The Acolyte Review: Prequel Series Looks to Upend What You Think of the Star Wars Universe

The Acolyte, a years-in-the-making new Star Wars series on Disney+, is the most frustrating sort of disappointment because it often plays like a victim of its own lofty ambition. Created by Leslye Headland, a veteran playwright and co-creator of Russian Doll, it uses the story of two estranged twins — Osha and Mae (played as adults by Amandla Stenberg and as children, respectively, by Leah and Lauren Brady) — to burrow beneath the duality of the Star Wars universe. From the start, that's been a place with a clear division between good and evil (or, more accurately, light and dark). In The Acolyte, that division remains, but the stability of it seems a bit shaky. Light and dark are, if not only a matter of perspective, at least a little hard to discern here. Yet what sets it apart also makes The Acolyte feel a little squishy, at least in the first four episodes of this eight-episode first season.

So does the question of what sort of show it wants to be. The series opens with a promising jolt as a character described in the opening titles as "a lone assassin" seeks out and kills a Jedi Master played by an immediately recognizable actor (whom we'll leave unnamed, though this would only spoil the opening scene). This, the series will soon reveal, is Mae, and the assassination attempt is just the first step in a larger plan. Suspicion quickly falls on Osha, who's left the path that would have allowed her to become a Jedi Knight to work instead as a mechanic on a trade ship. She's arrested by Yord Fandar (Russian Doll's Charlie Barnett), an old, disapproving Jedi Academy friend, and Jecki Lon (Logan's Dafne Keen), a Padawan to the Jedi Master Sol (Squid Game's Lee Jung-jae). Osha has history with Sol as well, as subsequent episodes will reveal. Yet while the first episode sets up a mystery-thriller — maybe The Fugitive but in the Outer Rim — subsequent episodes veer away from this setup.

6.6

Star Wars: The Acolyte

at Disney+

Like

• High Republic setting makes the story feel fresh and unlike what we've seen before in the Star Wars universe
• Solid cast

Dislike

• Characters need to be more compelling
• Hard to tell what the show's intentions are
• Ambitions are ahead of the storytelling

This would be exciting if it didn't feel haphazard. And, perhaps, the season's back half will reveal an elegant grand plan. In this first half, however, The Acolyte mostly lurches from scene to scene and setting to setting as Sol's investigation follows Mae's trail. The narrative, if not always smooth, is rarely dull. The first episode teases a puppet master villain (if that's the right word) whose identity remains unknown even to the puppets being controlled, a mystery that pulls the plot along. But, despite a solid cast, The Acolyte suffers from a near absence of compelling characters and some dramatic lapses of subtlety. "The Jedi are bad," one character says, to which another replies, "The Jedi are good." That these are children arguing doesn't make the moment clang any less.

Again, a strong back half might smooth all of this over. Until then, these first four episodes offer other reasons to tune in. Headland's series is set near the end of the High Republic, about a hundred years before the events of The Phantom Menace. Star Wars has made a concerted attempt to build out this era in the past few years, largely through novels and comic books. The Acolyte is the first live action look at the High Republic period, and it fittingly makes the period feel like a corner of Star Wars history we haven't seen before. From new ships to unexplored planets to knick knacks like Osha's assistant, a cute handheld droid with many functions, there's always something new to check out, including some cool, practically rendered creatures from Neal Scanlan.

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The Acolyte also makes the era feel like a rich place for storytelling. Both the Republic and the Jedi are at their height, but there's a sense that won't last for long. The best episode so far — despite containing the dialogue referenced above — is the third, which offers a flashback to Mae and Osha's childhood amidst a coven of Force witches led by Mother Aniseya (Jodie Turner-Smith). Outcasts who've fled for a remote planet, they have seemingly every reason to mistrust the Jedi when they show up. Though the Jedi claim to have arrived by accident, it becomes clear they're there to seek out any children being illegally trained in the ways of the Force. 

The moment smacks of religious persecution, particularly given the matriarchal structure of the society they're infiltrating. This episode, the complex drama between Osha and Mae (who have different takes on the incident that separated them), and other elements suggest a series interested in complicating, if not upending, the fundamental nature of the Star Wars universe. What it's yet to find — unlike the similarly morally ambiguous Andor — is a way to convert the boldness of those ambitions into storytelling that's just as bold.

Premieres: The first two episodes premiere on Disney+ on June 4 at 9/8c, with subsequent episodes airing weekly
Who's in it: Amandla Stenberg, Lee Jung-jae, Jodie Turner-Smith
Who's behind it: Leslye Headland
For fans of: Star Wars (obviously) and, more generously, strange creatures and galaxies far, far away
How many episodes we watched: 4 of 8