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The problem is, if these Disney-produced SW shows were any longer, say an hour per episode in total, they'd just be filled up with even more shots of people walking, sitting and sighing, and some B-roll of landscapes and long establishing shots. They don't even have enough story to fill up 30-minute episodes.
Yeah it's 100% a money laundering scheme. Episode 5 was good and looked good but all the tech from revenge of the sith (some of which still holds up), sequel trilogy etc should be readily available to be used by anyone in Disney making star wars content. We've had no big space battles, 2 hand to hand fight scenes and 1 big lightsaber battle in 5 half-hour episodes that each cost over 20 million dollars? You don't have to be a Hollywood producer (lol) to see that just doesn't add up. House of the dragon has a lower budget and looks and feels infinitely better. These Disney plus shows are going the way of the dinosaur if the ceo's recent comments are anything to go by so I believe it's a make hay while the sun shines situation for the Hollywood leeches who will clamour to get themselves a executive/ associate/ co associate/ assistant/ assistant executive/ assistant assistant/ co executive producer credits on one of these star wars/ marvel shows which inexicably cost more than most movies being released while looking like the entirety of the piece was shot on a single stage.
I can’t remember what podcast I heard it from , but if it is to be believed, the higher ups in the production company are pocketing the money left over. Not sure what the justification is for it, but the guy who worked on Hollywood productions said that from what his experience was, this show and a number of other programs did not warrant the reported budgets .
They literally do this to get tax credits in certain States. Seen it first hand, on film sets. They have to hire a certain number of people for locals to qualify for the incentives.
I'm not saying it's related to this specifically, but it definitely happens with lower tiar jobs
Disney has had this insane strategy of making movies in post. They hire a PR statement as a director, some guy with 2 episodes on a sitcom as a writer, let them film a bunch of shit, then try to string it together in post into a story. There is just not enough usable content for hours of entertainment here. It's clear they are struggling to even get the half an hour shows out.
This is the most accurate feeling. They had a list of rough sketch ideas that were earmarked for a movie, the movie business and their execution blew up in their faces, so they did exactly what you said: give a not even half baked project a bunch of production money they’d already budgeted/had contracts on, hire exactly nobody competent on the script side, make it look like star wars and then stitch it together and get free press by stirring the identity politics pot so they can at least say their streaming numbers look good while they figure out what the hell they’re going to do with the movie franchise.
I mean 80-90% of Game of Thrones content is people sitting around in costume having conversations. But people eat it up because it's compelling dialogue and good acting.
Disney can't seem to replicate this because they really don't have good writers it seems. If they had good writers and a compelling story people would probably enjoy 40 minutes of Jedi sitting around talking about the force.
Look at the Kotor games, they are 80% dialogue based games and they are some of the most beloved Star wars games/content out there. I used to spend hours just walking around my ship talking to all the characters about their stories.
So I just checked, HOTD s01e01 had about 2 minutes of English credits.
Acolyte s01e01 has 5 to 5 minutes and 30 seconds of credits. 16 slides of the end credits are translation credits for about 15 other languages that takes up 2 minutes of credit time.
Budget aside, the Star Wars credits fit a lot of words per page to the point of legal print near the end lol, but, to me,these dedicated slides bloat out the advertised streaming time.
My wife and I have an inside joke with these short ass episodes. If it’s been on for about 10 minutes, every scene transition afterwards one of us will say, “Next time on Percy Jackson.” Regardless of the show.
Yeah but they kinda use the length of the credits to leave a false sense of the actual runtime
“Oh this episode is 40 minutes awesome!”
Credits start playing at the 29 minute mark.
I don’t remember exactly which season but there was an episode of the mandalorian that was shorter than normal and like 1/3rd of the episode was just credits.
Is this really an issue? Who gives a fuck? There is absolutely no one at Disney trying to fool anyone with runtimes. Plenty of valid criticism but this isn’t it.
Disney are shameless actually. Take a look at the shows from other streaming services. Netflix, Apple, Amazon, HBO etc.
They have proper runtime - 45 to 60-70 minutes.
And now MCU and SW Disney+ shows? 25-35 mins, basically cartoon runtime. What can they possibly fit into such a short timeframe? It heavily damages the viewer experience and story and characters themselves. What works for cartoons won't work for live action.
The secret is Disney just realized they just don't have to spend more on their shows to get full month price of subscription from D+ subscribers. So they just don't.
>The secret is Disney just realized they just don't have to spend more on their shows to get full month price of subscription from D+ subscribers. So they just don't.
This is something I'm actually really interested in. Someone at Disney must have been realizing giving people 8 episodes per 25 minutes will keep them subscribed as long as giving them 10 episodes with 60 minutes runtime and obviously safes them 50% cash or whatever (I'm assuming it is logistically cheaper to shoot a bit more material if filming is going on already but whatever).
But these episodes aren't even good. Hell, Futurama and Rick & Morty manage to fill their time better.
Episode length is not a good metric for quality.
Andor, secret invasion, Loki, Hawkeye, and FATWS were all 40-60 min long episodes. There’s good and bad example in that list.
Meanwhile, most anime or other adult cartoons are primarily 20 min episodes and there’s incredible story telling done in that short runtime.
All episode length tells you is if it’s going to have a 3 or 5 act formula. That’s literally the only thing it tells you.
Oh, it's worse! They spent 180+ million on the Acolyte.
HotD was cheaper by minute to make.
And without cries of '-ism' again, without a show runner with massive ethical questions (that we know of), and without a twerking video by a half Danish multimillionaire actress.
Aren't Star Wars fans lucky?
If you remove the credits and ignore the pilot, the actual show runtime is under 30 minutes. It wouldn't be that difficult to recut into a 2-2.5 hour movie. The short episodes, in combination with the weekly cadence highlights the problems. It distracts from the immersion and the flow. I also wonder what role it plays in reviews as the episodes are so short, they're easier to pick apart.
I do wonder if there’s a future in streaming for experimenting with a format of releasing like, two tv movies with better pacing rather than the new typical 6-8 episodes of stretched out filler
I know it would feel exciting to me as a viewer to be pitched that like you were getting a two for one
To me it's season 8 GoT vibes. The Acolyte is an interesting concept, but the execution is horrible. There could be interesting things shown behind the scenes at the High Council or explaining who greenlady is, but for reasons that aren't explained, 5 episodes into an 8 episode series, those details are left out. How does Smilo know so much about Sol? Why could he track Kelnacca? Why are the Jedi so stupid? How is it that a Darkside user is able to hide in plain sight right in front of Jedi? Palpatine did it originally, now Smilo. How does that work? Is it ego?
