My takeaway was indeed that the Jedi of old weren't the good guys, although they still believed they were.

The jedi not being strictly all that "good" isn't all that new and I definitely would've liked to see that explored more, as well as more "neutral" force users, or even something from the perspective of the dark side too. I also don't think this show was as bad as the review bombing made it out to be and on YT you kept just seeing the same rage baiting bigots too but it definitely missed the mark in many areas, despite having some good moments too. Still, a lot of the hate definitely came from the fact that we had a black female main character and some lesbian force witches. That's pretty hard to ignore with how loud those people are.

I still want more something like Andor though. That was still the best Star Wars I've ever seen.

If I ever do one of those “watch everything in order” things, I might just watch episode 5. The fight scene was sick. Given how inconsequential the story was, it would probably just feel like an episode of Visions.

The 'anti-woke' stuff is so frustrating. As soon as some youtube grifter labels something as 'woke' and their followers start review bombing, it frames all subsequent criticism of a thing: Mainstream outlets are wary of the association, so are kinder to a show that it deserves (which then brings their credibility into question for some people); Star Wars nerds who like anything in the universe start dismissing valid criticism because they assume it's been made in bad faith (because 'anti-woke' sorts don't always make themselves so obvious and do highjack legitimate concerns); and anyone trying to genuinely point out faults has to preface everything with where they're coming from (which can get tedious if nothing else).

Anyway: I don't have particularly strong opinions about the show but what I disliked about it was that it reminded me of 'Secret Invasion' and what I saw of 'Echo': it suggests that Disney don't want to do the traditional 'Andor' style of making television, and instead keep with the process of: write + shoot + re-write + reshoot ... This rarely works, and ends up with a show that has inconsistent characters ('Yord' changes personality about 5 times), inconsistent quality (since sets used for reshoots are typically smaller and less dressed), and inconsistent tone (people liked episode 5, but I'd argue that neck-snaps are too violent compared to the vibe of other episodes, which often seemed aimed at young children).

Also, there needs to be a moratorium of any characters saying they have a 'bad feeling about this' (if anyone says anything like this is S2 of Andor I'll be devasted)

In terms of dislike Ryan George does a good job, https://youtu.be/PqwEE6G6zaU

But in more detail there are a lot of decisions made by characters that are fun in the moment, but don't really make sense.

The twins are angry at Sol because he killed their mother, but Sol doesn't clarify that she was turning into a shadow monster?

Osha was a bad Jedi, fell out of the order, but then switches to dark side real quick and kills Sol.

We have to leave your sister behind and mind wipe her because there is no room in the ship? Also the mind wipe is clearly just a "we need a reason to stretch the story" move and if they had made a season 2 would have been undone quickly.

Why did the beaver man mess with the ship? He stopped Sol, but was also an ally?

I'm sure there are more but in general this show just didn't really tell a story I'm interested in.

Don't get me wrong it has some great things I want to know more about. The era of Star Wars is fun to explore and new. Space witches and how they compare (or are?) to the night sisters and their magic/force use. Possessing a Jedi. New Dark side users and origins.

The interesting story to me was/is Qimir, so I hope we can pick that character up again.

I agree. I frankly think the show was quite bad in terms of tone, cinematography, and unfortunately acting. It all felt kinda cheap and poorly planned to me. I say this as someone has genuinely enjoyed all of the other Star Wars shows (yep, even Obi-Wan). But I also found it interesting and really enjoyed the fight scenes and the new yet familiar setting. Regardless of my opinion of the technical side of the production, I absolutely would have watched another season to see where the story was headed.

I watched all of it and as some others have said I think there was a great story in there somewhere but it was just buried under a mountain of bad writing, crappy gimmicks, and terrible continuity.

I enjoyed elements of the story enough that I was willing to give a second season a chance, but I'm honestly not surprised it was cancelled.

The anti-woke stuff was shitty and definitely didn't help but I don't think that alone would have caused Disney to cancel a series if they really believed it could be successful

The producers once alluded that they were being review bombed by conservatives for the acolyte being too woke. Now, that might be true, but, the show also sucked in more than one way, which means there was no one to push back the reviews.

Reminds me of the George Carlin bit on soft-language.

going after Headland, who happens to be a member of the LGBTQ+ community

The one good thing about streaming services like Disney+ is that they have the platform metrics, and they can push shows against audiences and get watch metrics, retention metrics, etc from a large group of viewers. i.e. any online media storms can be weathered by good data of how the show is really performing.

The focus on anti-woke messaging from the show creatives seems like a rhetorical tool, if its the strongest message they have about the property that is what they are going to do to bring attention to it. If you have positive reviews, you talk about the reviews. If you have strong view numbers you talk about the viewer numbers. Since silence is the worst thing for a media property, if you have nothing else you talk about controversy real or imagined. Is there real anti-woke messaging for this show, sure, but like the standard background level you get on anything; is it the most interesting and important aspect of this show? Apparently - otherwise why would the creatives be talking about it?

The rhetoric escalation tree reveals uncomfortable truths. Woke/AntiWoke doesn't matter, only if it makes money, if it makes money, it gets another season.

Pretty sure andor season 2 is under production.

After the first two episodes I was willing to give it a chance, especially since they dispensed with the whole "Is she or isn't she the killer?" nonsense almost immediately.

Then everything went to shit in episode 3 and I just stopped watching. Mae's damage vs. the Jedi is that she set a fire that killed everyone? Seriously? How is that the fault of anyone except Mae? To the point where she wants to kill everyone else?

I was excited for it but stopped halfway through episode 3. They should have started with episode 3, left things unclear then start off with episode 1.

I honestly didn't feel any sort of connection with any of the characters. I felt bad for Sol. He got peer pressured by a bunch of Jedi buttheads.

I'd rather have more episodes of Boba Fett than The Acolyte.

I don't think this cancelation kicks off the problem of dilution of Star Wars brand identity. I think that problem has been happening for a while with the scattershot releases of movies and shows without the promised cohesion. There doesn't seem to be a vision from high up of what Star Wars should look like, or where it should be going with the setting.

It deserves to be cancelled for not telling a story