Star Wars: The Acolyte has been canceled after one season

[midian182]

What just happened? In what must be the least surprising news of the year so far, Disney+ has canceled its latest Star Wars series, The Acolyte, after just one season. The show's critic score on Rotten Tomatoes is a respectable 78%, but viewers tended to hate the series, hence its average audience score of 18%. Viewing figures have fallen since its debut, resulting in what is believed to be the least-viewed Star Wars finale ever.

Disney+ has had plenty of hits and misses when it comes to original Star Wars content, from the zenith of Andor, which is not only arguably one of the best shows set in the universe, but also one of the greatest television series ever, to the likes of The Book of Boba Fett. Even that derided show had a much higher audience score (49%) than The Acolyte, though its critics rating was lower (66%).

The Acolyte looked as if it could emulate the success of The Mandalorian when its debut episodes drew almost 5 million people on the first day, making it Disney+'s biggest launch of the year. Five days later, the show had attracted a total of 11.1 million viewers globally, and it reached number 6 on Nielsen's Top 10 originals chart a week after its launch.

The Acolyte dropped out of the Top 10 in its third week, only returning during the finale, which managed to reach tenth spot with a disappointing 335M minutes watched, writes Deadline. Given that the show cost $180 million for its eight episodes, or $22.5 million per episode, Disney was only going to renew The Acolyte if its viewing figures justified the cost, which they didn't.

There have been plenty of complaints about The Acolyte, and not just those aimed at the quality of the acting, characters, and story: there have been accusations that it breaks Star Wars canon.

As someone who enjoyed even the less well-received Star Wars series on Disney+, I was happy to see what The Acolyte had to offer. But watching each episode increasingly felt like a chore, and I eventually gave up after episode 4. Disney still has a large number of Star Wars projects in development. Hopefully, it will have learned from The Acolyte's mistakes.

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Star Wars: The Acolyte has been canceled after one season

 

[EdmondRC]

Actually, the 5M day one views included Episode 1 and 2, meaning that actual bodies watching were much lower than that. If you watched both episodes you counted as 2 views. The viewership from day 1 was pretty abysmal and it only got worse with each episode of that trash released. It's also important to note that it was Disney's biggest premiere series in a year that saw hardly any significant D+ releases prior to that. Disney really, really tried to make it sound like things were going well for this dumpster fire of a series, but it was all smoke. Someone laundered 200M in production cost with this steaming pile of excrement.

 

[RudyBob]

No one wants anything shoved in their face whether it be religion or gayness. Take a story that so many adore and twist it far to see if it can be twisted even more.

 

[wiyosaya]

I have not seen it, however, I think it reasonable to guess that the milk cow named FAD is running dry when continually milked in the name of profit.

This means is an industry standard. Keep milking the successful FAD even though long ago, the milk turned sour.

 

[Ohnooze]

Haahahahah!!!!

You mean to tell me that a SW series that makes Jedi bad guys and lesbian space witches the good guys got canceled because no one wanted to watch it? Shocking......

This is what happens when you hire far left people who put their stupid ideology in front of story and quality.

I'll just sit here and watch Disney crash and burn...

 

[VitalyT]

First Star Wars tv-series for me that I never got pass the trailer, it looked rubbish right off the bat.

I wonder what George Lucas thinks about all this now, after selling Star Wars to Disney, which has been defecating on it vigorously.

 

[Ohnooze]

First Star Wars tv-series for me that I never got pass the trailer, it looked rubbish right off the bat.

I wonder what George Lucas thinks about all this now, after selling Star Wars to Disney, which has been defecating on it vigorously.

Who knows...
When Disney first bought the IP I was kind of excited. I mean nothing was really being done with it and I thought with Disney's money they could do it justice. But holy crap they have done everything they could to trash it. It's just so odd.

 

[Dr Roboto]

It had nothing to do with being "woke" that made the series bad. What made the series bad was that fact that the story sucked and the acting not much better. The plot just didn't make sense. The whole premise that the Jedi were "bad" and that the incident was completely their fault was just stupid. Don't get me started on the whole twin thing and then they switch roles at the end so that good is bad and the bad is good. Just rubbish. There are about 100 other reasons that show got canceled. I don't support these woke-warriors and their trolling. However, Disney would do best to go back to its roots and focus on a good story, with cool CGI, and a solid story everyone can enjoy.

 

[Kotters]

Mid.

 

[Hexic]

Eventually Disney will learn via shrinking profits that pandering isn't how you make money.

And the story sucked too.

 

[hazphan]

It was SO bad...

Plot hole after plot hole. No character building. No one cares if anyone dies. Absurd use of $180 mil.

Oh and that song?!? "the power of one, two, the power of many" seriously wtf. Disney writes songs ALL THE TIME, and that's the best they can do with $180 Million?

If anyone wants to watch more about the background and making of the Acolyte, please reference the South Park episode: "Joining the Panderverse".

 

[OortCloud]

It continues to stagger me how awful 99% of the screenwriters in the US are. The shows are so shallow, the characters so one dimensional and the plotlines so paper-thin. It seems the more money they throw at shows now the worse they become. Would it be possible to employ real authors to make these shows - put them in charge and make sure the screenwriters and all the other hangers-on STFU?

