The Acolyte is here! Several years after the series was first announced, the first ever live-action Star Wars project set outside of the Skywalker Saga premiered on Disney+ on Tuesday night.
The series, created by showrunner Leslye Headland, is a murder mystery story about someone killing Jedi, the search to discover answers, and the rise of darkness in the shadows. It’s billed as something entirely unique in Star Wars live-action storytelling, and I’m thrilled to finally be getting the chance to see it.
The first two (of eight) episodes dropped in the premiere, titled “Lost/Found” and “Revenge/Justice”, and let’s dive in to the review of both. As always, full spoilers are ahead.
I love getting to see the High Republic era on-screen, which is most prominently evident through the awesome gold robes that the Jedi. The High Republic is an era that the publishing side of Star Wars has been exploring since 2021, set a few hundred years prior to the events of The Phantom Menace. It’s a period of galactic expansion, a golden age for the Jedi – yet also including some of the faint beginnings of them losing their way. This series is set at the end of the era, taking place around 100 years prior to the Skywalker Saga. I think it’s really cool to get to see it play out in live-action, and there are some interesting design elements that play into it. Like, for example, how the Jedi Temple is still somewhat under construction and sits higher on the planet than it does in the prequels. The city grows up around it, but I imagine it could also be a subtle (or not-so-subtle) picture of how the Jedi in this era sit higher than the ‘normal’ citizens of the galaxy and have lost touch.
But this is also a darker story, as evidenced right from the start. A mysterious assassin, Mae, confronts Jedi Master Indara over some past sins and goads her into a duel. It’s clear that Mae is over-matched, and it’s also clear that Indara recognizes who she is – and it’s only then that she ignites her lightsaber. In the end, Mae kills Indara by distracting her as an innocent life is threatened. As the plot emerges, we learn that Mae is targeting a group of four Jedi, and the second episode shows her killing another one, Master Torbin. The latter has taken the Barash Vow, which was first introduced in Charles Soule’s Darth Vader comic several years ago. It’s a vow that some Jedi took in which they forsook Jedi activities to focus exclusively on communion with the Force, normatively as an act of penance for past wrongs and failings. Torbin is in a meditative trance, with a protective Force barrier around him, but Mae pulls him out of the trance by enticing him to drink poison as a way of finding the forgiveness he sought. He tells her that they thought they were doing the right thing, and the fact that he’s willing to commit suicide as he owns his own mistakes means there’s a lot more backstory behind Mae’s efforts to kill these four Jedi.
Adding to the drama, though, is the fact that the Jedi Order begins a secret and quiet investigation into the killing of Indara by finding Osha, a former Jedi padawan now working as a mechanic on a Trade Federation ship (which was a cool touch). She looks identical to the assassin, but right from the start the audience can tell she acts nothing like Mae. The first episode reveals that Osha and Mae are twins, and that Mae was long thought dead. I’m really glad that this was all clearly resolved in the first episode, because so many fans had guessed it from the trailers and marketing (they weren’t exactly being subtle, either, such as putting both Osha and Mae on the poster). I’m also glad that Yord (who is a great new character), who is initially very suspicious of Osha, is the one to vindicate her when she’s caught in the wrong place as Torbin dies. Other shows might have kept the “did she do it?” saga alive even though the audience knows otherwise, but not this one, and it’s better for it. We’re not wasting time on a fruitless lead, and there’s a more interesting mystery emerging. Though this one is not really played as that big of a reveal here, what is especially interesting is the fact that very few in the Jedi Order even knew that Osha had a sister. She was taken as Master Sol’s padawan, but as Sol shares with others about Osha’s sister Yord mentions that was never in her file. Sol is one of the four Mae wants to kill, meaning he’s one of the ones viewed as being at fault, and the fact that he never even mentioned Mae reeks of a mysterious cover-up at work. Perhaps that was part of why Sol wanted to confront Mae, alone, without Osha. Neither sister knows the other survived, and maybe Sol wants to keep some things from getting out.
The story that is told, at least, is that Mae started a fire that killed their whole family, including Mae. Sol rescued Osha from the fire, but was unable to save Mae. It’s clear that wasn’t entirely true, since Mae survived, but did Sol know that? He seems surprised to learn she’s alive too. But whatever happened, Mae blames the Jedi. My guess is that the Jedi were taking Osha away to train, and Mae was upset about it, so she started the fire. But I’m also guessing that there are some dark secrets we’ll learn about these Jedi that make matters far more complicated. I don’t think they’ll come out super clean by the end of this series. Along the way, we might see why the Jedi are more rigid by the time of the prequels – perhaps even the fact that Osha was a bit older when she was taken by Sol to train could shed light on why the Jedi were hesitant to have Anakin join their Order given his age.
The elephant in the room lurking behind all of this, though, is the darkness rising. Mae has obviously been trained in the dark side of the Force, and we see a cloaked villain speak to her at the end of the first episode, holding a red lightsaber. In the second episode, we meet Qimir, who along with Mae knows of this “master”. He’s the one who makes the poison that kills Torbin, and he begins reciting the Sith code, only for Mae to finish it (which was a re-direct from the trailer, where he just says the whole thing). There is clearly darkness around Qimir, but I’m wondering if it’s more than we currently are led to think. Mae doesn’t know who the master is (Sol concludes this after looking in her mind), and Qimir just seems like such a shady character that I wouldn’t be surprised to learn he’s the masked lightsaber-wielding villain.
I thought this was a good start to the series. The characters are extremely intriguing to me and the story is well-structured, though the editing and pacing is just really weird. This was never more obvious than the ending of episode two, where we just randomly cut away to the Wookiee Jedi Kelnacca scaring off some people. These episodes end abruptly, but even throughout the editing jumps pretty abruptly in some pretty un-Star Wars-like ways. But that’s the extent of my complaints, as I’m really hooked by the characters and story. What is clear is that while we originally thought the mystery would be about who is killing these Jedi, it seems that the biggest mystery of them all will be what these Jedi have done in the past that now haunts them. Sure, there’s the mystery of who these dark side masters are, and the lurkings of the Sith, but what have the Jedi done? I imagine that will be the mystery slowly fleshed out as the season goes on.
Star Wars Thoughts 