There's a lot of story that could be told, but instead of giving details and setting up a larger world, like earlier seasons of GoT, it's on a S8 speed run. Details don't matter, just get it done ASAP. Why bother?
Good or bad is subjective. However, a long movie broken up into parts might be a pretty good description. Get rid of the repeated openings/closings/recaps/etc and you might end up with a 2 - 3 hour movie.
You have to imagine Rogue One broken up as a 6 part series as an example. Would it have been worse?
For example, the last episode...
> nothing happens
> lots of questions, no answers
> one of the new characters even starts asking questions, about events we already saw, in a very annoying way, annoying green lady
> Manny Jacked-cinto just asks questions back every time OSHA asks him a question
> mindreading jedi master doesn't realize he got the wrong twin until she starts.. asking questions, so he shoots her instead of answering
This was like 35 minutes of no exposition. Even when Mae asks a question about her past, the writers finally decide to clue mindreading-Jedi-master in that she isn't OSHA, and he stuns her to make certain no exposition is had in this 35 minutes of television.
It was the most anti-expositive 30 minutes of television since Lost
Can we just get some answers, preferably in an episode that is 45 minutes at least? Like throw in some bug fights, OSHA fights a mudcrab, whatever
Whether you want to call Disney's handling of SW incompetence or malice, either one of those ends up at the same place eventually. Not only do they both tank the quality, but efficiency goes right out the window too. So you end up with bad quality that's more expensive, and sometimes there's less of it too.
I honestly think it's more they have an episode number they want to target because that's how many weeks you get people subbed to Disney + for.
However, the shows aren't written in a way that makes that many episodes make sense. So the writers either have to add a bunch of fluff that doesn't matter (kenobi) or split episodes in half (acolyte).
Let's not forget Book of Boba Fett which halfway turned into the Mandalorian and then kinda-back again.
As shit as the rest was/is, at least it focuses on the actual thing mentioned in the title. What they were thinking with BOBF I don't really know.
It truly is a mystery why Disney continues to employ writers with the skill levels of navel lint.
Dialogue is tired, incoherent. Characterization has the depth of a dried up creek.
They had a story group (does it even exist anymore) with the lowest possible knowledge of, and interest in, Star Wars.
...and even bigger of a miserable mystery... people defend this shit, claim to like it, maybe even actually like it. That's fine by me, but it doesn't exactly help Disney improve.
Boo and hiss
Because we all have to accept we are a bubble of fans who just consume the shit anyways.
Their target audience is young kids who want the merch or liked baby yoda and their parents. Those the episodes are very short and basic intentionally.
House of the Dragon is the second of two TV series set in Westeros (that I know of). Disney mills out content by comparison.
Its a lot like Warhammer if you follow that at all. You get a gem every year or so but also a shitload of shovelware games and inane stories.
Nothing much happens during the episodes. They cut off their episodes in weird spots because they have to stretch out what little plot there is to 8 episodes.
What's sad, though, is all of the world-building and material for a HOTD type show is possible in the Star Wars universe. We get glances of it with Mon Mothma in Andor and some of the court politics. But the writers for Star Wars don't seem to have any clue on how to create a season-long and engaging story line with levels of depth.
Even having the two twins of the Kingsguard fight each other over the succession was more emotionally resonant than anything in Disney Star Wars AND those two only had a few minutes of screentime.
GoT/HoD is so many miles ahead of SW TV (and almost every show out there) it’s not even fair to compare.
But, Star Wars is at a disadvantage when making shows compared to GoT. They have to cater to a younger audience, spend a ton of $ on CGI for planets, space, fight scenes, etc., and on top of that Game of Thrones already has a rough very in-depth story line to work off from the novels. A lot of these Star Wars shows are just written now and have to thread a thin line to work their way into canon. GoT and HoD already have a strong framework. And when that framework ended and they had to freestyle, they released one of the worst show endings in recent memory
Have you ever watched HOTD? The show spends plenty on CGI for the battles and the dragons. Also the source material for HOTD is pretty sparse. They are definitively coming up with a decent amount of original material to fill in the blanks.
I completely agree. Each episode has these huge sweeping shots (like the dragon chasing down Sir Cole and the horse riders across the field into the forest). Has Acolyte had a single large shot like that?
HOTD also had Rhaenyra sneaking into King's Landing via boat, and we got a huge shot of the coastline, followed by shots of the town, the sept, etc. All huge and glorious and well crafted. Outside of Andor, have there really been any comparable shots that just look $$$$$ ?
HOTD is made by professionals and HBO (for the most part) know what they've been doing ever since Sopranos, Band of Brothers, Deadwood, etc. Some of their stuff sucks (like The Regime did recently) but they must have an HBO Standard Process and they execute well.
Disney is basically new to all live-action shows starting in March 2020.
WHERE IS ALL OF DISNEY'S MONEY EVEN GOING?
The guys and gals who work on production for HBO are incredibly talented. It is evident from watching any of the behind the scenes segments for HOTD. The solutions they come up with for problems are so clever I have to assume they have years of experience working on TV shows. It doesn't seem like Disney has people on that level of expertise working on their shows.
The Volume was a huge part of what made Mandalorian S1 and S2 look so good and achieve such incredible results on a budget. The problem is, it seems like Disney is just throwing everything into The Volume and unless you treat it with 1000% care and attention, it looks like garbage (like the last Ant Man movie, which looked it was filmed in the 90's).
I don't think Disney has what it takes to really commit to big budget cinema-level experiences. Instead, they're just creating more content and it shows.
Gosh. I wonder if Disney has a wealth of amazing Star Wars novels and canon to work with and adapt into incredible on-screen stories instead of writing new ones.
No? Does that matter? The stories are well told, fit in the universe, and expand the lore of the series.
Knights of the Old Republic does have great dialogue though, they could adapt the shit out of that and it would be gold.
I think it does matter; that’s why the dialogue in the first 6-7ish seasons of GoT were so much better than the last; any area they ventured into in the shows that wasn’t covered in the books in the later season had a significant drop off of quality of writing/story telling.
I hadn’t read any Star Wars novels tho, which is why I asked. I hope they do the knights of the old republic!
Well, I can tell you for one, they don't have dialogue that amounts to Stormtroopers complaining about "making ends meet and getting that #paycheck." Anything is better than that.
Disney just ruins the scifi aspect so much trying to make it so relatable to the real world.
EDIT: And lol have you seen Attack of the Clones / ROTS? The dialogue is soooo cringe. But its still Star Wars and it works.
