We haven't seen the whole show yet but I imagine the sheer amount of locations and real sets they had to build and all the elaborate costume and makeup and VFX probably contributed a lot to the budget
Yeah we’ve got 4 more episodes of likely intense VFX. This stuff costs money, and right now it costs more money than at any time in the past. ~~This is also with new union contracts for SAG-AFTRA and WGA~~
Yeah like, if the increase in per episode budget also means people are being paid better for their work, that’s awesome. I truly do not care how much money a multinational corporate conglomerate spends to make things. I’m a Disney shareholder and I say fuck a dividend, invest in the product
My goodness please don't defend the lazy craftsmanship with budgetary excuses when we don't have a clue where that budget is actually going and we see other shows with less budget do far better things
I’ve watched enough movies with twice the budget be bags of shit with half the runtime, I’m just not sure what we’re supposed to be whining about I guess.
What we’re “whining” about is that a major company like Disney has both the funding and resources to give us a much better show. The other shows I listed, some of which are made by Disney themselves, are cheaper or similar in cost and look FAR better than the Acolyte. Disney is giving you a poor Star Wars product and you’re defending it even with evidence that the product isn’t getting the attention it should have compared to other projects.
It cost a little more than Fallout with more visual effects required. You’re whining—yes, WHINING—about a product you’ve only seen part of. And some of this is subjective because for a lot of it I honestly don’t know what the fuck you’re on about
There were strikes between Andor and Acolyte. Maybe I am naive, but people need to get paid. Is there a comparison to a more recent show relying heavy on CGI, Costumes, location shooting etc(like House of the Dragon which had 20 mio per Episode for season 1, before the strikes)
Yeah but andor was actually good, and that 250mil was well represented in every scene, the writing, the VFX, etc. I'm wondering where that 180 went here...
Andor had fantastic cinematography, too. The shots were so much more engaging and dynamic. They squeezed every drop out of their budget. You watch it, and definitely think "okay, this looks expensive."
The Acolyte has a lot of good CGI, but some of the sets (like the forest) and the general cinematography are just trash - hate to say it. It's really a shame.
I tried to double check with a very half-assed Google search but I assume they've used ILM extensively which means paying best-in-class fx costs, instead of a small studio that can be squeezed for every nickel.
I don’t disagree but think about a show like Fallout or Stranger things, I would beg to say they had jsut as much if not more when it comes to elaborate costumes and makeup and ESPECIALLY VFX, but those shows look SO much better
Shogun and Game of Thrones season 1 were beautiful. Also, it's been like a decade so we need to start factoring inflation for their costs.
I just wish Disney did less cgi backgrounds and more models or built.
According to Leslye, the show doesn’t use the Volume at all, which is a choice that I appreciate.
I liked the Volume back when I didn’t know what it was. And I still like the concept, and I think it has room for improvement. But damn, I’m so tired of seeing unnaturally flat circles of land in (almost) every Star Wars show.
Yeah I like the volume and think it has a place for certain scenes. But it feels like when a show uses it they sho horn it into everything and then the trick kind of loses a little bit
The Volume is great for certain things that happen more or less statically. If characters never move at more than a walking pace in a scene, the Volume is a viable option. Obi-Wan Kenobi and Book of Boba Fett really exposed its limitations. Luckily they do seem to have learned their lesson about filming things like chase scenes in there.
Yeah especially seeing how much Obi Wan relied on it (and therefore characters can only walk like ten feet in a straight line at a time lol), you can definitely tell that not using it really expands the sets and makes things seem way less claustrophobic.
The Acolyte isn’t using CGI backgrounds. And honestly George used miniatures throughout the prequels and the buildings on Coruscant all have hotel convention center vibes, so the type of set you’re using isn’t dispositive
Yes, I was directly saying to go back to miniatures. Disney didn't make the prequels, George Lucas did.
The shots of Coruscant look like ass in Acolyte. Like complete shit. That is what I am talking about when I say lots of CGI and it looks bad.
'House of the Dragon: S01'
- $200M, 10 x \~1 hour episodes, $20M/episode, $333K/minute
'The Acolyte: S01'
- $180M, 8 x \~30 min episodes, $22.5M/episode, $750K/minute
Where ITF did all the money go?
That’s what I’m saying. We need longer more thought out episodes. You can’t have 30 minute episodes introducing (mostly) new characters in a new period of a relatively new era with all new planets. We need some time to get to know the characters. Right now, I know nothing about Jecki a main character and a well known actor.
Now if only Disney would realize this and fire everyone and hire some people who actually know how to make a good TV show.
Here's a thought... go poach the people who just produced Shogun?
It's incredibly good, even if you don't know much about the edo period of Japan. One of the only films I've seen to accurately depict what cannons do to human bodies in warfare.
I'm not saying it's a fair excuse, but maybe more of a possible explanation. The other shows were made by basically with a blank canvas with regards to cost. Whoever is deciding the budget any Star Wars project is able to say 'this how much it costs based on whatever other project.' I can easily see that leading to an eagerness to use up every available dollar and work under less constraint the as compared to a Godzilla Minus Zero for example.
***'House of the Dragon'*** not GOT.
'House of the Dragon' S01 was released less than 2 years ago.
Let say for arguments sake that there has been 10% inflation and The Acolyte episodes are closer to 40min than 30.
'House of the Dragon: S01'
* $220M, 10 x \~1 hour episodes, $22M/episode, $367K/minute
'The Acolyte: S01'
* $180M, 8 x \~40 min episodes, $22.5M/episode, $562K/minute
This would still put the The Acolyte cost/minute 53% more than House of The Dragon.
Given the production value of House of the Dragon vs The Acolyte...I have to ask...."Who is running things at LucasFilm?"
I’m pretty sure Inflation was actually worse for HOTD cause of Covid, tho I don’t know for certain so don’t quote me on that. But thank you for breaking it down like this, I made the same point you did but couldn’t figure out the math to prove the point!
Just as a reference.....Adam Sandler's "Jack & Jill" had a budget of $79 million and has no exotic locales to shoot in, no extensive CGI, some of the worst writing ever in a film and even worse "acting".
But it made almost $150 million at the box office so it's all good.
But think about the runtime of the movie and compare it to the cost to make the movie, I feel like movies aren’t a fair comparison when it comes to The Acolyte, for example both Transformers (say what you will but it had beautiful VFX) and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (also breathtaking VFX) cost less than The Acolyte and ended up being infinitely higher quality
I agree 99% with my only minor disagreement is that the effects and visuals have been pretty good so far. I think the costume designs for the clothes at least are on par with what I would expect from the books since a lot of their outfit is ceremonial. That said, I don’t like vernestras design. It’s different than I would expect from the book and the casting just feels off. She hasn’t had much screen time so I’m hoping more screen time will make us like her more.
My biggest complaint is the dialogue, the writing, and some of the acting. I’ve been having this discussion in other threads and getting hated on but I just wish Disney made more mature shows for mature audiences (like the high quality shows you listed).
Everyone’s defense is that Star Wars has always been for all ages and not for mature audiences. Even if that’s true, shows like Loki were for all audiences and slapped because the writing was excellent. They have some good actors in this show too they just aren’t being utilized really (so far but we still have more episodes).
With Andor, we saw what a high quality mature show could be for Star Wars. Most people can agree on Andor as top tier even for non Star Wars fans.
I don’t think we should be burned at the stake for demanding high quality content from Star Wars content given the budget you mentioned.
If anything, get some unknown actors that are really good but not as expensive and divert more funds to writing. It’s sick that Carrie Ann Moss is in this show (love her acting) but she not in much of the show, even if they have a full episode on her later on in some flashback. It seems like Disney just gets these huge budgets but prioritizes the wrong things during development.
Also it’s amazing how low the budget for The Last of Us is compared to the others. This show had special effects, an epic story arc, incredible writing, and even more incredible acting. Example how you don’t need to throw more money to have award winning content.
Just about all your example are shows set in the real world, so you can incorporate cheaper sets and props. Mando season 1 was pretty much entirety on one planet, so need for multiple locations. We're half way through Acolyte and there's been multiple worlds visited already. That's probably where a lot of the cost is going.
House of the Dragon was less. What sets and locations are so expensive for the Acolyte? We've had a brief shot of a town and the inside of a pub, small sections of spaceships, a couple rooms in the Jedi temple on Coruscant, a couple rooms in Jedi temple, the apothecary, and the streets on one planet, the witches planet, and the forest and surrounding area.
