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S01E16: Rinse Out a Recap of The Acolyte!
42 Plays1 year ago
The Acolyte has come to a close... how did we like it? Lifelong Star Wars fan (and nephew) Peter Gerard joins us as we reflect on the entire series.
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Transcript
Reflecting on the Acolyte Series
00:00:01
Speaker
It's a wrap on the Acolyte and we've got some thoughts. Grab your droids and brooms as the Star Wars Cleaning Crew.
00:00:09
Speaker
Welcome back to the Star Wars Cleaning Crew and after seven weeks and eight episodes we have seen all of the
Fan Reception: Divisive or United?
00:00:17
Speaker
Acolyte. It has been an interesting ride. It has been pretty divisive which I was not surprised about going into this. that social media would be pretty divisive
Star Wars Celebration Excitement
00:00:28
Speaker
about it. You know, I'm really looking forward to celebration next year when we're all in Japan and and all of us Star Wars fans like each other and love each other. And we're all hyped because we love the same thing. And then we all go back to our homes and start sniping at each other on the internet again. It'll happen.
00:00:46
Speaker
But those
Introducing Peter Girard: Acolyte Thoughts
00:00:47
Speaker
moments will be nice. But anyway, wanted to take some time and recap our thoughts on the Acolyte. And so I invited a guy who has been my Star Wars buddy for his entire life. It's my nephew, Peter Girard, and he is a pretty smart guy, has some great thoughts. So let's have a listen to my conversation with Pete about the Acolyte. So Pete, what did you think? um Overall, I came off as pretty positive, but also a little bit ambivalent on it. um there's There's really a lot to like, especially if you're coming into it with that attitude of wanting to give it a little bit of grace and a little bit of time to grow. I think a lot of people had the experience of watching the show week to week and feeling like, OK, that was all right. There's stuff I liked, stuff I didn't like.
00:01:39
Speaker
but I need to see what's gonna happen next week. And that feeling really just snowballed from the first episode all the way to the end to me, where I was really in a weird position of saying, I think it's good, but I don't know until until we've gotten through.
Social Media's Role in Series Perception
00:01:54
Speaker
I had a similar reaction. You know, I was like, I was liking it all the way through, but I was reserving judgment on the whole show until the whole thing was done. But of course now in the age we live in, it's like, you know, social media streams completely filled with full judgment on the whole show after every episode. And that can get a little frustrating. At a certain point, it became kind of fun just to
00:02:20
Speaker
see what the point that was going to be taken out of context each week to hate on. You know, what is key adding Monday's birthday this week?
High Republic Integration and Impact
00:02:29
Speaker
Right. Yeah. So tell me, what what are the things that you liked about it, particularly? um I really enjoyed coming into this as a fan of the high republic publishing, seeing some of these um some of the aspects of this brought into live action, seeing the clothes, seeing the ah vector starship at one point. but then also being able to think about what is the overarching story of the High Republic in so far as what does that say about the Jedi Order and what their relationship is to the rest of the Republic and then tying it into the story of the Acolyte and then pulling that forward to the Phantom Menace a hundred years or so later.
Political Themes and Jedi Dynamics
00:03:11
Speaker
um Seeing that progression of politics was really interesting to me
00:03:16
Speaker
Um, and seeing how they're building on some of the individual character decisions of, you know, yeah what kind of information do we share and what kind of information do we not share? You know, thinking back to, um, I know you haven't read all of the High Republic novels, but yeah, partially of Ernestra, but also thinking about in the second phase of the High Republic novels, which is the prequel phase of that. Um, not to go too deep into that, since I know you're still catching up, but they learned some information about some of the overarching plot of that series, which is then kind of kept secret within the Jedi Order, even from other Jedi to say, we need to figure this out a little bit more before we before we bring it public. So you can kind of see that attitude carry forward in an interesting way into the Acolyte, especially at the end as we have Renestra coming too.
