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The Acolyte, the latest Star Wars series, tells a story that becomes familiar, and not in a good way. Also the Jedi seem kind of useless, if we're honest
The first sign that something might be amiss with The Acolyte came not long into the first episode of the latest Star Wars series on the Disney+ service. After an opening set piece in which an assassin is going after a Jedi master — seems like a tough ask, but maybe jobs are hard to come by the High Republic — it transitions to a spaceship in which a young woman wakes up for another day of mechanic duties.
She looks a lot like the would-be assassin. Mystery, intrigue, etc. No problems so far. But then a couple of Jedi arrive on the ship to arrest Osha, our assassin-looking protagonist, due to the crimes committed the previous night. She protests, not unreasonably, that she didn’t commit any crimes on a faraway planet due to being on this ship, for her job. Sorry, the Jedi say, orders are orders. Time to face justice.
This is just terrible police work. They make no attempt to verify if she was on the ship overnight, which seems like it wouldn’t be hard. Ask someone? Check the cameras? Look at the ship logs for comings and goings? It would be glaringly bad if this was just some down-on-his-luck detective grump who wasn’t bothering to do the barest amount of diligence in his work, but these are Jedi masters. Noble, wise, honourable. They have robes and everything! They even know Osha, since it turns out she was a Jedi trainee before deciding on a fruitful career in the mechanic arts. Maybe see if her explanation checks out before plunking her on the prison transport? But in this moment, the Jedi are incurious idiots. Just a couple of dudes carrying out orders for The Man.
Which, it turns out, basically foreshadowed the biggest problem with The Acolyte: the Jedi are all … kind of … losers?
The series is set about a hundred years before the events of The Phantom Menace, the first of the prequel Star Wars films. The Jedi Order and the Galactic Republic have prospered for centuries without war, says the title screen. This fits with what we know of the galaxy far, far away, even if you are not well versed in the background lore. And so, a story set many decades before Senator Palpatine started any of his nefarious scheming might have been expected to portray the Jedi at the peak of their powers: keeping the peace, looking out for the little guy, occasionally busting out the light sabres and the Force if anyone gets out of line.
But, no. The assassin seen at the start, it is soon revealed, is on a revenge mission to kill four specific Jedi. This proves a lot easier than you might imagine, especially since she is armed with just throwing knives. Apparently you can bring a knife to a sword fight. The assassin is also serving a mysterious master, who seems pretty Sith-like, and eventually everyone is in the same place: Osha, the assassin, the Sith fella, and a bunch of Jedi. And our robed heroes basically get their collective ass handed to them. I mean, guys, come on. What was with the Jedi training back in the High Republic days? Was light-sabre fighting not one of the classes? Did they just get fat and sassy after the centuries of peace? Was it a DEI thing?
That was a joke, to be clear. Star Wars has been diverse since the ‘70s. The Acolyte has been the subject of a torrent of negative fan reviews, which has caused some to suggest that the anger is a result of bigotry, which has brought even more backlash in a cycle that may never end. I don’t doubt at all that there are a lot of bad-faith criticisms of the show, especially because there are legions of culture warriors out there who are ready to bleat at anything Disney makes as being too woke, but the show is flawed on its merits.
With a couple of episodes left in the season, the main arc has the Sith trying to convert Osha to his cause. He’s doing it low-key, but it’s evident he wants the former Jedi to join him in some Dark Side shenanigans. He mentions the power of two, which is we know is a Sith staple: for every master, there is also an apprentice.
Which is the other problem with The Acolyte: we have seen this story before. Even though the series is set in a whole new age for a mainstream Star Wars production, and was created by a showrunner (Leslye Headland) from outside the Star Wars universe, it has still become a narrative about a Sith trying to convert a Jedi. Which is what Palpatine did with Anakin Skywalker, what Darth Vader tried to do with Luke Skywalker, and what Kylo Ren tried to do with Rey Palpatine-Skywalker. (And also Vampire Palpatine tried to do with Rey.) Was there really a need for another round of Jedi-is-seduced-by-the-power-of-the-dark-side? (Osha may not yet be seduced, to be clear. But she’s thinking about it.)
The return to such a familiar narrative is all the more strange given that the Disney+ shows have already proven to be at their best when they aren’t trying to deal with grand Star Wars themes but are instead interesting stories that happen to be set in parts of the famous Lucas universe. The early Mandalorian seasons were basically a Western but with laser blasters. Andor is a spy thriller that morphed into a prison-escape film for a while. The natural advantage of dealing with side-quest topics is that the shows don’t have to figure out how to fit into the broad storyline that has already been told.
The main bad guy in The Acolyte is either going to defeat even more Jedi or be put down by his would-be apprentice, but either way the events of the series would seem to be a clear warning sign to the Jedi Order that there might be people out there who are tinkering around with the Force in very non-Jedi ways. Which is, of course, exactly what happens a century later when Palpatine catches them all with their pants down. (Metaphorically.) In other words, whatever happens in the final couple of episodes, it sure seems like the Jedi, having already been made fools of, are not going to learn any lessons. Or, at least, any lessons that they make a point of writing down so that future generations can learn them.
Which, I suppose, is kind of fitting for the show. The Jedi, making obvious and avoidable mistakes? You don’t say.