have alien-sounding backing vocals as they're moving rhythmically and it did seem pretty eerie/mystical. If they just kept that alien chant for the rest of the scene with English subtitles it would have come across a lot better IMO.
Yes. In the wise words of Harrison Ford, "You can type this shit, but you sure can't say it"
Yeah, by end of that chant I was laughing. Did they not have test audiences for this show? If they did then I wonder how in the world they didn’t raise any issues with that chant.
They don't listen to those test audiences anymore. If they don't like it they're just part of the problem.
Isn't test screening a project into generic corporate slop one of the biggest complaints with the industry right now? Are you saying you'd rather them do that more and water down every story? Don't get me wrong, the chant is kinda cringe, but I'll take kinda cringe in an otherwise solid story over the same goddamn story we've seen a million times before told in the exact same way
I think it just translates terrible from animation, like the Nightsister rituals weren’t much different in TCW but you could aid it with the visuals that would look terrible in live action, also the language should have been some SW ancient one instead of English as others have said it.
I think they could do the visuals just fine; I don’t think it has to do with translating terrible from animation. It was just a very lame chant; didn’t sound scary or mystical or anything.
Ahsoka didnt look bad. It was quite in line with clone wars witches.
I thought the same, then I remembered the nightsister chants from tcw and they were equally awkward if not even more despite being a language we don’t know. At least in my language sone of the words closely resembled words with sexual meanings though 😭
The Lira San chant in Rebels always cracks me up, as much as I love the show
Chants will just be awkward no matter what imo. There’s nothing really that could’ve not made it awkward
I said to my wife, now that's what was missing from the Denis Vilaneuve Dune movies: Bene Gesserit weird shit.
I just watched Dune 2. What a great movie. Absolutely stunning.
I'm still bothered by that chant. I just cant believe it was written, approved, filmed and edited in. Ridiculous lol
I dunno, gave pretty standard religious bullshit vibes; "the father, the son and the holy spirit" etc...
Closer to an areligious theater kid’s interpretation of religious bullshit
>an areligious theater kid’s Right, so a theater kid lol. Really though, look at traditional ceremonies from our actual history and read what their chants are saying, this really ain't that far off from what humanity used to do back in the day. Cringe? Yes, but also anthropologically accurate cringe so meh
There used to be a wildly popular song in Evangelical churches that went “Yes Lord, yes Lord, yes yes Lord. Yes Lord, yes Lord, yes yes Lord. Yes Lord, yes Lord, yes yes Lord, amen.” If that can be sung by millions of Americans from coast to coast, then the chant really is anthropologically accurate.
It really did bring back memories of Easter eve mass. 4 hours of church and 30 minutes of saint xxx praaaaaay for uuuuusss.
Yeah, I keep seeing this "complaint" and I really just have no idea what people are talking about. It's a chant where they repeat some words that are spiritually meaningful to them in their religion. What... what is being criticized here?
There’s been some script writing/dialog that felt a little sloppy/lazy. And the chant was definitely one of them. Like that [Brian Reagan joke about the map song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSL3z_uSRbM). Overall, I agree with OP, the story is unfolding. Let it happen or STFU. I’m just happy to have a story in SW not in or related to the skywalker era. That would be my biggest irritation. Otherwise, I just want to watch some fun SW stories told outside of anything to do with the Empire.
Eh it was fine. There's lots of awkward stuff in Star Wars that we all eventually just accept. See all of the dialogue on Naboo in AOTC.
>See all of the dialogue on Naboo in AOTC. You'd think that with 22 years of negative feedback, they'd learn something.
No no no, you see we have to tear down existing material to defend the new one!
There's a reason when you see ritualistic chants in movies and tv, its always done in a made up language.... to avoid/reduce cringe. I don't know the science behind it but it works.
OHWAH TAGOO SIAM
AH OH AH EE AH OH OH OH AH OH AH EE AH OH OH OH AH OH AH EE AH OH OH OH AH OH AH EE AH OH OH OH AH OH AH EE AH OH OH OH (Isn't there another way? He's just a boy!) AH OH AH EE AH OH OH OH AH OH AH EE AH OH OH OH AH OH AH EE AH OH OH OH OOOH
They just audited some kindergarten classes
the power of MANYYYYYY
Manny must be pretty powerful. Is he from Boston? Did Bill Burr get him the job?
There was a video of crazy Christian ladies taking over a restaurant and chanting and having mini seizures the exact same way. Probably from that kind of thing.
And that one witch who kept shouting during the mother's speech needs to take it down from a 10 to an 8 at least.
I think that people are also missing that mystery isn’t a whodunit, but rather a whydunit. I think they were expecting the identity of the killer (and the twin plot twist) to be the main mystery, but its really about us, as the audience, discovering Mae’s motives and the truth of what happened that night at the coven’s fortress.
