A NEW SPACE
‘The Acolyte’ looks different from past ‘Star Wars’ shows
DISNEY+ dropped a trailer for “Star Wars: The Acolyte,” which 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,” premiering June 4, 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 strict tone that reigned in all the other shows, from “The Book of Bobba 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 Bobba Fett” was a disaster, and we know that being a pandemic production was only partly to blame because last year’s Season 3 of “The Mandalorian” was equally aimless. Reviews were mixed on “Obi-Wan Kenobi ”and“Ahsoka” 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 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. 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-plus 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), new fighting styles (Jedi hand-to-hand combat!), new vibes (that score!) and — via Amandla Stenberg’s enigmatic Mae.
Mae clearly appears to be an antagonist, what with her apparently attempting to assassinate a number of Jedi in the span of two 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 the “Star Wars” light, while dim, isn’t entirely out.