IR TV Review: THE ACOLYTE - EPISODES 1 & 2 [Lucasfilm/Disney+]
The essence of "Star Wars" rests in its ability to understand the journey of its characters. Alomg the lines of storytelling, that can become muddled in certain structures. With "The Acolyte", the texture is relegated literally in the theme of duality with Mae. Set well before the last couple trilogies, it shows a tendency where the light is also battling with the dark. Lee Jung-Jae, so studied in "The Hunt" and by extension, "The Squid Games" here plays Sol, a soul who understands how to think outside the box. Amandla Sternberg plays Mae and brings a consequence to her role that could be building. The first scene of the first episode actually plays to something different but that misdirect is of course done on purpose. What is interesting to see is the padewan reaction and, by extension, the reason that an assassin is doing certain things.Like Ahsoka as a younger character,certain ideas play to association for a very specific reason.
The show itself, in terms of structure, at least in the first two episodes, tends to play actually to the context of a detective novel. While this chapter structure is not new, it helps that we don't have any forgone conclusions of where these characters are from or where they are heading. In that way, they are free in a way that no show (or film) in this franchise has been since "A New Hope". Video games are, of course, a different matter but not as mainstream to the consciousness. This aspect also could do with the Old Republic which is what David Benoit of "Game Of Thrones" tried to adapt for a film and maybe couldn't fully crack. Leslye Headland ("Russian Doll") is the showrunner here and her ideal of moving blame backwards and forwards make sense.The idea is always on the basis of who is pulling the strings and what their idiom is (at least in current time). The use of defenses in hand-to-hand combat is interestingly done especially to the point of how the 2nd episode ends. No expectation in the overall stucture is actually what makes this series a bit more intriguing because it goes back to character though the plot does need to carry it forward. B
By Tim Wassberg
