Culture The Acolyte Isn't Ruining Star Wars - You Are - Lucasfilm's latest series is the franchise's most promising, but fans are too blinded by their hate to see it.

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No one hates Star Wars more than those who claim to be Star Wars fans. Sure, the past few years have given the fandom plenty to critique. The sequels splintered the fanbase beyond recognition, and Lucasfilm’s efforts to expand the galaxy on the small screen have been mixed, at best. And in some cases, criticism is inevitable: not everyone will find something to like in the franchise’s recent output. At a certain point, though, the discourse reaches a fever pitch, and even Lucasfilm’s most promising projects get swept up in the drama.

The Acolyte is not the first Star Wars project to face the brunt of fan backlash, and it likely won’t be the last. But the new live-action series is also one of the best additions to that galaxy far away in a long time, embracing decades of nostalgia while also thinking critically on the franchise’s legacy. It also might be the most diverse Star Wars story yet — and while that’s definitely a boon for marginalized fans, it’s made The Acolyte the target of a vocal splinter of the fandom.
Whether you know them as the Fandom Menace or a cluster of blue checkmark users on Twitter, it’s impossible to escape their orbit. The same folks that review-bombed diverse swings like Marvel’s Eternals and the Lord of the Rings prequel The Rings of Power have now set their sights on The Acolyte. To hear them tell it, the series is the worst thing that’s ever happened to Star Wars, and its showrunner, Leslye Headland, is just as fiendish as Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy. To them, The Acolyte’s “woke” agenda is something to be feared. It’s ruining Star Wars; it’s poisoning pop culture itself. It needs to be stopped by any means necessary.

We realize how ridiculous that all sounds, right? God, I hope so. But if not, let’s try this: The Acolyte is not actually “ruining” Star Wars, but the bigoted backlash is definitely ruining the fun for everyone else.
It’s not outright shocking to see something like The Acolyte marred by racist, misogynistic, and even anti-LGBTQ backlash. That Star Wars devotees would share multiple bad-faith treatises about the series on YouTube, or tank its audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, is just par the course at this point. This is, after all, the same fandom that launched consistent attacks against actors like John Boyega, Kelly Marie Tran, and Daisy Ridley; the same fandom that were publicly admonished by Ewan McGregor himself when Obi-Wan Kenobi faced similar pushback.

The problem is that nothing has changed. In the 10 years since this vocal minority suddenly cried out against diverse casting and more nuanced storytelling, they’ve yet to actually learn their lesson. Their arguments are bleeding into even the casual discourse surrounding The Acolyte. Comments on set design and screenwriting have turned into misogynistic microaggressions against Headland; even critiques on the series have been weaponized by its haters. There’s no room for nuance when it comes to The Acolyte: you either stand with the series, flaws and all, or you’re irrevocably against it.
The origins of this toxicity aren’t difficult to figure out. At the end of the day, it boils down to entitlement: many male fans feel like they own the franchise, and are determined to safeguard it from anyone that could challenge that ownership. That makes it hard for disparate groups to coexist, and it’s even harder for any non-white, non-male creatives hoping to tell stories within the franchise.

What began as a relatively niche issue has become Lucasfilm’s biggest hurdle moving forward. The Acolyte can weather the storm (after all, it’s been well-received by critics) but what about the fandom, and its relationship to those guiding the franchise now? As the discourse spirals out of control, it’s getting harder to ignore it outright. There’s no easy way out, but something has to change, otherwise, this vocal minority will end up ruining Star Wars for the rest of us.

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Article includes some pictures, presumably from the series, but I'm not certain about local protocol of posting those.

 

[Klaptrap]

Look at me.
We are the "vocal minority" now.

 

[Wendell X]

God, Zoomers are just the worst.

You know, there's a ton of terrible media I liked when I was a stupid impressionable child. That doesn't mean I have to cope and seethe and pretend "no, it was actually good!" as an adult.

And I think that's why every franchise gets assimilated and turned into globohomo propaganda, because progressives are counting on the fact that a lot of people who grow up with it will love it even when it's fucking garbage. In 15 years they will revitalise Star Wars - "we've listened to you the fans, stripped all of the corporate rubbish Disney shoved into it and stuck to what the people want - more light saber baton twirling presented as combat, more porgs and more irredeemably evil or useless cunts being promoted as heroes!"

