Star Wars: The Acolyte Needs to Expose Why The Jedi Fell

Star Wars: The Acolyte will be a murder mystery whodunit about a mysterious assassin taking out Jedi – but the show will also be set in an entirely new place on the Star Wars Timeline: 100 years before the start of the Skywalker Saga began with Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. 

The Acolyte will be set in the time known as “The High Republic Era” – a period that has been fully introduced and explored in Star Wars novels and comics since 2021. However, those books have kept to earlier parts of the High Republic Era – spanning anywhere from 200 to 350 years before Phantom Menace. That means The Acoylyte showrunner Leslye Headland is truly working within unexplored terrain – while also shouldering the massive responsibility of creating the biggest bridge yet between Star Wars‘ High Republic and Skywalker Saga eras. 

When Star Wars first launched The High Republic line, it was touted as being the first look at the Jedi (and to a lesser extent, the Republic) at the height of their power and prosperity, after winning the Jedi-Sith War. The series began by chronicling how the Jedi and Republic first expanded “civilization” into the Outer Rim Territories – only to learn through tragic experience that there are already powerful groups and organizations that have long claimed that territory as their own. The series then jumped back in time even further, to further reveal how the Jedi were only one form of Force-user group in the galaxy – Jedi being the group that seized the most prominent role as “peacekeepers.”  

When The High Republic launched, Star Wars fans were clear in their view that there was a massive obligation for the series to also be seeded with examples of how The Jedi and Republic overplayed their hand, allowing a resurgence of The Sith, which would eventually destroy the Republic and Jedi Order, by Darth Sidious/Emperor Palpatine, the ultimate enemy of both. 

To its credit, The High Republic has done just that: the folly of the Jedi believing they are unequaled amongst Force users – as well as blurring the lines between being peacekeepers and cops/soldiers – has been part of the series’ subtext, all along. It’s now on The Acolyte to show how those bad seeds planted in the High Republic Era ultimately bloomed into ensnaring threats (The Sith, witch covens, political foes like the Trade Federation) that ended The High Republic era and started the Clone Wars. That’s no small feat, to be sure: but if Headland and co. pull it off, it could end up being one of the greatest and most important chapters of Star Wars that’s been told. 

So far, first reactions to Star Wars: The Acolyte hint that the show may rise to the task. 

Star Wars: The Acolyte will premiere Episodes 1-2 on Disney+ on June 4th.