Star Wars: The Disney+ Empire Strikes Again and Again and...

Well, a lot going on here.

Rangers of the New Republic, a new Original Series set within the timeline of @TheMandalorian, is coming to @DisneyPlus. pic.twitter.com/YKlWJpvhAW

— Disney (@Disney) December 10, 2020

Ahsoka, a new Original Series, starring @RosarioDawson and set within the timeline of @TheMandalorian, is coming to @DisneyPlus. pic.twitter.com/ZojpCkhPS7

— Disney (@Disney) December 10, 2020

“Everything I did, I did for the Rebellion.” Andor, an Original Series set in the Star Wars universe, is streaming in 2022 on #DisneyPlus. pic.twitter.com/q2IT2qzEeR

— Star Wars (@starwars) December 10, 2020

Hayden Christensen returns as Darth Vader, joining Ewan McGregor in OBI-WAN KENOBI. The Original Series begins 10 years after the dramatic events of Revenge of the Sith, and is coming to #DisneyPlus. pic.twitter.com/9WR2npRUkk

— Star Wars (@starwars) December 10, 2020

A sneak peek at Star Wars: The Bad Batch, an all-new animated Original Series from Lucasfilm Animation, coming soon to #DisneyPlus pic.twitter.com/V0jQc4XNIe

— Star Wars (@starwars) December 10, 2020

Star Wars: Visions, an Original Series of animated short films, celebrates the @StarWars galaxy through the lens of the world’s best Japanese anime creators. Coming in 2021 to @DisneyPlus. pic.twitter.com/syUmiL7SdI

— Disney (@Disney) December 10, 2020

The galaxy’s favorite scoundrel, Lando Calrissian, will return in Lando, a brand-new event series for @DisneyPlus. Justin Simien (@JSim07) is in the early stages of developing the project.

— Disney (@Disney) December 10, 2020

Leslye Headland brings a new @StarWars series to @DisneyPlus with The Acolyte. “The Acolyte” is a mystery-thriller that will take viewers into a galaxy of shadowy secrets and emerging dark-side powers in the final days of the High Republic era.

— Disney (@Disney) December 10, 2020

Lucasfilm Animation is teaming up with Lucasfilm’s visual effects team, Industrial Light & Magic, to develop a special @StarWars adventure for @DisneyPlus, A Droid Story. This epic journey will introduce us to a new hero guided by R2-D2 and C-3PO.

— Disney (@Disney) December 10, 2020

dear fucking god

Plus Taiki Waititi's thing and Patty Jenkins is doing this:

pic.twitter.com/e3N00xCr5i

— Patty Jenkins (@PattyJenks) December 10, 2020

sadlol

All of the upcoming Star Wars/Lucasfilm projects #DisneyInvestorDay pic.twitter.com/ipP8uTxdbT

— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) December 10, 2020

I'm skeptical they'll manage to give each of these a distinct feel rather than following the proven Mando formula. I think I'd be more excited if there was one or two series in development rather than a half dozen.

Remember when 15 or 16 years would pass without a new Star Wars thing, that was pretty tight in retrospect

Well, depending on the media. That Timothy Zahn book in 1991 kickstarting the run of novels and the various 90s computer games were keeping interest pretty high.

I remember as a young fan in the 80s/early 90s being convinced there'd never be another proper Star Wars thing...

xpost

average convo in a Gen X household in Dec

"bought $100 worth of Star Wars toys"

"oh, the kids will love that..."

"right....the kids..."

I hope, completely and unironically, that the Rangers of the New Republic series does nothing but remake old CHiPs episodes, and somehow stars Estrada, Wilcox, Dorn and Chris Pine's dad.

Yyyyyyyyeah, mandalorian is one thing as a fun retro treat but fuck if I’m clearing out a fucking mall size space in my memory palace for this avalanche of trademarks.

misread one of the projects as Star Wars: The Bad Bitch

wait the Obi-Wan show is gonna have Hayden Christiansen as Darth?

wtf - JEJ is still gonna do the voice, presumably, so....are they just paying him to walk around in the costume?

xp Me too

Supposedly he's retired from doing the voice, but I don't know if that was just a rumor or not. At the least there's been no handoff as with Chewie yet.

oh god if Hayden does the voice

Darth "Stoned" Vader

this is a controversial opinion, but I think this is too much star wars

A Lando show is just too good, man i loved me some Solo.

