Not to say The Acolyte will make or break Star Wars as a franchise, but with rather polarizing reception about the sequel film trilogy, and the hit-or-miss latest season of The Mandalorian, this upcoming Disney+ series is certainly a big moment. It’s jumping many years in the past from Episode I: The Phantom Menace. The show is exploring at least one character with a red lightsaber, despite the Jedi Council saying in Episode I that the Sith have been extinct for over a millennium.
The Acolyte‘s plot revolves around what is, in essence, a Jedi serial killer. Fans of a galaxy far, far away: Buckle up. This is about to get weird — hopefully in a great way. In honor of the unofficial May the 4th holiday — may the force be with you, etc. — Disney released a new trailer that gave us more action, a little more story, and our first proper look at the one who wields the red laser sword.
You can see an image of the unidentified, masked in a cropped version of a poster for The Acolyte below. I agree with the notion that it looks a lot like a Knight of Ren, serving as some sort of distant predecessor for Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren character.
Maybe the aesthetic is a mere touchstone to get sequel trilogy fans bought in for this show. I doubt it. Seems too intentional and closely associated to be a deliberate misdirect.
The big wild card in this latest Star Wars tale to me is Jodie Turner-Smith’s Mother Aniseya. Star Wars’ official website describes her as the leader of a coven of witches. There’s one point in this new trailer where she appears to exploit the darkness within a young Jedi, played by 1917 star Dean-Charles Chapman. Although he looks like he could pass off as a young Sheev Palpatine, I suspect The Acolyte will stray away from shoehorning in a potential Palpatine origin story.
How cool is it that Carrie-Anne Moss, aka Trinity from The Matrix, gets to square off with a green lightsaber opposite the star of the show, Amandla Stenberg? That showdown gets a little extra play from its initial reveal in the teaser from a while back. This trailer is cut together to make it look like Moss’ Jedi Master Indara is one of the High Republic’s guardians of peace and justice who bites the dust. No way. You don’t bring in an actor of Moss’ caliber just to off her in the early going.
Then again, that’s one element of The Acolyte that makes it so much fun. Just by nature of the plot and the fact that this is set so much earlier than anything currently on the Star Wars timeline of TV and film, heads are gonna roll. Anyone is in peril at any given time. Showrunner Leslye Headland is a Star Wars fanatic, and crushed it on Netflix’s Russian Doll. She brought over a super underrated actor, Charlie Barnett, from there to this project. That only amplifies my excitement for this whole thing.
June 4 marks the release date of The Acolyte. Until then, fans can tide themselves over with Tales of the Empire, a six-episode helping of animated shorts that just dropped and features many familiar faces across Star Wars media.
