Star Wars' Kylo Ren Prequel Show Officially Rewrites The Rise Of Skywalker

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Published Jun 10, 2026, 12:00 PM EDT

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Tom is based in the UK and when he's not writing about TV shows, he's watching them. He's also an avid horror fiction writer, gamer, and has a Dungeons and Dragons habit that he tries (and fails) to keep in check.

Of all the Star Wars movies and TV shows released in the Disney era, few have been as divisive as the Sequel Trilogy. However, despite the films having many polarizing elements, there’s one aspect of the sequels that many fans agree had enormous untapped potential: Kylo Ren (Adam Driver). From his conflicted relationship with the dark side to his obsession with Darth Vader’s legacy, Kylo instantly stood apart from previous Star Wars villains.

Of all the characters introduced in the Sequel Trilogy, Kylo Ren remains the most fascinating. Years after 2019’s The Rise of Skywalker, fans are still eager to know more about Ben Solo’s fall to the Dark Side. What’s more, one lingering mystery still overshadows all others when it comes to Kylo Ren’s past. This is, of course, the identity and significance of the Knights of Ren, the masked warriors who appeared throughout the trilogy’s marketing and lore yet were barely explored onscreen.

While the teased prequel movie The Hunt for Ben Solo never materialized, The Acolyte quietly stepped in to fill this important gap in Kylo Ren’s backstory. The Disney+ series proved almost as divisive as the Sequel Trilogy itself, but one of its biggest reveals seemingly would have transformed the Knights of Ren from a dangling sequel-era mystery into a crucial part of Star Wars history.

The Acolyte Gave Important Lore To Kylo Ren

Qimir/the Stranger wielding a red lightsaber in The Acolyte

Few characters in The Acolyte generated more discussion than The Stranger (Manny Jacinto). From the moment he appeared in full armor, fans immediately noticed how strikingly similar his helmet looked to Kylo Ren’s iconic mask. The Acolyte repeatedly hinted at a connection between the two. Beyond visuals, the show’s score even weaved elements of Kylo Ren’s musical theme into several of The Stranger’s biggest moments.

It looked like The Acolyte was setting up a major future revelation about The Stranger and Kylo Ren until Disney unfortunately canceled the show. However, The Acolyte creator Leslye Headland later confirmed that fans were absolutely correct to suspect a connection. According to Headland, The Stranger was intended to be the founder of the group Kylo Ren would end up leading centuries later:

“It felt like it foreshadowed a possible connection to the Knights of Ren with the Kylo Ren shape we landed on. We just started to go in that direction. It was in the design of the character, as well as knowing that we were going to introduce Darth Plagueis, who has to end up with Palpatine as his apprentice. Following the Rule of Two – a precept that limited the Sith to just two at any given time, a master and an apprentice – one way to keep it going is if the Stranger is the first knight of Ren, part of a Sith-adjacent culture that we know eventually survives.”

That revelation completely changes how the Knights of Ren fit into the wider Star Wars timeline. In the Sequel Trilogy, the group was presented as a vague dark side cult that ultimately served little purpose. Despite constant references to their importance in Kylo Ren’s history, they never received meaningful development. The Acolyte had the potential to retroactively fix that problem.

By positioning The Stranger as the founder of the Knights of Ren, the Disney+ Star Wars series could have connected the High Republic era directly to the Sequel Trilogy in an organic way. Suddenly, the Knights wouldn’t have just been random masked followers accompanying Kylo Ren. They would have become a centuries-old legacy born from a Force user operating outside traditional Sith dogma, and in the proecess made Ben Solo more interesting than ever before.

The Knights Of Ren Are One Of Many Reasons The Acolyte Shouldn’t Have Been Canceled

Darth Plagueis peering out of a cave in The Acolyte season finale.

The Stranger’s role as the founder of the Knights of Ren makes The Acolyte’s cancellation even more frustrating. Qimir was one of the Disney+ show’s most compelling characters, and the fact that his story was also an origin for the Knights of Ren made him incredibly significant in the wider Star Wars timeline. Unfortunately, because The Acolyte ended after one season, audiences will likely never see how that legacy truly formed onscreen.

That unresolved storyline is one of several reasons that canceling The Acolyte felt premature. Whatever criticisms surrounded the divisive Star Wars TV show, it undeniably brought fresh ideas to the franchise. Setting the story during the High Republic era, for example, meant that it explored a period of Star Wars history that remains underutilized on-screen. The series also introduced one of the biggest Sith-related reveals in years with the live-action debut of Darth Plagueis.

Then there were the lightsaber battles, which were some of the best duels ever seen in Star Wars. Most importantly, though, The Acolyte had the rare ability to bridge completely different eras of the franchise. Through characters like The Stranger and his links to the Knights of Ren, the series was quietly building connective tissue between the High Republic and the Sequel Trilogy. If season 2 had happened, The Acolyte may have finally given the Sequel Trilogy the deeper historical foundation many fans felt it was missing.