Star Wars: The Acolyte Story Is All About Setting Up The Prequels

In a recent interview with showrunner Leslye Headland, the upcoming series, Star Wars: The Acolyte, is all about setting up the Star Wars prequels.

Star Wars: The Acolyte Story Is All About Setting Up The Prequels

The upcoming Star Wars television series The Acolyte is all about setting up the Star Wars prequel films. Originally announced in 2020, the show will be set during the end of the High Republic era, a prosperous period hundreds of years before the Galactic Republic. Russian Doll co-creator Leslye Headland will serve as the show’s head writer and showrunner. The Hate U Give star Amandla Stenberg was cast in a lead role as Aura. However, much of the story’s details have remained under wraps until now.

Sixteen years after the release of Return of the Jedi, the science-fiction fantasy franchise returned to theaters with Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace to kick off the prequel era of films. The trilogy, and peripheral media, told the tale of how Emperor Palpatine rose to power and created the Galactic Empire in the ashes of the long-standing Jedi Order and Galactic Republic. Those movies set up the original trilogy by providing context for the Galactic Civil War, and providing a backstory to one of the biggest cinematic blockbusters in history. Now, The Phantom Menace’s backstory is set to be explored.

In a recent Vanity Fair article, Disney outlined the current state of Star Wars and what lies ahead for the massive franchise. While discussing The Acolyte, Headland explained that the series will take place roughly 100 years prior to The Phantom Menace and will be a mystery thriller in a relatively peaceful era. The showrunner admitted that she used the prequels as a basis to draw her story from, working backwards, and asking herself how the galaxy turned out the way that it had at the start of the trilogy. Read how Headland described her writing process below.

“A lot of those characters haven’t even been born yet. We’re taking a look at the political and personal and spiritual things that came up in a time period that we don’t know much about. My question when watching The Phantom Menace was always like, ‘Well, how did things get to this point?’ How did we get to a point where a Sith lord can infiltrate the Senate and none of the Jedi pick up on it? Like, what went wrong? What are the scenarios that led us to this moment?”

The Phantom Menace showed that both the Jedi Order and Galactic Senate were well-established on the city planet of Coruscant. Each were seemingly independent of each other structurally, yet the Jedi Order were sworn to work with the Senate, as seen with the opening scene of the film where Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson) and Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) were sent to Naboo by the Senate to help mediate a trade dispute. However, this was not always the case. According to Headland, the Jedi used to be more reserved and wore clean gold and white uniforms, adding, “They would never be out and about. The idea is that they could have these types of uniforms because that’s how little they’re getting into skirmishes.” The upcoming series may see a transition from a more contained religion to one that becomes more active in the government and its own power, thus blinding it from the rise of the dark side.

The prequels portrayed the Jedi Order as a powerful asset of the Republic. As seen in the popular animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars, the Jedi were impressive tools of war against the Confederacy of Independent Systems. Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker were used as Generals in battle, leading battalions of troops against Separatist forces. This is a far cry from what Headland described the Jedi will be in the upcoming series. The Acolyte is still long off on Disney’s slate of new Star Wars projects, however, the show is shaping up to show a side of the universe audiences have never seen before.