It has interesting ideas but the execution could be better. There’s room to grow.

Spoilers for episodes 1-3.

I feel like we’ve been hearing about The Acolyte for years. I could swear I first heard about it during the Mandalorian season 1. Or around then, anyway. Sure enough, a quick Wikipedia search reveals that work had started around that time. Which I get. Shows take a long time to develop. But to be honest, back then I really didn’t care about The Acolyte. The idea of a prequel to the prequels set 100 years before the saga doesn’t interest me. In fact, the whole High Republic publishing initiative (of which The Acolyte seems to be a part) is generally uninteresting to me – it seems like a bit of a camel (a horse designed by committee). Although that is just a first impression. I’ve not engaged with the High Republic, so maybe it’s good. I have no way of knowing. Regardless, The Acolyte has finally arrived (episode 4 is tomorrow). And whereas before I didn’t really care, I’m now kind of torn. Which is an improvement! It’s growing on me.

I’ll say straight up though, that I don’t think it’s great. I don’t want to be overly negative because I’m sure people worked hard on it and there is stuff to like (which I’ll get to). But as a product, it has some pretty glaring flaws. For one thing, there’s a lot of grating and unnatural dialogue. Now, Star Wars, admittedly, is known for having less-than-stellar dialogue. But in the past (at least under George Lucas), the dialogue was weird in a very particular way. Lucas’ films were meant to sound, on some level, almost poetic (at least according to the film buffs I know). The prequel trilogy went way too far with this, but it’s true of the original trilogy as well – the Lightsaber is famously introduced as “an elegant weapon for a more civilised age.” The dialogue in The Acolyte, by contrast, is just clunky. It’s awkward and, to my ear, doesn’t flow properly. At times, it feels like the writers just had a list of things they needed the characters to say and couldn’t figure out how to make them say it naturally.

The episode structures have also felt a bit odd. At the end of episode 1, we briefly see a Sith Lord ignite a Lightsaber at the beach whilst standing on a rock (and doing a voiceover about not using weapons), and the whole scene feels off to me. I get that they wanted to introduce some extra intrigue and hook the audience with a “Sith mystery”. But I don’t think it worked. It felt clunky and tacked on. Also, why is the Sith igniting a Lightsaber for no reason? Is it just to look cool? If so, it didn’t work. There are quite a few parts of the show (like that one) that don’t seem to serve any purpose and are kind of silly. As if stuff is happening solely for the sake of stuff happening and not because it contributes to the story. Episode 3, for instance, might have benefited from being shorter and/or more grounded in the present-day events, rather than being an episode-long flashback/detour. I also think it might have been better to not reveal the Sith this early and instead have the terrified students/agents arguing about the wishes of their mysterious unseen master (which episode 2 kind of had).

But again, I don’t want to be too negative, especially when we’re only three episodes in. There are some gems in there, especially with the characters. I’m really liking Jedi Master Sol (portrayed by Lee Jung-jai). Jedi Master Indara (portrayed by Carrie-Anne Moss) was cool as well (she was killed off immediately but does appear in flashbacks). I’m also enjoying the in-universe shade being thrown at Jedi Knight Yord Fandar. The exchange:

“What’s wrong with Yord?”

“Nothing, no, he’s Yord,”

did get a laugh from me.

Also, there’s a Wookie Jedi and that’s automatically amazing.

Above all, I’ve found myself fixating on the costumes, the technology and the ship designs – which I think are excellent. In the Lucas movies, especially the prequel trilogy, a lot of thought was given to devolving the ships and the general appearance of the universe. As a result, the technology and equipment of the prequel era genuinely seem like historical predecessors to the original trilogy. For instance, the ARC-170 Starfighter (a three-person fighter with six S-foil wings) is a clear precursor to the original trilogy’s X-Wing. Then there’s the Clone Trooper armour, which, over the course of the prequel trilogy, becomes increasingly Stormtrooper esc. I love this kind of detail, and it’s something that I think The Acolyte has done really well. From what we’ve seen, The Acolyte’s world does appear like a century-long regression of the technology and universe aesthetic. Droids are only just starting to replace sentient mechanics (Mekneks) for hull maintenance (and the remaining Mekneks have handheld repair droids). The Jedi robes, meanwhile, are similar but, at least on Coruscant, more prestigious and regimented – as you’d expect when the Jedi are at the height of their power.

My favourite technological regression, by far, is the admittedly brief moment when a Jedi ship seems to split in half. Most of the small fighters during the prequel trilogy aren’t capable of hyperspace travel (short-range fighters). They instead depend on detachable hyperspace rings (which presumably reduce non-hyperspace performance, since the pilots are always quick to detach them). This is primarily the case for Jedi Starfighters but we see in The Clone Wars that it’s true of many others as well – like the V-19 Torrent. Some prequel-era fighters do have built-in hyperdrives, but most don’t. But then, by the time of the original trilogy 20 years later, most fighters do have them. The Acolyte, 100 years prior, takes this further. The large ship that splits in half – a frigate or corvette – detaches from its engine section right after exiting hyperspace. The implication being that 100 years before the prequels, it wasn’t just a few small fighters that needed external/detachable hyperdrives but some of the larger ships as well. And it makes sense! Hyperdrives are slowly getting smaller and cheaper and thus more common. It’s details like this that make me trust the showrunners with the lore.

I said near the start of this post that I’m torn on The Acolyte. I’ve given a few reasons for why already. But perhaps the main reason is that – despite the clunky dialogue, weird episode constructions and unnecessary scenes – it has some intriguing ideas that I want to see explored. As said, I wasn’t that interested when I first heard about The Acolyte. A story in which the Jedi Order is confronted with the mysterious return of their ancient enemy, the Sith, is something we’ve already seen – that was the prequels. But now, especially after episode 3 (which depicts Osha’s induction to the Jedi Order), I am kind of interested. There were problems with the episode, to be sure: bad dialogue, a drawn-out structure and some logically confusing moments (I get that fire is destructive and all, but how did it cause that much damage that quickly? Maybe this will come up later). But it did deal directly with the long-standing and morally questionable recruitment policy of the Jedi – taking children from their families. And that hasn’t been properly explored before. You could argue that we saw this with Anakin, but we’ve never had a story in which the family objects and fights back (there have been comics where this happens, but never in film or TV), and The Acolyte seems to be doing this. That, I think, is potentially very interesting.

Overall, I do think the show is flawed. But it is only 3 episodes in, and I like the characters and ship designs, so I’m increasingly willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. Above all, I’m really excited to see an in-universe backlash to the Jedi’s recruitment methods. The show does have the potential to improve and tell a really great story.

-Dexter