‘The Acolyte’ Could Save Star Wars by Ignoring Star Wars

Welp, it’s a Star Wars! After a constant stream of new series and seasons over the last few years, the sight of lightsabers and robed figures pacing in open-air temples elicits a feeling of, “meh.” Spaceships crashing, creatures clashing, blasters flashing — it’s all the same old same old. A scene from The Mandalorian looks like a scene from Ahsoka, which looks like deleted scenes from The Book of Boba Fett — or is that Obi-Wan Kenobi? I’m a self-proclaimed Star Wars lifer and even I’ve reached the feeling of, “Can we just chill with the Force for a second… or a year… or two?”

And then, dammit, we get a trailer for The Acolyte — and I’m right back to where I was in 2019, when Grogu was just a glimmer in Jon Favreau’s eye.

This trailer has everything: lightsabers, robed figures, open-air temples, crashing spaceships — oh, wait, it has everything we’ve seen in every other Star Wars trailer. So why does The Acolyte make me feel so hyped for Star Wars again? Because the only thing I know about this series is the tropes. Unlike every live-action Star Wars series that we’ve seen since The Mandalorian, The Acolyte looks to be full of completely new ideas nestled within the tropes. There are characters I don’t recognize wearing costumes that feel slightly off, engaging in forms of combat that I’ve never seen in Star Wars… ever. It’s like The Acolyte isn’t adhering to a very, very strict tone that reigned in all the other shows, from The Book of Boba Fett to Ahsoka. It’s important to note: there’s no Jon Favreau and there’s no Dave Filoni.

Favreau and Filoni have spearheaded Disney+’s Star Wars slate since the platform’s launch in November 2019. Every series has involved one or both of them, or one of their hand-picked directors. Their vision has become the house style for Star Wars, and — I really hate to say it — we’ve seen diminishing returns over the past few years. The Book of Boba Fett was a disaster, and we know that being a pandemic production was only partly to blame because last year’s The Mandalorian Season 3 was equally aimless. Reviews were mixed on Obi-Wan Kenobi and Ahsoka (I prefer the former to the latter, but I know that’s a hot take), and neither came close to matching the cultural relevance of The Mandalorian’s initial Baby Yoda mania.

And now there’s The Acolyte, a series that, admittedly, I’m stoked on because I know the background. The series comes from Leslye Headland, the creator of the mind-bending Netflix dramedy hit Russian Doll. She’s a far cry from Favreau and Filoni, two creators who have worked in high-profile cinematic universes for 20-ish years. But what I love about Headland is that she is a hardcore, old school, expanded universe Star Wars nerd. All those RPGs and novels and comics that came out during Star Wars’ “dark era”? The era after Return of the Jedi but before the prequels? That’s Headland’s jam, and it’s evident from this trailer.

Unlike all the other live-action shows, Headland is not pulling from the Favreau/Filoni playbook. She’s pulling references from decades before those two got involved in the franchise. The entire trailer looks like it could have been published by Dark Horse Comics in 1993 (if you know, you know). And this doesn’t feel shady on Headland’s part, like she’s intentionally hanging out alone in the corner at Dave and Jon’s Star Wars party. It feels appropriate because The Acolyte is set hundreds of years* before everything we’ve seen in the Star Wars canon. This is a brand new era for live-action Star Wars, so why not pull aesthetics and ideas from an era that has remained almost completely untouched for 30+ years?

That’s why The Acolyte already looks like a winner. In this trailer alone, it’s giving us new faces (Carrie-Anne Moss! Manny Jacinto!), new Jedi (a Wookiee with a lightsaber, yes please!), new fighting styles (Jedi hand-to-hand combat?! Why did this take so long?!), new vibes (that score!), and — via Amandla Stenberg’s enigmatic Mae — an entirely new perspective on Star Wars as a whole.

Mae clearly appears to be an antagonist, what with her apparently attempting to assassinate a number of Jedi in the span of 2 minutes, but we know from advance press that she’s the lead character. That very fact paints the trailer’s central line of dialogue — “This isn’t about good or bad. This is about power and who is allowed to use it.” — in a fascinating light. After years of shows about characters whose fates we ultimately know, The Acolyte is asking questions that we do not know the answer to. That’s why this trailer feels a bit different, and that’s why Star Wars’ light, while dim, isn’t entirely out.

Of course, I also thought the same thing about the Ahsoka trailer, so maybe I’m just easily dazzled by trailers.

* Where Does The Acolyte Fit In The Timeline of Star Wars?

And just for the curious who want more timeline info, because Star Wars is confusing by default, here’s more timeline info. The Acolyte is set in the year 132 BBY, which means it’s set 132 years before the events of 1977’s Star Wars: A New Hope. And to further clarify, that means that The Acolyte is set 100 years before the events of Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace.