Rebuilding Rob

I really wanted to wait until the series was over, or at least mostly finished before I wrote a review of The Acolyte. But I couldn’t wait any longer.

I’ve been a fan of the Star Wars franchise for virtually my entire life, having seen the original Star Wars when I was three years old back in 1977. And I can tell you today, here in 2024, there is no fanbase more toxic in all popular culture than Star Wars fans

Without doing too much of the plot away, the acolyte is set 100 years before the events of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. It is a story of two twins who are separated in their youth. One follows the path of the Jedi; then other the path of a dark master. It’s something with a classic who done it. My feeling is that as a story unfolds, we’re going to get a few shocking twists and turns, and the true story of Mae & Oshia’s past will probably surprise us.

I must admit that I’ve been a little bit disappointed with The Acolyte. From the previews, I was expecting eight episodes of “straight-up Jedi shit“ as I described it to one of my friends. But the fact that I’ve been a bit let down doesn’t necessarily make The Acolyte a bad show.

Have I been pandered to for so long that I don’t even realize it’s happening anymore?

Week after week in social media, I hear alleged Star Wars fans trying to throw every reason that they hate The Acolyte at the proverbial wall in the hopes that something would stick. It’s woke, they said. Where are the men? Where are the white people? They’re pushing a lesbian agenda. Bad writing. Bad dialogue. Bad direction.

Eventually, stories started emerging about The Acolyte being “review-bombed on site like Rotten Tomatoes. How else could one explain the great disparity between the critics reviews and the audience reviews of the show? to make matters worse, there are speculation that many of the negative reviews are actually AI generated, as a result of having very similar phrasing, from one review to the next

I have news for Star Wars fans: Star Wars isn’t Shakespeare. The franchisees dialogue has been at best, suspect since day one. Harrison Ford himself told George Lucas back in 1977 “you can write this shit, but you can’t say it.” My point being, if you came to Star Wars expecting to find snappy dialogue, you’re going to be searching for a while…

I really don’t get what people are saying about Disney, or in this case Star Wars, specifically, trying to push “agendas” on his fans. Representation in the media does not equal “pushing an agenda “. To be honest, if someone feels that their sexuality is so threatened because a TV show features LGBTQ characters, that says more about their own sexuality than it does about the characters on TV.

I bring up all of the “wokeness” and “virtue signaling” that people are claiming to be seeing in The Acolyte because apparently people’s “trigger alerts” are going off in other movies and television shows as well. After seeing Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire this past spring, I had a conversation with X2 – who also happens to be a big Ghostbusters aficionado – about the movie. She told me that she thought the movie was a little too “woke“ and that they were pushing a lesbian storyline between, Phoebe and the ghost character she befriended. I told her, in no uncertain terms, that I did not pick up on that at all.

if someone feels that their sexuality is so threatened because a TV show features LGBTQ characters, that says more about their own sexuality than it does about the characters on TV.

I recently watched the Brats documentary on Hulu. As a card-carrying member of generation X and a fan of the 1980s “brat pack” movies, I thoroughly enjoyed this. A lot of my contemporaries told me that they thought that the actors featured were just “too whiny“ about the whole thing.

Am I missing something here?

One of the things I have always prided myself on was the fact that I can read between the lines, so to speak. If someone is trying to make a statement or teach a lesson in the guise of a story, I can normally spot immediately. I went to school for this. I teach kids how to do this for a living. Am I missing stuff?

Have I been pandered to for so long that I don’t even realize it’s happening anymore?

Personally, I think there’s something more to it. I think there’s something more sinister and play here. It’s no secret that ever since Donald Trump was elected president back in 2016, he immediately became railing point for people who somehow feel like they’re being oppressed and America today. Has all of the noise that Trump and his supporters have made just permeated every aspect of society? I feel like it is even. Has it gotten to such a point that even socially conscious, tolerated people, seem to be reflecting a little bit of this?

Thanks for stopping by Rebuilding Rob. Be sure to like, comment and subscribe to my blog below. It’s greatly appreciated! Also, feel free to follow me on social media as well! Check out my most recent posts as well as some earlier, related posts:

• Thoughts that keep me up at night
• Requiem for a mall
• what makes a great teacher
• The O.R. Virgin
• A Day in the Life of Rob

The article “Rob reviews: the acolyte. Am I missing something here?“ first appeared on Rebuilding Rob.