Star Wars: The Bad Bitch

yeah gonna be a lot of demands for this now - Sy Snootles finally getting her due

this is like when as a teenager I went to a bookstore in the 90s and saw dozens of star wars books. Suddenly something I like becomes way too much and not something I want to keep track of.

The Star Wars franchise should just be non-stop announcements of things that are never delivered.

every single one of these things is going to feature a puppet baby version of a preexisting character

Baby Palpatine

I can't believe this shit

Man, even as a huge fan of Star Wars, this is too much. And I really miss the days when this was all slowly revealed, not spat out in one massive investor call data dump.

Baby Jabba

Baby Palpatine

This would ... rule?

I'm pretty cool with just continuing to treat the pre-Disney material and the Filoniverse as the only SW stuff worth paying attention to. Granted, wrt the latter that would still have me on the hook for half of these new shows.

I feel like there's a very real chance "The Acolyte" will have baby Sheev.

there's gonna be a movie about how Sheev conceived his son

called Palp Fiction

*Friction

Sheev's Gotta Have It

Droid Six

The Emperor's New Groove

Imperial Bedroom

Sidious Kinky

holy shit a+

Why would anyone come onto a thread to express negative thoughts about Disney properties

http://i.pinimg.com/originals/c6/3f/33/c63f33f578bb17f7be8f96d6f9822b61.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yix_9g_Ob74

Kind of interesting article (with a minor spoiler about future plans, if you haven't finished The Mandalorian yet): https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/disney-star-wars-marvel-studios-1234866986/

I'm just going to post this now because I can see that I'm going to get a lot of requests -

Yes, Rian's SW trilogy is still on. No dates or timelines because he has other projects going on, but it is happening.

THAT IS ALL I KNOW ABOUT IT. 😁😁😁

— Sariah Wilson (@sariahwilson) February 16, 2021

Not sure where this goes (it’s not tv or movie related, but relevant): https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/star-wars-high-republic-novels/2021/02/22/adbb4338-72e3-11eb-85fa-e0ccb3660358_story.html

The incredible cast includes Ewan McGregor, Hayden Christensen, Moses Ingram, Joel Edgerton, Bonnie Piesse, Kumail Nanjiani, Indira Varma, Rupert Friend, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Sung Kang, Simone Kessell and Benny Safdie. pic.twitter.com/VltHs5Aw6r

— Star Wars (@starwars) March 29, 2021

that is a pick names out of a hat cast there

Hayden C. unrecognizable in that pic

Strong finale. I will happily take a season two.

same. nice sendoff. Jedi corruption continuing into season 2!

shit that stranger in the cave was Darth Plagueis?

Was it?

internet is suggesting so but....I'm not a big enough nerd to recall what he looked like

yeah that was pretty good!!

is it just me or is that stupid chipmunk-dog completely pointless & annoying

Slightly inscrutable motivations at points, that one.

it smells backpacks...backpacks and corruption

Nice interview with the production designer & the cinematographer

https://arstechnica.com/culture/2024/06/star-wars-behind-the-scenes-creating-the-unique-aesthetic-of-the-acolyte/

Very good finale

Only thing I didn’t understand is why they wouldn’t take Mae along on the escape. Sure rule of two and all that, but just drop her off on another planet or something.

