Shadiversity critiques the fight scenes in Disney's Star Wars: The Acolyte. Weapons And Fight Scene Expert Mocks ‘The Acolyte’s’ Lightsaber Fight Scene: “They’re Not Even Aiming For Each Other”
Shad Brooks is a YouTube creator, author and historian. I found him because he is regular on Friday Night Tights. He took a tour of The United Kingdom, and reviewed a lot of castles, even getting a behind-the-scenes tour of at least one castle. If you like history, you might like that series. Most of Brooks' content is about European swords and armor, with a review of a few modern weapons as well.
Most of the complaints about The Acolyte are about the Woke messaging. This critique is about the failure of visual storytelling. Specifically, it is about fight scene choreography. Something that has been dear to my heart since I was watching Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone in The Adventures of Robin Hood on Sunday TV as a kid. It was taken seriously in everything from the original Pirates of the Caribbean movie, to Highlander: The Series. (The best sword duel committed to film is probably from the 1940 film The Mark of Zorro. That link will take you to my thoughts on it.)
Brooks applied his knowledge of swords and sword fighting to the latest light saber fights in a recent episode of Star Wars: The Acolyte.
Brooks was unimpressed with the show’s lightsaber fights from the very beginning, pointing out that a number of the Jedi knights did not even aim at the Sith, who would later be revealed to be Qimir.
He noted, “Now, we get the first close up. And already we have a bit of a problem. You see, I call him Smylo Ren because of that awful looking helmet, alright. He is attacking a Jedi off to the side, but what about this guy right here. He’s just hanging back. That’s not a good sign. From the very beginning Smylo’s just completely open and this guy right here [doesn’t take the killing blow]. … He’s open. Small thing. Not a good start.”
From that not-a-good start it gets worse. From people waiting their turn, to literally not trying to hit the other guy, you have to wonder who came up with this choreography. Especially when the fight scenes were clearly intended to carry the narrative of the episode. There have been good fight scenes in Star Wars, and not so good fight scenes that still managed to propel the narrative of whatever story was being told. This episode fails on both counts.
Then there is the stupid stuff. In the middle of a sword fight you punch the guy. If he's open for a fist blow, why not hit him with your sword? Oh, because the director, or the fight coordinator thought it looked cool. It doesn't.
Brooks added, “I hate it. I hate it when someone in a fight scene resorts to using a limb, an unarmed attack when they’re holding a weapon and they could have just hit them with the weapon.”
I could go on but you can read the article yourself.
Shad has 2 videos, a 10 minute overview, and the full, hour and 20 minute, scene by scene dissection of the travesty of an episode.
- Star Wars THE ACOLYTE fight scenes are TERRIBLE!!! - Shadlands 10 minute overview
- Star Wars THE ACOLYTE - Fight Scene Autopsy - Shadiversity full 1 hr 22 min review
The first video is a heavily edited version of the longer video. I should note I have not finished the long review, I will get to that later today. The short video is quite good.
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