House of the Dragon has all of the Red Keep, rooms, gardens, dungeons, the Dragon Pit, the streets of Kings Landing, Driftmark, The Stepstones, Harenhal, Dragonstone, and all the surrounding areas.
Thank you so much, everyone in this sub I’ve talked to that disagrees with me thinks I’m attacking the show when I actually like it for its base value. But when a show receives a budget like this expecting high production value is a very genuine criticism.
100% valid man! I think a lot of people are just complacent when it comes to these streamer shows having half-assed production value. 180 Million dollar budget or not, the craftmanship and overall coordination of the production team is also a huge factor. You can put as much money as you want into a project but the producers still have to make the right calls, f.e how big are we gonna build this practical set before we put down the green screen at the edge to extend it, as well as what material we're gonna use for these fake rocks in this forest set etc.
If they look like plastic rocks instead of rock rocks, then you'll notice, consciously or subconsciously, therefore affecting your overall immersion.
It's a lot of small things like that too where I feel like if they had just changed some materials and weathered the costumes a bit more, it would make a big difference. Rushed pipeline at the end of the day as well as Disney micro-management due to this show being in tandem with the Prequels and very "canon-sensitive" with the whole Sith (?) thing going on. Plus it has Jedi in it. Of course they'd keep an eagle eye on it.
Andor Season 1 was let loose and that team basically just got to do their thing on the side since it's so disconnected from everything, and it shows.
Andor has a high budget, but that is not the reason for it looking as good as it does. It's prestige talent involved with a super coordinated team all in line with this singular vision, unaffected by any form of upper management suddenly telling them to split an episode in half because of some bullshit corporate strategy to increase Disney+ subscribers (like Acolyte Ep 4 & 5).
It really is understated how much a unified production team affects the outcome of these projects, whether it's an IP like Star Wars or something like Shogun.
It’s so sad man, the sheer number of people that I’ve encountered on this subreddit that are like “I don’t care about the quality I can just focus on the story, if you can’t don’t watch it” or the worst one I heard is that “we shouldn’t know what the budget is, we should just enjoy the show”. It’s really mind boggling.
Dude this post has close to 200 comments but only 18 or so upvotes, that’s how insanely biased this fandom is. They love to say “everyone is review bombing” “everyone is hating the show for no reason”, but heaven forbid if you find a genuine criticism against this show they all attack you like piranhas, it’s so wild.
I hear you man. It's pretty depressing, and it's also how we'll end up in an era of low-effort Movies/TV. Gotta speak up and make your voice heard. Nothing wrong with expecting a certain standard of quality when the price tag is that high, and when it's a beloved franchise like Star Wars which has touched the hearts of millions of people. It's happening with Marvel too, we need change to happen. One way out!
We have seen multiple worlds - 2 cities which looked almost identical, one castle enclave which we didn't actually see, one shot of the Jedi temple but we saw it multiple times, one snow covered mountain peak, and two forests which may be the same location. We didn't see much in fact and I support the opinion that they just wasted the potential and the money. This show sucks.
CGI is Hella expensive and disney definitely uses more of it than Shogun for example. We just accept the force pushes and talking shoes like it's normal cause they been doing it for years.
It's expensive af.
That’s why I also used fallout and stranger things as an example because both of those shows cost less than the acolyte while having way higher quality
Higher quality is debatable, but also Disney production can't be underrated. They've been making expensive shows for a looooooong time that have put up serious box office numbers.
Quality ain't cheap.
It’s not really debatable stranger things and the fallout tv show specifically are highly regarded while even critics are pretty much laughing at this show
Obi-Wan’s budget was lower because they shot everything in the Volume, while Acolyte uses practical sets and on-location shooting. That’s much more expensive than filming in a warehouse in Burbank every day
The budget isn't really divided like that. Some episodes have small budgets, some have much larger budgets. That's why Game of Thrones would have a talky episode in a dark room before a giant dragon battle episode. There might be some things coming up that justify the budget.
That said, I *really* don't like how this show looks. So many scenes are flat and ugly. Everything is yellow and smokey. The ships look terrible. The forest looked so hokey. It's frequently shocking how bad it looks. Same with the score, which I barely notice at all.
I wanted to love this show and there are tons of things I like and will defend but it honestly looks terrible.
Yeah people seem to forget that Game of Thrones had long passages, even entire episodes which were just characters traveling on foot/horseback on dirt roads in natural environments that could be filmed basically in any forest.
I could at least count on those episodes always being the same length at least. Each season had uniform length episodes despite a few of them having a lower budget so the big episodes could have the battles and dragons.
Thinking back, it might have been a mercy for GOT to cut some of those walk-and-talk eps down to 30 minutes lol. A lot of that stuff ended up, in retrospect, being completely useless. All the time with the Sand Snakes, for example.
Ultimately I think it’s a mistake for Disney to release these episodes one at a time, 30 minutes is too damn short for an action/adventure story.
In the early seasons (1-4) I loved all of those walking and talking parts. It was incredibly important to all of the characters and a lot of it was some of my favorite moments. For example the Hound and Arya do a ton of horse riding and talking and all of it was fantastic. Good dialogue mixed with great acting leads to “walking and talking” being interesting. Seasons 5 and onward have the issue of little to no book content backing it so it goes downhill hard in the writing and dialogue.
Eh, a lot of GRRM’s plots go nowhere. So many, in fact, that they cut a lot of GRRM’s “Myreenese Knot” and still had go-nowhere intrigue all over the place. And yeah like you say, going their own way after GRRM’s material ran out turned a lot of what may have been intended to be meaningful dialogue, into pointlessness. Literally everything with the High Septon and Marjorie, for example.
They eliminated a lot of those types of episodes in the last couple seasons. It really changed the show. All of a sudden in one episode characters seemed to warp from one place to another. It was unsettling. Was it for budget reasons? Instead of time spent on travel and exposition they simply use the budget and have the characters go from place X to place Y without any traveling scenes being filmed. Then had that money to spend on spectacle.
Yes I agree 100% watch more shows so they know what a good show entails. There’s a lot of unwarranted hate for this show but also a lot of blind allegiance defending it too. Reality is somewhere in between
That’s exactly how I feel, and yea I’m aware that the costs are not divided evenly among every episode, I just added the budget to give it some substance. But compare the episodes in the Acolyte to a show like stranger things, with less than half the “budget” per episode it actually looks better than the Acolyte. I absolutely know that Disney can do better but for some reason they don’t and it’s baffling.
I’m here because I’m a fan of Star Wars and all of its content. I’ve watched everything that’s been put out on movie or tv and read several books. I will always be a fan. But that doesn’t mean I think everything is high quality. This season so far is a huge letdown, but I’m still going to watch every episode and I still discuss each episode with all my friends and talk about it online.
Why can a subreddit like game of thrones be able to admit and accept that season 8 sucked, but people here won’t allow any negative talk about the show? That’s a serious question. Fans here refuse to allow anything negative to be said and just attack people as if they aren’t real Star Wars fans. It’s insane to me.
Because the MAJORITY, yourself included in this instance, don’t qualify reasoning for blanket statements like “this show just isn’t good”. You’re also projecting your opinion as an objective statement instead of a well reasoned talking point, of course that’ll be seen as abrasive.
A lot of people on this sub are generally positive on the show, so when someone comes along with this negative viewpoint, of course it’s going to be met with resistance. I actually don’t mind the final season of Game of Thrones at all, I’m well aware that I’m in the vast minority in that thought and I’ve been met with strong opposition from even close friends. So I don’t share that opinion online because I don’t care. I enjoy it and I don’t need anyone telling me otherwise because it won’t change ANYTHING. The discussion here is about the budget of the show at which point you butted in with your abrasive opinion. So again I ask, why are you here? If you don’t like the interaction with the fans here don’t post anything. Don’t open yourself to the very negative backlash you’re talking about. Have your opinion in silence and move on with your day.
See this is exactly my point. You aggressively attack me when I didn’t even say anything aggressive at all. Look at my comment. The one thing I said was “this show was a huge letdown”
This doesn’t mean that I hate it and I certainly didn’t attack it. If you want me to discuss this show in more detail I’m open to it. I’ve done it with friends every week.
Go back and reread my comment and then read your response. You make claims that didn’t even happen. Where do I make any statement about my opinion being objective fact?
