Warning: This review contains spoilers.
“Star Wars,” the multi-billion dollar, four-decade-old media franchise, has been a powerhouse since its inception in 1977. Ever since Luke Skywalker’s journey graced the silver screen, audiences have been enamored by the galaxy far far away, spawning countless films, animated television shows, paperback novels and droves of merchandise.
In late 2019, Disney made a bold move as part of its new streaming platform, Disney+, by introducing a live-action television series to explore peripheral stories within the franchise’s history for the first time. Director Leslye Headland’s “The Acolyte” is the latest “Star Wars” project to be released under Disney.
“The Acolyte” is Headland’s debut in the realm of “Star Wars” filmmaking — a shaky yet ambitious addition to the ever-growing mythology of “Star Wars.” The debut manages to recontextualize previous films with rich portrayals of loss and contempt. Viewers have grossly overlooked “The Acolyte” due to the ongoing culture war regarding diversity, equity and inclusion. Despite its flaws, this show was somewhat refreshing in the grand scheme of new “Star Wars” content.
“The Acolyte” is a bold venture into uncharted “Star Wars” storytelling. Taking place a century before the earliest installment of the Skywalker saga, the show introduces viewers to Osha Aniseya and Mae-ho Aniseya, both played by Amandla Stenberg. They contend with the losses of their parents — and, as they presumed, each other — in a fateful fire that claimed the lives of every single witch in the twin’s coven. Master Sol, played by Lee Jung-jae, and his operative of four Jedi compel Osha to leave her past behind and find her own identity as his Padawan.
“The Acolyte,” told in the wake of the tragedy Osha and Mae must now bear, explores their different chosen life paths following their decision to lose each other. Their interpretations of the world, the Sith and the Jedi, drive them so far apart that they find themselves on opposite sides of good and evil. Osha, a Jedi dubbed unsuited for The Order due to her emotions about her sister, is forced to confront these feelings when she is accused of committing Mae’s crime — conspiring with Qimir (Manny Jacinto). Their objective was to assassinate the four Jedi responsible for massacring Osha and Mae’s home and depriving the sisters of one another’s company.
“The Acolyte” is a new installment in the genre of “Star Wars” films that attempt a critical re-analysis of the installments that came before it. Where “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” (2017) critiques the Jedi’s roles as a part of the galaxy’s continuity, “The Acolyte” reckons with the Jedi Order as an institution.
Headland takes the underlying moral complications and hubris of the Jedi Order and turns them into storylines that address the consequences that authority can break when left unchecked for too long and justice becomes synonymous with those who get to rule and have power. Throughout the eight-episode run, one can almost sense the faults that gave way to the Order’s ultimate collapse in “Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith” (2005). The unwillingness of Vernestra Rwoh, played by Rebecca Henderson, to accept the judgment of the Council conveys the hypocrisy of which the Jedi extend their authority onto the wider Galaxy and the constant shift of accountability and truth.
No character embodies this better than Master Sol, whose kindness and empathy deny a deeply contradictory set of beliefs. He tells himself a comfortable lie — that he has made peace with the people he has killed on the twins’ home planet of Brendok — to assuage the guilt he feels for having covered up the sins of his past. Master Sol, most of all, believes that he can still properly protect Osha, the daughter of a woman he killed, from the vindictiveness of the Jedi’s justice system. His character is well-intentioned but his paradoxical nature is emblematic of the entire Jedi Order, an institution whose desire for stability and moral capital masks its inability to hold itself accountable for its failings.
As Senator Rayencourt puts it, the Order is “a massive system of unchecked power, posing as a religion.”
Osha and Mae, resembling traditional “Star Wars” protagonists, are the collateral damage of a broken system. The events of Brendok evoke a sense of the colonialist power that the Order truly embodies. The Jedi enforce jurisdiction over a planet on which they have no sovereignty, repudiating the Coven for training children to channel the Thread, while demanding they be given the right to assimilate them. In the show’s present day, two decades after the massacre, Osha and Mae find separate ways of dealing with the loss of their home. Osha runs from the trauma, abandoning the Jedi Order, or any attempt to reconcile with her sister. Mae, however, spends every waking moment focused on revenge, hoping to bring upon a justice that the Jedi were conspiring to avoid. “The Acolyte” brilliantly takes what was once subtext in the prequel films — the inherent callousness of permanently separating a child from its home — and uses Stenberg’s portrayal of grief and loss to explicitly bring it into conversation.
It is difficult to discuss “Star Wars” without first discussing the wider canonical and cultural context of each new installment. Since the franchise finished its sequel trilogy with “Stars Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” (2019), “Star Wars” has found itself in a period of limbo; it is now a vast storyline contending with a crisis of identity.
Perhaps marked by an insatiable nostalgia for its predecessors, or by an inability to tell stories disentangled from the same rotating cast of characters, modern “Star Wars” cannot seem to escape echoes of its past. “The Mandalorian” (2019) was an entertaining show that could not help but throw legacy characters in to mark its most exciting moments. It is hard to imagine that “Kenobi” (2022) would be remembered if not for its redux of the iconic Obi-Wan and Anakin duel.
“The Acolyte,” for what can be said about the strength of its narrative content, cannot be separated from the online discourse it has become the subject of. The show itself has its shortcomings; the dialogue is clumsy, with characters hardly leaving room for interpretation or subtext, and its supporting characters leave much to be desired. For instance, the deaths of York and Jecki brush away any attempt at deeper characterization. Its lead characters also lack the emotional bond to convincingly outweigh the contempt that they hold for one another.
I would like to believe many fans were unconvinced by “The Acolyte” on the merits of its narrative.
However, there is also the vocal side of the fanbase that has subscribed to the notion that “Star Wars” has become a vehicle for “woke” content, with hostility for the show’s cast of people of color, implicit queer subtext and the overt queer identity of writer-director Headland. The anger has led to a focused campaign to “review bomb” the show, as well as a barrage of online harassment directed towards series lead Stenberg.
After witnessing reactionary politics for almost a decade, I cannot help but recognize that this attitude toward “Star Wars” canon has morphed into that of a modern-day religion, with fans acting as the preachers of a new sect, one where Star Wars remains bound to the impossible commandments of its past self. This attitude traps “Star Wars” and all its future projects in an endless self-referential loop — constantly cycling back to the heyday of the originals or the prequels, where an unadulterated fan could still enjoy their first lightsaber hit. I would love a franchise separated from the reactionary media apparatus that Star Wars has become a permanent fixture of.
I appreciated that “The Acolyte” expanded upon “Star Wars” mythology while also developing new characters by using the DNA of movies’ past to tell a foreboding narrative about the pitfalls of a complacent state. Stenberg, Jacinto and Jung-jae breathed life into their roles, communicating a narrative of trauma and reconciliation. I would have hoped that “Star Wars” could take a page out of the book of “The Acolyte” and take creative steps to evolve this property beyond its dried-up, calcified narratives.
However, this past month, Lucasfilm canceled season two of “The Acolyte.” This is not surprising as many “Star Wars” projects have fallen wayside for one reason or another. Nevertheless, one cannot help but think that bigoted vitriol ended the stories of Osha and Mae before they could be truly told. It seems to stand that for better or for worse, “Star Wars” will continue to tell the same story it has since 1977.
