'The Acolyte' and the Long-Awaited Death of Review-Bombing

You cognize you’ve gone excessively heavy into YouTube fandom erstwhile you can’t retrieve which dude with an costly microphone told you what portion speaking consecutive to camera.

Still, earlier this week, that was the peculiar sarlacc pit I had been sucked into. Word had dispersed that fans were review-bombing The Acolyte connected Rotten Tomatoes and curiosity got the champion of me. First, I watched this dude-with-a-mic video, which claimed that Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy doesn’t similar Star Wars fans and “that [Lucasfilm] started attacking the fans earlier the amusement adjacent came out; that was to archer you that they knew they had a heap of trash.”

Another ballcapped idiosyncratic noted, “The main crushed wherefore this amusement is specified a debacle is due to the fact that it doesn’t consciousness similar Star Wars … Fans similar me—longtime fans similar us—we’re not buying this crap. This is garbage, and we gotta telephone 'em retired for it.” After that it was this, which explained that “the precise things fans kick astir are the precise virtuousness signals the Hollywood constitution has invested truthful overmuch into they simply can’t judge the assemblage not responding to them.” In turn, the video’s narrator concluded, the manufacture blames review-bombing.

It’s hard to accidental that immoderate of the YouTube pundits were “wrong” oregon “right”—and doing truthful would beryllium a surefire mode to go the taxable of the next investigation video. (Fast-forward to 13:51 to ticker my floating caput beryllium yelled astatine by Carrie Fisher.) What I volition suggest is this: Everyone is conscionable warring astir warring now.

For perspective, here’s what happened: The Acolyte deed Disney+ connected June 4. The captious people connected the Tomatometer sat determination successful the 80+ percent range—not rather “Certified Fresh” but beauteous solid. In the intervening weeks, the assemblage people plummeted and present hovers astir 13 oregon 14 percent, which has led to reports that the amusement was being review-bombed, aka deed with bad-faith antagonistic assemblage reviews. Since immoderate reports connected this flood of atrocious scores to the show’s divers formed and LGBTQ+ themes—er, “lesbian abstraction witches”—there’s been statement astir whether the mediocre reviews were coming from homophobic, racist, oregon misogynist corners of the fandom.

Last week, The Hollywood Reporter asked showrunner Leslye Headland (Russian Doll) astir the effect to the show. While stipulating that she didn’t deliberation her amusement was “queer with a superior Q,” Headland said it was disheartening “that radical would deliberation that if thing were gay, that would beryllium atrocious … it makes maine consciousness bittersweet that a clump of radical connected the net would someway dismantle what I see to beryllium the astir important portion of creation that I’ve ever made.”

These comments led to a clump of absorption videos, which is however I ended up successful the YouTube rabbit hole. Each video I watched had tons of nuance, but 1 taxable kept coming up that seems to beryllium the bosom of the problem: Reviewers aren’t bigots, they conscionable deliberation The Acolyte is garbage and “not Star Wars”; Disney’s ownership of Lucasfilm is ruining the franchise, and these pissed-off fans are posting reviews to constituent retired the show’s galore flaws.

Taking this astatine look value, I’d conscionable similar to say: Uh, OK? Putting speech idiosyncratic feelings astir the show’s prime (I americium a atrocious queer idiosyncratic who hasn’t watched The Acolyte yet, contempt the instructions that went retired successful this month’s Gay Agenda newsletter; aft my YouTube jaunt I’m not definite if skipping this amusement makes maine a atrocious Star Wars instrumentality oregon a bully one), there’s different statement to beryllium made: Sometimes franchises person atrocious installments—or conscionable installments not everyone enjoys—and that’s fine.

Star Wars, similar each superb creations, derives its genius from its malleability. George Lucas’ world-building thrives connected the information that anyone tin ideate what’s happening 3 prima systems away. Lucas himself reinforced this by turning to antithetic writers and directors to marque The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Disney has possibly gone excessively overboard with the magnitude of contented it’s made since its $4 cardinal acquisition of Lucasfilm successful 2012—even CEO Bob Iger has copped to that—but trying to accidental that it’s an untouchable franchise that shouldn’t beryllium iterated upon is ridiculous.