To be fair, even that wouldn't be enough. I can count on one hand the number of series that have the same writing quality as A Song of Ice and Fire, and none of them are set in the Star Wars universe. George has plenty of issues, but he's easily one of the best authors of all time.
yeah, it’s not even the same stratosphere really. HBO’s production and acting is top notch. Disney’s production is generally fine, but with The Acolyte they heavily dropped the ball. Easily the worst looking and acted Star Wars show they made.
Still at least they aren’t Netflix which has next level terrible production on 99% of their original shows.
GOT and HOD have top tier budgets. HBOs Rome was literally canceled because it cost too much. Other shows have budgets like Star Wars and are still better. Because you don’t need spectacle all the time in Star Wars. You can have entire episodes with just dialogue and limited action, like we see in Andor. But that requires good acting and writing which most Disney content doesn’t have.
Most of the things that made Andor expensive are similarly true about HOD. Lots of sets, which need to be geographically diverse. A few set piece CGI fights. Lots of extras.
Andor CGI versus the Acolyte mediocre CGI. :(
The planets from the Acolyte dont feel like planets, they just feel like a real small setup. With their budget, they could have created so much more.
On the other hand, the planets within Andor felt huge.
I think they made so many mistakes to make things memorable.
Because then they would have to write meaningful dialogue. House of the Dragon or Got can have a 10 minute scene in a single room, but it manages to somehow be the most engaging 10 minutes of your life. Lucasfilm doesn't have anywhere close to that calibur of writer.
First of all, I'd like an end to taking a movie and splitting it up into a series.
Secondly, the disney shows (especially the ones where Kathleen is involved) probably are bleeding budget from laundering and "Hollywood financial magic".
I had heard a rumor KK is wanting to setup her own studio after she's out at Lucasfilm. But her and her husband possibly already own subsidiary companies that service the film industry (like catering), and contract those firms for production, feeding money back to Kathleen in a roundabout way. She even steals budget from other shows for her own, as is the case with the Acolyte (that part is at least confirmed). Once again, that's just rumor.
The other possible reason is mere incompetence and arrogance.
HBO consistently puts out high quality shows with one hour episodes
Disney consistently pushes out mediocre shows with 30-40 minute episodes
Simply a difference in television show philosophy between the two producers.
I’m convinced with the pacing of this show and Book of Boba Fett that they were shot initially as movies then edited to episodes.
The flow and pacing are so off. That or just really dogwater writers.
This past week on HOTD there was a single-take shot of a possibly-fake Targaryan going to the pub to meet his friends. I swear there was more skill in executing that single shot of some rando character going to the pub than anything in Disney Star Wars. You got to see so much daily life in Kings Landing, and each frame was filled with 30 to 50 background extras doing regular stuff.
And then all of the air gets sucked out of the room when the King and his d-bag friends show up and it was super tense.
Meanwhile, on the Acolyte, we got terrible cosplay lightsaber fights that looked ridiculous.
The guy might not be fake, the targaryen bastards will play an important role later. A very well executed set-up.
I am frequently angry that HBO somehow managed such a strong comeback with a brilliant crew and that other studios are so often failing. My personal pet peeve is Rings of Power. A billion dollar budget given to two inexperienced show-runners. I feel that newcomers should be given a fair chance, but not with such an established and difficult to adapt IP. I hope that they either switch out the writers or add a third, more experienced show-runner. The costuming choices are also frequently baffling. Have you seen the Sauron shot with the unflattering wig? These are supposed to be professionals!
I haven't seen the Acolyte, but I'm excited for season two of Andor.
PS: I'm so scared that ROP will butcher the Fall of Numenor. It's my favorite Tolkien story aside from Children of Hurin. Sauron is an actual character and manages to cause the sinking of an entire island. I'm scared that I will never see a proper adaptation in my lifetime, no studio will touch it if they have a billion dollar fail. It would deserve writing as a good as House of the Dragon and a Sauron actor as good as Heath Ledger playing the Joker. Alas, my dream adaptation will probably never happen.
There is a 0% chance Rings of Power will turn out decently. Everything on that show (but especially the sets, the costumes, the scenery) just feels off and cheap. I don't blame the actors because the writing is so bad and everything is nonsensical.
GRRM recently made comments about all of this. Check out this blog post:
[https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2024/05/24/the-adaptation-tango/](https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2024/05/24/the-adaptation-tango/)
"Everywhere you look, there are more screenwriters and producers eager to take great stories and 'make them their own.' No matter how major a writer it is, no matter how great the book, there always seems to be someone on hand who thinks he can do better, eager to take the story and “improve” on it. “The book is the book, the film is the film,” they will tell you, as if they were saying something profound. Then they make the story their own.
They never make it better, though. Nine hundred ninety-nine times out of a thousand, they make it worse."
This is Rings of Power 10000%.
One can still hope... Maybe it will serve as a lesson to future adaptations. I remember being really unhappy about the budget, because I expected it to be mediocre and the budget could have been put into so many amazing projects. It's a shame. At least we'll get Arcane Season 2 this year. Good writing still exists. But I don't expect much from Star Wars anymore. Which is also rather sad.
PS: I have read Martin's post already. I do agree with him that screen writers don't understand what made the story good in the first place.
The only Star Wars show that can even compare is Andor. It's like Disney writers have no clue what to do when Jedi, lightsabers, the Force, etc. are involved. Other than break their own lore/canon.
Disney both spends a ton of money yet keeps the purse strings tight for these shows. After Kelnacca died offscreen and it was confirmed his planned fight scene was cut to lower costs, it seems pretty clear only the bare bones of these shows are making it to the final edit. Basically Disney is producing minimally viable content to give people a reason to hold onto their subscriptions for an 8 week run.
They're cheap. Of course it begs the question as to where the money is going given the budgets are so huge.
I honestly think they have tons of redundant useless social media work from home marketing/DEI positions that consume endless resources, much like at Twitter pre-Elon.
Crazy how the only Disney Star Wars show that actually strived to take their time and have 12 episodes that consistently had 45-55 minute runtimes was also the one to have the most developed characters, most realistic dialogue, settings, costumes, and props, and also delivered the most intriguing and deep story in the franchise.
Its almost like taking your time to get things right and allowing a story to develop and not just trying to rush through 8 30 minute episodes full of crap is actually a wise way to make a tv show
Cause shorter shows are better for kids. And that’s frankly all Disney cares about.
They don’t care about the adult Star Wars fans, and are more focused on pushing their products onto kids to turn them into future Disney adults who will then bring their kids into it.
As long as they use the run time wisely I don't really care. Like the Bear can have 20 minute episodes, 40 min episodes and hour long episodes and each of them keep you hooked and entertained because they are as long as they need to be, unlike acolyte episode 3 which is 40 minutes that could have been about 20, or the first episode that uses contrivances (the whole prison escape and snow planetJ to fill out their run time.
