Acolyte Writer Blames Dave Filoni for Bad Episode

Television

As you may know, a lot of people (myself included) had issues with the latest episode of The Acolyte. In retrospect, perhaps “Day” is more controversial than the already-hated “Destiny.” Anyway, one of the show’s lovely writers, Claire Kiechel, responded to fan outrage by blaming Dave Filoni, Lucasfilm’s Chief Creative Officer. She clarifies that Filoni and “the rest of the Lucasfilm team” (a little vague, if you ask me) give the Acolyte writers notes on the show’s scripts. Check out a screenshot of her Tweet here, as her profile is now private:

You know, a lot of things bother me. I shouldn’t even have to say this, but lesbians and feminism aren’t among them. I support everyone’s lifestyle and right to love who they love as long as they aren’t harming someone else. I say this because The Acolyte has been framed as being about these female-centric topics. However, it’s really not. People don’t hate this show because it features women and is written by a lesbian, at least not most normal people. Regular people don’t have time to fixate on someone else’s sexual identity. Aside from Headland’s job with Harvey Weinstein, about which I don’t know enough to comment on, it’s just not a good show. The writing, sets, costumes, dialogue, and acting from everyone except Lee Jung-jae leave a lot to be desired. I feel like this lack of quality and respect for the source material speaks for itself.

Anyway, more precisely, where does Kiechel get off here? You do a bad job, and as soon as someone asks about it, you just blame someone else? Listen, I know Dave Filoni isn’t perfect. I watched Ahsoka, and I remember the less favored arcs of The Clone Wars. I like Filoni a lot and view him as one of the only people at Lucasfilm who actually likes and cares about Star Wars, but I can admit he has flaws, something Ms. Kiechel evidently can’t admit about her own work. I don’t know how saying someone else got to give you notes makes the work itself any better, and we don’t know how beholden to Filoni’s approval they are. Kathleen wanted a female-led, female-written series, and she got it. I’m not sure she would let Dave step in with little things like canon and quality control. By the way, in case everyone has forgotten, Star Wars has had women in it since the beginning, behind the camera and in front of it. Ever heard of Marcia Lucas? Katie Lucas? Bryce Dallas Howard? Deborah Chow? They are all more talented and brought more to Star Wars than all the writers/directors on The Acolyte combined. They never accidentally made a character a good fifty years older than he’s supposed to be, for example, which Kiechel’s episode of The Acolyte did to Jedi Master Ki-Adi-Mundi. And this was her response to a fan’s observation about that:

The line about Yoda shows how little Kiechel cares about the greater story of Star Wars. Instead of explaining how this character is here and why it’s okay for him to know about the Dark Siders, she makes a bad joke. Or maybe she’s serious about Yoda; after all, they killed off Kelnacca because they couldn’t afford to film him fighting.

I can’t decide if I should be grateful they didn’t ruin Yoda in this. Either way, this is character assassination on Mundi and the Jedi at large, and it’s just bad writing. But what bothers me the most here is the lack of accountability and personal responsibility. I don’t know any other job where it’s acceptable to respond to criticism by implying your failure is someone else’s fault.