this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2024
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I am not sure there was any real "incel review bombing". Looks more like an excuse of the show's creators. The show was shockingly bad, even from a purely technical standpoint. It felt like a not very good fanfiction. The Kenobi show was the same.
There absolutely was.
Anecdotally, a right-wing chud I’m unfortunately acquainted with was pestering me for weeks about it — and he’s not even a Star Wars fan.
That entire article is based off coincidental reasoning, and does nothing to connect the review bombing (which did occur) to anything incel or right wing.
Yes, it's absurd that the Acolyte's audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes dropped to below the Holiday special or any other piece of Star Wars media faster than any other piece dropped, but that article itself calls out the most likely reason: people believing that the third episode was retconning the canon of Anakin's "virgin birth" making him the chosen one by implying the twins were also "virgin birth" force babies.
That's kind of a massive, setting breaking retcon, if that was in fact what the show was saying (which still seemed to be the implication as of the end of the series). I can understand why that would draw more ire from fans than any other new piece of Star Wars media under Disney. No outside agitators needed.
I doubt enough people realized this for this effect. I'm not a huge Star Wars fan myself and this went completely over my head. I don't doubt that dedicated Star Wars fans picked up on it immediately, but most probably only heard of it from these. I see that a lot online. People decide to hate a piece of media even before it airs and then collect reasons for it after the fact.
But that's just my guess, anyway. I haven't watched The Acolyte farther than episode 4 or 5, but not because of anything specific. Just didn't grab me to keep watching. I thought I'll come back to it eventually, but now that I know it's canceled I probably won't.