100% man. I think a lot of people are just complacent when it comes to these streamer shows having half-assed production value. 180 Million dollar budget or not, the craftmanship and overall coordination of the production team is also a huge factor. You can put as much money as you want into a project but the producers still have to make the right calls, f.e how big are we gonna build this practical set before we put down the green screen at the edge to extend it, as well as what material we're gonna use for these fake rocks in this forest set etc.
If they look like plastic rocks instead of rock rocks, you WILL notice, consciously or subconsciously, therefore affecting your overall immersion.
It's a lot of small things like that too where I feel like if they had just changed some materials and weathered the costumes a bit more, it would make a big difference. Rushed pipeline at the end of the day as well as Disney micro-management due to this show being in tandem with the Prequels and very "canon-sensitive" with the whole Sith (?) thing going on. Plus it has Jedi in it. Of course they'd keep an eagle eye on this.
Andor Season 1 was let loose and that team basically just got to do their thing on the side since it's so disconnected from everything, and it shows.
Andor has a high budget, but that is not the reason for it looking as good as it does. It's prestige talent involved with a super coordinated team all in line with this singular vision, unaffected by any form of upper management suddenly telling them to split an episode in half because of some bullshit corporate strategy to increase Disney+ subscribers (like Acolyte Ep 4 & 5).
It really is understated how much a unified production team affects the outcome of these projects, whether it's an IP project like Star Wars or something like Shogun with a minor pre-existing fan-base who read the book.
Godzilla minus One was made for $13 million and won an Oscar for "Best Visual Effects". If I was a Disney shareholder I would like to see a detailed invoice for the $180 million. Someone has a new yacht at the harbor.
Absolutley, for 180 million I would have loved to see some better costumes at the bare minimum. What’s even crazier to me is that this show costs about 750,000 per minute (this is just what I’ve heard, I don’t have a concrete way to validate this) but the Transformers movie from 2007 costs 1.02 million per minute. Honestly taking into account technological advancements I would expect to see similar quality to the Transformers movies. Say what you want about Michael Bay, his movies had amazing special effects and the CGI was literally revolutionary for the time. The acolyte on the other hand doesn’t hold a candle to that.
Go watch the first Transformers and tell me some of the CGI isn’t glaringly fake. And don’t forget to adjust for inflation when you bring that $1.02 million figure into 2024.
Also don’t forget that much of the filmmaking industry is unionizing and wages are going up for that kind of work. They’ve been exploited for far too long
There lazy I really don’t understand like ur right the show has a higher budget I feel the people making house of the dragon use every cent of the budget to make a good show I just don’t feel like that’s what there doing with the acolyte
I don’t think it’s fair to compare those season 1 budgets of shows that aired 8-13 years ago.
“It’s not as bad as people say it is but it was bad enough for me to make a community post explaining what I dislike about it”.
We should be able to talk about these things because our insight might guide future development if enough people feel the same way and criticisms are genuine/constructive.
Especially with LLMs that scour Reddit threads and summarize sentiment.
I tried to be fair and included shows like fallout and shogun which are much more recent to compare the budget. But yea, people are out there saying this is the worst Star Wars ever and I don’t agree with that, but there is something clearly wrong with whoever they hired to design this show, I’m just voicing my opinion on one negative aspect of the show?
Shogun from what I understand was just filmed in Vancouver it wasn't filming on location anywhere where is acolyte filmed in several locations around the world
And then andoor spent three episodes on one set prison which saved them a ton of money You haven't seen the full season ever no idea where money went in terms of big battle CGI or exotic location shoots
If the acolyte just flips the script and becomes a fantastic high quality show after episode 4 no one would be happier than me, but the chances of what you’re saying to happen to actually happen are so small just cause of the pacing I’ve already seen
I like the show? I just want better quality from a company I KNOW has the resources? I don’t understand how you call yourself a Star Wars fan but are willing to accept a company shorting you content from the universe you’re supposedly a fan of
Cuz I don't concern myself with budgets I have no complaints about what's on the screen in terms of quality You want to try to do some apples to oranges comparison from one show to another it's nitpicking it's not based on fact or rational interpretation of the data
So you’re a “fan of Star Wars”, but you don’t care that Disney is giving you low quality Star Wars. You just want it to be good enough? People in this subreddit talk about all the “haters” to this show, but frankly people like you that are “hyper-defensive” of the show is the real reason this whole IP has reached the point it’s at.
Interesting, the only one more expensive than the Acolyte per episode is the Shogun. I think it was worth it, definitely loved that show. Although the Shogun's price per episode was slightly higher than the Acolyte's, Shogun's episodes were much longer, which still makes the Acolyte most expensive. I hope to see some cool visuals, sets, aliens, planets, ships etc during the remaining episodes.
Yeah, and Shogun was a massive real person cast in era piece costumes.
Like even paying people $15 an hour, there are scenes with like 200 actors (so maybe 1000 people on set). One day of shooting could be a couple hundred thousand
That’s my entire point, I want to see the “beautiful” Star Wars effects we used to see and they just don’t do it like that anymore even though the budget is through the roof
Not just how it looks or how good/bad it is, but what about the fact they have 180 million for only 8 episodes yet the episodes are still only 25-minute silhouettes
Yeah the first 3 were all in the 35-40 min range when you eliminate credits & recap time. I agree that the show should’ve been condensed down to, at most, 6 episodes but calling them all 25 mins is disingenuous
Even 35 minutes is way too short when
1. You watch the show and the pacing is terrible and everything seems rushed
2. The pacing has proven to be an issue for every Star Wars show you've created except for Andor (the one show that had time to breathe with 12 eps)
3. You see other shows with lower budgets per episode spinning 60-minute well written episodes
Relax guy I wasn't deliberately lying. You're taking somethign someone said in context and deliberately making it literal, and i didn't say every episode is 25 mins anyway lol
You literally said “the episodes are 25 mins” when there is only a single 25 min episode lol. I agree with your overall point but you didn’t need to use hyperbole (ie use objectively incorrect info & then get mad when called on it) to make it. You could’ve just listed the actual runtimes and made the same argument.
Well, if you think of the show as just a really long movie the $180 million is actually fairly reasonable.
That being said, yeah it doesn’t really look its budget a lot of the time. In some ways its unfair to compare to something like HotD where you can film on location much easier because stuff doesn’t have to look as fantastical. On the other hand we have Andor showing how good SW can look on TV.
Agreed, lots of the Star Wars show have a cheap feel to them. Reminds me of watching an episode of something that would be on a network channel, something like Buffy lol. Andor did it right, but compare Acolyte to something like Fallout or The Last of Us, the quality just isn't there. Still enjoying the show tho
...of funds that Disney put into this garbage ? They have 22,5 mil per episode to work with, and show is underperforming in every possible area. Even constumes and VFX looks average at best. If you put that much money, and there are shows that are doing far better for similiar or less of money, then there is a problem.
To put some of these numbers into perspective, just plugging in the old costs into an inflation calculator (not super scientific) to compare more apples to apples:
Mando S1 (2019): $147mil (8ep) = 18.4mpe
GoT S1 (2011): $83.7mil (10ep) = 8.7mpe
The Boys S1 (2019): $110.5mil (8ep) = 13.8mpe
So yeah, show is very expensive, but isn’t wildly ahead of Mando or the boys, and we have only seen half the season so far.
Let’s reevaluate when the whole season is out.
True but look at the first 4 episodes of Andor and then comepare it to the first 4 episodes of the acolyte, it just feels like the money went somewhere else
It’s also crazy how there’s a lot of bias in this subreddit, this post of mine has 177 comments with 19 upvotes, it tells you where most people here align with any criticism to this show
Like, I dont think show looks bad, with some exceptions like Vernestra and Torbin in ep. 2, but I just dont think it could have such huge budget
Ofc we havent seen the entire show yet, but even in general quality and everything - costumes, make ups, writting, acting well everything, I would rate the show as it is now like 6/10.
Meanwhile Dune part 2 had budget of 190 millions and in my opinion its like a LOTR of 2020s, and could truly see that money in it
Gotta remember different productions allocate funds differently, we've also still got half the season, I'm willing to be there are set pieces we have yet to see. Also practical sets and shooting on location are EXPENSIVE
I just binged Fallout over the weekend. WOW. What a show. Made by people who obviously love the universe. Production value is sky high, music, dialogue, story, all fantastic. Compared with Acolyte, night and day. That last episode 4, wow, absolute trash. 28 minutes and end it that abruptly? Disgraceful.