Not that I want to disrupt the hate, but I LOATHE the idea that there's a standard length of TV shows, and I would say that the vast majority of 50+'ers these days barely demand a tight 35. And that's OK. A tight 35 is fantastic.
I was just thinking about that especially watching both each week, but having twins in both shows is hilarious in how they are used. Especially with Otto chewing out Aegon and Criston for their "plan."
Approximately 3 years and over $150 million dollars to produce approximately 4-5 hours of content over a 6 week period.
I quite fondly remember when tv shows produced 8-10 hours of content over multiple months every year back to back.
The stuff Disney is putting out always seems to be a 2 hour movie stretched out to 3 - 4 hours over 8ish episodes of TV. What they put out isn't enough for a TV show, but what is there is just so much filler. It's weird, too much nothing for a movie and not nearly enough for a TV show. The comparison to HotD really shows the massive gulf between the 2.
Honestly, just looking at some of the Marvel tv series, with only six episodes, it's clear they are stretching movie scripts to mini series length. Six 30 min episodes are a three hour movie. If you remove the op/ed credits and recap, there's even less to chew on.
It's like they're shooting the looong first draft of a bad movie idea and on top of that, padding it with long walks and stares -- and call it a series. All fat... and what little good there is, gets lost in the filler.
That’s my most frustrating thing about rewatching these shows since I switched to d+/hulu-
They are all 4 1/2 hrs long after you skip the literal
6-8 mins of Recaps/intro/end credits ugh
Every episode is 27-40 mins long no matter what.
Also- except mando/andor- they all should have been movies.
And solo should have been a tv show. It basically is with every 15 mins jumping to a new heist or set piece or planet- even rogue one feels like a final big budget3 episode arc or Andor we got first for no reason lol
Id actually would like longer episodes sometimes the Disney shows feel way to short and some episodes feel like side filler.
Think longer runtime like house of the dragon would help with some of their shows
The more obv answer is HoTD needs to fill up an actual time slot of 50-60min as it comes out on tv (hbo yes but still tv) whim acolyte does not. The time is arbitrary as there is no hour time slot to fill.
Disney shows are basically movies that get cut up, fluffed up and served on a streaming platform.
House of the Dragon is a TV show following the HBO formula that's existed for a long time.
The reason their episodes are so short is because their light on dialogue and relationship building. Building a complex and intertwining relationship web is what eats up run time. Having complex problems to solve eats up runtime. Their paltry effort plays out in no time at all because they, and by extension their characters, have nothing meaningful to say
I don't know why people think a bloated, elongated run time equals quality.
A show should be as long as it needs to be to tell the story the episode needs to tell. Not being constrained within a time slot is a good thing as it avoids stretch and bloat and let's the story have the time it needs.
Acolyte is for kids and teens. Simple short stories.
Also we have to remember that Disney lives on prestige but the money comes in the by product they churn out. The Lion King was a great movie by many standards but Disney's real business was in the direct to video sequels and cheapo toys made in third world countries. Over priced rides and fast food in their parks.
They bought the Star Wars prestige to flim flam it to low cost cheap tv shows for their streaming service. You and me saw Obi Wan, isn't it the equivalent of a direct to video, movie of the week quality movie?
>The acting and dialogue in HotD absolutely blows Acolyte out of the water. It’s embarrassing honestly.
I have seen the first two episodes from HOTD now, and it's not even in the same universe compared to what Disney is serving us.
Otto reacting to "Ser Criston Cole has acted" must be my new favorite reaction shot - he realized why Viserys wanted to only play with his Legos all the time and have no stupid bullshit going on around him and is so sick and tired of his grandson and his outlook on politics you can feel it. There is nothing even close in Disney Star Wars.
I remember Robert Rodriguez commenting that he had been given a Mandalorian script that was essentially two pieces of toilet paper with very little plot involved, so he had to fill up the run time with mindless action. There is just no real oversite on these garbage shows.
Not that I disagree with you, but this is like comparing apples to oranges. Different writers, different story, different target audiences, different platforms, different everything. And then in the midst of all of these differences, here you are complaining about runtime.
It's not. It's comparing runtimes of what ought to both be traditional length TV shows. The expectation is hourlong dramas and half hour comedies. Streaming has made the traditional breakdown of TV show types less relevant, but this is still the general expectation. It was jarring when the Mandalorian debuted with 30-something minute episodes. And so many justify it as keeping out filler and improving the pace, but that simply isn't true. For the entire history of TV, many, many television shows have filled an hour with high quality, well paced entertainment. The idea that Star Wars wouldn't be able to fill that same timeslot is absurd. The pacing hasn't been top notch, and there is still plenty of filler. It's just about quality writing. There is a very "first draft" quality to most of the Disney+ content, pretty much everything has an obvious need to have been run through some additional passes. Short episodes are merely a cost saving measure.
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The problem is, if these Disney-produced SW shows were any longer, say an hour per episode in total, they'd just be filled up with even more shots of people walking, sitting and sighing, and some B-roll of landscapes and long establishing shots. They don't even have enough story to fill up 30-minute episodes.
Hence why they oughta hire better writers. Where did the 180mln budget go?
Money laundering.
Yeah it's 100% a money laundering scheme. Episode 5 was good and looked good but all the tech from revenge of the sith (some of which still holds up), sequel trilogy etc should be readily available to be used by anyone in Disney making star wars content. We've had no big space battles, 2 hand to hand fight scenes and 1 big lightsaber battle in 5 half-hour episodes that each cost over 20 million dollars? You don't have to be a Hollywood producer (lol) to see that just doesn't add up. House of the dragon has a lower budget and looks and feels infinitely better. These Disney plus shows are going the way of the dinosaur if the ceo's recent comments are anything to go by so I believe it's a make hay while the sun shines situation for the Hollywood leeches who will clamour to get themselves a executive/ associate/ co associate/ assistant/ assistant executive/ assistant assistant/ co executive producer credits on one of these star wars/ marvel shows which inexicably cost more than most movies being released while looking like the entirety of the piece was shot on a single stage.
Executive bonuses
I can’t remember what podcast I heard it from , but if it is to be believed, the higher ups in the production company are pocketing the money left over. Not sure what the justification is for it, but the guy who worked on Hollywood productions said that from what his experience was, this show and a number of other programs did not warrant the reported budgets .
According to the Disney simps, that money went to paying staff apparently.
“Staff” is a funny way of saying Kathleen Kenedy’s pocket.
Paying staff to stand around, much like the actors on the show
They literally do this to get tax credits in certain States. Seen it first hand, on film sets. They have to hire a certain number of people for locals to qualify for the incentives. I'm not saying it's related to this specifically, but it definitely happens with lower tiar jobs
Catering /s
How many complicit ex assistants of serial rapists are left?
