‘The Acolyte’ Lead Amandla Stenberg Says Disney Plus Series Will “Honor The Ethos Of Star Wars And Ideas Around The Force And Also Challenge Them”
Spencer Baculi
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According to series lead Amandla Stenberg, the plot of Disney Plus next Star Wars series The Acolyte will not only attempt to “honor the ethos” of the franchise and its concept of the Force, but also simultaneously “challenge them”.
(Does that sound suspiciously like ‘subverting expectations’ to anyone else?)
Stenberg – who identifies as non-binary, uses she/they pronouns, and is perhaps best known for having portrayed Rue in the first The Hunger Games film and Spyder-Byte in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse – provided this tease of Star Wars’ next television outing during a February interview given to C Magazine‘s Ira Madison III.
Despite her noting that a non-disclosure agreement between her and the House of Mouse had left her unable to offer too many public details regarding the series’ production, Stenberg was still able to provide her host with a very brief and vague overview of its overall creative direction.
Beginning with The Acolyte‘s setting within the franchise’s ‘High Republic’ era – a time period, as conceived wholly by Disney, set roughly 500 years before the events of A New Hope and centering on the exploits of the then-flourishing Jedi Order – the actress explained, “In the context of the Star Wars universe, it’s a time of great peace, theoretically.”
“It’s also a time of an institution, and it’s a time in which conceptions around the Force are very strict,” added Stenberg. “And I think what we’re trying to explore within our show is when an institution has a singular conception of how power can be used…we try to provide a lot of different perspectives and answers to that question. The idea is to kind of honor the ethos of Star Wars and ideas around the Force and also challenge them, hopefully harmoniously.”
Notably, Stenberg’s interview is not the first time mention has been made of The Acolyte‘s intent to explore such a ‘grey’ interpretation of the franchise’s central force (pun 100% intended).
In March 2023, series creator Leslye Headland told Empire Magazine, “When you’re doing something completely original, like we are, you want to question the status quo of the era that you live in. 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.”
Further, in a teaser trailer for the series unveiled at the April 2023 Star Wars Celebration event, an unidentified female character can be heard narrating, “This isn’t about good or bad. This is about power and who is allowed to use it.”
According to its official log line, the Disney Plus series “will take viewers into a galaxy of shadowy secrets and emerging dark-side powers in the final days of the High Republic era with the story of former Padawan who reunites with her Jedi Master to investigate a series of crimes but discovers the forces they confront are more sinister than they ever anticipated.”
For all of Disney Star Wars’ two remaining fans, as per a report from Collider, The Acolyte is currently on track to begin ‘challenging’ the franchise’s established lore on June 5th, 2024.
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