KELNACCA

I didn't get a good look at his saber, was it stereotypically wookiee and wood like the youngling in The Clone Wars

 

Nope, doesn't look like it. Kind of a burnished bronze thing going on?



It was a bitch and a half finding a picture of this fucking thing.

Speaking of lightsabers, High Republic: The Lightsaber Collection hits stores late October, and I'm buying day of. I bought the first Lightsaber Collection and I thought it was pretty sweet.

 

Are they saying that the planet was totally barren of life a few years ago? And now it has forests and all sorts? And that may or may not be a vergence thing?

Also why are the twins the future of the coven? Where did the rest of the members come from? Why can’t they just keep recruiting random force women?

 

Alright, basic sequence of events.

232 BBY: A passenger freighter undergoes a highway collision in hyperspace (the Hyperspace Disaster) leading to a series of what were called Emergences, where pieces of the freighter would come almost randomly out of hyperspace and fuck up a ton of shit (and almost completely remove bacta from the galaxy, but that's not actually important). Read Light of the Jedi for more details. One of these Emergences destroyed all life on Brendok. At some point, the Republic/Jedi scouted the planet then and learned that Brendok was now lifeless.
232 BBY- probably 156ish BBY: A vergence in the Force restores life on Brendok. While the existence of a vergence isn't 100% confirmed, the fact that Mae and Osha have perfectly identical M counts (Midi-chlorian counts) strongly indicates that a vergence was used to split one life in a womb into two. Anyways, witch coven goes to Brendok, either for the vergence or just for somewhere remote to hide out and do Force cult shit. There, they either find the vergence they were looking for or discover it. Mother Aniseya uses it to artificially inseminate the absolute bitch (Koril, the Zabrak), with what I can only assume was freaky dark side shit. The vergence was then used to split Osha and Mae into two beings instead of one (explaining the identical Midi-chlorians readings of Osha and Mae), probably to create some sort of Force dyad because Force cults do Force cults shit.
Probably 148 BBY: Somehow the Republic/Jedi learn that there is now life on Brendok. Probably some sort of deep space probe, random spacer stumbling upon it, doesn't really matter.
148 BBY: Jedi Masters Indara and Kelnacca, Padawan Torbin and Knight Sol are sent to Brendok to determine whether the life is due to a vergence, which would be a big deal or whether it has some other cause such as being seeded by some agent unknown, random extraterrestial life floating through space and landing on it, or possibly even not all life actually having been wiped out and the planet made a startling recovery. Then the flashbacks happen.

In order:
-Because the leader of the coven and her second in command said so? They were explicitly created by Aniseya and Koril to have that role according to what is probably their doctrine. Don't think the motivation of the cult really means much, beyond Force cults do Force cults shit.
-Either they were born to it, or they all joined up previously over time. Same way most cults, religions and covens in the real world start. Don't think it really matters much.
-They pretty clearly, at the point of the flashbacks, had a fairly strong isolationist streak. As well as what seems to be a pretty strong dark side, militaristic faction and dark siders tend to secrecy.

 

That was no space station... that was a Muun!

 

Finished as expected.

I stick with my previous rankings.

Pro:
Over all story was fine.
Sol
Helmet man
Saber fights ++
Worlds we saw were good and no deserts!!!!

Con:
Pacing
Editing
Some acting (bald main Jedi and the “twins” were average). Not bad, but couldn’t stand next to the better actors.
Costumes were pretty shit.
Tied to editing, the story was fine but the order they showed it and shorter episodes didn’t help. A fan edit would do this well.

 

Mace Windu was previously my example of the sheer arrogance that led to the fall of the Jedi. Vernestra Rwoh is my new example. I do like the fact that Rwoh isn't on the High Council, sort of shows the progression of what happened to the Jedi from the height of the High Republic (in my opinion the point in particular is Light of the Jedi, though I'm a bit behind on the books and plan to be caught up within a week or so).

Mah boi Stellan Gios (her former master) would be so, so disappointed to see who she has become. I figure a lot can happen in a century, and we still haven't seen how the conflict with the Nihil ends, so maybe something happens.