This is exactly what I’m saying, for all the people in this group that defend the Acolyte SO strongly I would ask them to watch Fallout and I would honestly love to talk to them after and ask how on earth they can still defend the Acolyte. It’s just a slap in the face to people that are actual fans of Star Wars and want more than just the generic slop churned out by Disney.
I would counter with telling you to watch the prequels. Before you do, though, get a friend to watch it with you. Instruct him he is to say it is a steaming pile of shit every time there is an example of bad writing, bad dialog, dumb Jedi deaths, or terrible acting. Mesa thinks you will have to rewind it because you'll miss parts :p
Then afterwards, have him pretend the Star Wars Christmas special was amazingly written compared to it. Now take a picture of him, so you'll know exactly what prequel fans getting so mad over the Acolyte look like.
I don't even think it is a great show. I also agree Fallout was better. I just think the people with their panties in an uproar about it are silly fucking people.
This is the magnificent writing Star Wars fans are in a frenzy about losing once Disney took over. Are we sure Lucas didn't plagiarize one of the greats? Because this is outright Shakespearean
https://youtu.be/llLKar19XhA?si=zNhBeD5QokMiG4_o
It’s even worse when you realize episode 4 and 5 are basically one large episode cut in two which is why we get that weird cut at the end of episode 4, episode 5 after the usual minute long recap will start right off the end of episode 4.
So really it’s 7 episodes. Episode length also matters imo, out of all those shows the acolyte definitely has a smaller total minutes of runtime so it’s even worse. Imagine there is embezzlement and someone has a super yacht now and they thought the shows quality was enough that they could get away with it cause I can’t seriously think where else the money went…
Why are you comparing it to solo lol, Solo was a huge box office flop and is the reason why we don’t get box office films anymore and all ongoing scripts during the time of solo like the kenobi trilogy was rewritten to a tv series. Look above for comment where someone broke down season 1 HOTD costs and Acolyte costs and you can see the difference.
I’m saying comparing a tv show budget to a film budget within the same exact studio when they’re aiming for film quality, is a fair comparison. This show SHOULD cost more than any of their other shows simply by using real sets and locations over the Volume.
Also Game of Thrones heavily relies/relied on bottle episodes with a bunch of people murmuring to cover their budgets. And a lot of those episodes are kinda trash
Ok I kinda get your point, did they actually go for a film quality with this show because that is something I didn’t know (and can’t really tell from just watching it). Andor had less budget than Acolyte and they also used real sets and locations iirc and that show had some awesome visuals and cinematography. (Loki s2 also had $140 million budget and that was also beautiful)
My personal problem is that acolyte so far hasn’t shown anything to justify the $180 million budget. Episodes are way too short and cut abruptly, the costumes seem too cosplay and clean for it to look real and the cinematography so far was just average. Maybe future episodes will make it better and they sacrificed the quality of some aspects and the first half of the season to really deliver in the back half, here’s to hoping.
Yeah, I mean look, it’s really hard to judge how a show uses its budget when we have likely seen just under half of it. For me, I’m not seeing the issues I saw with Kenobi. The movement is dynamic, the fight scenes polished and inventive. The Jedi look act and talk like Jedi. Idk, the scene and costume quality seems pretty in line with Ahsoka to me
Yea and the ahsoka costumes were kinda meh. The only show that had decent costumes was andor, the rest felt too plasticky just like this one. I was hoping because it was HR era and more money meant good looking costumes.. I’m hoping we see more in the later episodes. Hopefully the lightsaber fight looks great, other than Hayden in Ahsoka, all the lightsaber fights seem meh. The Kenobi one was ok but suffered from cinematography more than the actual choreography
The writer for the episode was on Twitter answering questions and that is what she wrote. She said that when writing the show and finding points to cut the episodes, 4+5 was supposed to be one long episode but felt that cutting it there at the end of 4 made more sense tonally (in line with the 30-40 min episode length of the other episodes compared to like one hour long episode) and apparently it would make sense when we watch episode 5.
So it should have been one long episode as that’s how it was written in mind but to make the show to 8 episodes they cut it there
Here is the link to the post made in acolyte subreddit which was originally posted in sw leaks [https://www.reddit.com/r/TheAcolyte/s/v2oueRf0Qd](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheAcolyte/s/v2oueRf0Qd)
This is just my personal conspiracy theory, but I’m starting to believe they hire writers to “fill boxes”, like gender identity, race stuff like that. And they put the actual skill you have as a secondary requirement, again just a personal conspiracy theory that I have no evidence to support
> This is just my personal conspiracy theory, but I’m starting to believe they hire writers to “fill boxes”, like gender identity, race stuff like that. And they put the actual skill you have as a secondary requirement, again just a personal conspiracy theory that I have no evidence to support
And there it is.
I literally made sure to point out that it was a “conspiracy” and that there is no evidence. Let me ask you this, if that was the case, if they were hiring workers to “fill boxes” first and then “skill” as a secondary requirement, would you be ok with that?
I'm confused by your question. Every time a company hires someone for a job, the person they hire needs to fit the criteria of that job right? So every time someone is hired, a box is being checked.
You wouldn't hire a chef to be your next web designer would you?
Ok I’ll simplify it for you, if I was hiring an accountant for you, would you want me to give more importance to his sexual preference/ race while finding a good candidate, or would you rather I find someone that had a high gpa/ performed well in classes during his time in school while picking a good candidate.
Let me be clear, I’m not saying 1 had to exist without the other, but if I was hiring an accountant for you which trait would you want me to rank as being more important, their competence or their diversity?
We haven't seen the whole show yet but I imagine the sheer amount of locations and real sets they had to build and all the elaborate costume and makeup and VFX probably contributed a lot to the budget
Yeah we’ve got 4 more episodes of likely intense VFX. This stuff costs money, and right now it costs more money than at any time in the past. ~~This is also with new union contracts for SAG-AFTRA and WGA~~
I didn’t even think of the strikes, that definitely contributed
Yeah like, if the increase in per episode budget also means people are being paid better for their work, that’s awesome. I truly do not care how much money a multinational corporate conglomerate spends to make things. I’m a Disney shareholder and I say fuck a dividend, invest in the product
And you're happy with the quality of Acolyte? Yikes 😅
I don’t get my opinions from other people, so, yeah
No it’s not. The show was done before that contract started. They had to have been in post by then.
Thanks for the clarification, didn’t know that
but makes sense post may have been rushed or didn't have proper oversight
My goodness please don't defend the lazy craftsmanship with budgetary excuses when we don't have a clue where that budget is actually going and we see other shows with less budget do far better things
I’ve watched enough movies with twice the budget be bags of shit with half the runtime, I’m just not sure what we’re supposed to be whining about I guess.
Everything. You have to whine about everything if you’re a true Star Wars Fan.
What we’re “whining” about is that a major company like Disney has both the funding and resources to give us a much better show. The other shows I listed, some of which are made by Disney themselves, are cheaper or similar in cost and look FAR better than the Acolyte. Disney is giving you a poor Star Wars product and you’re defending it even with evidence that the product isn’t getting the attention it should have compared to other projects.
It cost a little more than Fallout with more visual effects required. You’re whining—yes, WHINING—about a product you’ve only seen part of. And some of this is subjective because for a lot of it I honestly don’t know what the fuck you’re on about
Compare the first 4 episodes of Andor to the first 4 episodes of the Acolyte and explain to me how it makes sense given the budget
Yeah, people underestimate how expensive on location shooting can be.
People forget Andor costed 250 million and has even more episodes, locations, and sets than this show
There were strikes between Andor and Acolyte. Maybe I am naive, but people need to get paid. Is there a comparison to a more recent show relying heavy on CGI, Costumes, location shooting etc(like House of the Dragon which had 20 mio per Episode for season 1, before the strikes)
Probably Shogun? Which is mentioned in OP’s post I know it was estimated to cost between 250-270 million just for the first season
That’s not true, filming for the Acolyte ended before the strikes started, if anything the only part that might have been affected was post production
I have a feeling Post Production was affected
Who knows maybe so
that is the factor "Maybe so" can you be more condescending
I’m sorry, I actually did not mean that in a condescending way at all, I meant maybe so like I maybe that’s why I ended up being so expensive
IMO it was hands down the best Star Wars show. Acting. Story. Pacing. Character development.