 

[The Valeyard]

Willow was more of the same. I loved Willow as a kid, rewatched it not long ago and it wasn't bad (mostly because of Val Kilmer) but the Willow show was terrible. But it also was something few people asked for.

And remember the Willlow show was so bad it was deleted from Disney+ and used as a tax write-off.

 

[Spoonge]

Look. When even my Star Wars obsessed friend -who had argued that Kenobi was 'pretty alright' and was practically vibrating with excitement when he purchased tickets to watch the old films in Cinema during some anniversary event- refuses to watch the Acolyte, you know its fucking bad.

He had a near stroke of rage when the nigger doing the Acolyte said she wanted to do a KOTOR adaptation, shit was hilarious.

 

[CervixHammer]

I have no idea why I'm even watching the third episode, but I'm about 15 minutes in and would be howling with laughter if this wasn't so boring. This is about as bad as I assume Episode 9 was (I didn't bother watching it because after Star Trek Into Darkness, the only thing I could imagine wanting to see with JJ Abrams' name on it would be a WatchPeopleDie thread).

 

[Jet Fuel Johnny]

HEre you go.

Here's a scene from the Acolyte.

Does this just SCREAM Star Wars?

I mean, can't you just see young boys imitating this scene?

Wouldn't parents love to see their daughters re-enacting this scene?

Who the FUCK is this written for aside from Hollywood sex pests and childless weirdos?

 

[Crescent Fresh]

HEre you go.

Here's a scene from the Acolyte.

Does this just SCREAM Star Wars?

I mean, can't you just see young boys imitating this scene?

Wouldn't parents love to see their daughters re-enacting this scene?

Who the FUCK is this written for aside from Hollywood sex pests and childless weirdos?

View attachment 6078975

This live-action Spongebob is a fair bit blacker than I expected.

 

[Krokodil Overdose]

HEre you go.

Here's a scene from the Acolyte.

Does this just SCREAM Star Wars?

I mean, can't you just see young boys imitating this scene?

Wouldn't parents love to see their daughters re-enacting this scene?

Who the FUCK is this written for aside from Hollywood sex pests and childless weirdos?

View attachment 6078975

I didn't even know that you could get Bene Gesserit costumes at Spirit.

 

[The Valeyard]

HEre you go.

Here's a scene from the Acolyte.

Does this just SCREAM Star Wars?

I mean, can't you just see young boys imitating this scene?

Wouldn't parents love to see their daughters re-enacting this scene?

Who the FUCK is this written for aside from Hollywood sex pests and childless weirdos?

View attachment 6078975

And before this ceremony their leader gives a speech complaining that their coven of witches were exiled because their powers are considered "dark" while extras cackle evilly in the background.

 

[Fagnacious D]

hahahhaaaaaaaaa
I am ruining starwars by not watching it and there is nothing you can do to stop me!
hahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

 

[MirrorNoir]

Unpopular opinion:
Star wars has always sucked. Retards just got hooked up in the soundtrack and were too dumb to see that they were watching literal shit. None of it makes sense, the characters don't act with any rationality and just seem to do random things to make story events happen. The whole idea of "the force" is fucking retarded, even D&D figured out that you have to put limitations on magic or nothing will make sense. If Harrison Ford and John Williams had nothing to do with Star wars, episode 4 would have bombed and we would not have to hear about this heap of garbage anymore

The issue with Star War was that it was a huge generation defining hit trilogy that was part two of a long rumored three trilogy story and the constant tease of us getting parts 1-3 and 7-9 and the fact that the franchise pretty much went away for a huge amount of time (1986-1995) with only books and comics from a third string publisher that most normies didn't know about, keeping it on life support.

