Star Wars: Acolyte

[B]

Anyone else find it interesting that neither twin changed their hairstyle over the course of 15-20 years?

[epilogue]

Oh please.... Mae's hair is much longer

[B]

Oh please.... Mae's hair is much longer

Did you just know that?

[epilogue]

Oh please.... Mae's hair is much longer

Did you just know that?

Um, it's called OBSERVATION, B. Maybe don't second screen your watches, hmmmmm?!

[blueviper]

I just can’t get over how much of the writing is wasted on constantly explaining what’s happening to the audience.

You can almost hear the scriptwriters going “OK, we need to tell the audience what the conflict in this scene is. They won’t understand it if we don’t state it directly. So let’s have the Jedi character say ‘you cannot deny the Jedi’s right to test the girls.’”

“There. It’s dull and clunky, but there’s no need for the audience to rely on subtext or implication. We have explicitly told them that the Jedi have an understood right in this matter.”

But then they think “hmmm….that does sound pretty aggressive, though. We don’t want the audience to get confused and think maybe Sol is the bad guy. We better add something to show that he’s also respectful.”

So the full line becomes “You cannot deny that the Jedi have a right to test the girls… With your permission of course.”

And the writers must be like “we did it! Problem solved. Moving on.”

And it just doesn’t matter that it makes no sense. It’s not there to make sense, or to be interesting, or develop stakes or character in any way. It’s all just there to tell the audience exactly what is happening and exactly how to feel about it.

You cannot deny the Jedi’s right to test the girls. Unless you don’t give us permission, of course. In which case you’ve denied it. So I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.

that is a big problem with movies in the past 20 years (maybe longer). And TV shows. Constantly having to explain stuff via lame dialogue.

[blueviper]

I'm really struggling to see why the Jedi were ever considered good guys at this point

Which, makes me love The Last Jedi even more

We had such high hopes for Jedi when Obi-Wan said "for a 1000 generations the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice....."

so much for that.

Can't fault Disney for that. It even started when GL effed them up.

[epilogue]

I just can’t get over how much of the writing is wasted on constantly explaining what’s happening to the audience.

You can almost hear the scriptwriters going “OK, we need to tell the audience what the conflict in this scene is. They won’t understand it if we don’t state it directly. So let’s have the Jedi character say ‘you cannot deny the Jedi’s right to test the girls.’”

“There. It’s dull and clunky, but there’s no need for the audience to rely on subtext or implication. We have explicitly told them that the Jedi have an understood right in this matter.”

But then they think “hmmm….that does sound pretty aggressive, though. We don’t want the audience to get confused and think maybe Sol is the bad guy. We better add something to show that he’s also respectful.”

So the full line becomes “You cannot deny that the Jedi have a right to test the girls… With your permission of course.”

And the writers must be like “we did it! Problem solved. Moving on.”

And it just doesn’t matter that it makes no sense. It’s not there to make sense, or to be interesting, or develop stakes or character in any way. It’s all just there to tell the audience exactly what is happening and exactly how to feel about it.

You cannot deny the Jedi’s right to test the girls. Unless you don’t give us permission, of course. In which case you’ve denied it. So I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.

that is a big problem with movies in the past 20 years (maybe longer). And TV shows. Constantly having to explain stuff via lame dialogue.

I hear you both, and I agree. It's a big problem with writing in art in general. But then I turn around and see people bash stuff that they clearly didn't understand and I think, yeah, maybe that's why creators keep doing this, because people aren't getting the obvious connections.

TBC, I'm not calling out anyone here for that. I'm talking about the larger internet discourse in general.

[epilogue]

I'm really struggling to see why the Jedi were ever considered good guys at this point

Which, makes me love The Last Jedi even more

We had such high hopes for Jedi when Obi-Wan said "for a 1000 generations the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice....."

so much for that.

Can't fault Disney for that. It even started when GL effed them up.

For thousands of years they were. We've, so far, only seen storytelling in the years where that's suspect.

[B]

Maybe what Obi-Wan said was only true from a certain point of view.

[epilogue]

Maybe what Obi-Wan said was only true from a certain point of view.

Holy shit, B! Coming alive in the fourth quarter, I love it!

