Weapons And Fight Scene Expert Mocks ‘The Acolyte’s’ Lightsaber Fight Scene: “They’re Not Even Aiming For Each Other”

July 1, 2024 ·

John F. Trent

Weapons and fight scene expert and YouTuber Shad Brooks, who hosts Fight Scene Autopsy on his Shadiversity YouTube channel, broke down The Acolyte’s lightsaber fights in the show’s fifth episode.

Scene from Lucasfilm’s THE ACOLYTE, season one, exclusively on Disney+. ©.

Brooks was unimpressed with the show’s lightsaber fights from the very beginning, pointing out that a number of the Jedi knights did not even aim at the Sith, who would later be revealed to be Qimir.

He noted, “Now, we get the first close up. And already we have a bit of a problem. You see, I call him Smylo Ren because of that awful looking helmet, alright. He is attacking a Jedi off to the side, but what about this guy right here. He’s just hanging back. That’s not a good sign. From the very beginning Smylo’s just completely open and this guy right here [doesn’t take the killing blow]. … He’s open. Small thing. Not a good start.”

READ: ‘The Acolyte’ Viewership Declines For A Second Week In A Row, Nearly 60% Decline From ‘Ahsoka’

The fight does not improve either. Brooks notes there are multiple points where the characters make bizarre movements. At one point he notes Smylo moves behind a tree, “Where is he going? Like Smylo moved off to this side. This guy was just engaging him and is forgetting about him.”

When one Jedi has a clear opening to chop Qimir’s back, he instead just moves past Qimir and does not make even an attempt at attacking him. Brooks noted, “What are you aiming for? He’s just moving right Smylo. You see he’s thrusting his lightsaber this way … and literally aiming for nothing. Not a good sign.”

This would be a recurring issue in this first fight as he would point to Yord positioned behind Qimir, but does not strike him down despite the opening. Brooks noted, “Smylo has his back to him. Completely open. And instead of killing Smylo what does he do? What does he do? Instead of killing Smylo he just goes off screen. Smylo’s completely open, he could kill him at this point and he’s just kind of doing nothing.”

“It’s stuff like this that rips me out of a fight scene and ruins my investment,” he continued. “This is a multiple person fight scene, right? And so Smylo is taking on multiple people and the person that is not engaging directly, what are they doing? Are they just standing doing nothing? It’s very sloppy and this is just the beginning.”

READ: ‘The Acolyte’ Showrunner Leslye Headland Says “You’re Not Really Going To Learn Much About” Qimir’s Background Moving Forward

He would also note that the fight choreographers chose to include kicks when a lightsaber chop would finish an opponent, “One of my biggest pet peeves in fight scenes is when your opponent is open enough to land a blow. In this one the Jedi is open enough for Smylo to just kick, you know, full boot in. If he could have landed a boot, he could have landed a strik with the lightsaber, killed him right then.”

Brooks added, “I hate it. I hate it when someone in a fight scene resorts to using a limb, an unarmed attack when they’re holding a weapon and they could have just hit them with the weapon.”

When the fight shows Qimir using cortosis, Brooks commented, “This breaks so much of Star Wars. If it is this effective … deactivate one hit, headbutts the other. And he was about to kill that Jedi, but [Yord] comes in and blocks it. And then the Jedi are just stumped because their lightsabers won’t turn on immediately. That is very significant. The amount of time it takes for their lightsabers to turn back on in an actual sword fight is a lifetime. If he could have done that to their lightsabers at any point, it should have been game over from the start. Why is he farting around fighting lightsabers with them when he could just deactivate their lightsaber, comes in deactivate, and hits. … It’s so easy ”

“And they didn’t know he could do this so he had the element of surprise,” he continued. “This undermines everything in this fight scene. There are issues with introducing it because then why haven’t all the other bad guys in this universe using this.”

He later noted, “Every bad guy in the universe would be trying to get their hands on this stuff. There would be a complete underground industry trying to source it. It does doesn’t matter how rare it is. … But really rare we find a way to get it. This breaks a lot of world building just introducing it.”

READ: Leslye Headland Admits ‘The Acolyte’ Season 2 Has Not Been Greenlit Yet: “Who Knows What’s Going To Happen?”

After noting how it ruins the world building, he returned to why it ruins the fight as well, “It ruins the fight scene because Smylo has a win fight move instantly and he barely [uses it]. The fact that he’s doing it now and not leading with it, it’s just making him look like a moron and it ruins—.

He then asserted “Every time he’s going to be fighting a Jedi with his lightsaber I’m just wondering, ‘Dude, you could just end it right now. Just use your helmet, use your gauntlet. Deactivate lightsabers, bang, kill him, it’s that easy.”

Even further into the initial fight, Brooks comments, “They’re hitting air. This is supposed to be a trained Jedi and they’re literally hitting nothing but air. By the way, sometimes you can miss. That’s when you have a very small window and you don’t have such a wide opening like this. With a wide opening like this Smylo should be dead.”

“This is what I mean about the problem of this fight scene,” he continued. “They have a lot trouble doing any choreography when it’s more than two people engaged. As soon as you add that third person, they don’t know what to do with that third person. They’re just flailing about either doing nothing, going off screen, or hitting air. … This is crap.”

READ: ‘The Acolyte’ Actor Manny Jacinto Claims 6th Episode Of Show Will Be A “New Story” With “New Motivations For All Of The Different Characters”

When he got to the second fight between Sol and Qimir, Brooks did not hold back, “What are they aiming for? They’re both aiming above their heads. No, their target is in front. When you hit, you want to go right there. (He demonstrates with a lightsaber swing). Hit them there. But instead of aiming there, they’re literally up here. I mean, come on guys. That is sad. So they’re both aiming above their heads at each other’s lightsabers.”

He added, “This is just aiming for each other’s sword at this point. This is actually really bad. Oh! Look at this dog crap spin. Oh that’s awful. And Sol is just standing there. Smylo leaves himself completely open. He’s like, ‘Oh, by the way here’s my back then.’ Sol, all you need to do, hit down. … Just hit down, kill him. He’s right there.”

These criticisms would be repeated for the rest of the fights throughout the episode whether it was with Jecki fighting Qimir, or Yord fighting him, or Sol fighting him again. He highlighted all these fights and would provide clear examples of how many of the strikes were misses on purpose or were aimed at hitting their opponent’s lightsaber.

At one point, he exclaims, “They’re not even aiming for each other!”

What do you make of Shad Brooks’ breakdown of these lightsaber fights in The Acolyte’s fifth episode?

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Author: John F. Trent

John F. Trent was a prior editor of That Park Place. He is host of the YouTube channel The Trent Report as well as the stock racing focused YouTube Channel John Trent Racing . Mr. Trent is founder of Bounding into Comics and left That Park Place on November 8th to focus on a Substack strategy with FandomPulse.