One of the chief sins of the Prequels was that not only did it not align with what we had been told prior via the novels and comics and the rare drops from Lucasfilms itself (most notably, the idea that the Clone Wars was everyone versus a madman with a clone army not the Jedi and an army of clones based on Boba Fett vs Space Confederates backed by Palpatine), but also failed to live up to fan hype and expectations. One of my closest friends, to this day, still holds a grudge over how they handled Anakin and how he become Vader; he wanted Anakin to show up in the story as an adult who was always bad news and not a goody goody and who stabbed the Jedi in the chest, not the back, the second he got offered a chance to join Palpatine and the Sith.

I'll also add that Disney 100% fucked up throwing out the old EU lore. They could have kept the lore and retooled shit to still force upon us their diversity shit; just have it take place a 100/200 years after the last EU book and if you want nostalgia shit with the OT cast, you do TV specials or spin-off movies with them.

Fascinating how I can still go back to DS9, LoGH or Stargate and it still holds up today, but Star Wars has become an utterly retarded shitshow, because the Mouse™ tries to drag it on until the heat death of the universe.

DS9 is retroactively pozzed due to how it started the trend towards Star Trek rejecting utopianism and going down the road of "characters doing horrible things for the greater good" crap that taints the franchise today.

Ironically Voyager has only gotten better with age, which is funny given that most of the people screaming "NAZI BIGOT WOMAN HATER" towards anyone not liking Disney Star Wars or Kurtzman Star Trek, were the same fuckers that were screeching Janaway was a cunt and worst character ever in Star Trek lore while the show was on the air and years afterwards. And who STILL fucking hate Janaway, even though you'd think those fuckers would be pushing the line of "Voyager was always secretly based and fuck the woman hating Trekkies who hated it and gave it it's bad reputation" revisionist history to cover up their years of Janaway bashing.

 

[WonderWino]

Look. When even my Star Wars obsessed friend -who had argued that Kenobi was 'pretty alright' and was practically vibrating with excitement when he purchased tickets to watch the old films in Cinema during some anniversary event- refuses to watch the Acolyte, you know its fucking bad.

He had a near stroke of rage when the nigger doing the Acolyte said she wanted to do a KOTOR adaptation, shit was hilarious.

Funny thing is SWTOR kind of already did the KOTOR thing with all that revan shit they pushed into it. If theres one thing that content proved its that revan is an idiot who comes up with retarded plan after retarded plan, culminating in trying to create a conspiracy to bring back the emperor so he could somehow kill him only to go surprise pikachu face when the emperor literally laughed at him and fucked off to go eat ziost instead

That said trying to pull the vocal minority card has a long history with star wars projects that failed to meet expectations. Tried to pull the same thing with a bunch of smaller shit tier games most people have never heard of like that droid educational game and most famously with galaxies after they fucked up royally and got outed for major dev and admin corruption and claimed it was a vocal minority pushing those beliefs....which led to most of the players quitting and the game being on life support with a fraction of its former playerbase for half its existence. Star trek loves to pull the vocal minority card alot as well. Especially with the mmo

 

[There Is Light At The End]

Funny thing is SWTOR kind of already did the KOTOR thing with all that revan shit they pushed into it. If theres one thing that content proved its that revan is an idiot who comes up with retarded plan after retarded plan, culminating in trying to create a conspiracy to bring back the emperor so he could somehow kill him only to go surprise pikachu face when the emperor literally laughed at him and fucked off to go eat ziost instead

Ackshully, Revan was split in two. The retard in material world and force ghost. And after reunion with force ghost he realised how much of a fuck up he was and dies out of cringe. And Valkorion empire is it's own can of worms later

 

[M3453dst324]

Here's a scene from the Acolyte.

Nice of Disney to include stock footage from their local lesbian pentecostal church, I sure hope they put some scratch in the collection before they left.

 

[crunchy bits are the best]

View attachment 6078975

If it wasn't for the lone female Zabrak, I wouldn't know that this is a Star Wars show. But this doesn't feel like Star Wars at all.

Disney Star Wars continues to suck, nothing new.

 

[AnotherPleb]

Whatever happened to "the customer is always right"?

Gamergate happened.

 

[AssignedEva]

Does this just SCREAM Star Wars?

