Star Wars: The Acolyte - Eps 1 & 2 Review (Non-Spoiler & Spoiler) 

Everything is predictable nowadays

If Han was in this… (shoots one) “Did you use the Force to figure out it was me?” “Sure”

then they'll shoot/slash the evil one but at the end of the episode the 'good' twin will smile in a sinister way, giving away that the other character actually killed (of course they're not dead for real) the good one and they switched places.

@@tfromcleveland3741🤣 Good ☝🏼

One has a Tatoo.

What you want a real timeline on the show? Forget about it.

Yeah that was jarring af

It's one of those cases in wich the script and timeline are destroyed during editing, trying to make the show more dynamic for people with very short attention spans.

I assumed Osha was unconscious for at least 24/h

yer I've noticed this aswell it's just lazy story telling

I was about to post the exact same thing! It's great, but you almost don't need to watch the review- the thumbnail tells you all you need to know! lol

His review thumbnails typically turn me off and cause me to skip those videos because they come across as click bait to me. I only watched this because I'm curious about other peoples opinion on The Acolyte.

When I see a thumbnail like the one for this video, it makes me more curious to see why Dan thought the show or movie was just okay or bad.

It’s never really a good sign when you see Dan having a scratch.

May as well be his head at this point

I think that illustrates what makes the Fugitive so great. Ford plays it straight with all the melodrama while Jones has seen it all before dozens of times. He cracks through the cliches and reinvigorates the experience of a good procedural. When you make reference to that film without any of the personality it just feels older than the thing it’s copying.

Fallout is pretty wild

Yeah. With Mr. Robot, for example, the show hooks everyone from the very first scene.

@@whit1973 yeah fallout good example as well!

And then shogun became shit after It s strong start

@@alvarodavilaferrero1983 yeah right it got better and better

I know right! Can we please be done with that Killmonger cut

A style of hair we've been doing for thousands of years. Why would it disappear?

⁠@@kharikhy-ree2242 If they were doing it for thousands of years, why did they stop doing it entirely for the couple of centuries in which photography has existed, just to start again in the 2010s?

​@@kharikhy-ree2242Nigga stop lying 😂 we didn't have that hairstyle forever. That is a totally modern haircut

@@kharikhy-ree2242 he’s not talking about locs or twists as a style. But SPECIFICALLY the exact same length and shaved sides that has now been in media more than it’s fair share. It’s tired, and there are other ways to style hair this type and length

It does feel very "TV" and I'm not quite sure why. Maybe it is the editing and pacing, idk what it is but it almost felt like Star Trek.

Well, it is a tv show xd. And i agree, the oacing wasn't the best. But the writing and character introduction was the best so far. We know a lot from each character thanks to what we saw so far. The show really relies on the "show don't tell" tecnique.

@@alexheisenberg8709180 million 8 episode show. They 💩 the bed again.

@@hargibson18 The cinematography is amateur hour. How many over the shoulder to reverse angle shots are there? There are even edits from the same angle but at a longer distance. The lighting, color grading and music are also just kind of "there", they don't accentuate or create any mood most of the time

@@ajdz1840it’s trying to emulate the prequel vibes, which also had very mediocre practical camera work and lighting

Me too.

Star Wars is dead. Disney isn't canon.

@@moxyent1354I actually really liked Mando 3. The hate for it is baffling to me.

@@moxyent1354 Lol 'Andor' did not drag. 'Andor' is the only truly brilliant thing Star Wars has made since Empire.

@mnoir7257 the only thing good that came from disney star wars except maybe the first couple episodes of Mando s1

I told my son that I probably wouldn't watch any more of this if I wasn't already a Star Wars fan. In an era with "House of the Dragon," "The Boys," "True Detective," "The Last of Us," and "Andor," this show just feels as lightweight and insignificant as possible. It wasn't terrible, but for a show that began with a Jedi being assassinated, it sure didn't do much to give that any real heft. That's not a problem when a show is airy and fun (like "Only Murders in the Building"), but this wasn't that either. Maybe premium TV has just ruined this kind of show for me.

@@karlwiggins 💯

I suggest checking out The Bad Batch! Aside from Andor and Jedi: Survivor, it is easily my favorite piece of Star Wars media recently. If you're a fan of Clone Wars, it's that but a single narrative and better in every way conceivable. Shows like these are what keep me hooked in light of disasters like Kenobi and Mandalorian S3.

