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:: An ongoing episodic story of fan-fic set after Episode VI Return of the Jedi, and inspired by George Lucas' historical draft concepts ::
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July 2024 |
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An overall review of 'THE ACOLYTE'
31st July 2024 |
The live-action TV show 'THE ACOLYTE' has now come to an end, and, perhaps surprisingly, not without some controversy. The latter may have been pre-meditated, from certain quarters upset about any feminist or queer agenda ; and then, as the show prgoressed, a not-undeserved criticism of the dialogue and the plotting, as well as a realisation that Disney seems to be imposing an eight-episode limit to the lengths of these TV shows - with 'ANDOR' being the exception, at 12 episodes with longer episode runtimes, with possibly Tony Gilroy's status being the primary factor in allowing him freer rein. One wonders why Disney is, in effect, curbing creativity, by imposing such a limit in episode number or episode length or both. Of course, it can be the case that if an artist has a restricted palette or canvas, that can force them to produce original and startling results. But it feels to me that this restriction is causing more of a negative effect than a positive one.
Overall, I enjoyed the show. I found it engaging and the characters, although probably under-developed, and many having brief screen time, still sufficient enough to tell the story. The lead writer certainly lived up to her reputation as providing 'mystery-within-mystery', as the opening puzzles were revealed (if not fully resolved) fairly soon, paving the way for further engimas. There was great in-world lore building, especially a glimpse of a new styled Jedi Order affecting the visual design of costume and starship and lightsabre hilt. The myriad of worlds, also, were refeshing and interesting, though I would have hoped for less humanoid aliens, and more exotic appearances. Separately, fansite SWNN revealed lightsabre hilt concept art, which was far more outlandish - and interesting - than what they eventually settled on ; but I imagine, stylistically, they needed to align with what we see in the Prequel Trilogy, and such exotic designs might have been more in keeping with another 200 or even 300 years before this setting.
I found Qimir's character the most enthralling, as he went from bumbling resource scout to frustrated Sith Acolyte, seeking the right to exercise his powers freely, and not dictated by the Jedi Order establishment. It was interesting that it was implied he was Master Vernestrah Rwoh's padawan, as hinted at by 'High Republic' published fiction - which I have not read or followed. The tragically flawed emotionally attached Master Sol was equally interesting as he, in effect, became the true villain of the piece, his earlier actions having repercussions further down the line ; and likewise, Master Vernestrah Rwoh appeared to walk a fine tightrope of responsibility balancing her loyalty to the Jedi Order and her duty of transparency to the Republic Senate, against how she may have treated her former padawan(s), and the consequences of leaving them to their fate. Although frustratingly brief, it was lovely seeing the cameos of Yoda and Darth Plagueis !
The choreography of the fight and duelling scenes was amazing, though I still found the leaning towards explicit martial arts a little too awkward - I think that was because such hand-to-hand combat is too recognisable, too 'Earth-bound', too culture specific, relying on visual 'cool' rather than in-lore logic : akin to stunt coordinator Nick Gillard drawing inspiration from many duelling disciplines to inform his Prequel Trilogy lightsabre duelling, I wonder if there should have been a more east-west 'mash up' of manual combat styles to create a 'new' style ? However, I can see how an anticipatory lightning fast Jedi might well resort to hand combat and only draw they deadly weapon if they really had to.
For me, and many other (level headed) fans, the primary criticism was simplistic dialogue, especially between the twins, and a few occasions of poor 'logic' driving a scene. Sometimes the directorial blocking of scenes either didn't make sense or were distracting. But crucially the plotting seemed weak, especially if the show was designed primarily to be a 'stand-alone' one with no immediate plan for a second season - with certain elements left unexplained or partially resolved, such as the significance of the Twins' creation or Darth Plagueis' appearance in Qimir's hideout, we are now left hoping that a second series will be commissioned to further explore such ideas, but with such a negative resonse to the show, I wonder if a new series would ever be greenlit ?!
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As I did with the progression of the Virtual Edition Episode X, I will post below sections of the prose for Episode XI as I draft it.... |
Luke emerged from a narrow fissure in the grass, edged by bare rock and soil, at the base of a low earth-mound. He had opted to first investigate the barrows – for that’s what they were - further inland from the stone circle, and leave the droids to begin their deciphering in peace. Besides, stretching his legs allowed him to get a feel for the place, away from the mysterious stones.
