Star Wars: The Acolyte, the review

How do you tell a story set in the nearly 50-year-old live-action Star Wars universe in a way that feels new enough to keep longtime fans satisfied and new viewers entertained? In recent years, Lucasfilm has experimented with various answers to this question and we show you some of them in our review. The Mandalorian, Ahsoka, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Andor have discovered, with varying degrees of success, that nostalgia has a limit. Why play in this IP sandbox if not to reframe what has come before and reshape what is yet to come?

With The Acolyte, which debuted June 4 on Disney Plus, writer-director Leslye Headland (Russian Doll) has created an intriguing entry into a franchise that excites precisely because of the way it revisits well-known Star Wars themes while weaves an entirely new story, anchored by a host of unknown characters. Superficially, Headland catapults us into a Jedi noir tale: Master Sol (Lee Jung-jae), along with his Padawan Jecki Lon (Dafne Keen) and young Jedi Knight Yord Fandar (Charlie Barnett), are tasked with solving a case involving the rare murder of a Jedi Master. However, the more Sol and these Jedi investigate what and who is behind this murder (and the threat of more deaths to come), they uncover a story that Sol thought he and his brothers had long buried. Below is the trailer published on YouTube:

An immersion in the past

The correct order to watch the Star Wars saga has always been a subject of debate among fans. There are those who prefer the release order, those who opt for the chronological order and those who even suggest a “flashback order”. However, with the release of the new series The Acolyte on Disney Plus, the issue becomes even more complicated. This series, set before anything seen in the Star Wars live-action films and series thus far, rewrites the beginning of the story again.

From its first scene, The Acolyte is intent on winking at historical Star Wars images and sets of yesteryear. We are in a cellar and a mysterious hooded character arrives looking for a Jedi master who she intends to face. He is mocked and mocked on sight. Fighting a Jedi is a fool’s errand, especially since our mysterious character refuses to wield a weapon. Jedi are trained never to engage in such combat. But soon, and without displaying a weapon, the hooded figure causes enough commotion to merit the impatience if not ire of the Jedi present, whose physical appearance and combat reflexes will make you think of Trinity from The Matrix. But such winking casting helps set the scene: Carrie-Anne Moss would play the kind of Jedi you never want to face. The ensuing fight, not to mention the glimmer of recognition that Master Indara expresses when he realizes who has come to harm her, is enough to pique the audience’s interest. The Jedi will not face the threat of the Sith for another hundred years. So who might be trying to settle scores with them so many generations before the Skywalker saga comes into the picture?

This is the question that drives Master Sol, who finds himself drawn into all this when he discovers that a former Padawan of his might be involved. Again, you can’t hear a premise like that without making it resonate with the intertwined fates of, say, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker, or, later, Luke Skywalker and Kylo Ren. The troubled relationship between mentor and mentee, between Master and Padawan, is as old as Star Wars itself, and such twin stories have long been fertile ground for the series. But in Headland’s hands, such a connection feels less like a capitulation to always telling only one kind of Star Wars story and more like a sense that such cyclical tragedies are inherent in spaces where youth and their waywardness are treated with unrelenting hostility.

A New Threat to the Jedi

The Acolyte takes us one hundred years before the events of The Phantom Menace, to a time known as the High Republic, a time of peace and prosperity in the galaxy. The series revolves around a former Jedi named Osha, who is wrongly accused of the murder of numerous Jedi. The real assassin, an enigmatic figure linked to the Sith, moves in the shadows with the aim of eliminating a specific group of Jedi. This premise introduces a new level of complexity and suspense to the plot, promising lightsaber battles, bar fights, and profound philosophical dilemmas about the Force.

With the introduction of “The Acolyte,” Star Wars moves further away from the narrative centered on the Skywalker family, exploring new stories and characters. This series, along with other recent additions such as Rogue One, Andor and The Mandalorian, further enriches an already vast universe of heroes and villains. Creator Leslye Headland said one of the goals of the series is to show the Jedi at the height of their power and facing threats well before the arrival of Anakin Skywalker.