I felt the same way in regards to the editing. Especially at the very end of episode one. I don't understand why they felt like they had to cut everything so tight like that.

Funnily enough I felt the opposite was the problem with Ahsoka.

I kinda like it because for me, a lot of the star wars shows take too long to get stuff going. These episodes felt really concise. The fight scenes were amazing and I hope that's the way the fights will be handled now.

I have this problem with the editing with a lot of modern shows and movies these days. They don't allow the material to breathe properly. I really notice the difference when I watch older shows and films.

@@Dharmadruid73 I'll give you that. Older material was more unafraid of showing off the effects

More than 2-3 times actually but yeah you make a good point. $11 million back then is $42-45 million adjusted for inflation - but adjusted for marketing and costs (e.g. a grip would be paid $2 an hour in 1977, now it's $40-50 an hour) it's even more than that - and then you need to compare it to the $180 million for the AcoBudLight.

Thats not surprising whatsoever, Star Wars always was a low-budget b-movie in its premise, it was no blockbuster that the studio was expecting to succeed, it was shot largely on location with a lot of just the typical 70s institutional set/model-builders of the time that were a dime a dozen. Acolyte is just 90% CGI, and also you have to adjust for inflation any time you take into old movie budgets, Acolyte costs 5 times the budget of original Star Wars not 15, thats just exaggerated

what exactly is wrong with this script? And the OT was NEVER known for great writing and the story is just a ripoff of Dune.

Yeah but the acolyte blew it’s budget on space lesbians

where are the lesbians?​@@neilchapman5145

The fighting was good and then the Jedi instantly died by toothpick lmao 🔪 🦷

Aca-amazing

"Inside voices"? That shit sucks because modern American dialog immediately brought me out of the immersion. It's was her 1st darn line ffs, these writers drive me nuts

Thanks for the heads-up!

Using the sponsor link AND giving constructive feedback on it? You're like a comment section unicorn!

I really don’t know, when I heard that my finger started floating towards the unsuspecting button

The DadForce is strong with Master Murrell.

Aca-scuse me???

@@therealdavidleong we don't need to aco-fight about it!

If you want to go down the Dan rabbit hole look up his rants on screen junkies, or best of movie fights.

It's a far cry (in a good way) from the comments section under Grace Randolph's review.

There are a few Fandom Menace freaks kicking about with their typical narrow-minded nosense.

@@Dharmadruid73 I won't Lie I hate Grace usually, but when she makes a good point I will defend it. It's usually really hard for me to determine exactly who she's trying to please on any given day.

Unfortunately I saw a comment here that started off giving some respectable criticism, but then devolved into excessive negativity. Not Dan's fault, though, it's just the Internet being the Internet.

Patience *Yoda voice*

Acolyte is just okay. Rings of Power is just terrible to the point of trolling.

Right there with you. 😢 my heart hurts

Honestly, it's a really unfair assosciation, The Acolyte isn't bad at all, it has good action, a decent mystery and funny jokes. The only problem is the editing and some visual issues regarding distance.

​@@davidbodor1762we get it, you like terrible shows.

@@Needler13 we get it, you lack an ounce of rational thought or intelligence.

I'm a fan and I like it.

​@s.n.9485 that's the equivalent of when a computer game comes out a broken buggy mess and loads of people complain about it then one person says "it runs great on my machine". Congratulations you're in the minority

​@@kityhawk2000ok, now do the equation with a majority of people saying it was garbage before ever seeing a second of it.

I 100% agree that Arcane did the good/bad sister set-up perfectly. It was so good that it got me into Anime in my mid 40’s. I realize Arcane is Western not Eastern, but I highly recommend Anime for anyone looking for great storytelling and character development that doesn't feel cliche. Anime tends to rely on character over plot.

can't wait for the second series of Arcane! gotta re-watch that one!

@@StrykEdits a bit random, but you might enjoy Blue Eye Samurai.

​@@StrykEditssame here, I'm not into anime, but arcane was awesome..

​@@anthonyzepeda31 I suggest getting into light novels. One of my favorites is TBATE (The Beginning After The End). TBATE has very good audiobooks if anyone is interested as well. I believe the writer is an American, but he takes a lot of tropes from Eastern anime. I'm really hoping Western TV shows can start learning from other forms of storytelling. Too many of these shows are so formulaic...Disney Star Wars already had a show with a Padawon that turns to the dark side out of anger and revenge with Obi-Wan and the character Reva. I feel like this is just another spin on something we have already seen.