He brushed dust and soil and cobwebs from his cloaked shoulders. The white over-garment was smudged and smeared, but vanity did not bother him.
He clipped his lightsabre back upon his belt. The green blade had cast enough light to illuminate the dark surroundings of the barrow, and had revealed a primary central chamber with several smaller sub-chambers cut into the soil. A depression in its centre probably marked a fire pit, and he had guessed that the surrounding recesses and nooks might have been sleeping spaces and storage bays. But it was clearly ancient, and the Force had not divined anything further than what his eyes had told him.
As he stretched his back, he looked further inland, towards the hills and mountains. Arrayed at three points amidst the open pastures were what appeared to be a jumble of jagged boulders, half smothered by the tall grasses. Luke stretched out with the Force, and its farsight revealed the tangles to be more man-made structures, fallen pillars and capping stones, broken and covered in lichen and ground creepers. From what he could discern through the Force, the objects seemed to have once been more substantial and their architecture possibly more ornate than the cruder standing stones that the droids were investigating.
They can be explored later, mused Luke. He felt drawn to the stone circle, subconsciously noting that of all these apparently sacred structures, the stones were the only ones still standing.
Luke made his way across the wild grasses and back to the stone circle. He could see the droids peering intently at the base of one of the stones.
As he walked, he noticed a furry critter scurrying alongside him at his feet. Its mottled brown fur was a marked contrast to the green hues of the grasses. Luke perceived that it did not seem afraid of him or skittish in his presence ; rather, it seemed more oblivious to him than grudgingly sharing their personal space. Soon, another mammal, smaller and a different species, its fur marked in black and white streaks, vectored in to run adjacent with Luke and the other creature. Two more animals appeared from amongst the grasses and joined the group. And then another three.
The Jedi Master found he had aligned with one of the many rivulets of local rodents streaming towards the circle. He shivered, but not from the breeze. On the edge of his perception he could sense the feeling of domination from earlier.
He glanced down at the small creatures scurrying along beside him. He noted once again their dull yellow eyes. They certainly seemed to be fixated on reaching their destination and carrying out their cleaning and polishing duties. He stretched out with the Force into the mind of one of the larger mammals, but discerned no more than the need to complete its task ; intriguingly, there seemed to be a flicker of intangible fear if the task was not completed today, or even repeated tomorrow. No specific threat, just a generic feeling that this scrubbing task must be completed or it would fail its peers. A sense of duty, to be sure, but one that felt twisted and contrived and beholden to a dominant power.
But of this dominant power, there was no sign and no indication.
Luke followed the creatures to the first of the stones, and watched them, in turn, rise up, like the rodents before them, to scrub at the faint marks at the granite’s base. Clearly, this patch was devoid of lichen. A ragged line ran all around the stone’s circumference, revealing the inscribed marks. Someone or something had wanted to keep the messages clear for perpetuity.
Artoo whistled and Luke recognised it to be the familiar contentment of a utilities droid going about its duties. The Master Jedi walked over to the two droids who were huddled around the base of another stone. The nature of the perpetual cleaners meant the droids had to take quick snapshot reviews of the marks before they were briefly hidden by the creatures’ bodies.
“How’s it going, you two ?” Luke asked amiably.
“Well, Master Luke,” answered Threepio briskly. “We have reviewed three stones and can confirm that the script is partly based on pictograms, simple words, and numerals. What is interesting is that each stone inscription appears to lead to – or from – a single large dot.”
“Do the marks or words mean anything to either of you ?”
Artoo blurted a negative, and Threepio cocked his head to one side. “We can make educated guesses at the icons, and some of the cursive letters might correspond with recognisably ancient runes... But I am sorry to say we are only making inferences at this stage. With more time and the ability to cross-reference a larger database, we might be able to find the code keys to decipher more of it. As you know, recognising the frequency of certain patterns is...”
“Thankyou, both, I will let you get on with it.” Luke glanced at the flat horizon, away from the inland mountain range, and gauged the height of the primary sun.
“I’d say we have about an hour of daylight left. See what you can gather today, and we can resume tomorrow.”
He waved his arm back to the mounds he had just left. “Those barrows back there seem to have been living spaces, rather than burial chambers,” he explained to the droids.
