matthurley-53914

I love Star Wars. I grew up on the original trilogy. I can remember being so excited when Return of the Jedi previews were aired on TV and even more excited when my family and I were in the theater and the scrawl started. I like the prequel trilogy well enough. And while I did like the Force Awakens, I admit the following movies had their faults. Some pretty big ones, actually. But the acting was always pretty top notch (Anakin Skywalker being the exception).

All that being said, the acting in this series is a failure. I want to acknowledge that Lee Jung-jae was fantastic. He put this show on his shoulders and carried it all the way through this season. The exact opposite can be said for the "star" of the series, Amandla Stenberg. She is quite possibly the worst actress I have ever seen on any screen, big or small. She is not believable in any scene she appears in, regardless of the mood or tone of that scene. She has single-handedly ruined this series for me. And the fact that she has to pull double duty makes it even worse. While the characters she portrays are twins they clearly have different personalities, their lives having taken very different courses. But unfortunately for the viewer, you must interpret that separately from what you see, as Amandla plays both characters the exact same way... poorly. She is near constantly wide eyed for no discernible reason and it looks as though you can see her mind telling her that she is supposed to be expressive, but the expression looks more like constipation rather than anything going within the script.

I was excited and looking forward to a Star Wars series with an African American female leading character to drive the show. I could not have been more disappointed in the result. I'm sure they don't want to recast for a potential second season, but they should strongly consider it.

While the story itself seemed interesting enough and if you're willing to overlook some pretty glaring moments of "why would they do that?" then it's not a horrible entry into the Star Wars canon. But you really have to dig deep to look beyond the atrocious acting out in by Stenberg and a couple other cast members.