The prolific Cornish writer Arthur Quiller-Couch was the first to advise that you should "murder your darlings", in a lecture On Style in 1914. I am sure that, if he had watched the Matrix, he would also have advised "don't typecast your favourite actors".

@@pattheplanter I didn't know that! Thank you. And yeah, type casting is not great advice either lol

With the current state of Disney's Star Wars, meh is a win 😅🤣😆

I thought the show has looked really good so far, especially compared to Obi-Wan. The sets and CGI are all great.

I'm guessing that Jedi along with the three other Jedi on Mae's list was involved in killing Mae's family. The Jedi killed himself to keep the secret to protect the Jedi order.

The suicide scene was odd? That's part of the whole mystery, why he'd do that...clearly they did something terrible, but what was it? It's the entire hook of the story lol

I laughed.

It didn’t even cross my mind at the time. I guess it didn’t seem any more illogical for Star Wars than fiery explosions in space or laser and engine sounds in space. It’s a nonissue for me. No more than a nitpick. It’s a little cheesy, sure, but it doesn’t break any rules already established n the Star Wars universe.

You must hate all Star Wars space battles then. Get a life.

Fire in space has always been a thing in Star Wars, so...

Me too 😂

So refreshing. I can't take the haters seriously whatsoever its clear they are A: Fiancially motivated and preying on hateful people (and may also be hateful) or B: So stuck up their own ass they can't see straight.

😂😂😂 exactly

Fair! I'd agree. I want the Jedi to ACTUALLY have made a bad/morally WRONG decision. The thing that makes the Sith so tempting is that they often speak enough Truth to make you think they're onto something. The hypocrisy of the Jedi being one of these things.

A person won't kill himself for a misunderstanding, he fights until clearing his/her name. The one who drink the liquid did it willingly tells us viewers that they have done something that all or some have the need to atone themselves. In short, I don't think is going to be a misunderstanding. Collateral damage, on purpose… I have to see how it develops.

@supdevan6413 I'm curious if Mae is seeking revenge because she thinks the Jedi killed Osha, since she's surprised to see her alive and they were there at the fire. Who knows! But I agree with your point

@@kingvagar People end their lives for all sorts of reasons. He could have "believed" he was part of something terrible when in actuality he didn't have all the information.

Yeah, but that is called deception, not a misunderstanding… and my first response was about misunderstanding. Your original comment.

Which was inspired by The Fugitive

@@TheRosadochris Dan doesn't know that stuff

@@TheRosadochrisWhich both clear this shitty show by miles.

I think he is talking about a specific scene from the fugitive where Harrison fords character jumps out of a tunnel and when Osha falls off the cliff

You’re right it’s not inspired, it straight up ripped off the fugitive

@@-AtomsPhere- The guy who makes the poison is literally Asian. And the opening scene has a white Jedi who even saves a civilian risking her own life and there's been other white Jedi's in the show. You people are so weird

​@@-AtomsPhere-you're weird

​@@-AtomsPhere-Considering most White men have casted themselves as villains forever. Why are you offended by this?

I think k your just reading super deep into this.

Wookie Jedi is the sith master. If you paid any attention to the show so far it's painfully obvious.

Why would you be surprised by that? It would be a movie that was out years before they even born and ever since they were old enough to watch it, they have had overwhelming amount of brand new content to keep up on. Getting to 'old classics' isn't going to be common.

@@curtisbmeI don’t agree with this at all. People look up and watch classic films. If people are into movies, they’ll seek out classics. If people just watch movies to pass the time, probably not. You’ve never watched a film from before you were born?

@@funkrobot9762 How old are the people you are talking about? Yes I've watched movies from before I was born but that is because I've had many, many decades to do so and because during that time there wasn't 24x7 new content being made demanding attention. Kenneth said "people under 20", which means you are talking about someone who grew up always having youtube/twitch/streaming/etc. They have had maybe 8 years at the absolute most where they might have sought out what would have been a 17 year old movie (now 25 years old). That means not only would they have wanted to pull themselves away from their backlog of current content they would have had to choose that movie vs the hundreds of great movies that were made from the 17 years before that or the thousands from the decades before it. So it is just math of limited time and unlimited options that it will be the exception that anyone under 20 has seen The Matrix.

