Ever since the first time that we met Obi-Wan Kenobi in George Lucas' stunning 1977 masterpiece Star Wars, the Jedi have been a vibrant and frequent presence in the realm of pop culture heroes. The cosmic religious order has long been seen as one of cinema's greatest “good guys,” but over the decades that shine has dimmed. That shift isn’t necessarily in their representation on screen, but because of the constant rewatches and ensuing conversations about the people within them. With our first proper look at Leslye Headland's highly-anticipated Star Wars series The Acolyte it looks like the Galaxy Far, Far Away might finally be about to turn a judgmental eye onto the dangers and impact of the Jedi Order in a way that we haven't seen before.
Set in the never before seen in live-action High Republic era of the galaxy, The Acolyte poses itself as a thriller-mystery, following the Jedi Order dealing with a series of brutal murders of those within their number. Those murders seem like they could well be the work of the mysterious ex-Jedi Padawan Mae played by Amandla Stenberg who we see here doing some wushu-inspired force-fighting with a pair of blades for extra-added deadliness. While the show is steeped in mystery, Headland has spoken about the series being about the underdogs battling against the institution — like many Star Wars films before it — but here the institution is the Jedi Order, meaning that the underdogs are other force users... potentially ones on the darkside or the force, or at least those unaffiliated with the Jedi beliefs and teachings on the cosmic power.
So, could this series build on the fantastic work done in The Last Jedi and add more complexity and conversation around the way that the Jedi have long had a stranglehold on the Force and the way it's used in the Galaxy? All signs point to yes. We see Stenberg's young warrior studying under Lee Jung-jae's Jedi Master Sol. While her fellow students saw peace and balance in the force she saw fire. If we go by the previous installments it's not a large jump to imagine that she was exiled from the order at the first hint of perceived "darkness". Think about how even the legendary Jedi Master Luke Skywalker turned on his nephew Kylo, raising a lightsaber above his head, ironically taking a mere potential for darkness and cementing it with his own actions and fear. The Last Jedi did a lot to examine the toxic relationship between student and master, but much of that was lost in The Rise of Skywalker. There are hints that The Acolyte will take those reigns and explore the mistakes of the Jedi once again, but a century before the arrival of Anakin Skywalker and his own path to the Dark Side.
Talking to StarWars.com, Headland said "Whatever you think The Acolyte is, it’s not” which is an enticing promise, especially as on the surface it does just look like another simple battle of good versus evil. But if you've seen Headland's gorgeously twisty Russian Doll you'll know that she's got both the vision and storytelling chops to take something familiar — like the time loop trope — and turn it on its head in an unexpected and wild new way. It's exactly the reason she's such a great choice to take on the massive undertaking of shining a light on the Jedi and uncovering the shadows that lie beneath their teachings.
It's not like this is anything new either. In their search for the greater good, the Jedi have often lied, killed, and done things that are clearly morally questionable. Obi-Wan lying to Luke about the death of his father has been much meme-d as the elder Jedi hides the fact that not only did he injure him near-fatally, but he also failed as his master. Then there's the fact that Yoda would rather die than tell Luke the truth about his dear old dad. Of course, how could we forget the fact that Leia should have been force trained too but was left to the wayside by the order that she would go on to save with her heroics. Many of these mistakes come down to the nature of telling stories that shift and change over decades, but as part of the larger narrative it's hard to ignore the mistakes the Jedi have made.
Thanks to the High Republic setting of The Acolyte, which is essentially the Jedi's age of enlightenment, we could discover the origins of the toxic master student cycle that has led to so many of the most terrible moments in Star Wars history. Is Sol's abandonment of Mae the Jedi's original sin? Does it establish the cycle that will define so many of the mistakes to come? That would be a very interesting take that would also make Mae more empathetic than expected, especially if she's on a revenge-horror inspired spate of killings that are actually about weeding out the Jedi who have let students and the true teachings of the Jedi Order down. Of course, the trailer could absolutely be presenting us with a red-herring and we could instead see Mae and Sol team up in an unexpected and likely tension-filled pairing to find the real figure behind the deaths and why they're killing Jedi at all.
