The hate-watching is quite a phenomenon. I frequently pop in to the /r/SaltierThanCrait subreddit which is specifically there to criticize everything Disney SW, and it feels like 80% of the users there are like “BoBF is the worst show I’ve ever seen, Kenobi insulted my intelligence, Mando S3 totally jumped the shark, Disney is totally incompetent…anyway here’s my review of Ahsoka E1 which I watched the millisecond it was released with my ongoing D+ subscription.”
Interestingly, Acolyte seems like it might be the tipping point, somebody started an E1/E2 discussion thread and I think the ratio was 5:1 of “nope not watching it” comments to people that had actually seen em.
Yeah, it’s very weird behavior that involves people seemingly wanting to hate the thing they’re still choosing to watch. If a person hates something they actually hoped to enjoy then I sympathize and I encourage roasting, but it does seem like there’s a large group that’s long past watching in good faith.
Yeah I don’t entirely get it, but it’s a fandom thing I think, it’s like you love a franchise so much you have to actively chronicle its downfall and everything.
Personally after finding Mando to be pretty mid at best (didn’t even finish S2), skipping Fett after hearing it was terrible, and then being insanely disappointed by Kenobi, I’ve bowed out of everything except Andor (which I’ll re-up my D+ sub briefly for S2). I love(d) the franchise enough that I’ll follow news and reviews of what they’re releasing because it’s interesting, and will tune in if I hear a show is actually good, but outside of that I see no need to watch just to confirm that it just ain’t what I’m looking for.
Yeah, I mean as a wrestling fan I watched the art form deteriorate before my eyes, and for a good while I stuck with it in hopes that it would get good again (occasionally I would get teased by signs of it). I surely hung on longer than was reasonable, and I would rage about the bad stuff the whole time, but I did so because I desperately hoped for it to get good again. Eventually I actually started tuning out more and more, and by now it’s easy enough just to airdrop in and watch the biggest one-off events of the year in hopes that they’re good in a vacuum, knowing that even when those shows succeed the week-to-week still probably isn’t for me.
I definitely would never do the “know I’m going to hate on this, watch it anyway, pour a lot of energy into documenting my hate for it” thing. Bizarre.
To be fair, this is true of most fan bases. The pattern of fandom → toxicity is pretty universal now, it’s not specific to Star Wars. Elements of it have always existed, but the bad parts of have been amplified by the social media algorithm “race to the bottom” dynamics.
It depends on what you’re looking for. I’ve only seen a few clips, and the writing reminds me of like a CW network show, and not in an endearing “oh it’s supposed to be campy and bad” way.
The weird culture war shit that SW discourse has gotten entangled in is definitely dumb. Like there are a hundred legitimate reasons to dislike a lot of what Disney SW has been churning out, it’s really stupid when I see a critical user review on IMDB or something that gives a mostly logical trashing of the show, but then just has to throw in a “Disney is obviously too busy with DEI initiatives to hire good writers, hurr durr” at the end. Like why even go there? You had good points, but your whole review is just gonna be discounted now.
I thought the first two episodes of the Acolyte were OK but the third episode was pretty bad. I’ll still continue watching it though.
A few things about episode 3.
In general I’m not a fan of flashback episodes so the the third episode already loses a couple points from me. Is there a need for this flashback episode at all? Is this better than just a few lines to say what happened? I mean the flashback leaves things unclear in the end anyways.
A child in a cult almost never willingly leaves a cult and they aren’t giving any compelling reasons why it would be different here. Basically if she’s been sheltered in a cult of quasi dark side users her whole life she’d either never be taught about Jedi or would be taught nothing but bad things about them. The show needs to show much better reasons for her to reject the cult.
The chant was ridiculous and just sounded goofy as fuck. Probably why most shows would do any chant like that in Latin or something.
I’m not a fan of Star Wars revisiting any “immaculate conception by the force” themes. I didn’t like it in the prequels and I don’t like it here.
As for the Clone Wars I think it got much better at around season 3 from what I can remember.
I’m thinking the flashback from episode 3 gets revisited Rashomon style.
It feels like Mae’s master should be someone we have already seen for this show to not be a let-down. Clues that may point to Qimir feel like he should be a red herring from a storytelling perspective. Vernestra’s choices seem not the most conducive to finding out the truth, but would they turn such an established character and does the timeline make sense? Could one of the witches like Mother Koril have survived? Could Indara have faked her death after being responsible for some bad shit that went down on Brendok, greatly affecting Torbin and Kelnacca?
(And if so, what does Sol know?)