@@curtisbme”Backlog of current content” you fancy imagining yourself in the shoes of others don’t you? Speak for yourself friend. I’m under 20 and I don’t watch new movies, I mostly watch older movies. I’ve seen every matrix movie and ALL of my peers have seen the four movies as well. As a young person I always hear old people talking about new movies, seems like it’s an old person thing to watch a lot of movies in general I guess.

@@ModernWelfare_ Congrats on watching a great movie. Note that is not a value statement, it is factual one that most people your age will not have seen it. A sample of yourself, who self-defines as being unusual by not watching current movies, and a group of friends that are likely your friends because they are like you, are not the norm or the majority. Again, not a value statement, just factual.

They literally don't care. Feels like A.I filmmaking at this point...

Companies like Disney and Netflix will always have a certain level of success because lazy parents all over the world will be subscribed all year round, no matter what, so they can dump their kids in front of a TV !

That would imply they give a crap. Their whole filmmaking and showmaking area is lacking in creativity and effort. Just look at Marvel, Pixar and their own animation studio's recent output.

I think it’s because it feels like these days many shows or movies that tote a diverse cast as a main draw of the show usually have weak storytelling. It feels like THATS where their priorities lie versus great storytelling and characters

Woke rants are the most lucrative low-effort grift right now. You have all these fake experts masquerading as film critics. No need to write a script for two weeks, just pick something/someone to complain about and you have your daily content.

FACTS!

@@BG_WingzzHis point is valid though, imagine people just stopped talking about it. I’m assuming here but I think if it wasn’t such a topic of debate then it wouldn’t have priority over story. That is a stretch obviously but it makes some sense to me.

⁠@@BG_Wingzz Where in the marketing of this show did they mention “diverse cast”? That doesn’t seem like a focus to me, it just so happens that the cast is diverse with a not very strong script

If you are right, and there's no reason to doubt your conclusion, this is a really hamfisted "mystery" that isn't worthy of the name.

I doubt it. ROP premieres nearly two months after House of Incest. Plenty of time to get excited for it (especially since Amazon has learned some lessons from its scattershot PR for last season and is actually doing PR this time)

@@charleslarrivee2908oooh learned their lessons? Did they learn they already fucked up a bunch of lore? Already messed up the making of the rings and Sauron. Also, same show runners.

@@charleslarrivee2908 I was refering to back in 2022 when the first season of the Rings of power went up against the House of the Dragon, and the later was overwhelmingly considered the fal superior show.

@@edwardrichtofen8530dawg idk why lotr fanns cry about the lore so much. The original lotr films didn’t stay 100% faithful and I didn’t see nearly the same amount of hate for them

@@jessec.6876 can rings of power be like even 30% faithful? I hate this lame argument of “it’s not exactly faithful so let’s add a Toyota Camry to it”. Like can you be more faithful than not?

It’s Disney, remember how they used to depict black people? All of them having dreadlocks seems pretty tame to me. 😂

@@ModernWelfare_ I meant the twins, how and why would they magically have the same hair exact after being apart.

Could be a cultural thing from her planet or could be because they both had that style as kids and they're both still understandably attached to their childhoods. That said, Mae has those side things that I don't know how to referr to, it's just a slight bit different than Osha.

@@davidbodor1762 I actually have teen twins. Twins legit fight for their own identity at a certain age, something as simple as the hairstyle is absolutely absurd to me.

@@smuj77 Yeah but they both thought the other one died so maybe that plays a factor.

Like many other Star Wars properties, I think the ideas are greater than the films/shows. Former Jedi hunting down Jedi masters while also being a twin (?) or the mystery surrounding that is a really good premise imo. But for some reason they fail to hire people who can bring these ideas to life in a realistic way. The visuals look cool I guess, but it all looks fake and glossy and magazine like. The actors don’t act in a way that suggests they feel it believe in what they’re saying as well as a myriad of other things. I can go on and on but I think after so many of these similar products from Disney I really have to say that I’m problem. George and Disney have been telling me for the longest that this is for children, and everything I just discussed like most accessible to very young kids. It looks like an expensive YA show airing Saturday morning on CW.

