https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/group-acolyte-fans-cant-stop-183506335.html

(I have to admit I feel a bit guilty using the video above but I find it funny and accurate.)

The acolyte was a disaster. I have written in other places how I felt about the show but it is not likely you saw any of that so let me summarize.

The show hires a truly wonderful actress of whom I am a big fan and then kills her off murdered by a child with what appears to be a pen knife at the very beginning of the story. I suppose this is a Rian Johnson thing, where we make some random thing happen and call it directorial genius. It’s not.

The show features identical twins with different inclinations. I say inclinations because in the hypermodern world where the writers and producers assume they live “good and evil are but two sides of the same coin.” This is total nonsense. If you live in the world, you may have noticed that bad people do evil things that hurt and often kill other people. It is not a neutral value unless you live in some bizarre pseudointellectual enclave. This is totally revolutionary plotline. No one have ever thought of it before — except for Dumas in his novel, “The Corsican Brothers” published in 1844. According to Wikipedia, it has only been made into a film, 19 times.

Then we have witches. What can you say? Witches? They manipulate the Force but call it a string. And they can have virgin births and they chant, and this chant may be the most unsettling piece of bad writing and just plain weirdness I have seen in many years. None of this is every going to be compelling story telling. I mean transforming the world of Star Wars into a D&D game episode is more of a piece of minor fan fiction than anything else.

The Jedi appear to be somewhat dim witted and morally challenged. But none of what they do makes any plot sense to me. Is there a desperate need for force sensitive children to be brought into training? A hundred years before the events of Star Wars, the Jedi are the police and the military and just a bunch of other stuff wrapped up in one bundle. Is it a stretch to believe that people wanted their children to join, this body of honored individuals carrying the honor of the knights of legend?

I’ve read countless comments about the series. The most common positive thing I see is that the light saber fights were good. That’s nice. But a coherent story, real heroes with real struggles and fine acting tempered capable directing make an adventure worth watching.

But the real tragedy of this show is that there are no heroes in this story at all. They are fools, murderers and psychopaths driven by internal needs. Nobody is looking out for the common good or justice. I believe Shakespeare summed this up in Macbeth, “Sound and Fury, signifying nothing.”

It is canceled. This is the correct decision. Good Riddance.

James Alan Pilant