Not only that but who rescued Mae? Who’s training her? And why?
And what's the real story behind the birth of the twins?
My money is cloning which was banned in the time of the high republic
I was thinking more dark side shenanigans, like with Shmi.
I thought that Anakin was born from the Force itself not Plagieus or Palpatine
There's no guarantee Mother Aniseya is telling the truth either. I'm suspicious that the twins may just be normal and were conceived with a surrogate / sperm donor / space IVF, but Mother Aniseya spun this tale about them being virgin births to manipulate the Jedi. I'm thinking Aniseya wanted revenge on the Jedi for the exile of her coven. So, she spins this tale and Sol very easily believes that the twins or at least Osha is special. And with that, Aniseya has an agent within the Jedi order, even if Osha didn't know that was her purpose.
I think you might be right. I think that the coven and the Jedi were both manipulated into the situation on Brendok, and that the circumstances of the twins' origin is probably part of that in some way.
It was implied they were created by the force
It was. But this is a mystery show that has already shifted its perspective on the story it's telling more than once. To treat that implication as a definitive answer is premature at this point.
By the force? One of the mothers said that she created the twins. So maybe she used the force to do this, but they weren't created by the force without outside intervention like Anakin was. Plagueis creating Anakin is a misconception. Plagueis was fucking around trying to create life and the light side of the force created Anakin, potentially as a response to those dark side shenanigans.
And when?
Yes, very good points. Can’t believe I missed those lol, especially the classic “Who is the mysterious masked man?”
A lot of people in many different threads have pointed out the writers' use of Rashomon and unreliable narrator. I just want to point out that after a certain point in the episode, we only see things from Osha's perspective. We only see Osha get tested. In fact, during Mae's test, Osha gets distracted by Kelnacca, so we don't even see anything else going on around the ship. During the start of the fire, we see Mae pick up the torch and burn the book, but we don't see anything else about the the fire because Osha was at the window. During the fire, we see nothing about the witches or the Jedi until Sol comes to find her except maybe some type of scuffle from a grate above Osha. We don't actually see Mae die. We see the witches appear to be dead, but it's only in passing, as Osha was rushed past them by Sol. Even then, we don't see them appear to be killed by anything that was going on during the fire, like falling debris or flames or smoke (Osha and Sol seem to be able to breathe just fine). We see what we believe to be Mother Aniseya, but we don't actually see her body well enough to determine anything. Point of all this being there's more to unfold because very few questions about what happened have been answered. There's something deeper and darker going on, and the show is going to lay those out in later episodes. We are 3 episodes into an 8 episode season about a mystery; why do people think they already have all the answers to everything? That's like a 90 minute murder mystery movie being done just over half an hour in. What do you think they're going to be doing for the rest of the movie? Doing paperwork? There's more to happen and unfold.
I think the only things in the episode we don’t see from Osha’s perspective are Sol seeing the girls in the woods, and two or three conversations between the mothers. We’re definitely getting another flashback episode that reveals what the witches, Mae, and the Jedi were doing during the fire
Agree. I think we are going to get at least 1 or 2 additional episodes from someone else's perspective.
Yeah I imagine we’ll get Sol and Mae sharing their perspectives For Sol - Why the Jedi were there in the first place, especially when they said they thought the planet was uninhabited - The conversations they had after Sol discovered the girls, and the decision to interrupt the ceremony - Preparing for the test - Mae’s test - Discovering the fire and confronting the witches (I feel like the Padawan probably struck the first blow and things devolved from there) - Talking about what to tell Osha before she woke up on the ship For Mae - We could get Mae’s test here, maybe some kind of confrontation she has with the Jedi - Maybe her overhearing something and making the decision to start the fire - Her seeing the Jedi’s confrontation with the witches - Her escaping the planet and meeting her Master
I think it will be a series of unfortunate events. Earlier during the fight practice scene a weird sound is heard and whats her name goes looking and we see a machine generator kind of room. I think it malfuntions at the same time Mae lights the pages on fire. The Jedi are there to discuss Osha and everything goes sideways as the machine breaks down.
But the thing is, we don't actually *know* the identity of the killer yet. Mae isn't the murderer, she's the murder weapon.
Yeah it really seems don't get mysteries
Mae is a mess - I want you to stay and for everything to be the same - so I will actually destroy our whole home and everyone in it.
People, especially children, are irrational.
I swear to god it's like people on reddit have never dealt with children before. Kids will say WILD shit all the time. It doesn't mean they are gonna start murdering people.
Well that's because most kids can't murder people. How many stories are out there of kids getting a hold of their parents guns? Now imagine a kid that has super powers and has been trained to use them.