Kyber crystal bleeding was very cool

Any time Bazil the tracker was not on screen I was asking, "Where's Bazil?"

lol

i was confused by the ending too. i dont see how Mae would be any use to the jedi

they aren't 100% sure if her memory has been wiped, or probably think they can reverse it, and do want to seek out Bortles in retaliation for all the dead Jedi and Osha for Sol. they used Sol to fall on the sword for all of their wrongdoing, but green Jedi is obviously corrupt and upset about Sol being dead. will probably work with her to recover her memories so they can find Bortles's base.

i can't imagine any mind-wipe that was done with a hand motion that looked like nipple tweaking for three seconds is perhaps permanent, probably way down in her subconscious

lmao

ok that makes sense

idk what the alternative is. "Oh, your mind's wiped. Well uh, we'll drop you off at the nearest hospital or whatever. If that dark side-using guy or your sister show up because this is a ruse I'm sure it'll go fine"

“in the meantime…uhh… have you met Bazil? anyway must dash bye”

Darth P confirmed:

https://www.indiewire.com/features/interviews/the-acolyte-finale-darth-plagueis-reveal-confirmed-leslye-headland-1235026659/

(I dunno, I always wished that it really was some story about the distant past Palpatine was telling in the opera house but what can ya do.)

Caught up with the finale last night. Gah, this show was so mixed up. There was a very good, very compelling show buried in there somewhere, but they didn't seem to know what they had. The entire mission/mystery of Mae that took up more than half the season was the least interesting thing about the show. I wish they had combined the two flashback episodes into one, presented them at the very beginning of the season, and let us watch the entire series with a full understanding that the Jedi were suppressing/atoning for their crimes. There would have been tension! There would have been thoughtful themes about colonialism and how those with power can never be truly, fully benevolent, no matter how they present themselves. (e.g., the Empire is a fascist/authoritarian state, but the good Jedi "have the right" to take children as they see fit?? They lay this out, but so late in the game that they can't really explore it.)

Instead we got a clumsily assembled russian doll of stories within stories, each negating the emotional punch of the one that came before it.

And yet there are things I could recommend in most/all of these episodes. The duals were very good; the stakes, at times, felt high (e.g. mass jedi murders); and Manny Jacinto, at the least, gave a mostly quite good performance even if it's impossible to believe the guy from The Good Place is smart in any way.

It all just feels like a rough draft - like a student paper that doesn't realize it's conclusion is actually its thesis.

Darth Bortles interview:

https://gizmodo.com/star-wars-acolyte-manny-jacinto-interview-plagueis-stranger-2000476398

I would like to tentatively venture the opinion that this show was a bit 6/10 - the fact that it wasn't leaning on/messing up old characters made it inherently less risible than Boba Fett / Kenobi - and it was slightly less boring than Ashoka

but still kind of boring? none of the characters were particularly compelling, it was very humourless and every time they start to fill in lore backstory ie the helmet thing or the red/blue lightsaber 'origin story' blah my heart sinks

xp there’s a comment on the article from someone who has only seen The Acolyte, having come to it via one of the referenced fan edits. No other Star Wars shows or movies! Now, that’s a certain point of view

Well they started in chronological order I guess

Plot question: how does Darth Bortles know about what happened on Brendok?

I liked the ending, where the message was, don’t join the dark side, unless the dark side is VERY HANDSOME, in which case, fine

anyway this was fun, speaking as someone not very invested in the lore but who just wants to see soap opera stuff and good fight scenes. This was the most Trek-like Star Wars story I’ve seen - you could easily have subbed starfleet in for the Jedi - was basically a prime directive story

The last episode had too many unresolved plotlines though - I wanted it to all wrap up and groaned at everything that cued up season 2

his mentor was colleagues with all the people that did Brendok so I'd imagine that's probably how he knows and possibly why he left teh fold

Okay so next month this, via extended trailer…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTYx1ETg9lo

And in December…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6voXgBlmpk

this sucks: https://deadline.com/2024/08/the-acolyte-canceled-no-season-2-star-wars-disney-plus-1236044233/

this show was being review bombed from the very first episode, you’d think they’d take that into account when deciding whether people actually hated it or not

not to mention giving in to troll fans complaining about “woke” casting and showrunners. ugh

booo :(

So I just shared this and basically got called an idiot because "Deadline is a biased source", but Forbes and Gizmodo and many others, while citing Deadlines report, also ran it. What am I missing here

i mean sure an official confirmation would be better, rather than this cowardly announcement through anon sources. don't know enough about Deadline to say if it's biased or not, but generally their sourcing is pretty reliable right?

the worst people are gloating about this, of course.

