Star Wars: The High Republic Writer Addresses Acolyte TV Series Connections
The upcoming Star Wars television series The Acolyte will occur during the High Republic era. That's the period long before the Empire's rise when Jedi were plentiful and the Sith were seemingly gone from the galaxy. The High Republic debuted as a publishing initiative for Star Wars novels and comics. Its goal is to give writers a place on the Star Wars timeline to drive the stories instead of working around other media. But then how does the Disney+ show looming on the horizon affect the way the High Republic's writers work? It doesn't affect them at all, it seems.
"I don't think about it because I don't know anything about it," Daniel José Older tells the Comic Book Nation podcast. Older has contributed several stories to The High Republic. He's written installments of The High Republic Adventures all-ages comic. He also wrote the junior novel Race to Crashpoint Tower and Marvel's High Republic miniseries Trail of Shadows. His new High Republic YA novel Midnight Horizon was released earlier this month. He also has an untitled High Republic graphic novel still to come (published by Dark Horse Comics, which recently got back into publishing Star Wars). "I know that if I step on something that they need for later that I'm going to get a note about it, and I'll make the change. Other than that, what that means is I don't have to think about it, which is great."
The High Republic era is vast, covering practically everything preceding the Sith's reemergence in The Phantom Menace. The second phase of High Republic publications, launching in October, will be set 100 years before the first batch of stories. Older notes The Acolyte occurs closer to the end of the era than the published stories. "We're the same era," he says, "but we're a little ways away in the chronology, far enough away to be able to not step on each other's feet, which was the idea."
Lucasfilm officially announced The Acolyte during its Disney Investor Day 2020 presentation. Reports suggested the Star Wars series is an action-thriller featuring martial arts combat centered around female characters. Leslye Headland, who created Russian Doll for Netflix, is The Acolyte's head writer and showrunner. Production begins on the eight-episode series in London later this year.
Midnight Horizon is available now in bookstores and online. The High Republic's second phase, dubbed "Quest of the Jedi," launches in October.