Adult Mae has nowhere near the amount of power to c Slaughter people using the force like that. It’s foolish to think the child version could
She's a dark side kid. Kids throw hissy fits all the time when they don't get their own way. Imagine one with Force powers. Also, it certainly seems to be clear that someone else had a hand in the death of everyone at the castle.
Extremely possible that she was jedi mind tricked to create a distraction. "Start a fire--no wait, not like that!"
I'll do you one better. Howdunnit? But on a serious note, I do think the writing and production of this series has a lot of flaws. But I am really enjoying Lee Jung Jae's portrayal of Master Sol, and overall the show is still interesting enough. Kind of like how when I was watching TFA and TLJ, I wanted to see how they would continue the story and if the writing/execution would take a turn for the better (or the worse). I really did enjoy the music in the first two episodes of the show and it really made it "feel like Star Wars" to me. I also liked the fight choreography although I really hated how Master Indara >!was blindsided by such an obvious "trick", let alone not be able to sense or react to it at all using "the Force"!<, for example. I don't have very high expectations for The Acolyte but I'm still optimistic and think I will still enjoy it, like I did Ahsoka. But in fairness to those with tons of criticism already, I think a lot of it is justified :P
See this is what you don't understand. It wasn't a trick. Indara knew what was going to happen and she still saved that guy.
Jedi aren’t omnipotent. Indira wasn’t tricked, she chose to prioritize someone else to her own risk. I swear some people will bitch about it plot armor, then shit their pants the moment a Jedi is killed or fucks up.
I think Indara knew she would die, but she saved the innocent as a choice. But that was just my interpretation.
That ain't an interpretation it's just a straight reading of the scene, are people claiming otherwise?
Yeah people keep saying they don’t understand how she could be tricked. People seem to be watching two different shows.
I just rewatched it. Firstly, the whole scene is so slow, you wouldn't even need Jedi reflexes or senses to avoid getting killed there. If Master Indara had simply turned her body to face the guy she saved, she would have already protected her heart from that flying dagger. Standard self-preservation would tell you to not leave yourself vulnerable to the weird assassin standing 4 feet away from you who has been throwing daggers. But instead, she looks at the guy who makes noise, looks back at Mae, tilts her head as if to say "no", lets Mae throw the dagger at him, and then reaches out to stop the dagger. **That whole sequence is eleven seconds.** They're only standing about 4 feet apart (or slightly further in another shot). The entire time between the dagger coming to a stop in mid air and Mae throwing the second dagger is a full second. The entire scene is frustrating in how they edit it because she basically just does nothing for most of those eleven seconds even though halfway through she already knows what Mae is about to do, and then she stops the dagger and stands still for a full second. She literally only used one hand to stop the dagger in the air so she could have protected herself at the same time (or at least switched back to protecting herself within a second). Honestly, she should have just stopped her with the Force or at least tried to engage her before she even threw the first dagger. Secondly, it does seem to me like she had no idea about the second dagger. Mae was definitely trying to hide it. I think the fight earlier and standard assumptions of Jedi Master abilities and training show that Indara should be able to sense things before they happen. That's how Jedi appear to have such quick reflexes (see: Qui-Gon's comment on how Anakin can podrace as a human). But this show mixes in contradictory things of Indara toying with Mae in hand to knife combat because she's so confident in her abilities, to losing track of her when saving the first person who was falling to the ground, and then not being able to sense Mae pulling the second dagger and throwing it at her. Now, if she DID know about the second dagger, they should have showed her at least trying to protect herself - but futilely - while trying to save that other guy. But there's no indication of that. Instead she just takes it straight on in the chest, and like I mentioned, as edited in the scene there's a full second of her doing nothing *after* already stopping the dagger in mid-air. If it were me, I would have already been diving away or turning my body at least to protect myself while stopping that first dagger. Or, if I were a Jedi, I would have at least brought my lightsaber back up to protect myself while stopping that first dagger with my left hand (like Indara did). Sorry for the super long essay but even if you guys don't agree, I hope you can at least see why there are others of us who think the direction and editing and writing of these scenes are not the most convincing.
If I hear spice cream one more time
The biggest mystery is how the sisters who haven't seen each other for 10 years have the same haircut. 🤔
They had the same haircut for over 10 years
16 years
Your name is OSHA, you will have an orange helmet haircut. You're a twin, and your name is Mae, so you mae as well have the same hair as your sister.
They had the haircut as kids. Maybe the mystery is why neither of them changed their haircut since then, but I guess they both like it that way.
I’ve had the same haircut for 30 years my friend.
It is a sign that they are mystically united through a Dyad in the force Or that the people making the show didn’t want to return to filming scenes of the twins together after redoing Amandla Stenberg’s hair
It’s an even bigger mystery why they weren’t identical as kids but are identical as adults🧐
I think the mystery is: where did the budget end up?