Disney has had this insane strategy of making movies in post. They hire a PR statement as a director, some guy with 2 episodes on a sitcom as a writer, let them film a bunch of shit, then try to string it together in post into a story. There is just not enough usable content for hours of entertainment here. It's clear they are struggling to even get the half an hour shows out.
This is the most accurate feeling. They had a list of rough sketch ideas that were earmarked for a movie, the movie business and their execution blew up in their faces, so they did exactly what you said: give a not even half baked project a bunch of production money they’d already budgeted/had contracts on, hire exactly nobody competent on the script side, make it look like star wars and then stitch it together and get free press by stirring the identity politics pot so they can at least say their streaming numbers look good while they figure out what the hell they’re going to do with the movie franchise.
I mean 80-90% of Game of Thrones content is people sitting around in costume having conversations. But people eat it up because it's compelling dialogue and good acting. Disney can't seem to replicate this because they really don't have good writers it seems. If they had good writers and a compelling story people would probably enjoy 40 minutes of Jedi sitting around talking about the force. Look at the Kotor games, they are 80% dialogue based games and they are some of the most beloved Star wars games/content out there. I used to spend hours just walking around my ship talking to all the characters about their stories.
wasn't got like that at first I remember the garden walk being a running gag
Thats what blows my mind. How so much money was spent, the episode lengths are so short, and yet there's STILL SO MUCH FILLER.
wasn't games of thrones like that at first remember the whole garden walk thing was a running gag
I’m still enjoying it more than Disco but damn it’s true. I’m only enjoying is like, a tiny bit more than disco.
Maybe it is mercy. Would you really *want* longer Disney Star Wars shows with their level of writing?
At this point it feels like I'm being held hostage and the Disney Plus subscription fee is how I get released from every episode
The audacity to have 5 to 8 minute credits is wild. Didn't expect shrinkflation in my TV Shows now, but it's Disney.
The credit length is directly proportional to the budget, not the quality of the show.
So I just checked, HOTD s01e01 had about 2 minutes of English credits. Acolyte s01e01 has 5 to 5 minutes and 30 seconds of credits. 16 slides of the end credits are translation credits for about 15 other languages that takes up 2 minutes of credit time. Budget aside, the Star Wars credits fit a lot of words per page to the point of legal print near the end lol, but, to me,these dedicated slides bloat out the advertised streaming time.
Disney is the Frito-Lay of entertainment
My wife and I have an inside joke with these short ass episodes. If it’s been on for about 10 minutes, every scene transition afterwards one of us will say, “Next time on Percy Jackson.” Regardless of the show.
I doubt the credits are in place of content
Yeah but they kinda use the length of the credits to leave a false sense of the actual runtime “Oh this episode is 40 minutes awesome!” Credits start playing at the 29 minute mark. I don’t remember exactly which season but there was an episode of the mandalorian that was shorter than normal and like 1/3rd of the episode was just credits.
Is this really an issue? Who gives a fuck? There is absolutely no one at Disney trying to fool anyone with runtimes. Plenty of valid criticism but this isn’t it.
Disney are shameless actually. Take a look at the shows from other streaming services. Netflix, Apple, Amazon, HBO etc. They have proper runtime - 45 to 60-70 minutes. And now MCU and SW Disney+ shows? 25-35 mins, basically cartoon runtime. What can they possibly fit into such a short timeframe? It heavily damages the viewer experience and story and characters themselves. What works for cartoons won't work for live action. The secret is Disney just realized they just don't have to spend more on their shows to get full month price of subscription from D+ subscribers. So they just don't.
>The secret is Disney just realized they just don't have to spend more on their shows to get full month price of subscription from D+ subscribers. So they just don't. This is something I'm actually really interested in. Someone at Disney must have been realizing giving people 8 episodes per 25 minutes will keep them subscribed as long as giving them 10 episodes with 60 minutes runtime and obviously safes them 50% cash or whatever (I'm assuming it is logistically cheaper to shoot a bit more material if filming is going on already but whatever). But these episodes aren't even good. Hell, Futurama and Rick & Morty manage to fill their time better.
Episode length is not a good metric for quality. Andor, secret invasion, Loki, Hawkeye, and FATWS were all 40-60 min long episodes. There’s good and bad example in that list. Meanwhile, most anime or other adult cartoons are primarily 20 min episodes and there’s incredible story telling done in that short runtime. All episode length tells you is if it’s going to have a 3 or 5 act formula. That’s literally the only thing it tells you.
The bear has 30 minute episodes and every season has been fantastic
Oh, it's worse! They spent 180+ million on the Acolyte. HotD was cheaper by minute to make. And without cries of '-ism' again, without a show runner with massive ethical questions (that we know of), and without a twerking video by a half Danish multimillionaire actress. Aren't Star Wars fans lucky?
Not enough story…… half an hour run times are fucking pathetic. It’s really a four episode show, let’s be real. A really long bad movie.
If you remove the credits and ignore the pilot, the actual show runtime is under 30 minutes. It wouldn't be that difficult to recut into a 2-2.5 hour movie. The short episodes, in combination with the weekly cadence highlights the problems. It distracts from the immersion and the flow. I also wonder what role it plays in reviews as the episodes are so short, they're easier to pick apart.
I do wonder if there’s a future in streaming for experimenting with a format of releasing like, two tv movies with better pacing rather than the new typical 6-8 episodes of stretched out filler I know it would feel exciting to me as a viewer to be pitched that like you were getting a two for one
To me it's season 8 GoT vibes. The Acolyte is an interesting concept, but the execution is horrible. There could be interesting things shown behind the scenes at the High Council or explaining who greenlady is, but for reasons that aren't explained, 5 episodes into an 8 episode series, those details are left out. How does Smilo know so much about Sol? Why could he track Kelnacca? Why are the Jedi so stupid? How is it that a Darkside user is able to hide in plain sight right in front of Jedi? Palpatine did it originally, now Smilo. How does that work? Is it ego? There's a lot of story that could be told, but instead of giving details and setting up a larger world, like earlier seasons of GoT, it's on a S8 speed run. Details don't matter, just get it done ASAP. Why bother?
Obi Wan was the same way, very clearly written as a movie and then chopped up and padded into a short series instead
Good or bad is subjective. However, a long movie broken up into parts might be a pretty good description. Get rid of the repeated openings/closings/recaps/etc and you might end up with a 2 - 3 hour movie. You have to imagine Rogue One broken up as a 6 part series as an example. Would it have been worse?