00:04:09
Speaker
Uh, the, the council of senators that she's working with. And then in that final scene where we're going to see, hopefully one day we'll find out what exactly is she going to tell Yoda? Yeah. And what does Yoda already know? Right. Right. You know how, how in on it? Cause Yoda, you know, it's so funny. We, we view Yoda as being such a hero, such a, you know, pinnacle of what ah the Jedi represent and everything. And then you really realize in the prequels. Yeah, he really kind of, you know, he kept things pretty close to the vest. He has a few character flaws, does
Acting Highlights: Lee Jung Jae and More
00:04:46
Speaker
Yoda? um And then another thing I would want to call out as enjoying is just the performances almost universally were really good. And that that goes from some of the um smaller characters who didn't appear in every episode. Maybe they didn't make it through the whole series. I'm looking right at Charlie Barnett and Daphne Keene, who got yeah taken out pretty early.
00:05:08
Speaker
um but also um Jody Turner-Smith as Mother Anaseo was awesome. Amazing. The other members of the BrenDoc team, Carrie Anne Moss, even Dean Charles Chapman, without a lot of time, they did a lot. um But Lee Jung Jae, it's an incredible performance for someone who is you know reading these lines phonetically. It's incredible how much he was able to imbue into every scene um and to really carry forward this interesting character arc of someone who's so convinced he's right and just convincing himself more and more every day that, no, there wasn't any mistake. Well, maybe I made a little bit of a mistake. but i
00:05:50
Speaker
Everything was everything was how it kind of needed to be. I did what I thought was right. Even when he, you know, finally realized he was making a mistake. Right. Right. But you're right about his performance. i I just read an article last week that he was having trouble eating because apparently in Korean, you don't usually touch the tip of your tongue to the top of your teeth, the inside of your top of your teeth, as much as we do. And so it was getting worn down and he couldn't eat because his tongue hurts so bad. Amazing.
00:06:21
Speaker
That guy was incredible.
Manny Jacinto's Performance and Choreography
00:06:23
Speaker
That guy was incredible. But you know you you can't you can't talk about the performances without talking about Manny Jacinto, who I just fell in love with him as Jason on The Good Place. And when I heard he was cast on this, I was so happy. I was so excited. I thought he's just going to be a fun character, you know, the goofy character, but man alive. I thought he was a great villain, a really new take on the Sith. And wow, his his lightsaber choreography was pretty, pretty badass. Yeah, I totally agree. um Learning that he did most of that choreography himself is really interesting. I read an interview with him recently that he um
00:07:06
Speaker
had to learn the choreography really quickly because they were doing a lot of the shooting right before the actor strikes of was that last year or two years ago, but that was shutting down production. So he was really just having to dive in and get it right quickly. And then outside of the action stuff. Yeah, he he just has um he exhibits so many personalities in in such a short time from the chimer, the guy in the apothecary to this force that's just ripping through Jedi and in the fifth episode and then how he is talking to Mae and trying to kind of ah empathize with her in order to get her over to his own point of view. I don't feel like we've really learned what his um what his motivations are yet, that his backstory is still very clouded, but
00:08:01
Speaker
I think once we get into his backstory and start to understand a little bit more about who the real chimer or the stranger is that's really gonna um cast a lot of light on what he was doing in the first season as well. Well, that kind of leads to the elephant in the room or the the moon in the cave as it
Sith Connections: Breaking the Rule of Two?
00:08:21
Speaker
were. ah Pete, I was watching the show and I saw the clawy hands, you know, and then I got a ping on my phone. It was a text and it was like, is that plagiarist? And I'm like, I don't know if that's plagiarist or not. But I was looking at my phone and so I totally missed the scene where you saw his face. Because I was looking at my stupid phone until I watched it again later. But what what do you think the deal is? You know, getting back to the story and the canon, we all know the tale of Darth Plagueis the Wise. What do you think the deal is with him lurking in that cave? I think where I'm landing right now is that it is likely that ah the stranger is no longer an apprentice of the Sith, that he has been kind of cast out by Plagueis.
00:09:09
Speaker
Now, I don't know at what point in the timeline this is, if this is when Plagueis' master is still around. um I haven't read those novels, so I don't have all of that lore in my head. um But I suspect that um The Stranger is no longer part of the Rule of Two part of the Sith. I think he's doing his own thing right now. The music cue for Kylo Ren appearing here. right um I think that might really be as simple as people are guessing that it is that we are seeing the formation of the Knights of Ren. Part of the reason I think that is it feels like a lot of the big mysteries of the show actually are as simple as they seem.