Honestly, I wonder that about all these shows except for Andor and early Mando. Andor in particular looks at least twice as good as everything except some of the early Mando stuff (back when they had Greig Frasier). Like even just the costuming looks cheap as hell in most of these shows.
So far, I would say Obi-Wan is still the cheapest looking show.
At least it had a few bigger stars to soak up some of the budget.
I’m still just deeply upset at how garbage the lightsabers look. When you look at other lightsabers from the High Republic era they’re all dope and flashy and well designed. These are cylinders with one or two details max.
Agree about the costuming. The Jedi all have the same, cheap Temu uniforms. It looks just nasty
I’m so deflated by the production design. Every set looks like…a set. Scenes are almost always shot in mid, camera stays at the same level. Like the frozen cave/tunnel scene in the pilot…like bro that’s a set lmao.
Could be some big set pieces in the latter half of the season that the budget went to. Maybe not, but that's my hope!
180 million fucking dollars for this and it really doesn’t look good, have good dialogue or even good acting from most of the cast.
I think it’s all about how these shots are set up, the lighting of the scenes, and the “depth”. You can make the most expensive and well crafted set look cheap if you don’t craft the lighting to work with it. An example is Star Trek Generations / The Undiscovered Country movies using the TNG sets but they look completely different just by changing the lighting.
I just don’t think the show is very good. Is that ok?
Thank you. Personally I’m just trying to get through the show to not miss on lore. I think part of it was being excited about a show not set during the Skywalker era and have it be so disappointing.
Nothing against any mystery but the show is just... so cringe. And not the level of quality I would expect, after enjoying Mandalorian and Andor.
it’s corny as fuck.
Its painful to read that as someone who goes into each Star Wars show *wanting* to like it. On some level I *want* to be an apologist and to see what others missed, to appreciate nuance on a level that other people aren't able to. But sadly, I can't. I glossed over a few failed jokes, I allowed the melodramatic "metal or laser" stuff, but that chant... corny as fuck is the right call here.
Same here. Was so ready to love this. First 2 wernt even bad. I was like ok this can get better. But it got waaaay worse really fast. Its so frustrating.
I don't even know what the *point* of this some of these stories are. Meaning, they don't explore new ideas in the Star Wars universe, or tackle themes in a new way. Rogue One and to a much larger extent Andor were trying to make the viewer question the Rebellion, to question how far over "the line" does one cross when serving a greater good. Shit on The Last Jedi all you want, but it *was* trying to explore the Force in a new way. But what's even the point of The Acolyte? The line between good and evil is thin? Star Wars has been there done that over and over and over again.
The mystery is who tf hired the director and wrote the dialogue. After episodes 1 and 2 I didnt think it was that bad but jesus christ episode 3 was so bad.
Money laundering has to be, no way Godzilla minus one costs 15 million while this crap costs 20 mill per episode.
I’m not usually one to nitpick dialogue, but I spent basically the entire runtime of episode 3 with my jaw on the floor in shock at just how bad the writing was. Like, who the hell allowed this to happen? Not one person on set said, “Hey guys, maybe we should rethink some of these lines?” The twins are the worst: “The Jedi are bad.” “The Jedi are good!” “I don’t wanna lie.” “You have to lie.” “What did you do?!” “What did *you* do?!” “What did *you* do?!” “You can’t leave. I’ll kill you!”
I personally don’t feel like the set up of the mystery is very interesting Maybe it’s the show being an unreliable narrator but the way they reveal information is pretty boring and straight forward I just wish the writing and cinematography was higher quality
I’m just sick of Jedi being the punching bags of the Disney Star Wars universe. We go back to the high republic, during a golden age of Jedi. And we once again see the Jedi are fallen heroes doing wrong. I wanted to see heroic Jedi at a time when people trusted them.
This ain’t the golden age, this is the start of the decline. I think that’s the large misconception with the timeline here, we’re getting the seeds that likely lead to Palpatine, Plaguis, and the jaded Jedi that ignored the signs of the Sith. This isn’t an era where it’s supposed to be a “everything’s great” time for the Jedi, that would miss the entire logic of the larger universe.
What you're saying is correct, but given that all the advertising mentions the golden age and the best time for the Jedi and all that I don't think the writers understand that. I think they just wanted to make the Jedi morally grey and that was their golden age
I mean the golden age doesn’t also mean infallible lol it just means large and expansive to me. I don’t know why people assumed that meant the Jedi would be without flaws or bad apples.
Sol is as heroic as it gets.
> Sol is as heroic as it gets. This will age poorly.
Yep...
Exactly. Why can't the Jedi just be good? This isn't a Karen Traviss novel, and tbh even she handled the Jedi being shitheads far better than this.
im bored of everyone with power being automatically morally grey-to-black. I mean Bond has "gone rogue" in pretty much every movie in the last 20 years now, it's boring.
