Star Wars: The Acolyte released on Disney+ on June 4th, which now feels like an eternity ago, and every episode seems to become cringier than the last. This $180M streaming series, featuring a diverse cast of they/thems and barely a straight, white male in sight, has proven to be little more than a bastardized version of Star Wars, made by someone who understands neither lore nor character development.
Leslye Headland, the showrunner and former assistant to Hollywood degenerate Harvey Weinstein, described her vision for this show as "Frozen meets Kill Bill." Yes, it truly is as bizarre as it sounds. The notion that there was ever a way to blend these two vastly different concepts into one cohesive show, and then somehow market it to Star Wars fans, is truly a level of idiocy previously unseen in any of the failed Disney Star Wars products thus far.
The viewer numbers for this show, based on minutes watched, continues to decline, as most of us simply wait for the viral clips to get uploaded on Twitter/X to be mocked and ridiculed by the masses. "The power of one, the power of two, the power of many" became a meme for all the wrong reasons, and very well may rival the fabled "It's Morbin time" that previously took the internet by storm.
The Acolyte showrunner Leslye Headland says the Elden Ring community inspired the lack of armor on the Star Wars show's villain.
— IGN (@IGN) July 3, 2024
"When you summon people, you always summon the people that aren’t wearing anything." https://t.co/TY2VocIbsS pic.twitter.com/jKvVk3VIbD
Now Leslye Headland, who was so bold as to cast her lesbian partner in the show and even give her the ill-conceived light-whip, has tried to compare the villain in her series, played by Manny Jacinto, to a popular Elden Ring player. It truly is one of those "how do you do, fellow kids?" moments.
To make matters worse, the current episode does little to advance the story, but rather simply tries to titillate what little female fanbase the show actually has. Star Wars has largely avoided excess nudity/sexual content (yes, I hear you screeching about Princess Leia's gold bikini), a trend which Andor definitely bucked with it's PG-13 approach to storytelling.
That being said, Andor handled it's characters and storyline in a much better, more fleshed out way, something that The Acolyte has struggled mightily with. Rather than create interesting characters with relatable motivations within the confines of the Star Wars Universe, this show instead relies on the all too exhausting modern approach of sexualizing the male form/glamourizing villainy, while making a mockery of both heroic characters and straight white males.
There are no female versions of this that even come close... pic.twitter.com/mOPxkVhaXl
— The Middle Aged Baby (@MiddleAgedBaby2) July 3, 2024
This show is everything that is wrong with Disney Star Wars and modern entertainment as a whole. The male gaze died in 2016, but the female gaze is alive and well.