Star Wars has always worn its influences on its sleeve right from the start. George Lucas has never been shy about noting how his original film was drawing on cinematic inspirations as varied as the 1930s Flash Gordon Saturday matinee serials, Laurence Of Arabia, Akira Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress, World War Two aerial dog fight films and other sources. More recently, the hit Disney+ series The Mandalorian was strongly influenced by both spaghetti westerns and the popular Japanese Lone Wolf And Cub series of films about a wandering samurai caring for an infant.
The latest live action Star Wars offering, The Acolyte, certainly draws on that tradition as well, at least judging by the first four episodes of the series’ full eight episode run that were made available for review. There is an action sequence that opens the first episode that will seem familiar to fans of the martial arts fantasy films produced by the Hong Kong-based Shaw Brothers Studios during the 1970s. The show’s plot starts off with the murder of a Jedi master and the starship engineer, and former Jedi trainee, who is accused of the murder going on the run a la The Fugitive. (There is even a scene that riffs on that film’s famous “I didn’t Kill my wife”/”I don’t care” exchange between The Fugitive‘s Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones.)
But then the show throws some curve-balls, tacking off on its own new direction. The inciting murder from the first episode is just the first step in something bigger, a mystery that is not even fully revealed in the episodes made available for review.
Leslye Headland, co-creator of Netflix’s Russian Doll and creator of The Acolyte, has crafted an engaging thriller set in a time in the Star Wars galaxy that has not been previously explored in any live action or animated offering to date. Set about a century before the events of the Prequel Trilogy of Star Wars films, this High Republic era has been charted out in a number of books and comics over the past couple of years, but The Acolyte comes pretty much at the end of the period and no knowledge of those stories is required for what is happening here. This frees Headland from the strings of Star Wars cannon while simultaneously giving her room the room to explore some concepts and ideas that are foundational to Star Wars lore. The result is a series that should engage both casual and die hard Star Wars fans.
The Jedi have long been an integral part of the Star Wars franchise, but we’ve only ever seen them as either figures of legend (the original trilogy and beyond) or just teetering on the precipice before their fall (the prequel trilogy). Here we get to see the Jedi as more of a presence in the Star Wars galaxy, at the height of the Republic era. That is not to say that they are perfect though. They may be the nominal good guys of the story, but some still do have very human feet of clay. There is a slight air of arrogance about some in the Jedi hierarchy, feeling that their position in the galaxy lends them an air of moral superiority. We also see some Jedi with concerns about the politics and public appearance of the mystery that they are investigating in a bit of foreshadowing of the political entanglements that will lead to their downfall as seen in the Prequel Trilogy.
There is also some interesting diving into the lore of the mystical Force. Already in the franchise we of course have seen the Jedi and their diametric opposite, the evil Sith, use the Force in their various ways. The animated side of the Star Wars galaxy has shown us the Nightsisters of Dathomir, who eventually came to live action in last year’s Ahsoka series. And now we see that there are at least one other group, and potentially more, that use the Force in ways differing from what we have seen before. It is unclear in the episodes available if this new revelation will be integral to the reveal of the person ultimately behind the events of the show or if it is just a fun bit of universe building that also conveniently functions as a red herring. It certainly raises some questions about the nature of the Force – remember we have only heard from two very opinionated parties about how it functions – as well as suggest some interesting potential stories beyond this current series.
The Acolyte also questions some of the methods of the Jedi in a way that the franchise has not really addressed before. We have seen how when the Jedi have identified a young child as having a strong potential to wield the Force, they are recruited and taken away from their family to the main Jedi Temple on the planet Coruscant, the center of the galactic government. But here we get some moments that suggest that there is a toll that is levied on both the families from whom these Force-sensitive children are taken away from and perhaps some lingering trauma among the Jedi for their lost childhood and families. It is an interesting idea and I have a feeling that we will see it being explore more as the second half of the series rolls out.