While The Acolyte introduces new characters and situations, it remains closely tied to Star Wars lore. Some Sith from the video games and books have influenced the characterization of the series’ villains. Furthermore, the series draws inspiration from a specific moment in “The Phantom Menace,” where members of the Jedi Council discuss the supposed return of the Sith, implying that there was already some knowledge or recent history with them.

The Jedi Order depends on a type of rigorous obedience. It is a community built on the removal of individuality for the good of the whole. This is why feelings and emotional bonds are so despised. As The Acolyte reveals its intricately woven plot about who is behind these mysterious Jedi murders and what they have to do with a clash between different Jedi and a different kind of order many years earlier, Headland and his cast and crew create ways competing and complementary to examine what that kind of obedience (to fate, to the Force, to family) can do to people who feel hindered by such demands. It’s what Amandla Stenberg, arguably the show’s protagonist, is called upon to play. On screen, The Hate U Give actress offers viewers numerous nuanced examples of what it means to try to chart a path for yourself against those who wish to track it for you.

And really, once The Acolyte begins to expand its mythology, with breathtaking flashbacks, you have to admit that, while playing with familiar beats and expected characterizations (there may only be one way to play a seasoned old Jedi Master), this new series of Star Wars has big ambitions in bridging the franchise’s gap into a whole new world and, perhaps, attracting new audiences in the process. After all, you don’t hire actors like Barnett, Manny Jacinto, and Jodie Turner-Smith just to play well-known franchise types.

What perhaps makes The Acolyte such engaging and compelling viewing is his commitment not to treat the Jedi (or the Star Wars franchise in general) as untouchables. If nothing else, Sol, Indara and the like become figures through which the series questions the Jedi order in a way that seems necessary if one wants to think of this world as an ethically ambiguous tangle in which everyone tries to do their best and they discover, in time, that, yes, even the Jedi are fallible.

The Challenge of the High Republic

For hardcore fans, there are numerous novels, comics, and other materials that explore the High Republic, an era of relative tranquility threatened only by space pirates and alien creatures. However, Headland ensured that you don’t need to have in-depth knowledge of these materials to enjoy The Acolyte, making it an accessible entry point for everyone.

The Acolyte is set during a prehistoric period known as the High Republic, until now mostly depicted in short stories, novels, and comics read only by the most avid fans. Moving a “Star Wars” story out of the main time stream — no Empire, no R2-D2, a century before Luke Skywalker — didn’t free it from the franchise’s oldest clichés. The Acolyte tweaks the formulas here and there, but, to a greater extent than other Disney+ series like The Mandalorian and Andor, falls back on signature moves: the electronic hiss of the lightsaber; the outstretched hand that evokes the Force; adorable droids and fuzzy holograms; dark masters and chosen children.

As we described in our review, the show centers on twin sisters in their twenties, Osha and Mae, both played by Amandla Stenberg. They share a tragedy in their childhood that has left them with very different feelings about the Jedi Knights, who in the time context of the High Republic are conveniently ascendant throughout the galaxy, before their tribulations in the “Star Wars” films.

But the narrative force is not strong. Inserting more female characters, and a stronger female point of view, into an otherwise traditional “Star Wars” framework is worth the effort. However, The Acolyte it doesn’t bring enough energy or invention to the task. It runs through its space opera beats, offering some blandly beautiful forest planets and the occasionally impressive landscape.

Beneath the familiar plots, the visceral appeal that Star Wars can evoke in its best moments – The Empire Strikes Back, The Last Jedi, parts of Andor and The Mandalorian – doesn’t come through. The characters speak in clichés about loss, grief, loyalty and revenge, and the cast works mostly on the dialogue level.

Stenberg is capable and charming but fails to make either twin very interesting; Squid Game’s Lee Jung-jae, who plays a sympathetic Jedi, doesn’t top his performance. The most winning performances of the early episodes are given by Lauren and Leah Brady as 8-year-old Osha and Mae – the most winning performances from the humans, anyway. In the “Star Wars” universe, robots tend to have as much personality as their flesh-and-blood co-stars, if not more, and Osha’s pocket droid, Pip, is a real pro. With proper maintenance, he could survive the High Republic. May the Force be with us, always.