“The galaxy is not a welcoming place for women like us.”
Every so often, I enjoy trotting out an apocryphal story shared on Disney fan blogs and books about Michael Eisner and Pixar Animation Studios.1 Although Pixar’s first handful of films had been massively successful at the box office and with critics, Eisner had some level of antipathy towards them and warned shareholders that the Bay Area studio was about to make a film that would be their first stumble. They were about to have their bubble burst with their newest title, which was a story of a clownfish searching for his lost son in the vast ocean.
Now, Finding Nemo of course became a massive hit for Pixar, and Eisner was only a couple years away from stepping down as the CEO of the Walt Disney Company. But while I am loath to defend Eisner—he really did seem to have it out for Pixar, and he was largely off-base—at the time, his disdain to the eventual classic made sense. Originally, Marlin was not voiced by Albert Brooks (who replaced William H. Macy), and more important to this specific review, the film’s structure was critically different.
If you know Finding Nemo, you know the film opens with the scene in which Marlin’s wife and all but one of his many clownfish babies are eaten by a barracuda, establishing the now-single dad’s overprotective nature and his intensively neurotic personality. We may get vexed by Marlin throughout the film, but it’s always very clear why he behaves the way he does. But Pixar films go through many iterations, and originally writer/director Andrew Stanton wanted to parcel out the opening scene in mini-flashbacks throughout the story, essentially allowing us to only fully grasp Marlin’s character flaws near the end. And while that may have had some affect as an emotional gut-punch, it also made Marlin just seem very obnoxious to test audiences. Parceling out key character backstories through flashbacks can work, but it’s a risky proposition.2
And thus, we arrive at “Destiny,” the third episode of The Acolyte. It’s funny how the “Previously on…” recap does exactly what it should, while also reminding you of all the plot-based momentum that this episode actively avoids capitalizing upon. We left the two-episode premiere with Mae having killed two of the four Jedi she blames for the destruction of her childhood home of Brendok, having faced off against the third of those Jedi, and knowing where the fourth one is located. She’s halfway to her goal, even as Jedi Master Sol poses a problem for her, now that Mae’s twin sister Osha is once again back in his good graces.
“Destiny” purports to give us the key backstory for Mae and Osha, so that we can learn about their lives on Brendok and how the Jedi may have rent asunder their idyllic childhood. But if you are here, then you have watched more than your fair share of television before. So I think we can all safely assume that the episode-long flashback we get here is not telling us the whole story. I’m not basing that on future screeners (like you, I’m screener-free for this one), but there’s quite clearly a lot of detail left out of the final minutes of “Destiny,” and what information we do get throughout the episode raises more questions than answers.