Mysteries and Reveals
00:09:50
Speaker
you know when this When he first appeared as Khaimir, there were a lot of hints that, oh, what if he's actually the bad guy? um And I thought, oh, there's too many hints. They're making this too obvious. There's no way it's really hints.
00:10:04
Speaker
But that wasn't the point. It didn't turn out to be that it was a huge surprise at the end of the last episode. They revealed it in episode five after he takes out Jackie. um Yeah. Because we need to get that time with him because this is a character worth spending time with and it's a performance worth seeing more of. And it's more about what is going to happen with him than it is about the reveal. And the same with the reveal of what finally happened on Brenda. You know, for me, if you just say, what happened? Oh, there was a misunderstanding between the witches and the Jedi and it led to violence. It escalated. Everyone got hurt and many people died. Well, I think a lot of people guessed it was going to be something like that. It ended up being a lot less weird forced stuff in the end than I was predicting.
00:10:57
Speaker
but it was handled so well in that flashback episode. Again, seeing the depth of the emotions of these characters and really digging into what they were thinking and feeling. Yeah, it was really tragic when Mother Aniseya died. And you know that was just such a turning point in the whole story. That's really all we needed to see. Absolutely. Amazing. amazing ah Any quick predictions for season two? If there is a season two? There there needs to be a season two. um I think what I would most want to see is to really dig into the dig into the politics and understand what, you know, we have Senator Ray in court being introduced in this last episode as a political force kind of against the Jedi or not against them, but trying to rein them in. I would really like to see where that goes, how that impacts the order and Vernestra and Yoda.
00:11:46
Speaker
and then see how that might play out in parallel with what's going on with the um dark side. Yeah, I agree with that. I also want to find out what the deal is with Basil because his motivations were definitely confusing during the show. I don't know what side he was on, but he was sure a cute little bugger. Yeah, that that might be one criticism I have is that a lot of the time when he was there, I didn't really understand what was supposed to be happening. Did he power down the ship or was he just scurrying around during that time. I don't know. We do not know. Well, maybe, maybe he's actually the true acolyte. Maybe, maybe he's play his acolyte. Well, we will see.
00:12:28
Speaker
So thanks to Peter Girard again for joining me and discussing the acolyte. You know, a couple other things I wanted to point out before I left. I did notice, now I'm getting into the complaints a little
Production Value Critique
00:12:39
Speaker
bit. So I did notice the production value on this show was not what I expected it to be. You know, I heard that they were shooting it on sets. they weren't going to be using the volume. Remember when the Mandalorian first came out and the first couple episodes, we were all like, wow, this looks amazing. Like where are they shooting all these things? Like the ice planet at the beginning and the desert planets and everything. And then we realized what they were doing with the volume with the LCD screens. And all of a sudden you could really tell when they were using the volume and it didn't look quite so good.
00:13:12
Speaker
And then we had Andor and Andor had amazing production value. It was all shot on location and it looked fantastic. So I was hoping that the Acolyte would look a little bit more like Andor and it didn't. So I don't know if that's a budget thing, but it's just a little bit of ah of a complaint. Sometimes the fakeness of the settings and the scenes kind of took me out of the story. But, you know, I am such a story guy. It really doesn't matter. I mean, you could just basically scribble on the wall, do cave paintings, do a slideshow. If the story is good, it's something I am going to resonate with and I'm going to love. So I really did appreciate the
Hopes for Season Two
00:13:54
Speaker
acolyte. I enjoyed it overall. I sure hope we get a season two because there were a lot of questions left unanswered. They certainly left a lot of hooks. And I think we're getting some really good lore. We're kind of filling in
00:14:07
Speaker
some of those periods of how did Darth Plagueis come to rise? How did he find Darth Sidious? Is this the beginning of the Knights of Ren that I think are pretty interesting questions to ask. So that's it for the Acolyte. We will see you on the next episode of the Star Wars Cleaning Crew. Until then, make the Force be with you. Keep your kitchens clean. Bye bye.
00:14:49
Speaker
Oh yeah!