After many months in the dark, Disney has finally released some information about The Acolyte, a live-action series that takes place a century before the movies.
After Star Wars Celebration 2022, we’ve received hints about some of the upcoming Star Wars projects; Ahsoka, The Bad Batch, The Mandalorian, and Skeleton Crew. At this point, we have a slight idea about what they will be about.
The Acolyte was the only one left with no plot or cast announced. It’s been a couple of years since the show was advertised for the first time, thankfully its production phase just began, and Lucasfilm revealed some details about it.
Leslye Headland (Russian Doll) is the showrunner and is directing the pilot episode. Amandla Stenberg (Hunger Games, The Hate U Give) is playing the lead role in the series. Joining her are Carrie-Anne Moss (The Matrix), Dafne Keen (His Dark Materials, Logan), Manny Jacinto (Top Gun: Maverick, Nine Perfect Strangers), Jodie Turner-Smith (Queen & Slim), Rebecca Henderson (Inventing Anna), Charlie Barnett (Russian Doll, Arrow), Dean-Charles Chapman (1917) and Emmy Award-winner Lee Jung-Jae (Squid Game).
I’m very excited to see what their roles are, the casting decisions for The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Andor have been really good and I don’t think this will be an exception. It’s so entertaining to watch actors from all types of backgrounds converge together and give life to brand-new characters.
“The Acolyte is a mystery-thriller that will take viewers into a galaxy of shadowy secrets and emerging dark-side powers in the final days of the High Republic era. A former Padawan reunites with her Jedi Master to investigate a series of crimes, but the forces they confront are more sinister than they ever anticipated”. – StarWars.com
This description is a very good hint of what we can expect. The High Republic is supposed to be the “golden age” of the Jedi, if The Acolyte occurs during the last days of this era then it means that we’re probably going to get a pretty dark history.
Headland stated in an interview for Vanity Fair that The Acolyte is going to explore The Sith from a different perspective than what we’re used to. During the prequel movies, Palpatine is outnumbered but not outmatched, the perfect plan that he and his master made to deceive the entire Jedi Order was already in motion.
The question is, how did they get to that point? Sheev Palpatine was the one who executed the master plan but who when did the idea of creating a clone army and then use it against the republic originated?
The Acolyte takes place around one hundred years before The Phantom Menace, it’s not so crazy to think that we could see Darth Plagueis or even Darth Tenebrous (Plagueis’ Master). “Acolyte” is how the Sith refer to apprentices, just like the Jedi use “Padawan”.
This is the first time we’re going to see a story from the “bad guys” perspective, the deep aspects of the dark side of the Force have not been explored in any movie or series yet.
I could bet that we’re going to see the process of Jedi falling to the dark side in a much more intimate way, which is something super exciting and fresh.
For many years, Sith Lords have captivated the Star Wars fanbase with their complexity and ideology. Vader, Revan, Krayt, Tenebrae, or Bane; all of them turned the galaxy upside down, they conquered, deceived, and destroyed almost anyone who would oppose them.
I love them all but with the exception of Vader, we don’t really get to see the complete transition from Jedi Knight to Sith Apprentice and that’s something that I believe many of us are eager to experience, especially in a live-action series.
The Acolyte is a rare chance to see regular Jedi (not the chosen one) get seduced by the dark side of the Force and why it is so hard to resist. Without any legacy character being alive at this point in time they have the opportunity to do whatever they want with the characters and their stories.
I always try to keep my expectation as low as possible but to say that I’m not excited about this show would be a lie, the fact that Leslye Headland has a ton of experience with the Star Wars RPG games and Expanded Universe books make it even easier to get excited.
The release date hasn’t been revealed yet but Season 3 of The Mandalorian and the Ashoka series are both premiering in 2023. The Acolyte is probably going to see the light sometime in 2024.
What would you like to see in Star Wars: The Acolyte?
UPDATE: We have an excellent new guide to help you prepare for watching The Acolyte. It will tell you everything you need to know before you sit down to watch the first episode: show creators, cast and characters, plot (without spoilers).