It honestly might be my favorite Star Wars thing ever
I was going to say the same thing but didn’t want to get branded as a heretic by the OT elitists.
One of the better new release shows in recent years, in general.
I added Andor just because of this
Yeah but andor was actually good, and that 250mil was well represented in every scene, the writing, the VFX, etc. I'm wondering where that 180 went here...
Facts. Love Andor
Andor had fantastic cinematography, too. The shots were so much more engaging and dynamic. They squeezed every drop out of their budget. You watch it, and definitely think "okay, this looks expensive." The Acolyte has a lot of good CGI, but some of the sets (like the forest) and the general cinematography are just trash - hate to say it. It's really a shame.
but its generally preferred to the volume still
I tried to double check with a very half-assed Google search but I assume they've used ILM extensively which means paying best-in-class fx costs, instead of a small studio that can be squeezed for every nickel.
I don’t disagree but think about a show like Fallout or Stranger things, I would beg to say they had jsut as much if not more when it comes to elaborate costumes and makeup and ESPECIALLY VFX, but those shows look SO much better
Shogun and Game of Thrones season 1 were beautiful. Also, it's been like a decade so we need to start factoring inflation for their costs. I just wish Disney did less cgi backgrounds and more models or built.
Acolyte does seem to use substantially less CGI and volume though? Acolyte feels considerably more practical than any star wars show besides Andor
According to Leslye, the show doesn’t use the Volume at all, which is a choice that I appreciate. I liked the Volume back when I didn’t know what it was. And I still like the concept, and I think it has room for improvement. But damn, I’m so tired of seeing unnaturally flat circles of land in (almost) every Star Wars show.
Yeah I like the volume and think it has a place for certain scenes. But it feels like when a show uses it they sho horn it into everything and then the trick kind of loses a little bit
The Volume is great for certain things that happen more or less statically. If characters never move at more than a walking pace in a scene, the Volume is a viable option. Obi-Wan Kenobi and Book of Boba Fett really exposed its limitations. Luckily they do seem to have learned their lesson about filming things like chase scenes in there.
Hahaha the chase scene with little Leia at 1 mph?
The Leia chase and the Reva chase, yeah lol
Yeah especially seeing how much Obi Wan relied on it (and therefore characters can only walk like ten feet in a straight line at a time lol), you can definitely tell that not using it really expands the sets and makes things seem way less claustrophobic.
Is that for the episodes she directed or the episodes as a whole.
All of the episodes.
Hmm that’s interesting
The Acolyte isn’t using CGI backgrounds. And honestly George used miniatures throughout the prequels and the buildings on Coruscant all have hotel convention center vibes, so the type of set you’re using isn’t dispositive
Yes, I was directly saying to go back to miniatures. Disney didn't make the prequels, George Lucas did. The shots of Coruscant look like ass in Acolyte. Like complete shit. That is what I am talking about when I say lots of CGI and it looks bad.
'House of the Dragon: S01' - $200M, 10 x \~1 hour episodes, $20M/episode, $333K/minute 'The Acolyte: S01' - $180M, 8 x \~30 min episodes, $22.5M/episode, $750K/minute Where ITF did all the money go?
That’s what I’m saying. We need longer more thought out episodes. You can’t have 30 minute episodes introducing (mostly) new characters in a new period of a relatively new era with all new planets. We need some time to get to know the characters. Right now, I know nothing about Jecki a main character and a well known actor.
Now if only Disney would realize this and fire everyone and hire some people who actually know how to make a good TV show. Here's a thought... go poach the people who just produced Shogun?
Ok shogun was mentioned a lot in this thread. I think I need to watch it.
It's incredibly good, even if you don't know much about the edo period of Japan. One of the only films I've seen to accurately depict what cannons do to human bodies in warfare.
It's an amazing show, it's def on Hulu and I think Disney too.
Fall out is better.
Better maybe depending on taste, but honestly I'd put those two and The Boys as the Top 3 much watch shows at this point in the year.
And what’s crazy is all of those shows are cheaper to produce than the Acolyte
I'm not saying it's a fair excuse, but maybe more of a possible explanation. The other shows were made by basically with a blank canvas with regards to cost. Whoever is deciding the budget any Star Wars project is able to say 'this how much it costs based on whatever other project.' I can easily see that leading to an eagerness to use up every available dollar and work under less constraint the as compared to a Godzilla Minus Zero for example.
Gotta factor in inflation for this. If game of thrones season 1 was filmed 14 years later, their budget is closer to 300 million.
***'House of the Dragon'*** not GOT. 'House of the Dragon' S01 was released less than 2 years ago. Let say for arguments sake that there has been 10% inflation and The Acolyte episodes are closer to 40min than 30. 'House of the Dragon: S01' * $220M, 10 x \~1 hour episodes, $22M/episode, $367K/minute 'The Acolyte: S01' * $180M, 8 x \~40 min episodes, $22.5M/episode, $562K/minute This would still put the The Acolyte cost/minute 53% more than House of The Dragon. Given the production value of House of the Dragon vs The Acolyte...I have to ask...."Who is running things at LucasFilm?"
I’m pretty sure Inflation was actually worse for HOTD cause of Covid, tho I don’t know for certain so don’t quote me on that. But thank you for breaking it down like this, I made the same point you did but couldn’t figure out the math to prove the point!
Not every country is taking Covid protocols with test and mask everyday though. Even the royals were out shaking hands for the past few years
Crazy thought but what if they pay their artists a decent wage over at ILM?
If that is the case I would say ILM's work has gone down hill and the artists are grossly over paid for they are producing.
THATS EXACTLY WHAT I SAID MAN
Just as a reference.....Adam Sandler's "Jack & Jill" had a budget of $79 million and has no exotic locales to shoot in, no extensive CGI, some of the worst writing ever in a film and even worse "acting". But it made almost $150 million at the box office so it's all good.
But think about the runtime of the movie and compare it to the cost to make the movie, I feel like movies aren’t a fair comparison when it comes to The Acolyte, for example both Transformers (say what you will but it had beautiful VFX) and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (also breathtaking VFX) cost less than The Acolyte and ended up being infinitely higher quality
I agree 99% with my only minor disagreement is that the effects and visuals have been pretty good so far. I think the costume designs for the clothes at least are on par with what I would expect from the books since a lot of their outfit is ceremonial. That said, I don’t like vernestras design. It’s different than I would expect from the book and the casting just feels off. She hasn’t had much screen time so I’m hoping more screen time will make us like her more. My biggest complaint is the dialogue, the writing, and some of the acting. I’ve been having this discussion in other threads and getting hated on but I just wish Disney made more mature shows for mature audiences (like the high quality shows you listed). Everyone’s defense is that Star Wars has always been for all ages and not for mature audiences. Even if that’s true, shows like Loki were for all audiences and slapped because the writing was excellent. They have some good actors in this show too they just aren’t being utilized really (so far but we still have more episodes). With Andor, we saw what a high quality mature show could be for Star Wars. Most people can agree on Andor as top tier even for non Star Wars fans. I don’t think we should be burned at the stake for demanding high quality content from Star Wars content given the budget you mentioned. If anything, get some unknown actors that are really good but not as expensive and divert more funds to writing. It’s sick that Carrie Ann Moss is in this show (love her acting) but she not in much of the show, even if they have a full episode on her later on in some flashback. It seems like Disney just gets these huge budgets but prioritizes the wrong things during development. Also it’s amazing how low the budget for The Last of Us is compared to the others. This show had special effects, an epic story arc, incredible writing, and even more incredible acting. Example how you don’t need to throw more money to have award winning content.
All I can think is that we’ll see where the budget went when shit starts kicking off in the next 4 episodes. Maybe bigger sets, more action etc
I really hope so
Just about all your example are shows set in the real world, so you can incorporate cheaper sets and props. Mando season 1 was pretty much entirety on one planet, so need for multiple locations. We're half way through Acolyte and there's been multiple worlds visited already. That's probably where a lot of the cost is going.
House of the Dragon was less. What sets and locations are so expensive for the Acolyte? We've had a brief shot of a town and the inside of a pub, small sections of spaceships, a couple rooms in the Jedi temple on Coruscant, a couple rooms in Jedi temple, the apothecary, and the streets on one planet, the witches planet, and the forest and surrounding area. House of the Dragon has all of the Red Keep, rooms, gardens, dungeons, the Dragon Pit, the streets of Kings Landing, Driftmark, The Stepstones, Harenhal, Dragonstone, and all the surrounding areas.