Honestly, the fact that they tried marketing this as mystery when it was action/thriller was the work of an amazing moron. The witches backstory stuff didn't feel particularly compelling, especially when there is still a lot we don't know which is a bad choice considering it is unclear whether there will be a season 2 or not. I'm pretty damn sure there will be, but still. The witches are also particularly annoying as, once again, they go with witches for an unaligned Force group which is just very one note storytelling for live action. There were many other Legends groups they could have decided to bring in, or even an offshoot of groups already established in the greater Star Wars canon (such as the Sorcerers of Tund, Matukai or the Yacombe).

Spoiler

Dope as hell to see a live-action bleeding of a crystal.

Sad to see how bad of a job Sol did at the end explaining himself. Would have been pretty easy to go with some variation of "killing her was a mistake but it appeared she was about to attack" would have been better. Let's be real, in a tense situation that was on the brink of violence Aniseya basically pulled out a gun next to a cop and he acted in what he thought was self-defense. Pretty reasonable, but definitely should have gone before the Council afterwards. Osha would have killed him anyways, but it would have been a better execution than what happened.

Even though The Acolyte has it's flaws, I still really enjoyed it. Especially for the following aspects beyond the outstanding choreography, Amandla Stenberg's job of portraying two characters, Lee Jung-jae and Sol in general, and Manny Jacinto portrayal of Qimir/the Stranger:

• The dangers of attachment for a Jedi. We see this with Sol's attachment to Osha (and a little to Mae) clouding his judgement leading to the mess on Brendok and Vernestra Rwoh's attachment to her vision of what the Jedi Order is supposed to be seen as leading to her... everything.
• The portrayal of how encouraging dark side related emotions corrupts people. See Qimir's seduction of Osha to the dark side, and Koril's encouragement of dark side philosophy on Mae directly leading to the fire that ignites the disaster on Brendok. I tried coming up with a different pun and failed.
• Some of the subtle callbacks to the High Republic project that I've mentioned elsewhere
• Something I only really thought of in this episode and as I type this comment. Between Sol and Rwoh, we see two different ways Jedi Masters can fail at what a Jedi is supposed to do with their emotions. It's never really been about controlling them, it's about letting them go into the Force to achieve serenity. Instead we have Sol indulging his emotions, creating his attachments which clouds his judgements I mentioned earlier. And then we have Vernestra Rwoh, who I feel is clearly suppressing them in an attempt to control them, leading to her coldness and willingness to lie in order to make the Jedi Order look spotless and blameless.
• As I mentioned previously, the way the costuming is starting to blend from the gold and ivory look of The High Republic to the Skywalker Saga brown and cream showing the tarnishing and loss of moral high ground of the Jedi Order.

I think The Acolyte is a perfect example of how a show doesn't need to be flawless in order to be good. The "culture" as a whole really needs to drop this binary thought of "something is either perfect or trash," and if that happens I think we all will wind up happier in our day to day lives.

...When did I get on a soap box?

Anyways, my single favorite comment on the finale:


Well, time for me to read my copy of Star Wars The High Republic: The Blade which arrived the other day instead of going to sleep. I want to see a young Porter Engle do some gangster shit after all the choreography in the finale.

EDIT: Can confirm, Porter Engle did some gangster shit, and now I want Star Wars The High Republic: The Broken Blade to come out. I need to see how he becomes The Blade of Bardotta.

 

So…

maybe I’m offf on time frame but it’s entirely possible with force shenanigans and changes to canon.

I think Quimir is Sidious

 

If that was the case, Palpatine would not have received this absolute glower from Anakin at approximately 44 seconds.

In all seriousness: no. As per Star Wars: Timelines, a canon reference book published April 2023 places Palpatine's birth as being on Naboo in 84 BBY (48 years after events of The Acolyte). While my research has indicated that Timelines has multiple continuity errors/differences with other sources, the only disagreeing sources place Palpatine's birth as at 82 BBY.

On a semi-related topic, I think Qimir's "I have no name" quote means that Plagueis hasn't given him a Sith name yet. I also think that the tiny shot we have of Plagueis shows him spying on Qimir in a "my apprentice is trying to take his own in order to overthrow me, guess I should start planning my sudden and inevitable betrayal" kind of way.

edit: Removed uncertainty regarding Plagueis' identity.

 

Yeah Palestine has an established and ordinary human timeline prior to episode 1.

Unless he did a whole false identity he is far too young.

