Bala Rice

I'm loving The Acolyte so far. It's a very welcomed breath of fresh air that the Star Wars franchise has been lacking lately. So many stories have been set in the Empire era and starring familiar faces that it's nice to explore a whole new time period with zero returning characters. The Republic Era has been dramarically underrepresented outside of the few short years of the Clone Wars. I love that they're up against an unknown enemy (rather than the separatists or Empire which we fully understand at this point) and that the series has been mainly in the mystery genre so far-- another Star Wars first. It's very exciting and has me gripped from week to week as the layers peel away revealing Mae & Osha's fateful past. There's some very strong casting choices here with The Matrix's Carrie-Ann Moss and Squid Game's Lee Jung-jae. Now let's talk about the elpahant in the room. This show has been unquestionably review bombed. Read the reviews below mine, I just did. The worst offender is the one that's literally AI generated and has over 500 people who clicked that "helpful" button. There's never been clearer proof that this angry mob is upvoting any review that has 1 star regardless of anything that's said. Dude mentions episodes that aren't out yet and characters that arent real "Dara" and "Master Kirik". I looked these up because I thought maybe he could be a professional critic that got early access, but no, they're fake and the dude has no other reviews on his profile. So many of the other 1 star reviews are just whining about Disney and say literally NOTHING about the actual content of the show. One gentleman just copy and pasted a negative review that did bring up a few points. Though every point thats brought up is extremely vague and could be said about any show ("the acting is bad, the story is uninteresting, the CGI looks bad" with no elaboration on specifics or why) or is a nitpick that shows a complete misunderstanding of Star Wars. Look how many mention the fire in space. Now go rewatch George Lucas's movies and count all the times ships burst into flames in space. He literally said in an interview years ago that "they're oxygen in space when i need there to be". Why are people so angry that there's such a widespread effort to leave fake reviews about a show they clearly didn't watch? The answer is made very clear when you see how many of these reviews with no details on what actually happens in the show mention "woke", "DEI", "mary sue" or "girlboss". Not that women being powerful is a problem, but the only fight a female character has won so far has been against another female character. They've lost to men every other single time. People just hear that the lead character in an action series is female and presumtively project negative things onto her for her sex. What do we call that? Hint: it starts with an s or an m.