Horses Don't Neigh When They Run
The Acolyte 1.5 “Night”
This episode has a body count. We meet Mai’s Sith master for real…including seeing his hidden face.
There’s lots of lightsaber action, but we also see just how dangerous the Sith are. The Stranger kills all of the Jedi. Relatively easily.
Sol and Osha leave. Is Mae (I’ve been misspelling it, apparently), dead?
Is Osha dead and is that Mae leaving with Sol?
And why did we have to kill Pip? Do I need a CW: Cute droid death?
I’m pretty sure Mae left with Sol, the little so-and-so.
The actor is doing a great job playing both characters, but what happens now? Osha did something dark when she sacrificed Pip, in my opinion, but…
And what will Mae do?
This just got way more complicated and interesting.
The Acoyte 1.6 “Teach/Corrupt”
Hey, Pip is alive…his CPU was salvaged. Mae, though, is threatening to restore him to factory settings.
This gives her away…Osha loved the droid, Mae is just kind of annoyed by him.
The Jedi, meanwhile, are investigating Sol’s distress signal…but are unable to find Sol and think he may have gone rogue.
And Osha is with Mae’s master, who is starting to try and turn her into a Sith.
What a tangled mess, and I’m curious how it ends.
I’d kind of like to save both sisters, but I’m not sure it’s possible…and unfortunately with it being canceled, can I be sure I won’t get a cancellation chicken ending?
I hope not.
At least Pip is alive. I like Pip. He’s cute.
The Acolyte 1.7 “Choice”
They really love their flashback episodes right now.
We see the destruction of the fortress again, this time from the perspective of the Jedi.
Turns out the Jedi weren’t rhe good guys this time…and the witches make a prophecy that we all know will come true.
The Council actually did not approve Sol training Osha because she’s too old, but Sol went to try and get her anyway, which caused all of the conflict…and, indirectly, the fire.
And then he couldn’t catch both twins.
He really shouldn’t have intervened.
He really shouldn’t have intervened.
Also, apparently, Mae and Osha share a soul, although that doesn’t entirely make sense…wouldn’t they each have known the other was alive if they were that closely tied together?
One more episode.
The Acolyte 1.8 “The Acolyte”
Okay, now I’m annoyed it got canceled. But unsurprised it did. It took until episode 5 to start to get any good, and with an 8 episode season you can’t afford that.
Everything getting blamed on poor Sol is unfair, but it did allow them to save Mai so she can help find Osha…who has gone full Sith.
Up to and including a lightsaber changing from blue to red in her hand. I actually thought that was fanon, not even buried somewhere in the EU, but it’s canon now! Khyber crystals do indeed change color in response to the wielder’s specific alignment with the Force. Huh.
At the same time, I’m not 100% sure that this Sith is altogether evil. Or the Jedi altogether good. And maybe that’s ultimately why it failed.
I don’t know.
But the second season would likely have been better, shame we aren’t getting it.
Cinema Disaster: Sentinel
Oh dear.
First of all, there are a lot of strobe effects in this movie. I wasn’t able to watch several key scenes, including battle scenes with no narration. If you’re highly photosensitive, don’t bother. It’s distributed, I can’t just say “look away at this point.” It’s just not watchable and there is no warning on it. Thanks for nothing, Hulu.
And another accessibility fail is the motorcycle chase scene that is filmed with some interesting panoramic effects…that gave me motion sickness.
I had to look away so many times.
I DID manage to understand the…plot. Earth has been invaded and three chrononauts are being sent back from the remnant population on the moon to retrieve data.
The President (who is never named) sabotages the mission because he likes things just the way they are.
Add in some incoherent science, time travel that doesn’t work at all, people walking on the surface of the moon with just helmets…
They talk about how Earth’s gravity would affect the moon dwellers, then do nothing with it.
And then there are zombies. Note that the write up of this movie does not call it horror. It’s labeled as science fiction.
It has full blown body horror. There is no warning before the person with the tooth scar shows up. Mostly, it’s just zombies, but…tooth scar.
I’m not disappointed it was horror, I am unamused that it was not labeled as such.
They have to beat up the bad guy in four different years, and that part was kind of amusing.
(And in sequel bait, it’s not dead).
IMDB doesn’t have it listed as horror either and has an incorrect blurb (they do know about the Sentinel which, by the way, looks just like a Xenomorph. Somebody couldn’t get the rights).
At least the gratuitous sex is lesbian…they couldn’t think of a less, you know, R rated way to let us know the female chrononaut (yes, they call them that) is gay.
This movie is bad. I have watched far worse. And the strobing meant I couldn’t even enjoy its badness.
Because of that I can’t even recommend this to my bad movie friends. This wasn’t supposed to be a cinema disaster, but it definitely was.
(I do give props to the actors, who did the best they could with that material).
Renegade Nell 1.1 “Don’t Call Me Nelly”
CW: A dead horse is shown. The horse is already dead.
There hasn’t been a lot of buzz about this show…and I think that’s unfortunate.
Highwayman shows are rare. People generally prefer pirates, but the Gentlemen of the Road have their own mystique.
Our protagonist, Nell, went to war with her husband, but is now widowed and returns to her family to consider her next steps. Gender wise, she doesn’t appear to be a trans man, but is very uncomfortable in skirts. Until I see any other evidence, I’m putting her down as a tomboy.
Returning home, she discovers that the local magistrate’s son and heir is utterly unworthy of his position…he shoots a horse, clearly intends to rape her sister (this is handled delicately, but…), and ultimately kills her father…then kills his own father and frames Nell.
She’s forced to flee with her allies…her two younger sisters and a stable hand who can talk to horses. Oh, and a fairy who has been charged to protect her. Why, we don’t know, but he grants her superpowers when, and only when, she’s in mortal danger.
And speaking of horses.
Any time I watch something with extensive horse action I brace myself.
I’m going to say I am completely…
Impressed.
I only saw two errors of horsemanship in episode one. One case where somebody leads using a bridle without bringing the reins over the head, which is minor…and one situation where an actor tugged a rein *slightly* too hard.
At one point Nell rides in a double bridle, and she rides correctly. She’s not hanging on the curb rein, in fact she barely touches it. You almost never see that.
And none of the horses vocalize inappropriately at any time. Not a single neigh when they run incident.
Not.
One.
When they want to show that the bad guy is a terrible rider, they do it by having his horse complain to the stable boy, so no abuse is shown.
I’m going to be holding this show up as how to do horse stuff right.