If really long js bad why would you want it to be longer
Yeah combining these into 4 hour-long episodes would be fine. I guess they want to lock in die hards for 2 months
For example, the last episode... > nothing happens > lots of questions, no answers > one of the new characters even starts asking questions, about events we already saw, in a very annoying way, annoying green lady > Manny Jacked-cinto just asks questions back every time OSHA asks him a question > mindreading jedi master doesn't realize he got the wrong twin until she starts.. asking questions, so he shoots her instead of answering This was like 35 minutes of no exposition. Even when Mae asks a question about her past, the writers finally decide to clue mindreading-Jedi-master in that she isn't OSHA, and he stuns her to make certain no exposition is had in this 35 minutes of television. It was the most anti-expositive 30 minutes of television since Lost Can we just get some answers, preferably in an episode that is 45 minutes at least? Like throw in some bug fights, OSHA fights a mudcrab, whatever
Whether you want to call Disney's handling of SW incompetence or malice, either one of those ends up at the same place eventually. Not only do they both tank the quality, but efficiency goes right out the window too. So you end up with bad quality that's more expensive, and sometimes there's less of it too.
I honestly think it's more they have an episode number they want to target because that's how many weeks you get people subbed to Disney + for. However, the shows aren't written in a way that makes that many episodes make sense. So the writers either have to add a bunch of fluff that doesn't matter (kenobi) or split episodes in half (acolyte).
This is it. They don't know what they are doing. They are truly lost
Yeah seemed like Andor was the only show remotely thought-out with its 3 episode mini-arcs
Let's not forget Book of Boba Fett which halfway turned into the Mandalorian and then kinda-back again. As shit as the rest was/is, at least it focuses on the actual thing mentioned in the title. What they were thinking with BOBF I don't really know.
It truly is a mystery why Disney continues to employ writers with the skill levels of navel lint. Dialogue is tired, incoherent. Characterization has the depth of a dried up creek. They had a story group (does it even exist anymore) with the lowest possible knowledge of, and interest in, Star Wars. ...and even bigger of a miserable mystery... people defend this shit, claim to like it, maybe even actually like it. That's fine by me, but it doesn't exactly help Disney improve. Boo and hiss
Because we all have to accept we are a bubble of fans who just consume the shit anyways. Their target audience is young kids who want the merch or liked baby yoda and their parents. Those the episodes are very short and basic intentionally. House of the Dragon is the second of two TV series set in Westeros (that I know of). Disney mills out content by comparison. Its a lot like Warhammer if you follow that at all. You get a gem every year or so but also a shitload of shovelware games and inane stories.
Nothing much happens during the episodes. They cut off their episodes in weird spots because they have to stretch out what little plot there is to 8 episodes.
STOP WATCHING! ffs **STOP WATCHING!!**
People can watch. They just need to not pay for it.
House of the Dragon actually has something interesting to say. That takes longer.
What's sad, though, is all of the world-building and material for a HOTD type show is possible in the Star Wars universe. We get glances of it with Mon Mothma in Andor and some of the court politics. But the writers for Star Wars don't seem to have any clue on how to create a season-long and engaging story line with levels of depth. Even having the two twins of the Kingsguard fight each other over the succession was more emotionally resonant than anything in Disney Star Wars AND those two only had a few minutes of screentime.
The Acolyte should have been a CW show with a CW budget and promotion instead of masquerading as prestige TV.
Because it’s not prestige TV; it’s a B-movie cut up into into episodes.
The Acolyte just seems more lightweight in all regards compared to a typical HBO show. How they managed to spend $180M on it is beyond me.
GoT/HoD is so many miles ahead of SW TV (and almost every show out there) it’s not even fair to compare. But, Star Wars is at a disadvantage when making shows compared to GoT. They have to cater to a younger audience, spend a ton of $ on CGI for planets, space, fight scenes, etc., and on top of that Game of Thrones already has a rough very in-depth story line to work off from the novels. A lot of these Star Wars shows are just written now and have to thread a thin line to work their way into canon. GoT and HoD already have a strong framework. And when that framework ended and they had to freestyle, they released one of the worst show endings in recent memory
Have you ever watched HOTD? The show spends plenty on CGI for the battles and the dragons. Also the source material for HOTD is pretty sparse. They are definitively coming up with a decent amount of original material to fill in the blanks.
I completely agree. Each episode has these huge sweeping shots (like the dragon chasing down Sir Cole and the horse riders across the field into the forest). Has Acolyte had a single large shot like that? HOTD also had Rhaenyra sneaking into King's Landing via boat, and we got a huge shot of the coastline, followed by shots of the town, the sept, etc. All huge and glorious and well crafted. Outside of Andor, have there really been any comparable shots that just look $$$$$ ? HOTD is made by professionals and HBO (for the most part) know what they've been doing ever since Sopranos, Band of Brothers, Deadwood, etc. Some of their stuff sucks (like The Regime did recently) but they must have an HBO Standard Process and they execute well. Disney is basically new to all live-action shows starting in March 2020. WHERE IS ALL OF DISNEY'S MONEY EVEN GOING?
The guys and gals who work on production for HBO are incredibly talented. It is evident from watching any of the behind the scenes segments for HOTD. The solutions they come up with for problems are so clever I have to assume they have years of experience working on TV shows. It doesn't seem like Disney has people on that level of expertise working on their shows.
The Volume was a huge part of what made Mandalorian S1 and S2 look so good and achieve such incredible results on a budget. The problem is, it seems like Disney is just throwing everything into The Volume and unless you treat it with 1000% care and attention, it looks like garbage (like the last Ant Man movie, which looked it was filmed in the 90's). I don't think Disney has what it takes to really commit to big budget cinema-level experiences. Instead, they're just creating more content and it shows.
Gosh. I wonder if Disney has a wealth of amazing Star Wars novels and canon to work with and adapt into incredible on-screen stories instead of writing new ones.
Is the dialogue in the Star Wars novels on par with the game of thrones books?
No? Does that matter? The stories are well told, fit in the universe, and expand the lore of the series. Knights of the Old Republic does have great dialogue though, they could adapt the shit out of that and it would be gold.
I think it does matter; that’s why the dialogue in the first 6-7ish seasons of GoT were so much better than the last; any area they ventured into in the shows that wasn’t covered in the books in the later season had a significant drop off of quality of writing/story telling. I hadn’t read any Star Wars novels tho, which is why I asked. I hope they do the knights of the old republic!
Well, I can tell you for one, they don't have dialogue that amounts to Stormtroopers complaining about "making ends meet and getting that #paycheck." Anything is better than that. Disney just ruins the scifi aspect so much trying to make it so relatable to the real world. EDIT: And lol have you seen Attack of the Clones / ROTS? The dialogue is soooo cringe. But its still Star Wars and it works.
