Where Star Wars: The Acolyte lost me

I wanted to like this show. I love Star Wars. But I just couldn’t stick with it.

The space witches didn’t bother me. Star Wars has had Force witches before, dating all the way back to Ewoks: The Battle for Endor in 1985. I actually loved that movie as a kid, but I digress.

The premise of The Acolyte was interesting. A former Jedi student falls to the dark side. I could watch that.

The cast is pretty good.  Carrie-Anne Moss and Lee Jung-jae are phenomenal.

And that’s about it. A good cast and a promising premise cannot save terrible writing.

I made it to episode 5, surprisingly. As I said, the Force witches didn’t really bother me. Sure, it was a bit cheesy, but I hung out with Wiccans in college. I’ve seen worse.

The plot was inconsistent and confusing with a lot of retcons to the prequels. They completely ignored cannon to tell what they swore was a “new and refreshing” story when really, they just recycled the same tropes from the last forty years.

Now, there are ways to reuse tropes without making the story feel lazy and contrived. And sure, Star Wars is repetitive and predictable. It’s supposed to be. As George Lucas has said, “it’s poetry, it rhymes.” But this is less poetry and more copy and paste. Before episode 5, I told friends, it’s not the worst thing they’ve ever done, but it’s not the best.

Now that the show is over, I’ve changed my opinion. It’s definitely the worst thing they’ve ever done.

Where they lost me, the point where I turned off the episode and abandoned the series is the end of episode 5, where the Sith has mowed through seven highly trained Jedi masters, knights, and padawans without breaking a sweat. The twins have seen each other, and the “good” twin stuns the “evil” twin. The Sith is facing Lee Jung-jae's Master Sol one-on-one and is nearly defeated. He finds himself at the end of Master Sol’s lightsaber about to die when our wholesome protagonist stops him. It’s not the Jedi way to kill an unarmed opponent.

But it is totally acceptable for her to lure in the planet’s flesh-eating, giant insects to eat him alive so she and her former master can escape.

Then, the “evil” twin wakes from her stun after just seconds on the ground and the “good” twin runs after her, only to also be stunned by her “evil” twin so said twin can swap places with her. Her former master senses nothing amiss about the swap and the Sith miraculously survives.

Just to boil it down for those struggling to keep up with whatever was going on in that episode. A Sith or dark Jedi, whatever you want to call him, manages to defeat seven highly trained and armed Jedi only to lose against a single Jedi master, then gets ambushed by a bunch of giant bugs to survive that as well. Then, the twins pull a Parent Trap and no one, not even a Jedi master capable of defeating a Sith in hand-to-hand combat, is any the wiser.

It’s lazy writing. They manufactured a reason not to have Sol kill the Sith and ran one of the oldest tricks in the book to create some kind of tension which, apparently turned out to be not that much tension after all as they figured it out in the next episode.

I saw someone say in another critique that the reason the Acolyte struggles is because nothing is earned. Everything is given to the viewer. There’s no mystery as to who is hunting the Jedi, it’s revealed within an episode or two. They figure out almost immediately what the murderer is after and try to head her off and fail. None of the characters have a clear motivation.

Despite claims to the contrary of the show being “woke” or trying to shove some sort of morality down our throats, there isn’t anything. There’s no message, no lesson. Other than maybe “the Jedi are the real bad guys,” maybe? The show is utter chaos with a bunch of characters running around with seemingly no motivation other than whatever the writers have manufactured. It’s empty calories with none of the heart of Star Wars.

I wanted to like this show. I really did. It could have been so much more than what we got, which is an insulting, poorly written mess with cheap plot devices and seemingly no definitive direction. Granted, I haven’t watched after that episode, just read and listened to reviews.

What I was hoping for was the story of a dark side acolyte, hiding their machinations from the Jedi, leading to the first seeds of the Empire. And maybe that’s where this show is trying to get, but they’re doing a miserable job of it.

LucasFilm, you are capable of so much better than this. Stop insulting your fanbase. The Acolyte is shockingly bad. Do better.

Fallout is not my thing

On the subject of popular games being turned into live action, I recently tried to watch the new Fallout show.

