I Can't Believe They Cancelled the Most Original Star Wars Show

Regardless of where you stand on whether The Acolyte should have been cancelled or not, the fact that the franchise just lost another show is bad in itself. But it was different with The Acolyte. Not because it's perfect (far from that), but because it was the only Star Wars series to actually bring new material to the table both technically and storytelling-wise. Ever since the Disney+ Star Wars shows started, The Acolyte is the first time some of us have truly connected to one of the Disney-era Star Wars stories, but the show didn't even get a chance. Worse, we didn't even get the opportunity to enjoy it like we deserved, and it's hard to believe things got to this point.

The Acolyte

The Acolyte is a mystery-thriller that will take viewers into a galaxy of shadowy secrets and emerging dark-side powers in the final days of the High Republic era. A former Padawan reunites with her Jedi Master to investigate a series of crimes, but the forces they confront are more sinister than they ever anticipated.

Release Date June 4, 2024

Main Genre Sci-Fi

Seasons 1

Studio Disney+

Franchise Star Wars

What It Meant To Watch 'The Acolyte' as a Star Wars Fan

To this day, I still remember watching Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope for the first time, and I even try to pull positive points from Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker. But Star Wars has been notoriously stuck on television just as much as it is on the big screen, and it's getting really tiresome to see that the only thing that it keeps betting on is cheap nostalgia.

The Acolyte was one of the few projects that took Star Wars in a new direction and beyond the old Skywalker drama. (Which we love, but it's such a huge galaxy!) The series has a fresh take on concepts that were introduced by George Lucas himself, especially the Prequel Trilogy, and uses lore established in both the Disney canon and the Legends continuity. It also brought original ideas to Star Wars, like the notion that the Jedi keep tabs on who is using the Force and how. It was bold enough to challenge established concepts like the prophecy of the Chosen One, and respectful enough to do it in a way that still preserves the sanctity of the Lucas movies. Try as you might, you won't find anything in the franchise that uses pre-established lore as well as The Acolyte.

Of course, it's far from perfect. There are serious pacing issues. The fragmented storytelling was also problematic, withholding information until later in the season when it could have been used to a much more compelling effect a little earlier. But it gave the right story beats to justify fans' engagement, carried by some powerhouse performances. Master Sol (Lee Jung-jae), for example, is such a flawed and relatable character — who among us has never made a mistake while having good intentions? Same with Vernestra Rwoh (Rebecca Henderson), who knows the implications when she bends the rules but is in a position where there simply is no right thing to do.

It also leaned heavily on a popular storytelling trope nowadays: what if the villain has a point? The Stranger/Qimir (Manny Jacinto) is right. The Jedi do hold a monopoly over the Force. Other Force-based religions should be allowed to exist and do their thing. At the same time, though, he's a Sith, and they are the bad guys, so should they be allowed to, too? And not just that, but Qimir is easily the scariest and most ambitious villain since the George Lucas movies. Don't get me wrong, I'm Light Side through and through, but he does make some compelling arguments. The kind of story that challenges our own beliefs is the one that makes us grow, and The Acolyte is exactly that, despite its flaws. But, nowadays, unfortunately, it takes more than a good story for a Star Wars series or movie to survive.

Not Every Fan Has a Place Within the Star Wars Fandom

Of course, there have been other examples of innovative directions in Star Wars storytelling before The Acolyte. Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi and The Mandalorian, for example, took bold swings, too, and Andor applied a down-to-earth outlook to the franchise, but it's hard to say any of them truly worked. The Last Jedi ended up being brutally retconned by The Rise of Skywalker, The Mandalorian soon became a nostalgia parade, and Andor is incredible, but its tonal shift simply didn't appeal to the larger public — remember, Star Wars can be complex if it wants, but, at its core, it's for kids.

Everything that happened to these projects was seemingly done to appease a part of the fandom that does not prioritize the narrative or care what is or isn't a good story, and they definitely don't like the status quo being challenged. Deep down, they like The Mandalorian because it brought back Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), and they like Andor because it's a gritty war story they wanted to see, but none of that actually challenged what they think Star Wars is. The Last Jedi did, for example, and the backlash was so loud that The Rise of Skywalker walked it all back. Now, it's happening to The Acolyte, too. Even Andor did not challenge our beliefs like The Acolyte did, but it was impossible to have a healthy debate about this. Wherever we went on social media, the toxic part of the fandom would direct their hatred at us, too, as if liking or enjoying The Acolyte was so impossible that we had to be crazy or a "media shill." No one wants this kind of negativity, and it's not at all what Star Wars is about.

The backlash to the Prequel Trilogy when those films came out wasn't fair — especially since now, most people who attacked George Lucas during that era are talking about "Lucas' Star Wars" as if it were sacred. The reaction is always dramatic whenever the franchise challenges what the fandom likes about Star Wars. Now, Lucasfilm cancelling The Acolyte feels like another symptom of a studio bending to the toxicity of a certain corner of fandom. Despite praise from critics and viewers, The Acolyte was review-bombed, and the dialogue around the series became consistently toxic. By failing to renew The Acolyte, Star Wars has proven it doesn't care about reinventing itself, only about appeasing people with more dramatic battles and lightsabers. It feels like there's no place for fans who want something different.

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What Happens to ‘The Acolyte’s Story Now?

Image via Disney+

All the storylines that The Acolyte introduced are now lost, and we are left with an incomplete story — the only one that tried to build something fresh within the franchise. What about complex characters like Qimir and Sol, Vernestra's role in setting up Qimir as a Sith Lord and unwittingly setting the downfall of the Jedi Order in motion, the Senate confronting the Jedi, how the Aniseya twins (Amandla Stenberg) were really created, and the mystery of where Darth Plagueis fits in all this? None of it matters now. Those are all great stories that deserve an ending onscreen.

Lucasfilm has already announced Kelnacca (Joonas Suotamo) comics, a book about Vernestra Rwoh in the years before the series, and a Jecki Lon (Dafne Keen) novel, too, but, with all due respect to those, and as someone who loves Star Wars written media, it won't be the same. It's already established that the comics and books don't carry the same weight in canon as live-action series and movies. In such a huge galaxy, it's highly problematic that there seems to be no space for fans who just want to connect with a good story, regardless if it's connected to a Skywalker or not.

The Acolyte is available to stream on Disney+.

WATCH ON DISNEY+