To be fair, even that wouldn't be enough. I can count on one hand the number of series that have the same writing quality as A Song of Ice and Fire, and none of them are set in the Star Wars universe. George has plenty of issues, but he's easily one of the best authors of all time.
You must really like descriptions of food.
Even the descriptions of food are there for a reason and provide foreshadowing of the plot lol
I just only read the bane trilogy. It even has lots of women and PoCs. 10 times better story than anything Disney ever produces for star wars.
Ah the old “it’s for kids so it’s shit” defence.
Not saying that, but in comparison to GoT it’s true.
And HBO > Disney for TV shows
yeah, it’s not even the same stratosphere really. HBO’s production and acting is top notch. Disney’s production is generally fine, but with The Acolyte they heavily dropped the ball. Easily the worst looking and acted Star Wars show they made. Still at least they aren’t Netflix which has next level terrible production on 99% of their original shows.
Yeah HBO is on their A-game almost always. I think this new Harry Potter series they’re working on is going to be really good
GOT and HOD have top tier budgets. HBOs Rome was literally canceled because it cost too much. Other shows have budgets like Star Wars and are still better. Because you don’t need spectacle all the time in Star Wars. You can have entire episodes with just dialogue and limited action, like we see in Andor. But that requires good acting and writing which most Disney content doesn’t have. Most of the things that made Andor expensive are similarly true about HOD. Lots of sets, which need to be geographically diverse. A few set piece CGI fights. Lots of extras.
Andor CGI versus the Acolyte mediocre CGI. :( The planets from the Acolyte dont feel like planets, they just feel like a real small setup. With their budget, they could have created so much more. On the other hand, the planets within Andor felt huge. I think they made so many mistakes to make things memorable.
They cut out all the character development, that's why most episodes are only 30 minutes.
Because then they would have to write meaningful dialogue. House of the Dragon or Got can have a 10 minute scene in a single room, but it manages to somehow be the most engaging 10 minutes of your life. Lucasfilm doesn't have anywhere close to that calibur of writer.
First of all, I'd like an end to taking a movie and splitting it up into a series. Secondly, the disney shows (especially the ones where Kathleen is involved) probably are bleeding budget from laundering and "Hollywood financial magic". I had heard a rumor KK is wanting to setup her own studio after she's out at Lucasfilm. But her and her husband possibly already own subsidiary companies that service the film industry (like catering), and contract those firms for production, feeding money back to Kathleen in a roundabout way. She even steals budget from other shows for her own, as is the case with the Acolyte (that part is at least confirmed). Once again, that's just rumor. The other possible reason is mere incompetence and arrogance.
HBO consistently puts out high quality shows with one hour episodes Disney consistently pushes out mediocre shows with 30-40 minute episodes Simply a difference in television show philosophy between the two producers.
If Disney make every show run for 8 episodes then you have to buy Disney+ for two months if you only got it to watch that one show.
I’m convinced with the pacing of this show and Book of Boba Fett that they were shot initially as movies then edited to episodes. The flow and pacing are so off. That or just really dogwater writers.
This past week on HOTD there was a single-take shot of a possibly-fake Targaryan going to the pub to meet his friends. I swear there was more skill in executing that single shot of some rando character going to the pub than anything in Disney Star Wars. You got to see so much daily life in Kings Landing, and each frame was filled with 30 to 50 background extras doing regular stuff. And then all of the air gets sucked out of the room when the King and his d-bag friends show up and it was super tense. Meanwhile, on the Acolyte, we got terrible cosplay lightsaber fights that looked ridiculous.
The guy might not be fake, the targaryen bastards will play an important role later. A very well executed set-up. I am frequently angry that HBO somehow managed such a strong comeback with a brilliant crew and that other studios are so often failing. My personal pet peeve is Rings of Power. A billion dollar budget given to two inexperienced show-runners. I feel that newcomers should be given a fair chance, but not with such an established and difficult to adapt IP. I hope that they either switch out the writers or add a third, more experienced show-runner. The costuming choices are also frequently baffling. Have you seen the Sauron shot with the unflattering wig? These are supposed to be professionals! I haven't seen the Acolyte, but I'm excited for season two of Andor. PS: I'm so scared that ROP will butcher the Fall of Numenor. It's my favorite Tolkien story aside from Children of Hurin. Sauron is an actual character and manages to cause the sinking of an entire island. I'm scared that I will never see a proper adaptation in my lifetime, no studio will touch it if they have a billion dollar fail. It would deserve writing as a good as House of the Dragon and a Sauron actor as good as Heath Ledger playing the Joker. Alas, my dream adaptation will probably never happen.
There is a 0% chance Rings of Power will turn out decently. Everything on that show (but especially the sets, the costumes, the scenery) just feels off and cheap. I don't blame the actors because the writing is so bad and everything is nonsensical. GRRM recently made comments about all of this. Check out this blog post: [https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2024/05/24/the-adaptation-tango/](https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2024/05/24/the-adaptation-tango/) "Everywhere you look, there are more screenwriters and producers eager to take great stories and 'make them their own.' No matter how major a writer it is, no matter how great the book, there always seems to be someone on hand who thinks he can do better, eager to take the story and “improve” on it. “The book is the book, the film is the film,” they will tell you, as if they were saying something profound. Then they make the story their own. They never make it better, though. Nine hundred ninety-nine times out of a thousand, they make it worse." This is Rings of Power 10000%.
One can still hope... Maybe it will serve as a lesson to future adaptations. I remember being really unhappy about the budget, because I expected it to be mediocre and the budget could have been put into so many amazing projects. It's a shame. At least we'll get Arcane Season 2 this year. Good writing still exists. But I don't expect much from Star Wars anymore. Which is also rather sad. PS: I have read Martin's post already. I do agree with him that screen writers don't understand what made the story good in the first place.
The only Star Wars show that can even compare is Andor. It's like Disney writers have no clue what to do when Jedi, lightsabers, the Force, etc. are involved. Other than break their own lore/canon.
maybe not too relevant to the conversation but i was so sick and tired of week to week releases. especially with 30 minute runtimes.
For being so short. There’s a whole lot of time wasted
The writers they employ can't even muster 27 mins of compelling content... how on Earth do you expect them to write a full hour?
Acolyte is such a disappointment and just proof that Star Wars will never be the same.
Disney both spends a ton of money yet keeps the purse strings tight for these shows. After Kelnacca died offscreen and it was confirmed his planned fight scene was cut to lower costs, it seems pretty clear only the bare bones of these shows are making it to the final edit. Basically Disney is producing minimally viable content to give people a reason to hold onto their subscriptions for an 8 week run.