Now, I’ve never really been a fan of the Fallout games. They’re not my thing. They’re just a little too depressing. Post apocalyptic, scorched Earth, survival games. None of that please.

But I saw the new show was writtend and directed by Jonathan Nolan (Westworld and the Prestige) with Ramin Djawadi (Game of Thrones and Westworld) doing the soundtrack. So, I figured I’d give it a shot.

It’s good. Really good. It’s got a compelling story, strong characters, fantastic world building with plenty of nods to the video games.

I just don’t like it.

Again, it’s a good show and I’ve been told it’s faithful to the games, but it’s not something I enjoy.

I made it through 6 episodes before I stopped. I could not bring myself to keep watching it. Despite all the other qualities I listed above, I didn’t care about the characters or what happened to them. I was uninterested in how the show ended.

Well, I cared about Kyle MacLachlan’s character, but he wasn’t in the early episodes enough to keep me going. I didn’t have the breadcrumbs to keep me on for all eight episodes.

And you know what? That’s okay. A show can be good, and you don’t have to like it. Everyone has their own tastes. I gave it a shot because I like Jonathan Nolan and Ramin Djawadi. As good as they both are, their talents weren’t enough to get me to enjoy the show.

And I can hear it now. “You like Borderlands and not Fallout? They’re practically the same thing.”

Not really.

Borderlands is intentionally stupid. It’s satire and pokes fun at itself. Yes, it has blood and guts and a certain dystopian vibe, but it’s far away from Earth and it’s easier to separate the despair from day-to-day life.

Fallout is in your face. The dystopia is here. The tragedy is here. It’s reflected in the ruins of easily recognizable landmarks and countrysides. It’s more real.

I don’t handle dystopia well. Overall, Fallout is very good. I just don’t like it.

But I am happy for those who love the games that they have this show, and it was what they wanted it to be.

The Borderlands movie will probably be terrible, and I could not be more excited

I started playing the Borderlands series back in 2009. The game had come out months earlier and my ex and I had picked it up as a game we could play together. I have a lot of anxiety about starting new things, so it took a few months for me to get up the nerve to try it.

It hooked me instantly. The music, the art, the humor. It was a perfect combination of tropes and features in games and storytelling I love. Puns, pop culture references, fourth wall breaks, and a sort of blase’ attitude towards wanton violence.

The first Borderlands game wasn’t a great game, but it was fun enough to keep me interested for a while. The story needed work. Some of the animation was funky. But it was decent.

Then Borderlands 2 came out and they dialed the things that made the first game enjoyable up to 11. That game was a great game. I can’t tell you how many hours I’ve played it. Not as many as most, but a decent amount. I got really good at it. Not quite good enough to solo some of the bosses, but I got through the base game and all the main content of the DLCs on each difficulty.

It had become my favorite video game franchise.

I played the Pre-Sequel, Tales from the Borderlands, and Borderlands 3 when it came out. While the latest installment didn’t hit quite as hard as the previous games, I still loved it. And yes, I also played Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands.

Needless to say, I’m a fan. Not that I need to qualify my love for the game, but I wanted to give some background.

All that said, I am hyped for the movie. And I know it’s going to be bad. I don’t care. That’s part of the charm of Borderlands. It’s supposed to be campy, and stupid, and cheesy. I’m expecting 4th wall breaks, some really bad puns, pop culture references, and, yes, dick and fart jokes. While Randy Pitchford isn’t CEO of Gearbox anymore, this is kind of his rodeo and he’s got the humor of a 12-year-old.

And I’m here for it. I’m looking forward to the bad jokes and cringey moments.

It’s supposed to be bad. So let the movie be bad. Just enjoy it for what it is. It’s not even set in the same universe as the games. Who cares if Lilith doesn’t have her tattoos or why Roland is short? (That’s the joke, by the way) It’s not even the same Lilith and Roland as the game. Just have fun. Go support the movie, give Gearbox and Lionsgate your money. I hope it also turns out to be a cult classic for fans.

I’m sure I’ve angered some people. That’s fine. Go be angry somewhere else. Please enjoy whatever pleasure it gives you. My favorite game is going to be a movie and I love that. However terrible it ends up being.