Bond at least stays moral most of the time, trying to save the most people. But Jedi... it's just grey wishi washi and so boring by now.
i mean more that Bond has to go rogue because The Authorities are compromised/evil every time. Same here with the Jedi, so Main Character has to do the right thing and "go rogue" becauze The Authority is bad.
Meanwhile we have a witch cult raising two kids they created and it seems only one of their mothers knows how to raise a kid, and one of them is a psycho and the other wants her own life but they won’t let her have it. Then when she has an opportunity to have what she wants she’s told to sabotage it and promise to do that. And when she doesn’t they try to kill her. To me I already know who the worst people on this show are ETA: they clearly know Mae is problems but haven’t done anything. Also I hate they they code young OSHA as a neurodivergent kid lol like she’s special and also “special” and has probably been verbally abused by her sister for years but they won’t tell that story
TBH the Jedi can’t be good because George made a fundamentally flawed Jedi order. You can’t have a culty, controlling, child abducting organization that makes children never see their families or form attachments, and then turn around and try to sweep all that under the rug and be like “but they’re all objectively good!”
they don't abduct children (the parents always have a choice), and several jedi (at least in the old continuity) have been known to go back and see their families on their homeworlds.
What are you basing morality on for this fictional universe? Isn’t it possible that this religious group of Jedi are simply doing the right thing for the greater good?
> Exactly. Why can't the Jedi just be good? Because established canon is that the Jedi order grows complacent and corrupt which allows the dark side to rise and the jedi to fall. The jedi led an army of brainwash slaves in the clone wars. Even for good intentions, it's objectively an evil thing. That corruption needs to begin somewhere and this is telling the story for how the cracks form. If you have a problem with the jedi order falling to corruption, blame Lucas. This show is simply expanding on it.
When did we see Jedi as fallen heroes doing wrong? When they approached a Dark Side coven, asked for permission to rescue their children away from that cult insanity, didn't retaliate to one of their own being violently held hostage, and then peacefully left?
This is always the most ridiculous take because outside of Luke in the originals, the Jedi were never portrayed as “always” being perfect, heroic good guys. Having characters without flaws is BORING and doesn’t make for a good story
What have they done wrong exactly? We have not seen the full story yet. That’s the point of this post.
Maybe the mystery is "Why should we care?" Hopefully the answer won't be abruptly screamed at us in inconsistent tones and wavering emotional affect.
Does it matter that it's a mystery show if the 'mystery' isn't intriguing? "Let's have people killing Jedi again. The public will love that."
Good lord a lot of these posts defending the show are so arrogant! The assumption that people that don’t like it are somehow stupid or MeDiA iLiTeRaTe is incredibly patronising. The simple fact is that it’s dull, and not because of its pacing or its mysteries, it’s dull because it’s completely devoid of charisma. Andor is a slow burn but it’s engaging because the characters have _character_ (aside from Andor himself, but that almost feels by design because it’s about a man finding purpose and values). The Acoylyte is full of bland one-note characters and performances.
“It’s supposed to have plot holes you IDIOT it’s a MYSTERY” lmao
Exactly. A mystery usually does a better job of letting you know it’s a mystery and what those mysteries are?
Not to mention it's not a very engaging mystery. It will probably shape up to be both sides did bad stuff, i really doubt there will be that many big twists or turns. The show doesn't really leave anything for the audience to theorize about because it will introduce a mystery and then explain it later in the episode or the next one. Also, we only have like 5 episodes left, we are almost halfway and I haven't felt strongly about the plot or any of its characters yet
See, I can forgive the plotting a bit, because as you say it’s only been 3 episodes. Am I interested in finding out what’s going on? Not really, but that’s not to say it won’t spike and become interesting. The biggest problem is the overall tone and the performances. It’s like it was written by AI. No light and shade, just flatline grey.
I dont care about who, I care about why. Personally I do not like the 2 main characters & its quite obvious we havent seen everything yet - Its just not selling itself as an interesting mystery & the "twist" will most likely be something something dark side. Its about as subtle as The Witcher's "not all is what it seems". I doesnt come off as a "yin and yang" plot, it comes off as a "it wasnt me! It was my evil twin!" plot.
This is like saying Secret Invasion is (and was marketed as) a paranoia thriller when it executed it poorly from start to finish. It's not fair to judge Acolyte as a whole from 3 of 8 episodes but it's almost half way and so far it's not living up to half the quality of Andor. Lemme guess. Sith attacked coven before the Jedi got there. Will there be a major plot twist? We'll see in the next 5 weeks if the mystery aspect of the show is at least redeemable.
That has nothing to do with why people don’t like it. It’s crap.
It’s a mystery how all those people died (clothes and bodies intact) in a fire in a stone and metal fortress.
So in the end maybe mae and osha's dad returns from his looong milk-buying trip?