The Force nudged him, and Luke glanced at the plain but taller central stone. Other than its height it looked fairly unremarkable. In fact, the weathered faces atop the circling stones all seemed to be intently looking away from the central monolith ! Even the carvings that appeared to be facing inwards were not actually looking directly at the centre. But the Cosmic Force had called his attention to it.
Luke stepped further into the circle and approached the dull grey granite that commanded the space.
He raised his left palm and rested it on the stone face.
Immediately he was aware of a drop in temperature. The sun’s warmth dissipated, and the rock became chill to the touch.
As his fingers responded to the cooling, Luke found he had to blink a few times : the texture and natural patterns of the stone seemed to swirl and shimmer, akin to a serpent languidly moving its coiled body a few millimetres. Startled and confused, Luke withdrew his hand, and the rock face appeared to settle and be still once more. Tentatively, the Master Jedi laid his fingertips upon the surface again, and, as the temperature of the rock cooled, the facia shifted and distorted visually just as it had a moment before.
A non-voice heard only by his mind invited him onward and inward : Come.
Luke was now aware that his fingertips had disappeared – they had sunk into the rock’s surface ! He gently leant his weight forward, and he watched his left hand sink to his wrist.
He leant backwards on his heels, and was relieved to see that the rock released his hand. He turned his palm to face him so he could regard it, and noted no obvious difference or injury.
He glanced back to the droids. “Threepio, can you come over here please ?”
The golden droid straightened and, with a faint whir, turned to face the Jedi.
“Certainly, sir !”
The droid shuffled through the long grass to the centre stone, and joined Luke.
“Can you watch my left hand here ?”
“Watch your hand, Master Luke ? What do you mean ?”
“Just watch carefully, and tell me what you see...” And Luke pressed his palm against the rock for a third time.
“Oh my !” spluttered See Threepio, as Luke’s hand began to disappear from view. “Are my visual receptors not functioning properly ?”
“So you can see my hand sink into this hard stone, yes ?”
“Well, sir, my logic valves are confirming that your words are verifying what my visual receptors are reporting, but...”
“And can you see this subtle de-patterning and de-colouring of the surface ?”
“Yes, I believe so, sir,” affirmed the droid.
Luke paused with his forearm deep into the rock. A thought crossed his mind.
“Place your hand on to the rock, and let’s see what happens to you...”
“Oh my, Master Luke, I really don’t think that would be such a good idea...”
“Just try it, please, for me...”
“Oh, very well, if you insist,” and the droid, somewhat unceremoniously clunked his metal fingers against the stone. They remained steadfastly upon the grey flecked surface and did not transport any deeper.
“Oh, thank the maker,” uttered the droid with relief, “I really did not like the idea of two solid states like my metal alloy and this stone merging as one ! How unorthodox !”
Come. The deep resonating voice announced. This way.
Luke leaned forward and took a step with his body weight. Without any resistance, he slipped further into the stone and soon disappeared entirely.
“Oh my !” Threepio’s head swivelled left and right in alarm. “Master Luke ! Master Luke ! Where are you ?!”
The golden droid shuffled about on the spot. He saw no sign of his friend and master.
“Artoo !” he wailed.
The darkness was pitch black, darker than a starfield viewed through a cockpit, yet illumination came from an idea of a destination. Or several destinations, to be precise. In Luke’s mind came fleeting images of his wife, Alana, hiding in the corner of a cave ; his son, Benji, excitedly regarding urban racer craft ; his sister, Leia, sat cross-legged and meditating in a dim room ; his friends, Han and Chewie, talking with a space pilot ; the Jedi Elder, Dree Tan, gazing out at the Coruscanti skyline from the heights of the Jedi Temple Principalle ; the satellite Jedi Temple set against the jungle backdrop of Kashyyyk ; the saltflats surrounding the disused Lars farmstead on Tatooine ; the dry plateaus of Jeddha ; the idyllic arboreal tree-top villages of Endor ; a dark lightning lit jungle world ; a sunny noisy ocean world pierced by rocky islands ; an icy tundra ; a savannah with long-necked grazing animals ; a bustling trading deep-space port.
Luke stretched out his senses to his wife, and called, feebly, her name.
But the non-voice commanded.
This one.
He felt an energy propel him towards the familiar desert expanse of Tatooine. There suddenly came a pushing-sucking-birthing sensation, and then a bright glare in his eyes.