Yea fuck that. Sure let's go back to the same boring formulaic stories because they're "anti-woke", mission accomplished edgelords

I did find the Acolyte quite boring, if this is review bombing then so be it

Do Disney really care about online troll complaints, or would it just be that the series had low audience numbers?

I really enjoyed the show, but thought it would've have been better with a more definitive ending.

I know shows get cancelled all the time, but there's something v. dumb about not resolving stories within "shared continuity" universes - it's like, plan things better guys! By cancelling the show before the story ends, they've effectively locked off this period to anyone else.

It would be nice if we could all says "racists" instead of "anti woke" or trolls or worst people or whatever

I think it was less reviews than the fact Disney is back to a cost-cutting era after having splurged like crazy on streaming content and the price/performance ratio on The Acolyte was abysmal in that it cost an insane amount and didn’t juice their subscriber numbers. They’re also attempting to pay off (or have paid off) the other Hulu owners in an attempt to merge into one service, if regulators let that slide.

I really think it's remarkable that of the four major animated series under Filoni's care, three of them are top-notch fantastic both as entertaining TV and building up the universe. (Resistance absolutely has its moments but felt more like a random obligation for the sequel trilogy.) Much as I appreciate him doing more on the live action side too, I absolutely hope there's more to come from him and the wider animation team; he pretty clearly is the major creative voice post-Lucas.

We've been watching our way through Avatar: The Last Airbender for the first time recently, and he directs a lot of the first season (including the first and last) - it makes a lot of sense as an audition tape - character-based stuff with a background drumbeat of "also, some fascists"

Well, they definitely know what they're aiming for

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f19gfOMZTtg

I am excited for a show that just seems fun and not so delicately placed within the canonical story. I think that’s what the tv shows need to be (that goes for MCU too)

Hey, we're getting a third season of Visions, cool. All Japanese studios this time like the first season.

https://www.starwars.com/news/star-wars-visions-season-3-announce

Skeleton Crew starts a day early next Monday, plus director list:

https://gizmodo.com/app/uploads/2024/11/star-wars-skeleton-crew-director-list-717x896.jpg

Okay those first two episodes were good fun. The kid actors have great charisma together and Jude Law is clearly already in his element. The opening riff on a certain other opening sequence may not be for all, but finding a way to make one of the most bonkers things about the original holiday special canon was a fun touch.

I enjoyed it, and mainly because this show seems to know exactly what it is and is not cowering under the shadow of the larger IP. It has that in common with Andor (although their tone/ambitions are quite different of course).

As a counterpoint, however - my 11yo & 14yo boys both found the first episode kinda cringey and they are on the fence about continuing.

I actually get this given their ages, because whenever people talk about 'golden age of Amblin' 80s stuff, let's say ET and after, with me being born in 1971, nearly all of that seemed VERY cringe to me, and I didn't watch a whole lot of it, nor have been tempted to revisit. I think you either have to be in the single digits or an actual adult to really like a lot of it.

yeah i was getting mostly Goonies vibes which felt pretty heavy handed (one-eyed droid head-turn, elephant boy “wait hold up guys” stuck dangling in the hatch the whole time)

i hope once it has gotten all the DO YOU SEEs out of its system it’ll loosen up a bit more

i havent watched ep 2 yet, am more inclined to keep going given Jude Law’s involvement but we shall see…

anyone still watching SK? I just trudged thru ep 4 and wondering if I should persist

Happily watching every episode -- 5 and 6 are a great pairing, honestly.

My 11yo has stuck with this show and looks forward to it every week. My 14yo is ambivalent - he kinda pops in to see how it’s going but doesn’t stick around to watch the whole episode. (Both consider themselves encyclopedic SW fans).

I am enjoying it - my sentiments above still hold. Although I don’t think this will stick with me much once it’s over.

i’m really enjoying now that i’m more invested in the Treasure Island of it all than the Star Wars imo

and i could never quit on sweet lil baby Neil