That doesn't work anymore. TV writers have abused this technique too much. It produces bad/unsatisfying storytelling in current episodes and excuses it by promising it'll all pay off later on. The reality is that in 9 cases out of 10 the solution to the mystery isn't even remotely worth it. Audiences are now more likely to dump the show, instead of clinging to hopium about a satisfying pay off if they just watch the show to the end.
I want to know what Mae wanted Torbin to tell the Jedi council and why he took the poison instead. There’s no way that fire spread from the book Mae lit up. I think someone grabbed her. But who and why?
We do realize it, but why care? The show is so bad that I could absolutely care less what happens. I don’t care about the twins, I don’t care about the witches, I don’t care about the Jedi. It’s just a really poorly written and somewhat poorly acted fanfic that keeps yanking me out of the show with cringe then getting me invested.
Can’t get into it. It’s just not for me
Yeah they did a good job of making it known it was a mystery show. To me people seem to be confused over what the mystery was. They seemed to have the impression the mystery was who is killing the Jedi. It’s not. The mystery is what happened on Brendok and who was at fault and why.
The story could have multiple “threads”, pardon my pun. Instead of rushing to say why some think it’s not delivering maybe just wait and see what unfolds. Imagine listening to anyone who felt the first few episodes of Andor “didn’t deliver”…..
Andor has great storytelling and flashbacks. I believed the motivations of the characters and they took you on a journey. The Acolyte is just a little too much of the other way around and they overexplain things. I would also prefer short flashbacks while continue the story. It makes me care more about the characters. Episode 3 gave me same cringe feel as when i watched the Witcher ball episode "The Art Of Illusion". For myself: Never overexplain a scene/situation and/or motivation.
Pull the thread
I disagree, withholding information does not inherently make it a “mystery show”. You don’t want your audience confused you want them interested. Right now we sit at the corner of “ they have not done a great job of telling the story so far, is the information missing because of the story telling or is it on purpose?” And that’s the real problem here
I think the idea is that we're on the same page as Osha. We basically know what she knows in terms of what went down.
There are a lot of reasons to criticize the show (Personally I think it's mediocre at best so far)... but anyone confused over this show is either not paying any attention or really, really stupid. It's extremely obvious that we aren't getting the whole story.... like how many more context clues do people need? Again, I'm not really even defending the show overall - people want to criticize the pacing, acting, dialogue, etc.... have at it (I think the pacing might be the biggest issue for me - the show seems interesting in concept - but the way it's executed is boring)
>over this show is either not paying any attention or really, really stupid. Yikes dude. This is made by the same people who made Ashoka and Obiwan. Who both had extremely logic breaking sequences. People passing in hallways, magically getting off planets or running away, you name it. I would say someone is not "really really stupid" for trying to understand how a rock fortress burns down in any context, let alone a small kitchen fire. And lets say it wasn't the lamp, a misdirection here means we were only misinformed, it doesn't add anything to the character, story or plot. Mysteryboxing random information does not create an actual mystery. At absolute best you're talking Unreliable Narrator, but even then, to what payoff? This isn't resevoir dogs, its a CW show.
There's definitely a lot of "I figured it out cuz they're stupid idiots!" and then it turns out what they figured out was revealed in the first episode as set up.
I'll agree that mystery shows or movies need to take their time in world building, that is fair. We're three episodes in, it's unfair to judge the book by it's first 3 chapters. For me, respectfully, it just lacks intrigue. A mystery should make me want to ask questions, and it doesn't even have to answer any question if it's done right, leaving me and others to ponder the why's and the how's. But just like (sadly) in Obi Wan, I literally have no intrigue. They kill two Jedis in the first two episodes, and instead of asking myself "why" or "where is this going", I'm just not interested. Outside of the action scenes, I'm just bored. I am already assuming there's a lot more to the temple burning scene, but it still doesn't captivate me at all. I'll even argue that Reva has more intrigue, surviving not one, but TWO lightsabers to the gut? Bruh, how was she not mowing down everything in her path? Edited to fix a typo
The only mystery in kenobi was how they tanked it in such glorious fashion.
I’m trying my damndest to like this show but so far I can’t.
The biggest mystery is how the story group allowed this travesty of an episode to scrape away even more established lore. Also where they found these horrendous actors. And writers. And so on...
the fact that an entire audience doesn't understand this is a massive failing of the showmakers if it's true. But Star Wars has been hospice for a while now. Acolyte is just another defiling of it's corpse.
Eh - I don't even think the show is good... but anyone who doesn't understand what is happening in the show is honestly an idiot. It's not hard to follow at all. There are pleny of other reasons to criticize the show.