[Strat]

[McParadigm]

I just can’t get over how much of the writing is wasted on constantly explaining what’s happening to the audience.

You can almost hear the scriptwriters going “OK, we need to tell the audience what the conflict in this scene is. They won’t understand it if we don’t state it directly. So let’s have the Jedi character say ‘you cannot deny the Jedi’s right to test the girls.’”

“There. It’s dull and clunky, but there’s no need for the audience to rely on subtext or implication. We have explicitly told them that the Jedi have an understood right in this matter.”

But then they think “hmmm….that does sound pretty aggressive, though. We don’t want the audience to get confused and think maybe Sol is the bad guy. We better add something to show that he’s also respectful.”

So the full line becomes “You cannot deny that the Jedi have a right to test the girls… With your permission of course.”

And the writers must be like “we did it! Problem solved. Moving on.”

And it just doesn’t matter that it makes no sense. It’s not there to make sense, or to be interesting, or develop stakes or character in any way. It’s all just there to tell the audience exactly what is happening and exactly how to feel about it.

You cannot deny the Jedi’s right to test the girls. Unless you don’t give us permission, of course. In which case you’ve denied it. So I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.

Well first of all (pushes glasses up on his nose) it's Indara that says that, not Sol. And secondly, my read on that is very different. I thought it actually revealed a lot about Indara and the Jedi in this era. And Mother Aniseya's reaction reveals that. It was condescending and insincere. The Witches are aware of it.

One piece of dialogue to hit the audience over the head with the point….and then a follow-up line to try and maneuver around the implications of the blunt instrument that the writer just employed. Whether one Jedi said it or another is inconsequential. It’s terrible writing, either way.

This next thing is just my preference, but I am as bored with “let’s grayscale the Jedi“ as I am with “let’s grayscale the federation” in Star Trek.

First of all, modern sci-fi (especially television) consistently demonstrates that it is not clever or deep-thinking enough to portray moral ambiguity while also maintaining a modern “afraid of losing your attention” pacing and spectacle. It depends so much on the latter that it constantly needs to undercut or dumb down the ambiguity to the derpiest level, just to make room. It paints a John McNaughton, and then it acts like it’s a Pollock.

Second of all, I think it’s small-minded to mistake ambiguity for cleverness. When shows like Battlestar and Mad Men first appeared, they were interesting because they toyed with ambiguity in ways that hadn’t really been done on tv before. And they were done by smart storytellers. It felt refreshing and new.

But we mistook that to mean that ambiguity was by default a smarter way to write. And it’s not by default anything at all. It’s just an approach. A crutch, in the wrong hands; a lazy trope, when deployed for want of a story.

What Battlestar and Andor have done is use ambiguity to humanize the fantasy of the underdog good guy vs the great big bad guy…not to bend and break that fantasy for cheap drama or suspense.

Saying the Jedi were consistently kinda shitty when one of your biggest arc payoffs is called Return of the Jedi is like retconning it so that the Shire was a notorious hotbed of slavery. The thing you’ve thrown away was more valuable than the thing you got in return. You’re just running around breaking things for cheap drama….until all you’re left with is a sandbox full of broken things.

[Bi_3]

I just can’t get over how much of the writing is wasted on constantly explaining what’s happening to the audience.

You can almost hear the scriptwriters going “OK, we need to tell the audience what the conflict in this scene is. They won’t understand it if we don’t state it directly. So let’s have the Jedi character say ‘you cannot deny the Jedi’s right to test the girls.’”

“There. It’s dull and clunky, but there’s no need for the audience to rely on subtext or implication. We have explicitly told them that the Jedi have an understood right in this matter.”

But then they think “hmmm….that does sound pretty aggressive, though. We don’t want the audience to get confused and think maybe Sol is the bad guy. We better add something to show that he’s also respectful.”

So the full line becomes “You cannot deny that the Jedi have a right to test the girls… With your permission of course.”

And the writers must be like “we did it! Problem solved. Moving on.”

And it just doesn’t matter that it makes no sense. It’s not there to make sense, or to be interesting, or develop stakes or character in any way. It’s all just there to tell the audience exactly what is happening and exactly how to feel about it.

You cannot deny the Jedi’s right to test the girls. Unless you don’t give us permission, of course. In which case you’ve denied it. So I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.