Mae*

They're both trained with the force and that's what was predominantly used in the fight scene. The Kunai just happened to be the thing that got her. I don't understand why that's a problem. She used the force to direct a kunai into her heart while she was distracted

@@averymyles1707 Its like people think a Jedi can ONLY be killed by a lightaber.

That happened in the High Republic books too 👀

Dude speak for yourself, I’ve been reading high republic since I was 12 I’m now 24. 😂

@@ModernWelfare_Yes but you can’t assume that all viewers have. And my condolences for having read all those boring books.

Because trinity didn't want to be apart of this bs. She told Disney I'm one and done. So they had to kill her off after the first episode lol

yeah and she gets done in by sort of an obvious trick that should not have worked - since her saber was still in hand. A Jedi Master was not good enough to do two things at once?

Jedi Trinity, Jedi Squid Game, and Jedi X-23 sounds like a great team.

@@writingrefThe green lightsaber is what kills it for me, I’m fully convinced Disney doesn’t care about why lightsabers are the color they are, which is moronic because they seem to understand red is for bad guy so I don’t know.

@@ModernWelfare_ Well we have yellow ones now too so Are they going to do the whole 3 -different Jedi roles thing? I think its a Disney-Era idea that darksiders "bleed" the kyber Crystals to get the red color. (As opposed to synthetic Kyber of the old EU) So the only reason they know what Red is for is because they came up with the reason lol.

@@writingref The reason she didn't react in time is because she thought Mae only had 1 knife left, the 2nd one she used was hidden in her sleeve and she took it out behind her back while they were distracted by the bartender, then Mae throws the one that she had seen already and gets hit by the one she didn't know Mae had.

The Mandalorian music is killer.

Furiosa was the original "Girl Boss Takes Over Male Led Franchise" movie. Nobody realized it at the time, but that format was about to dominate Hollywood. I personally did not like the movie, but have to admit, Charlize Theron made the character believable.

They definitely haven’t Iv seen a lot of people say this when something has bad writing funny how no one ever talks about how badly written the prequels are

EWWW GIRLS

@@abananwar8808 Fair point on the quality of prequel writing, but then the controversial casting there was Jake Lloyd & Hayden Christensen (because of their acting abilities, rather than gender or race) and in the spirit of consistency, I MAINTAIN if the writing & directing had been better in the prequels, audiences would have been much more kind to those actors. Same applies to the casting for Disney Star Wars.

@@martymcnasty6306 It's weird this America's obsession with identity politics. Every time there's a show out, the question is what race and gender are the leads. The double-edged sword of consuming American media is you have to deal with the massive American presence on social media.

Hollywood has been trying to push this actress since her role in Hunger Games; she’s been in multiple starring roles for some very generously budgeted movies but IMO hasn’t really stood out in any of them.

@@michiganhughes I never made the connection that it's the same girl from Hunger Games until you said it. lol

@@michiganhughes maybe it’s the director but she’s not very good in this, the main Asian guy who people are praising was one of the least Jedi Jedis I’ve ever seen. Everything brings out an emotion in him, again I don’t know why the director and creator was allowed to make this.

I hear you. You’re not alone.

@@ocularpatdown Thank God.

Battle Angel Alita is an all time favorite movie - love the manga and felt the movie did some improvements on the story in movie format!

@@JustinVillemure I don't think it did very well...i loved it too. But we fans are also a big problem. We say we want new stuff but never give new stuff a chance. Even when it's good.

@@wkadalie You are off track with your comment. Being a fan but wanting new things is not related… not sure what you mean. I am a fan of a lot of stuff and when it comes to film, what matters is quality entertainment: characters I care about, plot and themes that matter. I am a fan of Ninja Turtles and didn’t like the mutant mayhem film… I’m not a fan of Bullet Train but absolutely love that movie, its made me a fan… its not simply about being a fan, its having standards.

i felt the same thing: JediGPT

Also the fact that the show has been in production since 2022! How many fucking times did they reshoot and rewrite this frankensteins monster of a show I wonder.

Dan very fair. It the Toxic Hater and Fandom Menace people that are scray.

The Fandom Menace is penis cancer in human form.

My job here is done.

@@DanMurrellMovies 😂😂😂 it was cringe but perfect 🙏

Awesome - and sorry about all the mispronunciations I’m sure we both battle