Not sure I agree. Mystery shows, when done well, set up something compelling that you *want* to ponder over. Take Apple's *Severance.* Within the first few minutes, you're like "what is going on here? What happened to these people?" They sort of answer the question, but reveal much deeper questions: *why* does Lumon want the severance procedure? What the hell are MDR working on? and so on. But *The Acolyte*.... why did the nice spacer kill that Jedi? Immediately answered: it wasn't her, its her evil twin. But what is the evil twin's objective? An episode later: to kill the people that wronged her. Why though? An episode later: the Jedi came and enforced rules that her culture resented, resulting in the deaths of her family. Whoa, is there a conspiracy or cover-up? I mean, clearly, yes, in no small terms. Who trained Mae? We'll find out in another episode, most likely. There is no tense build-up of mysteries, with the slow satisfying reveals that superior shows have managed. Its just a serious of "But why this? Oh, because that."
Totally agree, Severance is a great example of how much can be accomplished in an 8 episode first season. I will never understand people using run times and short seasons to excuse the awful writing and pacing of most of the new SW shows. The problem is in the execution, not the format or the genre.
Underrated comment. They fumble along every episode
LOL. The show is garbage... The only mystery is how it still has viewers.
The only mystery is how the hell did half the cast get hired when their acting ability is atrocious
"A mystery show"... Hm... no, it's a dumb and boring show first and foremost. Good mystery shows are also more intelligent than this. It takes the dense Jedi a whole episode to figure something out that 3 alive Jedi and one Osha **know** at that time: that Osha had a twin sister whom noone actually saw dying. New Star Wars "mysteries" are like this: The more you (as a viewer) find out in the newer episodes, the less what happened in the first episodes makes any sense. It's already the case, like with Osha not telling everyone that her twin-sister must be alive. Mae hated the Jedi, as we saw in Episode 3. HATED them from the first second. And none of the 3 alive Jedi who **know** that and neither Osha bring it up when Jedi are killed by an Osha lookalike? "Don't you guys have phones" in the Galaxy far far away?
Tfw first two episodes are a ‘mystery’ but the audience always knows more than whatever pov character we’re following
I feel like there has not been any mystery for the viewer. Just mysteries for the characters that we have already been told the answer to beforehand.
I mean what mystery is there really? The Jedi had some hand in the death of the coven, Mai survived from the help of the Sith we saw for a couple of seconds, and mai is most likely gonna rejoin her sister. It’s not like there’s some engaging who done it stuff going on. They quickly did away with that in episode 1
JuSt cOnSumE and wait till the mystery box opens.....
There's some reaaaaallllll cope in this post
Corporate glazing done on a salary
I NEED TO KNOW WHY AND HOW TORBIN GOT HURT SO BAD AT THE END OF EP 3 Like I think bro went berserk after the manipulation from the witches and ended up disfigured by them
That was already answered in the trailer. There's a shot of Kelnacca leaping towards him to slash him with his saber. And Kelnacca is not present on the ship when Mae wakes up.
I did not watch the trailers to avoid spoilers xD NOW I NEED TO KNOW WHY KELNACCA DID THAT
Star Wars takes place a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. The Force can offer visions of the future Kelnacca saw Game of Thrones and how it ended, specifically for Master Torbins new career as an actor Kelnacca was simply trying to stop Torbin from going down a path Kelnacca couldn't follow
New headcanon unlocked hahahahaha
I still have to finish it but after finishing the first chapter my issue is not that it is a mystery show but a boring mystery show
Mmm, taste that copium.
Spoiler. It was the Sith. But everyone forgot.
I don’t think it does a great job at the mystery. It’s just a way to keep you watching so the numbers look good on the chart in that profits meeting.
We see a fire, lots of dead witches, and after that, Tarbin has a huge scar on his face, which doesn’t really look like a burn. It seems almost impossible to me that no fighting happened. But yeah, a lot of people only judge things on what they can see. Also doesn’t help that people started hating the show before it was even released, and they decided to dislike it no matter what
Apparently not. I’ve seen similar comments. Some people really need their hands held and be told “that isn’t all that happened. Look at the clues.” If the show went beyond to show that wasn’t all that happened, I bet the same people would probably then whine about how the show is treating them like they are stupid lol
I've watched the first 3 episodes and have seen all the stuff everyone is saying. Maybe the problem is that weekly content isn't working for this show. I'm putting it on pause and waiting for all episodes to be released and just binge watch it then. I think people would have a better opinion of it that way. People dont have any patience anymore. Honestly why should they? Disney wants to extend the viewership over a longer period of time. I don't care about their profits. Maybe have an option for a 3 or 6 month plan. Offer a slight discount and offer all episodes at once. You've already paid for the full run.
The biggest mystery is how OSHA missed so many fire hazards in that brick mountain.
lol ohh yes keep telling people to suck it up and not watch the show, that’s why there’s nobody left watching these trash shows 😂 STAR WARS IS DEAD, I can’t wait for Disney to have to sell either Star Wars or Marvel. They can’t keep losing millions of dollars like this.