 

Also, the dark side of the force really has no bearing on the Israeli-palestinian conflict

From certain points of view, anyway

 

A. I agree, that based on timeline books etc. the timing doesn't match.

B. They could do it anyways. The majority of viewers don't know when this show "should" be taking place timeline wise and the majority of viewers don't know Sheev's backstory. Hell, majority of viewers don't even know his first name was Sheev.

From a narrative perspective, I think it works. Quimir also had a few lines in the last episode that were direct parallels of Sidious ("Strike him down and your journey will be complete").

I could be wrong of course, but, in this world, timelines etc. are... more like guidelines than actual rules.

 

The autists had a collective freak out with the whole Ki-Adi-Mundi's birthdate debacle on the fan wiki.

Disney should canonize Q as Sidious just for the sheer spectacle the special needs crowd would put on.

 

They could call it...

Q Anon.

 

Binged it all in one night and I was positively surprised, I've only seen mentions of it from ragegrifters and people talking about the ragegrifters shitting all over it with the usual complaints about woke hollywood and breaking canon for political agendas, glad to see that was all just pointless fanboy whining. Little bit disappointed that I fell for the marketing and basically expected a noir-style murder mystery. I also seem to recall early talk about this show focusing on the pov of the hidden sith but I've got no complaints about what I got instead, incredible action, great actors, even the children did alright, even if child-Mae was ridiculously bratty to the point where I started wondering if she was raised by wolves (what kinda child says to their twin sibling that they're gonna kill them with a straight face?), didn't like how that line was pretty much forgotten the moment after it was spoken.

Qimir was freaking fantastic, was a bit worried his "silly-mask" would detract from his menace after the reveal but it didn't slow him down one bit, that switch from goofy sidekick to ice-cold sociopath ("was that it's name?") and then all the way to introspective seductive philosopher to get his hooks into Osha. Damn that actor is freaking fantastic, Manny's doing A LOT of heavy lifting in this show, this is Andor-level work from him.

Fuck yeah Darth Plagueis the Muun is finally canon! I wonder if he's the apprentice or the master at this point in time, I'm not sure what I'd prefer more, Darth Tenebrous being alive would finally give us a Bith who isn't a jizz-musician but that might be too many sith in one show that will probably only last one more season.

The Jedi were.. flawed might be the nicest way to say it, it's nice to see they were proactive but sad to see they were already starting to fall into indifference and arrogance and too concerned with maintaining their power and influence in the political sphere, the cover-up of the coven's slaughter really humanized them tough, made them seem less like otherwordly monks who never make mistakes and just regular people with powers that fuck up like veryone else. Was a bit worried that the senator Rayencourt they kept bringing up earlier in the show would be an obvious greedy, grasping politician like that turd from the Ahsoka show but the dude actually played the part of a politician, he has legitimate concerns about the jedi and he knows what language to use to get his ideas across. Wouldn't be surprised if Sidous used some of his talking points when he turned the people against the Jedi Order.

 

Qimir is gonna end up the canon version of Darth Venamis.

Also, OSHA killing Mae in cold blood is bound to happen and goddamn.

Through victory, my chains are broken. The force shall free me.

 

Season 2 got cancelled, another title that'll have to be salvaged by the comic book writers. Jesus christ the ineptitude at work at Disney is worthy of serious study at some prestigious university..

 

I'm not surprised. For all the discourse, it didn't pull in the general public. If it had been able to execute a Rings of Power (where the online hate was rampant but the general public eyeball figures were off the charts), I imagine it would have gotten a S2.

Phenomenal action pieces, and an intriguing tie to Plagueis, but I'm gonna say it wasn't outright good enough to warrant another 80+ mil season. The acting was incredibly mid from almost everybody except Jacinto.

A comic or novel would be fine to wrap the story, but I'm now kinda hoping they do a Fall of the High Republic animated show. Animated Star Wars is Best Star Wars.

 

Eh, for it to have been canceled there would have to have been plans to do it originally.

Nah, the books have been shafted too much in favor of the comics and Filoni deciding to cram his Clone Wars characters into everything.

 

Too bad. S1 was bland, but I feel like they could have improved if they stuck with it. Plenty of great shows had meh first seasons.

But Disney corporate has no appetite for commitment.