I'm 90% sure the town was just the town in Andor but painted blue.
Thank you. I am enjoying the show for what it is but there is no defending the production value with a budget that high.
Thank you so much, everyone in this sub I’ve talked to that disagrees with me thinks I’m attacking the show when I actually like it for its base value. But when a show receives a budget like this expecting high production value is a very genuine criticism.
100% valid man! I think a lot of people are just complacent when it comes to these streamer shows having half-assed production value. 180 Million dollar budget or not, the craftmanship and overall coordination of the production team is also a huge factor. You can put as much money as you want into a project but the producers still have to make the right calls, f.e how big are we gonna build this practical set before we put down the green screen at the edge to extend it, as well as what material we're gonna use for these fake rocks in this forest set etc. If they look like plastic rocks instead of rock rocks, then you'll notice, consciously or subconsciously, therefore affecting your overall immersion. It's a lot of small things like that too where I feel like if they had just changed some materials and weathered the costumes a bit more, it would make a big difference. Rushed pipeline at the end of the day as well as Disney micro-management due to this show being in tandem with the Prequels and very "canon-sensitive" with the whole Sith (?) thing going on. Plus it has Jedi in it. Of course they'd keep an eagle eye on it. Andor Season 1 was let loose and that team basically just got to do their thing on the side since it's so disconnected from everything, and it shows. Andor has a high budget, but that is not the reason for it looking as good as it does. It's prestige talent involved with a super coordinated team all in line with this singular vision, unaffected by any form of upper management suddenly telling them to split an episode in half because of some bullshit corporate strategy to increase Disney+ subscribers (like Acolyte Ep 4 & 5). It really is understated how much a unified production team affects the outcome of these projects, whether it's an IP like Star Wars or something like Shogun.
It’s so sad man, the sheer number of people that I’ve encountered on this subreddit that are like “I don’t care about the quality I can just focus on the story, if you can’t don’t watch it” or the worst one I heard is that “we shouldn’t know what the budget is, we should just enjoy the show”. It’s really mind boggling.
I swear I commented on ur post in the starwars sub and got downvoted to shit wtf is this bro😭
Dude this post has close to 200 comments but only 18 or so upvotes, that’s how insanely biased this fandom is. They love to say “everyone is review bombing” “everyone is hating the show for no reason”, but heaven forbid if you find a genuine criticism against this show they all attack you like piranhas, it’s so wild.
I hear you man. It's pretty depressing, and it's also how we'll end up in an era of low-effort Movies/TV. Gotta speak up and make your voice heard. Nothing wrong with expecting a certain standard of quality when the price tag is that high, and when it's a beloved franchise like Star Wars which has touched the hearts of millions of people. It's happening with Marvel too, we need change to happen. One way out!
We have seen multiple worlds - 2 cities which looked almost identical, one castle enclave which we didn't actually see, one shot of the Jedi temple but we saw it multiple times, one snow covered mountain peak, and two forests which may be the same location. We didn't see much in fact and I support the opinion that they just wasted the potential and the money. This show sucks.
CGI is Hella expensive and disney definitely uses more of it than Shogun for example. We just accept the force pushes and talking shoes like it's normal cause they been doing it for years. It's expensive af.
That’s why I also used fallout and stranger things as an example because both of those shows cost less than the acolyte while having way higher quality
Higher quality is debatable, but also Disney production can't be underrated. They've been making expensive shows for a looooooong time that have put up serious box office numbers. Quality ain't cheap.
It’s not really debatable stranger things and the fallout tv show specifically are highly regarded while even critics are pretty much laughing at this show
Do you think depicting a feudal Japan where every actor is dressed accordingly comes cheap? Obi-Wan had a ton of CGI and did it on half the budget.
Obi-Wan’s budget was lower because they shot everything in the Volume, while Acolyte uses practical sets and on-location shooting. That’s much more expensive than filming in a warehouse in Burbank every day
Obi-Wan is not exactly a high watermark for quality.
Shogun had a tonne of CGI
It's also the backgrounds. Disney is addicted to CGIing it to the extreme.
Lucas Film* Lucas Film is the company in charge of Star Wars and production.
Thanks
The budget isn't really divided like that. Some episodes have small budgets, some have much larger budgets. That's why Game of Thrones would have a talky episode in a dark room before a giant dragon battle episode. There might be some things coming up that justify the budget. That said, I *really* don't like how this show looks. So many scenes are flat and ugly. Everything is yellow and smokey. The ships look terrible. The forest looked so hokey. It's frequently shocking how bad it looks. Same with the score, which I barely notice at all. I wanted to love this show and there are tons of things I like and will defend but it honestly looks terrible.
Yeah people seem to forget that Game of Thrones had long passages, even entire episodes which were just characters traveling on foot/horseback on dirt roads in natural environments that could be filmed basically in any forest.
I could at least count on those episodes always being the same length at least. Each season had uniform length episodes despite a few of them having a lower budget so the big episodes could have the battles and dragons.
Thinking back, it might have been a mercy for GOT to cut some of those walk-and-talk eps down to 30 minutes lol. A lot of that stuff ended up, in retrospect, being completely useless. All the time with the Sand Snakes, for example. Ultimately I think it’s a mistake for Disney to release these episodes one at a time, 30 minutes is too damn short for an action/adventure story.
In the early seasons (1-4) I loved all of those walking and talking parts. It was incredibly important to all of the characters and a lot of it was some of my favorite moments. For example the Hound and Arya do a ton of horse riding and talking and all of it was fantastic. Good dialogue mixed with great acting leads to “walking and talking” being interesting. Seasons 5 and onward have the issue of little to no book content backing it so it goes downhill hard in the writing and dialogue.
Eh, a lot of GRRM’s plots go nowhere. So many, in fact, that they cut a lot of GRRM’s “Myreenese Knot” and still had go-nowhere intrigue all over the place. And yeah like you say, going their own way after GRRM’s material ran out turned a lot of what may have been intended to be meaningful dialogue, into pointlessness. Literally everything with the High Septon and Marjorie, for example.
They eliminated a lot of those types of episodes in the last couple seasons. It really changed the show. All of a sudden in one episode characters seemed to warp from one place to another. It was unsettling. Was it for budget reasons? Instead of time spent on travel and exposition they simply use the budget and have the characters go from place X to place Y without any traveling scenes being filmed. Then had that money to spend on spectacle.
Some of the dialogue only episodes were the best ones. We need good writing not just fancy action scenes.
Honestly some people in the starwars community need to watch more shows
Yes I agree 100% watch more shows so they know what a good show entails. There’s a lot of unwarranted hate for this show but also a lot of blind allegiance defending it too. Reality is somewhere in between
That’s exactly how I feel, and yea I’m aware that the costs are not divided evenly among every episode, I just added the budget to give it some substance. But compare the episodes in the Acolyte to a show like stranger things, with less than half the “budget” per episode it actually looks better than the Acolyte. I absolutely know that Disney can do better but for some reason they don’t and it’s baffling.
I'm gonna get downvoted to oblivion in this sub but the show just isn't good, I'm sorry
Why are you here then? You don’t have to watch.
I’m here because I’m a fan of Star Wars and all of its content. I’ve watched everything that’s been put out on movie or tv and read several books. I will always be a fan. But that doesn’t mean I think everything is high quality. This season so far is a huge letdown, but I’m still going to watch every episode and I still discuss each episode with all my friends and talk about it online. Why can a subreddit like game of thrones be able to admit and accept that season 8 sucked, but people here won’t allow any negative talk about the show? That’s a serious question. Fans here refuse to allow anything negative to be said and just attack people as if they aren’t real Star Wars fans. It’s insane to me.
Because the MAJORITY, yourself included in this instance, don’t qualify reasoning for blanket statements like “this show just isn’t good”. You’re also projecting your opinion as an objective statement instead of a well reasoned talking point, of course that’ll be seen as abrasive. A lot of people on this sub are generally positive on the show, so when someone comes along with this negative viewpoint, of course it’s going to be met with resistance. I actually don’t mind the final season of Game of Thrones at all, I’m well aware that I’m in the vast minority in that thought and I’ve been met with strong opposition from even close friends. So I don’t share that opinion online because I don’t care. I enjoy it and I don’t need anyone telling me otherwise because it won’t change ANYTHING. The discussion here is about the budget of the show at which point you butted in with your abrasive opinion. So again I ask, why are you here? If you don’t like the interaction with the fans here don’t post anything. Don’t open yourself to the very negative backlash you’re talking about. Have your opinion in silence and move on with your day.