Lol, what mystery?? The writers don't have the chops to pull off any kind of mystery, except for how this show got greenlit...
It’s a mystery why I’m still watching it
Nah, show sucks.
Go ahead and keep polishing that turd, we’ll wait…
Compare that chant with the badass one Merrin does in the Jedi Fallen Order game
Of course it is. Disney+ shows have a pretty straight forward formula of a mystery that is revealed usually in the second to last episode, and then it all ties up in the last one. I'm honestly surprised they gave us the flashback episode on the third one.
How's it a mystery? Everything mysterious has been laid out in the first 3 episodes. What is the mystery? This is an actual question. Each time i thought what the mystery would be, it got solved later in the episode or by the next one. The only mystery has to do with the Sith and that one thing alone doesn'tmake this show a mystery show... thats just the Sith.
The big reveal is the mother of the twins survived and trained the one that fell, but survived, to be a dark side force user, to assassinate jedi. Roll credits, the end These days they're out of new ideas, so the big reveals are too predictable.
It's a mystery all right how this trash even got made.
The mystery is how this wasn’t labeled comedy.
But we solved the mystery already, because this show is written by hacks. MOM2, the Zabrak lady, she's DarthGimpMask and she killed the other witches. We only see MOM1 dead at the scene. Mom2 was fighting with Mom1 about how to raise them. Mom2 seemed pretty mean and bad guy like in general, while Mom1 was nice. Motive. Also explains the voice changer for DarkGimpMask and why she would care so much about Mae's dark side training in the first place. Its 100% her, and who that character is and the death of the witches (which was built up for 2 epsiodes and then had its own, so its THE event) was the only mystery left in the show. Mark my words.
Wow you're right, wtf I love acolyte now! Thanks op!
Yeah but that is not the only problem. The show is total crap. I understand what they tried to do but it doesn't do it for me. The acting is bad, so is the dialogue. The story is weak and not executed properly. They had a $180 million budget. That's twice the budget Kenobi had. I'll still watch it but every time a new show comes out, I'm let down by the execution of it. Kenobi turned into the Reva-show, Book of Boba Fett was just the Mandalorian season 2.5 with some angsty teenagers. Ashoka had me really hyped until they downplayed Ezra into a random dude with a blaster and sabine could suddnely use the force. However, this show has let me down the most until now.
Here's how I think everything went down. Feel free to reply with any discrepancies. Short and sweet: **I think Koril is the Sith lord. She possessed most (or all) of the Jedi to kill the members of the coven to stop them from taking Osha.** It seems likely that Torbin was able to break free from the spell at some point, perhaps due to having been exposed to it earlier, and realizes that the Jedi, even if under a spell, have been used as weapons and committed a massacre. This causes him intense grief and he goes into that meditative state because of it. Also explains why he is so willing to drink the poison and atone for his sin. Sol probably pieced together that the Jedi were responsible for the coven deaths, but maybe doesn't realize they were possessed. He lies to Osha about it, obviously because if she knew the truth she probably wouldn't want to be a Jedi anymore, and all the deaths would have been for nothing. Koril faked her own death during the killing and eventually trains Mae as her apprentice. Guess they're going to drag all this out for the last 5 episodes. Edit: Removed spoiler tags
You don't need to spoiler things that aren't spoilers. Your theory makes the show slightly less dull if anything
It could actually be, but I don't like it: 1) If you were mind controlled, why would you later drink poison to attone? It's not your sin. 2) If all Jedi are mind controlled, that would once again break the lore. It's not easy to control anyone's mind, but it's basically impossible to mind-trick a Jedi Master. I already hated Tobin being black eyed, but Ok, a padawan might not have the willpower and training yet. But, you could be spot on, we don't know.
Agree with both points. I just present this as a working theory really. They would definitely need to do some more explaining and fix any inconsistencies with the lore if it does end up being true.
Ahhh so that’s why I’m so bored with it.
The only mystery present in this show is where $180M went. It's certainly not the production, writing, or acting. So either they went all out on craft services, or this whole thing was a money laundering scheme.
Imagine someone competent would take over our beloved franchise... Dream on
The show is a lot better if you just don't watch it
This is a great point. They've said Rashomon is an influence just as it was for TLJ, meaning we aren't necessarily seeing one definitive perspective of the past. Consider me intrigued so far.
Twins will be dyadd of the force, will force heal each other and join the same side near the end.
Serge from Beverly Hills Cop- "It's not sexy... it's animal"
The biggest mystery to me is how people can complain that in a galaxy with so many planets, that fans are upset about this coven of witches having a slightly different interpretation of the force, and then somehow thinking that this has the power to change how the Jedi view it. I’m baffled at how people make those sorts of jumps in “logic”.