 

[Ohnooze]

It had nothing to do with being "woke" that made the series bad. What made the series bad was that fact that the story sucked and the acting not much better. The plot just didn't make sense. The whole premise that the Jedi were "bad" and that the incident was completely their fault was just stupid. Don't get me started on the whole twin thing and then they switch roles at the end so that good is bad and the bad is good. Just rubbish. There are about 100 other reasons that show got canceled. I don't support these woke-warriors and their trolling. However, Disney would do best to go back to its roots and focus on a good story, with cool CGI, and a solid story everyone can enjoy.

I disagree. Again they put an extremist (leslye headland) in charge of the show who cared more about adding her nutty views than she did the SW universe. If the show was graded on being left wing propaganda it would have knocked it out of the park. Unfortunately they put more thought into how woke they could make it than anything else like the writing and whatnot.

 

[passingposeidon]

The story was rubbish, ultimately thats all that matters. I didn't even notice anything woke about the show, I was just bored to tears.

 

[godrilla]

A foreshadowing of Star Wars Outlaws game. Ubisoft shares the same culture preferences. These companies are not too big to fail imo!

 

[USAvenger]

I wonder how much money Disney has to lose to show Kathleen Kennedy the door...

 

[Kraemepoo]

If only they could come up with a story that everyone liked.
Maybe one that featured a bounty hunter doing bounty hunter stuff. Could give him a cute side kick to help balance the fighting. Surround him with some tough villains and side characters that fit the universe. I'm thinking they'd even have success by writing in in lore from books and video games rather than attack fans by changing lore.
Seems far fetched I know, but maybe they should try it.

 

[EdmondRC]

It had nothing to do with being "woke" that made the series bad. What made the series bad was that fact that the story sucked and the acting not much better. The plot just didn't make sense. The whole premise that the Jedi were "bad" and that the incident was completely their fault was just stupid. Don't get me started on the whole twin thing and then they switch roles at the end so that good is bad and the bad is good. Just rubbish. There are about 100 other reasons that show got canceled. I don't support these woke-warriors and their trolling. However, Disney would do best to go back to its roots and focus on a good story, with cool CGI, and a solid story everyone can enjoy.

This is fundamentally misunderstanding the issue because the show runners were all woke agenda pushing twerps and not actual Star Wars fans. Leslie Headland shouldn't have been given anything like this, but she got the role because she's a lesbian and maybe a little because she was Harvey W's personal assistant and probably knows enough dirt to get her way. She was instrumental in the firing of Gina Carano too. Claiming "It's not because it's woke" when this thing is absolutely oozing in woke ideology and left-wing political agendas, but that instead it's just bad storytelling, doesn't come to grips with the cause-and-effect principle at play here. The story is bad, because it's woke. Just like everything else woke. Good story telling and wokeness are water and oil. Woke is an ideology that pushes diversity above merit. Handing the show over to a woman without a shred of Star Wars knowledge, who gives a leading role to her "wife/girlfriend" (nepotism) and proceeds to make it the 'gayest' Star Wars ever, is kind of the ultimate example of what wokeness does.

 

[EdmondRC]

I wonder how much money Disney has to lose to show Kathleen Kennedy the door...

She's like 70 years old. I don't understand people like Kathleen, why not retire and call it a life? She's uber wealthy. Instead, she wants to use her dying breath to destroy traditional male IPs by putting a chick in them and making them (you know) and lame.

 

[Ohnooze]

She's like 70 years old. I don't understand people like Kathleen, why not retire and call it a life? She's uber wealthy. Instead, she wants to use her dying breath to destroy traditional male IPs by putting a chick in them and making them (you know) and lame.

Because it's become a religion to people like her.

 

[EdmondRC]

A foreshadowing of Star Wars Outlaws game. Ubisoft shares the same culture preferences. These companies are not too bid to fail imo!

It would be hard to see Ubi recovering from both Star Wars Outlaws and Assassin's Creed Shadow being flops. I don't know if that will happen, but it definitely looks like it's a real possibility.

 

[axiomatic13]

The quality of the discourse in here is rather low today?

 

[GABulldog]

I watched Star Wars IV when the movie first came out back in 1977. I can't even remember how many times I've seen reruns of episodes IV, V, and VI. Comparing the Star Wars franchise of today compared to back then. the Star today is trash. I had this funny feeling that once George Lucas sold LucasFilms to Disney that LucasFilms and the Star Wars franchise were headed to the gutter.That Disney was not going to follow George Lucas's vision of the franchise he created. Disney has gone so woke that they can't look past their short sightedness.

 

[Tantor]

Here's what's really going on.

Disney's behavior is EXACTLY like a hyena dragging its anal pouch over the bushes of nearby enemy hyena clans. It's called scent marking territory to establish territorial dominance.

In case you haven't noticed, Wokeness has one primal directive: Smear excrement all over somebody else's sacred space. Preferably male European sacred space.

Star Wars is a Male European epic. It was created by, for, and about heterosexual male Europeans. It draws on European archetypes, European history, European mythology. It is not about women. It's not about non-Europeans. It is not about LGBTQ. It quite literally BELONGS to Male Europeans.

Disney's deeper message is "We can utterly remove YOU from your own spiritual center. You cannot stop us."

Disney is just one of many Woke agencies. Their job is to transform Western society. To do so they need to establish dominance over traditional Western spiritual and moral territory.

 

[DanteSmith]

It should never have existed in the first place. Leave SW alone, Disney.