Seth Thomson

What is good about the Acolyte Episode 1: -Beautiful Scenery and SFX -Diverse Representation -Indara (Carrie-Anne Moss), she demonstrates how a true Jedi would act in her situation. Only tries to de-escalate, and only defends, never attacks. Bonus points for her having a green lightsaber, the colour of a Jedi consular and of one who is strong with the force as she is clearly shown to be. -Mentions and explains why there are organics doing outer ship repairs despite being outlawed and only authorized for droids to undertake such work. -Wide variety of aliens shown, they even have a Selkath in one scene! What is bad about the Acolyte Episode 1: (Oh boy) -"A Jedi does not attack the unarmed", No a true Jedi does not attack, period. -Defends and instantly slices through metal daggers, once again no, if that's the case then why were the jedi so afraid of slugthrowers? (Because they could not deflect the metal slugs shot out of slugthrowers, nor could a lightsaber melt them fast enough to render them harmless.) -Tries too hard to be funny at times and fails -Fire in space -Osha (Amandla Stenberg) survives a Freighter-sized ship crashing from space to ground which fully plummets with no attempt of deceleration (minus air friction) just straight freefall. But hey she strapped herself to a chair so she's fine, not even a scratch or broken bone. (Yes you could argue Anakin crash lands Grevious' flagship but then again, he pilots it into a crash landing, not just sits there and lets the Force take the wheel. Also that was a Providence class ship which is a massive capital ship, not some dinky prison freighter.) -The lack of security detail for a Jedi Master killer is baffling -Also the planet just so happens to have just the correct composition of Oxygen and gases that allows for safe breathing within the planets atmosphere. -Master Sol (Lee Jung-jae) is adamant that Mae (Amandla Stenberg) is dead then not 10 minutes later instantly agrees with Osha that Mae is alive - Yord (Charlie Barnett) is seen with a yellow lightsaber despite explicitly stating he is a Jedi Knight. (Yellow lightsabers are reserved for Jedi Sentinels, those who track down and seek out clues about the Sith and their whereabouts. Blue is reserved for those with strong martial abilities, the Jedi Knights! These classifications were even more heavily present during the times before the Clone Wars.) -The Sith Master states to kill a Jedi, you must do so unarmed. Yet Mae killed Indara with a dagger to the heart, how is that classified as unarmed? (This misunderstanding is cleared in Episode 2 however the way it is said make it easy to misinterpret as "This is the only way to kill a Jedi", rather than "This is a form of testing.") In the end I am deeply saddened by the state that Star Wars has been brought to. I am being honest when I say that I cried after watching this episode. For the little boy who grew up watching Star Wars and throughout his teen years, escaped reality by consuming the Star Wars stories and books he loved so much, has now had his heartbroken and shattered as he watched what he loved most in this world burn before his very eyes.