A piece looking back at the newest Disney+ series. [Contains spoilers].
It has been a week since The Acolyte premiered its final episode of the series; one of Leslye Headland’s Star Wars run shows for Disney+.
The show has been met with a mixture of warm welcomes and dark tidings instead of becoming a stand-alone series that was expected to explain the beginnings of the dark side, it instead became a muddled series that left us with a potential cliffhanger promising future appearances from Master Yoda.
All in all, the series was a show of good intentions although there was the muddled narrative and the inclusion of two flashback episodes, but this also paid to the good work of certain actors let down by this confusing narrative structure that left some viewers frustrated and wishing for more directional flow explaining Darth Plageius’ rise to prominence.
While the New Republic books provided much of this series lore, the inclusion of those characters such as green-skinned Venestra while welcome, they were not the interpretation of that character we expected.
This is down to one of the negatives of the series for me, due to the performance of Rebecca Henderson in the role. Admittedly, she did redeem herself by series end; when going toe-to-toe with David Harewood as a scheming senator.
Sometimes when breaking down a series it is better to think about what worked and what did not work. And a lot of the failure of the series, in my opinion, falls upon the acting. Bar Lee Jung-jae as Sol and Manny Jacinto as Qimir, very few actors covered themselves in glory – perhaps this is the direction of the show or the fact that a sideways turn was taken by the production when the idea of a second series was on the horizon.
What was positive about this show?
Well the lightsaber duels and fight choreography did impress, and with the addition of Jung-jae as the mythical eastern Jedi and Jacinto’s physicality, this harkened back to the original influence of Akira Kurosawa.
The subtle nods and inversions of the Jedi lore – throughout the show, the Jedi are reversed and painted as the bad guys for the most part, an authoritative arm of republic law with no repercussions to their actions.
The scene of Sol chasing Mae through the asteroid field, with Sol’s ship resembling a shark seeking the little ship prey inverts the original film opening scene of the Star Destroyer tracking down the rebel blockade runner.
Yet for all these neat twists; the dramatic arc of Osha turning to the dark side seemingly on the admission by Sol of his part in killing her and Mae’s mother felt a bit rushed and that is reflective in other production decisions.
Final thoughts
The series though falls on where you stand upon the two flashback episodes. The second one paints the Jedi out as bad cops roaming the galaxy thinking they are doing good but in fact interfering in business that perhaps does not elicit such involvement.
In conclusion, whilst there were positives from two strong male performances married with some subverting of the Jedi folklore and general conventions of good and bad depicted in cinematic history; nevertheless, the series felt a bit forced and not totally thought through. A bit like Sol and Indara on Brendock
Chatter Box Film 