Well Thalstan, I can understand why you feel that way but I will refer you to the thread about Ahsoka just a few months back where I posted with equal vigor in defense of the project. It’s not about hating Disney except yeah, it’s about hating Disney.
I love the Ahsoka character and like the project, save that I am annoyed they made Ezra Bridger a tiny sliver of the character he was in Rebels. I fought just as hard to support that project as to shame this one, and against stronger opponents. Richard Bong shared a LOT of penetrating insights and piercing comments in that thread, and I’m learning he knew some things about Dave Filoni I had not appreciated.
But, this whole approach is flawed. You can’t think reasonably about a discussion without looking at the substance of the discussion. Ask yourself, “does it really matter if entertainment tries to convince people there is no real difference between right and wrong?” Or ask “is it okay for the entertainment industry to sell this ideological baggage that good and evil are moral equivalents?” Or ask “do values really matter?” Or ask “so what’s wrong with shitting on Luke Skywalker, and pretending you didn’t?” It’s like asking if tearing down statues of heroes like Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln is okay. There’s actually a right answer. It’s not okay.
I grant you, pretending value’s don’t matter is easier. Pretending that when a sick little girl wants us to all pretend she’s a boy, is okay; when it’s really just laziness and cowardice, and callousness that does that. It’s lack of real caring actively leads to much greater suffering in the world; that’s not okay.
So sorry but I object. The world is going bat shit crazy and I have spine enough to point it out. So should you. This is not like any other generation. This is cultural suicide. That’s not okay.
As a society, we need to prefer good over evil. Patience is good. Tolerance is good. Patience and tolerance for the idea that evil is acceptable—that’s very far from okay. Note here I’m not picking on any particular evil that we might disagree about in our very pluralistic culture. I’m talking about the very notion of evil. It is never going to be okay to imply or assert that evil is okay. And, this is the very subject of The Acolyte. So. . .this is not a time to sit on one’s hands and pretend cowardice is virtue. It is not.
I’ll tell you the kind of thing in The Acolyte that should scare the shit out of all of us.
In one of the interviews, the young actor who plays the Jedi Yord says “the thing about Star Wars is it shows us that good and evil are just a matter of perspective.”
Now forget a moment that he is stupid enough to have insisted twice that Anakin Skywalker blew up the Death Star and killed millions of people. He’s an idiot. We get that. Let’s look past that.
He seems to be saying that protecting a planet of civilians by destroying a space station filled with crazed military, is only right based upon perspective. He’s giving an illustration of the principle that right and wrong are only a matter of perspective, and stating this is the true message behind Star Wars.
I’m hoping you understand how fucked up this notion is, and how many billions of people are going to die if it ever becomes popular. This is much like how we got WWII. This isn’t some simple game of semantics. It’s really fucking important. If you don’t agree, I strongly urge you to read up on the Weimar Republic—the people who caused WWII. They believed crazy shit just like this, and 55 million people died.