This is very similar to the criticism I have of the new Doctor Who. It's bad, but even when it isn't actively bad, it doesn't feel anything like Doctor Who. If I'd seen this scene in isolation, I would never have guessed it was from Star Wars. It's not even "oh it's new, so it's bad" - I caught a couple of episodes of The Mandalorian and that was believably part of the Star Wars universe, and you could tell from just glancing at the screen that it was part of Star Wars.
It's like making a show in the "A Clockwork Orange" extended universe except set among sex workers in 1990s New York City fighting for survival against ultraviolent johns who occasionally say "droog". You've just made a completely unrelated show and then hamfistedly worked in some references to a recognisable IP.

 

[Pill Cosby]

All I can hope is Disney et al… all keep making dog shit TV shows, movies and video games so that they can accelerate their demise.

 

[Curzon Dax-sama]

DS9 is retroactively pozzed due to how it started the trend towards Star Trek rejecting utopianism and going down the road of "characters doing horrible things for the greater good" crap that taints the franchise today.

Well, no. It was the first and only time we ever saw what would happen to the Federation and Starfleet if they were forced to fight a total war for their own survival against a technological superior enemy that was willing and (unlike the Borg up to that point in time) able to project power over 35,000 light years. It raises some very interesting question about how and if paradise can be protected. The difference between that and nuTrek is that most of the DS9 cast didn't become utter normative nihilists. That is one of the reasons why the victory in the final battle on Cardassia tastes like fucking ash.

If this was done today every single main character would be a total asshole from the start, there would be intrusive social commentary about why our world is a racist homophobic nazi empire or some such. The plot would be ruined by Marvel-tier dialogue and the ethical dilema wouldn't even be one tenth as interesting. On that note: Admiral Leyton did nothing wrong, and he did everything wrong.

Ironically Voyager has only gotten better with age, which is funny given that most of the people screaming "NAZI BIGOT WOMAN HATER" towards anyone not liking Disney Star Wars or Kurtzman Star Trek, were the same fuckers that were screeching Janaway was a cunt and worst character ever in Star Trek lore while the show was on the air and years afterwards. And who STILL fucking hate Janaway, even though you'd think those fuckers would be pushing the line of "Voyager was always secretly based and fuck the woman hating Trekkies who hated it and gave it it's bad reputation" revisionist history to cover up their years of Janaway bashing.

That is true. I personally like Janeway as a character. She has this "patient, stern, competent, caring college-headmaster"-thing going on that is of the same quality as that of General Hammond. People who hate Janeway don't understand what kind of task she has: Voyager is stranded 70,000 lightyears from the closest Federation outpost, and she has to figure out how to get her crew home safely. That some of the decisions she makes later come back to bite everyone in the ass is not a character flaw, it's just what happens when people have to make very hard choices with very limited knowledge, intel and a near total lack of communications with home.

Again, if they did that today it would utterly suck balls. Janeway would indeed be the cunt haters claim her to be.

 

[I'm Retarded?]

ah, predictable. a media corporation squeezes out another puddle of shit-slop, the normies gobble it up, the few people with a half-functioning brain wonder aloud if it might be shit. foolish mortals, The Disney will not tolerate your insolence. I declare you... racist!

No one hates Star Wars more than those who claim to be Star Wars fans.

incorrect. nobody hates Star Wars, and the rest of these properties that get streaming shows - Halo, Fallout, etc - than the people who make them. every time something goes to a streaming channel, it has its canon completely ripped out and replaced with a bunch of cynical DEI casting, retarded writing, and amateur acting. and then, when anybody criticizes it at all, the media minions are unleashed to screech at the entire fan base for not being loyal enough. it's almost like they're intentionally trying to destroy these once-respected franchises.

But the new live-action series is also one of the best additions to that galaxy far away in a long time,

The Acolyte can weather the storm (after all, it’s been well-received by critics)

absolutely hilarious cope. the show is bad to the point of parody. here's a video of a based autist sperging about it for 15 minutes. this racket the streaming channels have going where they publish an absolutely dog shit show, hype the hell out of it, then blame muh waycism for its poor reception is becoming predictable and tiresome. I'd love to have a show to watch but it seems that streaming is the entertainment media's landfill, where they mass dump projects that have no reason to exist other than to lazily try to hype a franchise in preparation for more movie releases. I feel robbed just torrenting this shit for free.