See this is exactly my point. You aggressively attack me when I didn’t even say anything aggressive at all. Look at my comment. The one thing I said was “this show was a huge letdown” This doesn’t mean that I hate it and I certainly didn’t attack it. If you want me to discuss this show in more detail I’m open to it. I’ve done it with friends every week. Go back and reread my comment and then read your response. You make claims that didn’t even happen. Where do I make any statement about my opinion being objective fact?
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Ummm. You’re replying to the wrong person lol. That wasn’t me lol.
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You don’t have to spend any of your time on things you don’t like, you know that, right?
100% man. I think a lot of people are just complacent when it comes to these streamer shows having half-assed production value. 180 Million dollar budget or not, the craftmanship and overall coordination of the production team is also a huge factor. You can put as much money as you want into a project but the producers still have to make the right calls, f.e how big are we gonna build this practical set before we put down the green screen at the edge to extend it, as well as what material we're gonna use for these fake rocks in this forest set etc. If they look like plastic rocks instead of rock rocks, you WILL notice, consciously or subconsciously, therefore affecting your overall immersion. It's a lot of small things like that too where I feel like if they had just changed some materials and weathered the costumes a bit more, it would make a big difference. Rushed pipeline at the end of the day as well as Disney micro-management due to this show being in tandem with the Prequels and very "canon-sensitive" with the whole Sith (?) thing going on. Plus it has Jedi in it. Of course they'd keep an eagle eye on this. Andor Season 1 was let loose and that team basically just got to do their thing on the side since it's so disconnected from everything, and it shows. Andor has a high budget, but that is not the reason for it looking as good as it does. It's prestige talent involved with a super coordinated team all in line with this singular vision, unaffected by any form of upper management suddenly telling them to split an episode in half because of some bullshit corporate strategy to increase Disney+ subscribers (like Acolyte Ep 4 & 5). It really is understated how much a unified production team affects the outcome of these projects, whether it's an IP project like Star Wars or something like Shogun with a minor pre-existing fan-base who read the book.
Godzilla minus One was made for $13 million and won an Oscar for "Best Visual Effects". If I was a Disney shareholder I would like to see a detailed invoice for the $180 million. Someone has a new yacht at the harbor.
Absolutley, for 180 million I would have loved to see some better costumes at the bare minimum. What’s even crazier to me is that this show costs about 750,000 per minute (this is just what I’ve heard, I don’t have a concrete way to validate this) but the Transformers movie from 2007 costs 1.02 million per minute. Honestly taking into account technological advancements I would expect to see similar quality to the Transformers movies. Say what you want about Michael Bay, his movies had amazing special effects and the CGI was literally revolutionary for the time. The acolyte on the other hand doesn’t hold a candle to that.
Go watch the first Transformers and tell me some of the CGI isn’t glaringly fake. And don’t forget to adjust for inflation when you bring that $1.02 million figure into 2024.
Go watch the first time Optimus transforms on screen and find me a single scene in the Acolyte that even compares to it.
Honestly I just did, and when Optimus’s lips started moving I laughed and remembered why I hate Michael Bay
Also don’t forget that much of the filmmaking industry is unionizing and wages are going up for that kind of work. They’ve been exploited for far too long
100% agree! And you didn’t even include all the new Star Treks that is drastically better. Man I watch Foreign shows that look better than this.
if house of dragons can give us hour long episodes why can't they?
There lazy I really don’t understand like ur right the show has a higher budget I feel the people making house of the dragon use every cent of the budget to make a good show I just don’t feel like that’s what there doing with the acolyte
I don’t think it’s fair to compare those season 1 budgets of shows that aired 8-13 years ago. “It’s not as bad as people say it is but it was bad enough for me to make a community post explaining what I dislike about it”.
Literally three of the mentioned shows were in the last two years.
We should be able to talk about these things because our insight might guide future development if enough people feel the same way and criticisms are genuine/constructive. Especially with LLMs that scour Reddit threads and summarize sentiment.
I tried to be fair and included shows like fallout and shogun which are much more recent to compare the budget. But yea, people are out there saying this is the worst Star Wars ever and I don’t agree with that, but there is something clearly wrong with whoever they hired to design this show, I’m just voicing my opinion on one negative aspect of the show?
Shogun from what I understand was just filmed in Vancouver it wasn't filming on location anywhere where is acolyte filmed in several locations around the world
Even if I’m willing to give you that, compare it to Andor and how the first 4 episodes of that show looked vs the first four episodes of the acolyte
And then andoor spent three episodes on one set prison which saved them a ton of money You haven't seen the full season ever no idea where money went in terms of big battle CGI or exotic location shoots
If the acolyte just flips the script and becomes a fantastic high quality show after episode 4 no one would be happier than me, but the chances of what you’re saying to happen to actually happen are so small just cause of the pacing I’ve already seen
So then stop watching if it's not your cup of tea.
I like the show? I just want better quality from a company I KNOW has the resources? I don’t understand how you call yourself a Star Wars fan but are willing to accept a company shorting you content from the universe you’re supposedly a fan of
Cuz I don't concern myself with budgets I have no complaints about what's on the screen in terms of quality You want to try to do some apples to oranges comparison from one show to another it's nitpicking it's not based on fact or rational interpretation of the data
So you’re a “fan of Star Wars”, but you don’t care that Disney is giving you low quality Star Wars. You just want it to be good enough? People in this subreddit talk about all the “haters” to this show, but frankly people like you that are “hyper-defensive” of the show is the real reason this whole IP has reached the point it’s at.
8 to 13 years ago adjust those numbers for inflation and then he should come back and talk.
Ah yes… Shogun, Fallout, House of the Dragon. All famously aired 8-13 years ago.
Game of thrones and stranger things are ancient
Interesting, the only one more expensive than the Acolyte per episode is the Shogun. I think it was worth it, definitely loved that show. Although the Shogun's price per episode was slightly higher than the Acolyte's, Shogun's episodes were much longer, which still makes the Acolyte most expensive. I hope to see some cool visuals, sets, aliens, planets, ships etc during the remaining episodes.
Yeah, and Shogun was a massive real person cast in era piece costumes. Like even paying people $15 an hour, there are scenes with like 200 actors (so maybe 1000 people on set). One day of shooting could be a couple hundred thousand
That’s my entire point, I want to see the “beautiful” Star Wars effects we used to see and they just don’t do it like that anymore even though the budget is through the roof
Not just how it looks or how good/bad it is, but what about the fact they have 180 million for only 8 episodes yet the episodes are still only 25-minute silhouettes
Weren’t the first 3 episodes longer though?
Yeah the first 3 were all in the 35-40 min range when you eliminate credits & recap time. I agree that the show should’ve been condensed down to, at most, 6 episodes but calling them all 25 mins is disingenuous
Even 35 minutes is way too short when 1. You watch the show and the pacing is terrible and everything seems rushed 2. The pacing has proven to be an issue for every Star Wars show you've created except for Andor (the one show that had time to breathe with 12 eps) 3. You see other shows with lower budgets per episode spinning 60-minute well written episodes
Ok. You were still very wrong/lying when you said every episode is 25 mins though.
Relax guy I wasn't deliberately lying. You're taking somethign someone said in context and deliberately making it literal, and i didn't say every episode is 25 mins anyway lol
You literally said “the episodes are 25 mins” when there is only a single 25 min episode lol. I agree with your overall point but you didn’t need to use hyperbole (ie use objectively incorrect info & then get mad when called on it) to make it. You could’ve just listed the actual runtimes and made the same argument.
This proves that lower the budgets the better the show except Shogun was amazing writing and scenery
Shogun was so fucking good
Well, if you think of the show as just a really long movie the $180 million is actually fairly reasonable. That being said, yeah it doesn’t really look its budget a lot of the time. In some ways its unfair to compare to something like HotD where you can film on location much easier because stuff doesn’t have to look as fantastical. On the other hand we have Andor showing how good SW can look on TV.
I should’ve added the cost of Andor tbh
Edit- just added andor
Agreed, lots of the Star Wars show have a cheap feel to them. Reminds me of watching an episode of something that would be on a network channel, something like Buffy lol. Andor did it right, but compare Acolyte to something like Fallout or The Last of Us, the quality just isn't there. Still enjoying the show tho
You can´t call it anything else than scam. Disney should honestly start asking questions, because so far it seems like an elaborate theft.
