Leaked ‘The Acolyte’ Trailer Declares “This Isn’t About Good Or Bad, It’s About Power And Who’s Allowed To Use It”
John F. Trent
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A leaked trailer of The Acolyte, which appears to be from Star Wars Celebration in April, features a line of dialogue that declares, “This isn’t about good or bad, it’s about power and who’s allowed to use it.”
(L-R): Amandla Stenberg, Lee Jung-jae and Director Leslye Headland on the set of Lucasfilm’s THE ACOLYTE, exclusively on Disney+. ©2022 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.
The trailer was recently uploaded to the Star Wars subreddit and can be seen below.
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As you can see above, it features a Jedi master teaching a number of younglings about the Force telling them, “Your eyes can deceive you. You must not trust them. The Force is powerful. It is Power we must respect.”
The explanation is bizarre given how Yoda, who is still alive and seemingly a prominent figure in the Jedi Order at the time this show is supposed to take place, had a very different view of the Force as he relayed to Luke Skywalker in The Empire Strikes Back.
Yoda instructs Luke Skywalker about the Force in Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Lucasfilm
If you recall, Yoda told Luke, “For my ally is the Force. And a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. You must feel the Force around you. Here, between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere! Yes, even between the land and the ship.”
Clearly, Yoda viewed the Force as an ally and seemingly something he put his complete trust in, which this Jedi Master appears to be instructing his students to avoid doing.
Yoda uses the Force to move Luke Skywalker’s X-wing in Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Lucasfilm
As the trailer continues some kind of assassin figures attacks what appears to be a female Jedi in a bar. Similar to how Ezra Bridger did not use a lightsaber in the most recent episode of Ahsoka, this female Jedi does not use her lightsaber, but uses a number of martial arts techniques and the Force to fend off the female assassin.
The trailer then features a montage of scenes, a Jedi is marching through a town, the master is instructing the younglings, and a Jedi appears to be interacting with Trade Federation officials.
The Acolyte logo as shown during Disney Investor Day Presentation 2020
Following this brief montage, a character is shown climbing the face of what appears to be some kind of temple. There are then a number of scenes, which appear to be inside the temple. In one of them a female Force wielder launches what appears to be a Force attack on a man. However, the scene cuts before we see the results of an attack.
The scene cuts to a pair of Jedi exploring some kind of cave. One of them draws a lightsaber indicating there might be some kind of danger imminent. We never see what it is or could be.
LONDON, ENGLAND – APRIL 07: The cast of The Acolyte (L-R) Lee Jung-Jae, Charlie Barnett, Rebecca Henderson, Dafne Keen, Amandla Stenberg, Leslye Headland, Manny Jacinto, Dean-Charles Chapman, Jodie Turner-Smith and Joonas Suotamo attend the studio panel at Star Wars Celebration 2023 in London at ExCel on April 07, 2023 in London, England. (Photo by Jeff Spicer/Getty Images for Disney)
Next, we see another montage including a Jedi using the Force to open a door, a man peeking around a corner, three Jedi appearing to confront someone, and a woman walking through a crowd of other women.
It then returns to the battle in the bar with the female Jedi as she uses the Force to stop the assassin’s blade in its tracks. As the clip transitions to this scene a woman states, “This isn’t about good or bad. This is about power and who is allowed to use it.”
The clip then shows a number of scenes with a man walking through a snowy covered ravine, some kind of alien female wielding a spear-like weapon, and an assassin walking in the open down a street. It concludes with a number of Jedi lighting up their lightsabers and standing at the ready.
LONDON, ENGLAND – APRIL 07: (L-R) Leslye Headland, Amandla Stenberg, Lee Jung-jae, guest, Manny Jacinto, Dafne Keen Fernandez, Charlie Barnett, Jodie Turner Smith, Rebecca Henderson, Dean Charles Chapman, and Joonas Suotamo attend The Acolyte panel at Star Wars Celebration 2023 in London at ExCel on April 07, 2023 in London, England. (Photo by Kate Green/Getty Images for Disney)
The line of dialogue in the trailer appears to confirm showrunner’s Leslye Headland’s assertion to Empire that the series will have a heavy emphasis on current day politics. It’s more likely the series will provide a heavy dose of intersectional feminist theory in the guise of Star Wars.
Headland told Empire, “When you’re doing something completely original, like we are, you want to question the status quo of the era that you live in.”
She continued, “What I think is so interesting right now is that everybody thinks they’re right! The Jedi really think they’re right — and George [Lucas] tells us that they’re wrong in Phantom. They missed a huge aspect of the dark side rising. That just felt like fertile ground to look into what’s going on for all of us right now.”
LONDON, ENGLAND – APRIL 07: Leslye Headland onstage during the Acolyte studio panel at the Star Wars Celebration 2023 in London at ExCel on April 07, 2023 in London, England. (Photo by Kate Green/Getty Images for Disney)
Not only did Headland confirm the show will be a commentary on current American society, culture, and politics, but she seemed to imply the focus of the show being on female villains are self-inserts.
“When I was a young queer girl, I was just hanging out with Ursula the sea witch [from The Little Mermaid],” she told the outlet. “As a queer girl growing up, if you don’t identify with the heroes, and the villains show up and they’re all queer-coded, you’re like — yes, that’s me!”
Headland added, “As a queer filmmaker, you’re gonna see some camp. Inevitably! But I would say that tonally, our references are darker.”
LONDON, ENGLAND – APRIL 07: Amandla Stenberg onstage during The Acolyte panel at the Star Wars Celebration 2023 in London at ExCel on April 07, 2023 in London, England. (Photo by Kate Green/Getty Images for Disney)
Back in June 2021, Headland confirmed the series would be female-centric during an interview with YouTuber Fantastic Frankey.
She said, “Just because my show is technically yes, ‘female centric,’ meaning it centers around a female protagonist. I don’t think that necessarily excludes men from that space.”
Headland would go on to explain, “Listen, I relate to male characters all the time. Like I root for Mando. Like I root for Luke. I like deeply, deeply… Well, not sure how much I care about Han Solo anymore. When I was little I really liked him. When I watch him now, I’m kind of like, ‘Gosh a lot of my psyche makes sense now. Hmm. Ok.”
“All joking aside, I think that truly, I think that an inclusive space means an inclusive space. But at the same time I think that just because something has a female protagonist doesn’t mean it’s only meant for women,” she added.
LONDON, ENGLAND – APRIL 07: Leslye Headland onstage during the Acolyte studio panel at the Star Wars Celebration 2023 in London at ExCel on April 07, 2023 in London, England. (Photo by Kate Green/Getty Images for Disney)
She went on to describe the series as a tent revival, “I kind of see like if Star Wars is a religion, which I think we kind of agreed for the purposes of this interview it is. I like to think of my show as a tent revival. You can come over if you want to. We are going to be talking about some cool stuff, there’s going to be some things we haven’t discussed in canon yet, there are going to be some characters you don’t know about.”
“I would love you to join us. I would love you to be interested in it. And if it’s not your thing, the cool thing about Star Wars right now is there is so much you can align yourself with and invest yourself in. And if you don’t like it, that’s fine,” she said.
LONDON, ENGLAND – APRIL 07: Leslye Headland onstage during the Acolyte studio panel at the Star Wars Celebration 2023 in London at ExCel on April 07, 2023 in London, England. (Photo by Kate Green/Getty Images for Disney)
The official description for the series states, “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.”
No official release date has been announced for the series.
Kathleen Kennedy talking about The Acolyte during Disney Investor Day Presentation 2020
What do you make of this leaked trailer for The Acolyte?
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