Ryan Shoots First: The Acolyte (S1 Ep5) “Night”
Wow. wow. wow, after the cliffhanger of last week, this week’s episode of The Acolyte goes straight to 100 as the Jedi engage in their attack on this mysterious figure. In the build-up to the premiere, a lot of the cast spoke about really wanting to up the game with the lightsaber battles and wanted Prequal-like fights and boy did they deliver. Easily the most intricate fight choreography we have seen in the Disney era. Which of course makes sense as really everything else we have seen have been 3rd generation pupils without formal training or Ahsoka who had some good moves but is in her older years. This was the height of Jedi prime stuff. Sol and Jecki in particular really were showing cool styles and moves and of course, the big bad was doing some really cool strong style even using his helmet in the fighting. Good stuff.
The other elephant in the room is the fact that if indeed this did turn out to be a Sith then something has to happen to keep it a secret, meaning pretty much everyone has to die or something else for the council to not find out about it. Well, I’m not going to give it all away here (spoilers in the observations) but man the show really took some bold, big swings that are going to have fans talking this week. And hopefully talking about more than just Kai-Adi Mundi… If you know you know.
At the risk of being labeled a “Disney- Shill”, which is hilarious I wish there was a check in the mail, I will give one critique about the show and really the “Star Wars TV-Verse” in total. It’s how the live-action shows are shot and paced like an animated show. Usually, things move fast in about half an hour, cuts are abrupt, and plot points can be jarring. In animation this happens, you have less time, and usually, your audience is kids who don’t care. When it moves to live action, I think you expect more time to build relationships and reasoning for the characters’ choices. For instance last week Osha decided to turn herself over to the Jedi, I can see where her reasoning is. She found out her sister is alive, which changed everything and she is afraid of the master. But this all happens very fast and can seem pretty jarring, I wouldn’t have minded seeing that flashed out more. But when the series is 8 episodes that are all 30 minutes we gotta move fast like in a cartoon. So that is my criticism, the show moves and flows like a animated show and if you look at it in that lens it makes a bit more sense. I still am enjoying the show very much and this episode was a thrill ride. The twist at the end sets up an interesting dynamic going forward.
Observations
- Here we go!
- What is all the orange stuff?
- So things are going great
- Oh dang that was sweet using his helmet as a shield
- Oh dang that guy ain’t messing around
- Very cool. Man lightsabers are cool
- Bazils like “I’m out”
- He speaks
- There’s Jecki
- So is it like a Magneto helmet?
- This is some good fight choreography
- Ruh-roh
- Yord probably needs to carry around extra batteries as much as he keeps that thing on.
- That head-butt move is so cool
- Noo!!!!!
- Yea that was pretty obvious
- Man poor Jecki
- There it is!
- Wooooahhhh, not Yord!!!! What the heck
- Man Sol is such a good character
- Twists and twists
- I don’t know what to believe here.
- Uh oh little twin magic
- Bazil knows something’s up