Instinctively he raised his right arm to shield his sight, and he blinked a few times. He tasted the dry sand on his lips and smelled the ever-present dustiness in the air. He lowered his arm, and squinted ahead, already half-guessing at the view he expected to see. The shock of it, though, still caused him to stumble backwards, and his left hand and shoulder fell against the sharp rocks of the low outcrop that pierced the saltflats of his childhood. Ahead of him in the distance sat the crumbling remains of his home, the Lars farmstead.
His legs jerked into action, and he pulled his white cloak about him as he marched towards the low rounded buildings.
As he reached the place he had once called home, he could see sand had drifted high against the walls, which themselves were crumbling and patchy with segments broken away revealing blue sky poking through.
This was now, this was the present, he realised immediately. This was no past dream or future vision. He had traversed across space from Ansenne Five to Tatooine in an instant.
He glanced back towards the low outcrop of rock, and then returned his gaze to the primitive structure before him.
He made his way around to the entrance, and, although sand had shifted in and down the steps, he could still, with care, descend to the subterranean level.
In the lower central yard he glanced around at the various utility rooms that branched away. He recalled that his sister had reported that several jawas had re-purposed the dwelling as a permanent inn and trading centre, but clearly now they had moved on for whatever reason, and had left the site to the fickle fate of the desert winds. But still, aunt Beru had cooked through that alcove there, and had laundered clothes just beyond that doorway over there ; his uncle Owen, gruff and steadfast in his ways, would tinker with harvesting machinery through that passage way over there.
A lump now formed in his throat, and a watery tear spilled over his lower eyelid. Luke’s mind reeled with not only the nostalgia, but also the newfound discovery of this ability to translate between places ! He intuitively felt that this was an extension of the Force, and wondered why, and how, it had been revealed to him now. He resolved to investigate this new facet of the Cosmic Mystery.
His mind spun, and, feeling dizzy, he stumbled and lost his balance, throwing his right arm out to catch the wall to keep himself upright. He half collapsed against the wall, and as his left hand came up in support of his right, he noticed abstractly that under his fingers the wall was shimmering and swirling like the central monolith had done a little while earlier.
Darkness consumed him again. And a familiar voice this time, gravelly and wise.
You must feel the Force around you... Here, between you... me... the tree... the rock... everywhere ! Yes, even between the land and the ship.
And a softer, warmer voice, with a hint of humour about it.
The Force is an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us, it binds the galaxy together.
But rocks are not a living breathing thing ?! mused Luke incredulously.
But they were at one stage in their life, he realised with dawning intuition. The rocks of the cosmos were all birthed at some point. Even the rivers and the oceans. Look on them as dormant now, sleeping, but still breathing. On a cosmo-geological timescale there is a birth, a life, and a death. The natural order of things. And there is a natural symbiance between the rock and the soil, the soil and vegetation, the vegetation and the animal life.
There is a pulse, all be it a very slow one, between the mica plates that holds the rock together.
It was as if Luke was being reminded of a much older Force energy underpinning the vibrant day-to-day Living Force, that, in turn was enveloped by the Cosmic Force. Perhaps, co-existing between these two, was another variant of the Force ??
Luke recalled that ancient space-faring creature they had stumbled across in the asteroids of the proto-system, Gensys-Sucal, where the Troig pirate gang had been located. That had co-existed with the rocks in the vacuum of space.
A bright light once more took his breath away, and he instinctively shielded his view.
“Oh, Master Luke ! There you are !” a familiar voice wailed, and a series of equally emotionally charged beeps and whistles accompanied the words. “Thank the maker you have returned to us !”
Luke opened his eyes to find his two droid companions next to him at the base of the towering monolith.
“I-I’m okay, Threepio, I’m okay.”
Luke turned and patted the now very solid rock surface.
“I don’t exactly know what just happened, but I will need to meditate on it.”
He looked at Threepio.
“How long was I away for ?”
“Oh, about thirty standard minutes ?” the golden droid answered.
Luke nodded. By his reckoning of what he had recalled seeing and doing, it had probably been about that length of time he had spent on Tatooine.
He cocked his head to one side in thought.
“Leia sent us here,” he mused out loud. “I wonder if this is what she had sensed ?”
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Nathaniel Reed, 31st July 2024 |
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