Well first of all (pushes glasses up on his nose) it's Indara that says that, not Sol. And secondly, my read on that is very different. I thought it actually revealed a lot about Indara and the Jedi in this era. And Mother Aniseya's reaction reveals that. It was condescending and insincere. The Witches are aware of it.

One piece of dialogue to hit the audience over the head with the point….and then a follow-up line to try and maneuver around the implications of the blunt instrument that the writer just employed. Whether one Jedi said it or another is inconsequential. It’s terrible writing, either way.

This next thing is just my preference, but I am as bored with “let’s grayscale the Jedi“ as I am with “let’s grayscale the federation” in Star Trek.

First of all, modern sci-fi (especially television) consistently demonstrates that it is not clever or deep-thinking enough to portray moral ambiguity while also maintaining a modern “afraid of losing your attention” pacing and spectacle. It depends so much on the latter that it constantly needs to undercut or dumb down the ambiguity to the derpiest level, just to make room. It paints a John McNaughton, and then it acts like it’s a Pollock.

Second of all, I think it’s small-minded to mistake ambiguity for cleverness. When shows like Battlestar and Mad Men first appeared, they were interesting because they toyed with ambiguity in ways that hadn’t really been done on tv before. And they were done by smart storytellers. It felt refreshing and new.

But we mistook that to mean that ambiguity was by default a smarter way to write. And it’s not by default anything at all. It’s just an approach. A crutch, in the wrong hands; a lazy trope, when deployed for want of a story.

What Battlestar and Andor have done is use ambiguity to humanize the fantasy of the underdog good guy vs the great big bad guy…not to bend and break that fantasy for cheap drama or suspense.

Saying the Jedi were consistently kinda shitty when one of your biggest arc payoffs is called Return of the Jedi is like retconning it so that the Shire was a notorious hotbed of slavery. The thing you’ve thrown away was more valuable than the thing you got in return. You’re just running around breaking things for cheap drama….until all you’re left with is a sandbox full of broken things.

10/10

[Strat]

luke really was the best and smartest of all the jedi. "Time for the jedi to end"

[Strat]

wait, but now rey is gonna build up the jedi again. DOH!

[epilogue]

wait, but now rey is gonna build up the jedi again. DOH!

[epilogue]

One piece of dialogue to hit the audience over the head with the point….and then a follow-up line to try and maneuver around the implications of the blunt instrument that the writer just employed. Whether one Jedi said it or another is inconsequential. It’s terrible writing, either way.

I don't disagree with your overall original point about the writing. I agree very much, in fact. I just think you picked a bad example with which to illustrate your point.

The Jedi who delivered the line is only consequential (potentially) insofar as it relates to the observer making a point about poor writing.

Saying the Jedi were consistently kinda shitty when one of your biggest arc payoffs is called Return of the Jedi is like retconning it so that the Shire was a notorious hotbed of slavery. The thing you’ve thrown away was more valuable than the thing you got in return. You’re just running around breaking things for cheap drama….until all you’re left with is a sandbox full of broken things.

Retconning is a grand Star Wars tradition! Blame George.

But if you want stories about the Jedi being awesome, that stuff is there. This story is specifically set at a time when the Jedi faltered. That's the story being explored. Obviously, it's totally fine if that doesn't interest you. But just as you argued that none of the songs on DM are failing to do what they set out to do, I'd argue this show isn't failing at it's mission statement either.

Can I ask, is there anything you like about the show?

[dimejinky99]

you’re forgetting who the target audience is McP.

It ain’t us.

[epilogue]

That's right, dime. It's lesbians.

[McParadigm]

Can I ask, is there anything you like about the show?

I think Lee Jung-jae and Amanda Stenberg do a good job. They aren’t given much to work with, but you can see them trying to elevate it.

I thought the force user martial arts combat sequence was fun to watch, and more interesting than any lightsaber fight in the last 25 years. Getting away from the jerkoff saber fetishism freed them to rediscover the duel-as-symbolism in a fight for the soul.

And I do always enjoy…truly, genuinely enjoy…watching people on the internet come up with bullshit excuses for things like “maybe they built their secret coven into the side of a volcano that’s flammable?”