They're cheap. Of course it begs the question as to where the money is going given the budgets are so huge. I honestly think they have tons of redundant useless social media work from home marketing/DEI positions that consume endless resources, much like at Twitter pre-Elon.
Crazy how the only Disney Star Wars show that actually strived to take their time and have 12 episodes that consistently had 45-55 minute runtimes was also the one to have the most developed characters, most realistic dialogue, settings, costumes, and props, and also delivered the most intriguing and deep story in the franchise. Its almost like taking your time to get things right and allowing a story to develop and not just trying to rush through 8 30 minute episodes full of crap is actually a wise way to make a tv show
I would say it's because Disney produces cheap shows, but then I remember they spent $180 million on the Acolyte alone.
Cause shorter shows are better for kids. And that’s frankly all Disney cares about. They don’t care about the adult Star Wars fans, and are more focused on pushing their products onto kids to turn them into future Disney adults who will then bring their kids into it.
As long as they use the run time wisely I don't really care. Like the Bear can have 20 minute episodes, 40 min episodes and hour long episodes and each of them keep you hooked and entertained because they are as long as they need to be, unlike acolyte episode 3 which is 40 minutes that could have been about 20, or the first episode that uses contrivances (the whole prison escape and snow planetJ to fill out their run time.
Not that I want to disrupt the hate, but I LOATHE the idea that there's a standard length of TV shows, and I would say that the vast majority of 50+'ers these days barely demand a tight 35. And that's OK. A tight 35 is fantastic.
I was just thinking about that especially watching both each week, but having twins in both shows is hilarious in how they are used. Especially with Otto chewing out Aegon and Criston for their "plan."
Approximately 3 years and over $150 million dollars to produce approximately 4-5 hours of content over a 6 week period. I quite fondly remember when tv shows produced 8-10 hours of content over multiple months every year back to back.
Disney+ shows somehow manage to be aimless and breezy at the same time. There's absolutely no meat on them bones.
And usually 50% of the runtime is wasted on side quests
The stuff Disney is putting out always seems to be a 2 hour movie stretched out to 3 - 4 hours over 8ish episodes of TV. What they put out isn't enough for a TV show, but what is there is just so much filler. It's weird, too much nothing for a movie and not nearly enough for a TV show. The comparison to HotD really shows the massive gulf between the 2.
Honestly, just looking at some of the Marvel tv series, with only six episodes, it's clear they are stretching movie scripts to mini series length. Six 30 min episodes are a three hour movie. If you remove the op/ed credits and recap, there's even less to chew on. It's like they're shooting the looong first draft of a bad movie idea and on top of that, padding it with long walks and stares -- and call it a series. All fat... and what little good there is, gets lost in the filler.
That’s my most frustrating thing about rewatching these shows since I switched to d+/hulu- They are all 4 1/2 hrs long after you skip the literal 6-8 mins of Recaps/intro/end credits ugh Every episode is 27-40 mins long no matter what. Also- except mando/andor- they all should have been movies. And solo should have been a tv show. It basically is with every 15 mins jumping to a new heist or set piece or planet- even rogue one feels like a final big budget3 episode arc or Andor we got first for no reason lol
Because the writers for Disney's Star Wars can't come up with a story to fill that time.
Id actually would like longer episodes sometimes the Disney shows feel way to short and some episodes feel like side filler. Think longer runtime like house of the dragon would help with some of their shows
The more obv answer is HoTD needs to fill up an actual time slot of 50-60min as it comes out on tv (hbo yes but still tv) whim acolyte does not. The time is arbitrary as there is no hour time slot to fill.
Disney shows are basically movies that get cut up, fluffed up and served on a streaming platform. House of the Dragon is a TV show following the HBO formula that's existed for a long time.
Wait are you complaining that the Acolyte isn't longer? It's the least favorite Disney Star Wars show. I definitely don't want more of it.
The reason their episodes are so short is because their light on dialogue and relationship building. Building a complex and intertwining relationship web is what eats up run time. Having complex problems to solve eats up runtime. Their paltry effort plays out in no time at all because they, and by extension their characters, have nothing meaningful to say
Modern Disney seems to specialize in spending absurd amounts of time and money to accomplish surprisingly little.
I don't know why people think a bloated, elongated run time equals quality. A show should be as long as it needs to be to tell the story the episode needs to tell. Not being constrained within a time slot is a good thing as it avoids stretch and bloat and let's the story have the time it needs.
Acolyte is for kids and teens. Simple short stories. Also we have to remember that Disney lives on prestige but the money comes in the by product they churn out. The Lion King was a great movie by many standards but Disney's real business was in the direct to video sequels and cheapo toys made in third world countries. Over priced rides and fast food in their parks. They bought the Star Wars prestige to flim flam it to low cost cheap tv shows for their streaming service. You and me saw Obi Wan, isn't it the equivalent of a direct to video, movie of the week quality movie?
A good question..for another time
>The acting and dialogue in HotD absolutely blows Acolyte out of the water. It’s embarrassing honestly. I have seen the first two episodes from HOTD now, and it's not even in the same universe compared to what Disney is serving us. Otto reacting to "Ser Criston Cole has acted" must be my new favorite reaction shot - he realized why Viserys wanted to only play with his Legos all the time and have no stupid bullshit going on around him and is so sick and tired of his grandson and his outlook on politics you can feel it. There is nothing even close in Disney Star Wars.
I remember Robert Rodriguez commenting that he had been given a Mandalorian script that was essentially two pieces of toilet paper with very little plot involved, so he had to fill up the run time with mindless action. There is just no real oversite on these garbage shows.
I think they have actors reading from cue cards on Acolyte. Dialogue just comes off odd.
And the budget, $180M for Essentially a Disney channel show
Not that I disagree with you, but this is like comparing apples to oranges. Different writers, different story, different target audiences, different platforms, different everything. And then in the midst of all of these differences, here you are complaining about runtime.
It's not. It's comparing runtimes of what ought to both be traditional length TV shows. The expectation is hourlong dramas and half hour comedies. Streaming has made the traditional breakdown of TV show types less relevant, but this is still the general expectation. It was jarring when the Mandalorian debuted with 30-something minute episodes. And so many justify it as keeping out filler and improving the pace, but that simply isn't true. For the entire history of TV, many, many television shows have filled an hour with high quality, well paced entertainment. The idea that Star Wars wouldn't be able to fill that same timeslot is absurd. The pacing hasn't been top notch, and there is still plenty of filler. It's just about quality writing. There is a very "first draft" quality to most of the Disney+ content, pretty much everything has an obvious need to have been run through some additional passes. Short episodes are merely a cost saving measure.
Sounds like you do disagree tbh.