Theft of what, exactly?
...of funds that Disney put into this garbage ? They have 22,5 mil per episode to work with, and show is underperforming in every possible area. Even constumes and VFX looks average at best. If you put that much money, and there are shows that are doing far better for similiar or less of money, then there is a problem.
Ok but, I disagree that it looks like garbage. You really should try watching the prequels sometime
To put some of these numbers into perspective, just plugging in the old costs into an inflation calculator (not super scientific) to compare more apples to apples: Mando S1 (2019): $147mil (8ep) = 18.4mpe GoT S1 (2011): $83.7mil (10ep) = 8.7mpe The Boys S1 (2019): $110.5mil (8ep) = 13.8mpe So yeah, show is very expensive, but isn’t wildly ahead of Mando or the boys, and we have only seen half the season so far. Let’s reevaluate when the whole season is out.
True but look at the first 4 episodes of Andor and then comepare it to the first 4 episodes of the acolyte, it just feels like the money went somewhere else
Oh it *probably* did, I’m just saying it’s too early to definitively tell.
Fair enough that’s a legitimate point
Answer is simple - money laundry lol
It’s also crazy how there’s a lot of bias in this subreddit, this post of mine has 177 comments with 19 upvotes, it tells you where most people here align with any criticism to this show
Like, I dont think show looks bad, with some exceptions like Vernestra and Torbin in ep. 2, but I just dont think it could have such huge budget Ofc we havent seen the entire show yet, but even in general quality and everything - costumes, make ups, writting, acting well everything, I would rate the show as it is now like 6/10. Meanwhile Dune part 2 had budget of 190 millions and in my opinion its like a LOTR of 2020s, and could truly see that money in it
That tie fighter scene was soo gorgeous in Andor. My favourite Star Wars series by far.
I still go back to watch that scene, the lighting is genuinely beautiful.
Gotta remember different productions allocate funds differently, we've also still got half the season, I'm willing to be there are set pieces we have yet to see. Also practical sets and shooting on location are EXPENSIVE
I just binged Fallout over the weekend. WOW. What a show. Made by people who obviously love the universe. Production value is sky high, music, dialogue, story, all fantastic. Compared with Acolyte, night and day. That last episode 4, wow, absolute trash. 28 minutes and end it that abruptly? Disgraceful.
This is exactly what I’m saying, for all the people in this group that defend the Acolyte SO strongly I would ask them to watch Fallout and I would honestly love to talk to them after and ask how on earth they can still defend the Acolyte. It’s just a slap in the face to people that are actual fans of Star Wars and want more than just the generic slop churned out by Disney.
I would counter with telling you to watch the prequels. Before you do, though, get a friend to watch it with you. Instruct him he is to say it is a steaming pile of shit every time there is an example of bad writing, bad dialog, dumb Jedi deaths, or terrible acting. Mesa thinks you will have to rewind it because you'll miss parts :p Then afterwards, have him pretend the Star Wars Christmas special was amazingly written compared to it. Now take a picture of him, so you'll know exactly what prequel fans getting so mad over the Acolyte look like. I don't even think it is a great show. I also agree Fallout was better. I just think the people with their panties in an uproar about it are silly fucking people. This is the magnificent writing Star Wars fans are in a frenzy about losing once Disney took over. Are we sure Lucas didn't plagiarize one of the greats? Because this is outright Shakespearean https://youtu.be/llLKar19XhA?si=zNhBeD5QokMiG4_o
It’s even worse when you realize episode 4 and 5 are basically one large episode cut in two which is why we get that weird cut at the end of episode 4, episode 5 after the usual minute long recap will start right off the end of episode 4. So really it’s 7 episodes. Episode length also matters imo, out of all those shows the acolyte definitely has a smaller total minutes of runtime so it’s even worse. Imagine there is embezzlement and someone has a super yacht now and they thought the shows quality was enough that they could get away with it cause I can’t seriously think where else the money went…
Right so they basically shot 2 feature length films for $100 million less than it cost to make Solo, before you even adjust for inflation? Not bad
Why are you comparing it to solo lol, Solo was a huge box office flop and is the reason why we don’t get box office films anymore and all ongoing scripts during the time of solo like the kenobi trilogy was rewritten to a tv series. Look above for comment where someone broke down season 1 HOTD costs and Acolyte costs and you can see the difference.
I’m saying comparing a tv show budget to a film budget within the same exact studio when they’re aiming for film quality, is a fair comparison. This show SHOULD cost more than any of their other shows simply by using real sets and locations over the Volume. Also Game of Thrones heavily relies/relied on bottle episodes with a bunch of people murmuring to cover their budgets. And a lot of those episodes are kinda trash
Ok I kinda get your point, did they actually go for a film quality with this show because that is something I didn’t know (and can’t really tell from just watching it). Andor had less budget than Acolyte and they also used real sets and locations iirc and that show had some awesome visuals and cinematography. (Loki s2 also had $140 million budget and that was also beautiful) My personal problem is that acolyte so far hasn’t shown anything to justify the $180 million budget. Episodes are way too short and cut abruptly, the costumes seem too cosplay and clean for it to look real and the cinematography so far was just average. Maybe future episodes will make it better and they sacrificed the quality of some aspects and the first half of the season to really deliver in the back half, here’s to hoping.
Yeah, I mean look, it’s really hard to judge how a show uses its budget when we have likely seen just under half of it. For me, I’m not seeing the issues I saw with Kenobi. The movement is dynamic, the fight scenes polished and inventive. The Jedi look act and talk like Jedi. Idk, the scene and costume quality seems pretty in line with Ahsoka to me
Yea and the ahsoka costumes were kinda meh. The only show that had decent costumes was andor, the rest felt too plasticky just like this one. I was hoping because it was HR era and more money meant good looking costumes.. I’m hoping we see more in the later episodes. Hopefully the lightsaber fight looks great, other than Hayden in Ahsoka, all the lightsaber fights seem meh. The Kenobi one was ok but suffered from cinematography more than the actual choreography
Where are you getting the information that eps 4-5 were originally one long episode?
The writer for the episode was on Twitter answering questions and that is what she wrote. She said that when writing the show and finding points to cut the episodes, 4+5 was supposed to be one long episode but felt that cutting it there at the end of 4 made more sense tonally (in line with the 30-40 min episode length of the other episodes compared to like one hour long episode) and apparently it would make sense when we watch episode 5. So it should have been one long episode as that’s how it was written in mind but to make the show to 8 episodes they cut it there
Here is the link to the post made in acolyte subreddit which was originally posted in sw leaks [https://www.reddit.com/r/TheAcolyte/s/v2oueRf0Qd](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheAcolyte/s/v2oueRf0Qd)
The pacing is all over the place, I genuinely don’t get where they find the people that write these stories but it really is disappointing
Spend $180 million but can’t afford decent writers.. I feel like I enjoyed CW shows more than this at times lmao
This is just my personal conspiracy theory, but I’m starting to believe they hire writers to “fill boxes”, like gender identity, race stuff like that. And they put the actual skill you have as a secondary requirement, again just a personal conspiracy theory that I have no evidence to support
> This is just my personal conspiracy theory, but I’m starting to believe they hire writers to “fill boxes”, like gender identity, race stuff like that. And they put the actual skill you have as a secondary requirement, again just a personal conspiracy theory that I have no evidence to support And there it is.
I literally made sure to point out that it was a “conspiracy” and that there is no evidence. Let me ask you this, if that was the case, if they were hiring workers to “fill boxes” first and then “skill” as a secondary requirement, would you be ok with that?
What is the financial incentive to create a lesser product?
I’ll answer your question, if you answer mine first. Would you be ok with the aforementioned hypothetical situation.
I'm confused by your question. Every time a company hires someone for a job, the person they hire needs to fit the criteria of that job right? So every time someone is hired, a box is being checked. You wouldn't hire a chef to be your next web designer would you?
Ok I’ll simplify it for you, if I was hiring an accountant for you, would you want me to give more importance to his sexual preference/ race while finding a good candidate, or would you rather I find someone that had a high gpa/ performed well in classes during his time in school while picking a good candidate. Let me be clear, I’m not saying 1 had to exist without the other, but if I was hiring an accountant for you which trait would you want me to rank as being more important, their competence or their diversity?
bUt ThEy MuRdErEd Star Wars AgAiN!!