“Obi-Wan and Book of Boba Fett had the same problem”: Besides Its Nonsensical Plot, ‘The Acolyte’ Was Also Destroyed By 1 Mistake Disney Keeps Repeating With Star Wars

The Amandla Stenberg led-science-fiction series Star Wars: The Acolyte, created by Leslye Headland, followed a Jedi investigation into a series of crimes and has now ended. The creator back in 2019 had expressed her interest in working on a Star Wars project, where she wished to explore the franchise from a villain’s perspective. The live-action series is known to be the culmination of 3 and a half years of an initiative spearheaded by Lucasfilm Publishing called The High Republic.

The highly anticipated series premiered with two episodes on Disney+ and opened to a very welcoming response. But eventually, the views and reviews took a turn. The publication reported that the series has been a target of review bombing campaigns on websites, including Rotten Tomatoes. While it holds a 78% critic score, on the other hand, it holds an 18% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. There has been an update about the show’s future.

Leslye Headland’s Star Wars: The Acolyte canceled after one season

According to reports from Deadline, Lucasfilm has decided not to greenlight Leslye Headland’s Star Wars: The Acolyte, starring Amandla Sternberg, Lee Jung-jae, Dafne Keen, and more. The series’ season one included eight episodes that premiered on Disney+.

Starting the first two episodes with almost 4.8 million views to rising to 11.1. million views worldwide after just five days of streaming, the show’s makers believed that they’d finally hit it off. The Acolyte debuted on Nielsen’s Top 10 original charts at Number 7 and later moved to Number 6 the following week.

But in the following weeks, the numbers kept dropping and the negative reviews about the show kept rising. The show made its way back to the list at No. 10 after the release of the finale with 335 million minutes of viewership, which is the lowest for a Star Wars series finale. The Acolyte’s season one ended with a cliffhanger, teasing the fans with several plotlines for Season 2.

There are ardent Star Wars fans who objected to the show’s expansion of the mythology of the Force. Variety noted that fans did not like the show because they believed that it was like a digital protest against inclusivity. A lot of fans dubbed the show ‘woke’ and noted that it was just bad in terms of story, acting, writing, and pacing. The publications and media tried to hype up the project, but the flaws were too out in the open to ignore.

After the failure of the series, Lucasfilm is focusing on its upcoming projects, including The Mandalorian & Grogu. Ahsoka has, however, been renewed for a second season.

Fans react to Star Wars: The Acolyte being canceled

Ardent fans of the Star Wars franchise had seen the cancellation of the show coming right when it debuted. A thread on Reddit explains that the makers did not have an idea which audience or fan to cater to, so they tried to cater the show to all plus tried to get new fans, but at the end of the day, no one was happy. A user mentioned that they might not be the biggest Star Wars fans, but they grew up watching the original series, and they didn’t enjoy the show.

They went ahead to explain that a lot of Jedi scenes in the series seemed to usurp the purpose of the story. Another user in the thread replied that they were still trying to figure out what the makers were trying to do. Someone speculated that they didn’t know, which is why they kept changing what they were meant to say. A fan went ahead to say,

Obi-Wan and Book of Boba Fett had the same problem. They were all pitched and announced years ago as movies. The writers had about -3 hours of story to tell, but the executives forced them to stretch it out over 8 hours.

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Another fan agreeing noted that apart from the storyline and bad acting, what they couldn’t understand is why the makers decided to spread 4.5 hours of content into 7 weeks. They suggested that either the showrunner needed to add a couple of more meaty episodes or should have dropped once the story was over. A third user mentioned that they could have simply told the same story in an economical 90 minutes or less.

The Acolyte is streaming on Disney+.