One of the most exciting things about the series is the unknown, given that this is all taking place before the Skywalker Saga, and anything we've seen in a live-action film or TV series. But there's also the fact that Headland has mentioned that she's pulling from the Expanded Universe (now known as Legends) which had a much more interesting and, no pun intended, expansive view of the Jedi. The EU is where fans were introduced to the concept of Gray Jedi who worked between the Light and the Dark, as well as different factions of the Order and — thanks to hundreds of books by many different authors — an eclectic vision of what a Jedi can be. Perhaps The Acolyte will take inspiration from this fan fave de-canonized era to take a less binary look at the Force,how it gets used, and who gets to wield it.
As the trailer comes to its crescendo, we hear Jodie Turner-Smith's Force-witch Mother Aniseya say "This isn't about good or bad. This is about power and who gets to use it." We don't know whether these witches are connected to Dathomir or those traditions yet, but it's clear that they have a more holistic view on the Force and those who are trying to grapple for the power it brings. Could it be that the "darkness" the trailer promises isn't that of the Sith but is instead about the wars to come when the Jedi and Sith are pitted against each other? Given that we see a red lightsaber —which canonically exist because of a Sith practice known as the bleeding, where users force their rage, sadness, and grief into the Kyber Crystals to essentially corrupt them and force them to work with the Sith blades — it seems like we will see the Sith here. Or perhaps The Acolyte will also introduce a new history behind the red blades that will add more complexity to what we've come to know of the Sith and their relationship with Kyber.
That freedom to reimagine Star Wars history has been one of the great joys of the fantastic High Republic era of books and comics that The Acolyte is building from. While so far there is only one confirmed crossover character in seasoned Jedi Vernestra Rwoh (Rebecca Henderson), that actually makes us more excited as we're once again broadening our view of what Star Wars can be and who it can include rather than relying on tradition. While the Jedi are a powerful and inspiring group, The Last Jedi pointed out they're also elitist and obsessed with bloodlines. The obsession with the Skywalker name that threads through all the franchise and points towards the need for constant connection to a Force Sensitive bloodline. In The Last Jedi, Rian Johnson rejected that, suggesting Rey didn't need a bloodline in her now iconic mirror exploration, hinting that she was good enough as she was, and even had Luke himself reject the teachings as archaic. He also showcased non-Jedi Force users who had never been trained by the Order.
While the end of that film pointed at a more democratized version of the Force we never ended up getting to see it. Even Rey's powerful self-discovery was reverted to a classic Star Wars bloodline when she was revealed to be Palpatine's grandchild in The Rise of Skywalker and then took on the titular name at the end of that same film. But perhaps The Acolyte is here to tell us that once, an even longer time ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away there were people fighting for just that in the face of a ruling Jedi power that didn't want to share the Force with those who wouldn't follow its rules.
Whether The Acolyte could have wider ramifications in the ever growing Star Wars universe will become clearer once the show has aired, but we do know that it's not necessarily a contained story. In a chat Headland told IGN that there's potential for the show to go beyond its first season, "I think there’s absolutely room for it to grow," Headland said. "I think that especially nowadays… I’m just the kind of person where I want to make sure a season feels like a legitimately whole story, and I definitely pepper in a lot of like, 'Here's how it could go this way, it could go that way.'" But for now we'll just have to wait and see how much Headland's vision for The Acolyte upends everything we know about the Jedi Order and the Rise of the Sith...
Rosie Knight is a contributing freelancer for IGN covering everything from anime to comic books to kaiju to kids movies to horror flicks. She has over half a decade of experience in entertainment journalism with bylines at Nerdist, Den of Geek, Polygon, and more.
