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Angry Fans React to The Acolyte Being Canceled

Television

| Aug 20, 2024 |

Yesterday, Disney canceled The Acolyte, the latest Disney+ Star Wars series that seemed to turn off fans of the legendary sci-fi saga instantly. There’s not much I can say about the show itself because, as Virginia volunteered to review it, I didn’t watch it. But even an outside observer can see that the writing was on the wall before The Acolyte started airing, with the people behind the show – specifically showrunner Leslye Headland and star Amandla Stenberg – going out of their way to turn people off. When what turned out to be The Acolyte’s only season ended, and Headland repeatedly admitted that she wasn’t sure what actually happened on the show, I was confident I made the right decision to stay away. (The many hilarious YouTube videos from some of my faves helped, too.) But the show appears to have had its fans, as I suppose anything does, with the possible exception of Borderlands, and they’re making their displeasure known on social media. IGN has a collection of X posts that are mostly normal – just disappointed viewers expressing their regret at losing a show they liked. Here are a few:

And that’s perfectly fine. We like what we like, and as someone who gleefully watches Ernest Scared Stupid and National Lampoon’s Senior Trip, I’m not here to judge. But an awful lot of the disappointment is taking the form of outrage and casting blame at the people who didn’t like it, attacking the usual suspects – toxic fans, incels, racists, sexists, Morlocks – as they swing via keyboard taps at anyone who disliked their now-canceled program:

Nutty, but not as bad as some of the other comments, which devolved into wishing and even threatening death on people who didn’t like or watch The Acolyte. Master of the TDS has a collection of them:

Notice how when a Lucasfilm employee claims death threats, they never show evidence of them, yet when it comes from the other direction, there are always examples? Actually, Master of the TDS has the perfect case-in-point of this phenomenon in action:

At any rate, the death threats can be written off as the impotent ravings of phony tough guys larping on the internet. The attempts at actual arguments, such as they are, can be refuted by observation and common sense. For example, how is it the fault of a contingent of fans saying they don’t like or aren’t watching a show if that show is wildly popular? No studio in their right mind would cancel a series under those conditions. That’s the flaw of the “review-bombing” accusation: the ratings don’t back it up. That Park Place has an article detailing how not only did The Acolyte steadily lose viewers every week but that it did considerably worse in the ratings than other low-rated Star Wars series like Andor and Ahsoka. And it did poorly because most Star Wars fans either didn’t like it or weren’t interested, and the audience it was courting didn’t show up. Take this person, for example:

Exactly; you were kinda sorta maybe going to watch it one day, perhaps. That’s not the same as actually watching it, and enough people with that attitude leads to a show being canceled. (That’s assuming this person was even going to watch it.) And look at the language: the poster admits they are not a Star Wars fan. If you have a show in a franchise designed to appeal to people outside the fan base, you’re starting with two strikes against you. Hoping for your desired audience will replace your actual audience doesn’t work, as many franchises are discovering right now, Star Wars and Marvel being the prime examples.

That leads to the next point, that Disney and Lucasfilm are catering to the “toxic” Star Wars fans, by which they seem to mean people who think “No… I am your father” is more iconic than “The power of many.” That’s ludicrous; Disney has been doing everything it can to alienate actual Star Wars fans. They’ve denigrated the old heroes, changed the lore, introduced unlikable new characters, proudly admitted that they’re more interested in cultivating new fans than pleasing old ones, and hurled every insult in the book at people who liked Star Wars the way it was. That their malcontent outreach program has failed so spectacularly is proof of this strategy’s folly. Their loyal customers were ignored, and when they left, nobody took their place.

The “never got a chance” nonsense is stupid, too, especially for someone who remembers the way network TV used to operate. There was a time, particularly in the early 2000s, when a network would pull a show after two episodes if it wasn’t doing well, desperately chasing an instant win. Many pointed out that this mentality would have doomed shows like Seinfeld, which built its audience slowly. The Acolyte got a full season, and its ratings were abysmal; that’s a fair shot. Going with this example, Seinfeld also didn’t cost anywhere near as much to produce as The Acolyte, which had an astronomical $180 million budget. Add to that a struggling streaming service that still hasn’t become solvent, and you’ve got every incentive to drop The Acolyte like a hot potato. After a series of misfires and the decline of their big hit, The Mandalorian, something had to give, and The Acolyte was the first to go; I’ll be surprised if it’s the last.

Let us know what you think of The Acolyte being canceled and the intense reaction from its fans in the comments!

Comments (6)

KratosDominos
August 20, 2024 at 9:24 pm

This is a stolen comment, but XD

The good review of one! ONE!
The good review of two! TWO!
The bad reviews of MAAAAAAAANNNYYYYYYYY!!!

comicsgate
August 21, 2024 at 3:01 am

Robert Meyer Burnett had an amazing rant about the corporatization of everything. He said they have this attitude of “we own it and can do whatever we want,” as they butcher various IPs that they bought.

It was a very good rant because it shows a huge problem with their preachy attitude and sass. Whenever Disney cranks out a sloppy dud, it’s bad across all genres of fantasy.

Here’s another example. Borderlands. The reason it’s bad to put out flops is that there are many other IPs that fans would like to see made, so when these uppity, greedy people do a half-assed horrible job on a project, it ruins future prospects for other adaptations. This is why professionalism and dedication matters so much. It’s always why you never give anything you care about to DEI, ESG people or the geriatric brigade or any other woke group with a pity party or an axe to grind. You want the dedicated professionals instead. That is, if it matters.

So, if you ever think about other IPs you’d want to see made, things like The Acolyte, Borderlands and the M-She-U is actually harming all of it and that’s something the fans should really think about. The comments of these fans are ignorant because, as Gary said, the market will decide and there’s nothing you can do to stop the market. He said he was skeptical of the recent Spider-man that went on to have a successful run. The Disney tactic of mass-produced crap and slop is harmful to quality and will hinder other things.

Would tell those fans not only to STFU, but inform them that this is exactly why you don’t want woketards and their identity politics getting involved in any IP if you care about these genres at all. Woketards are selfish and make it about themselves instead of the TLC that it takes to make these IPs go int he first place. What I’m trying to ultimately say, is these things should be steered by cultural preservationists over corporatists. That corporatization rant showed a glimpse of the future, what it will be like as commies takeover Patents or companies. There is a vast cultural difference between them and the actual people who created these things. In other words, these creations are NOT for them and NOT for everybody and they never were.

    Alex Gherzo
    August 21, 2024 at 11:03 pm

    I’ll have to watch that. I should subscribe to Robert Meyer Burnett, because I like him a lot.

    It’s true, they feel no duty to preserve the properties they buy or inherit; they just milk them for all they can because they see them as cash machines. The irony is that they’d make a lot more money if they treated them with care, but they’re too short-sighted for that.

comicsgate
August 21, 2024 at 7:45 am

Amandla can’t act. There are some great black actors out there. I think some of the best ones do those reaction vidoes to music bands. The black reactors are able to pretend to like other music and other people. Stenberg could not even do that. Amandla Stenberg could not even pretend to like the traditional fan base. This attitude extends beyond her to the others involved, like JJ, Headland and others. What they put out came back to them and what they put out was disrespect.

    Alex Gherzo
    August 21, 2024 at 11:05 pm

    She looked spaced out in that interview she did with Leslye Headland. I don’t think I’ve seen her in anything (including The Acolyte, thankfully), but she strikes me as not overly compelling.

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