Disney+’s ‘The Acolyte’ Expands the Star Wars Galaxy Like Never Before

There’s a scene in the third episode of Disney+‘s new series, The Acolyte, that potentially upends everything we’ve known about Star Wars for nearly fifty years. Mother Aniseya (Jodie Turner-Smith), the witchy leader of a coven of Force-sensitive sorceresses, delineates what separates them from the Jedi, but she doesn’t use terms of good versus evil. Instead, she says, “This is about power and who is allowed to use it.” For Mother Aniseya, there’s no “anonymous Force” falling on Light or Dark sides, but rather a thread that connects us all.

It’s radical not simply because it’s a rejoinder to decades of lore that casts characters as heroes or villains — with little in between — but because it sort of encapsulates the ethos of The Acolyte as a whole. The Acolyte is the first live action Star Wars project to come wholly from the mind of a queer female fan of the franchise, and it shows. Rather than regurgitate George Lucas‘s original work, writer and director Leslye Headland takes Star Wars to a whole new era. The series is set a century before the prequels in a time known as “The High Republic.” It’s the period of peace and justice that Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness) waxed poetically about to young Luke (Mark Hamill) on Tatooine. However, Headland’s vision of Jedi supremacy is ever so tilted, revealing that the Jedi might not have been quite so perfect as we were led to believe.

The Acolyte opens with the reveal that someone is hunting Jedi down. Amandla Stenberg‘s character Mae is referred to early in the premiere as an “unidentified Force user,” hinting that the Jedi pride themselves on keeping every Force sensitive being in the galaxy in check. It’s clear that someone has been teaching Mae the ways of the Force, specifically the Dark Side of it. Jedi Master Sol (Lee Jung-jae) volunteers to go after his former Padawan himself, in part because he feels responsible for the intrepid criminal’s killing spree, but also because it’s obvious he’s next on her kill list.

However, The Acolyte is far more complex than the story of a prodigal student on a rampage. Mae is motivated not just by revenge — we learn that she blames the Jedi she’s targeting for the death and ruination of her entire family — but by her mysterious master. Leslye Headland introduces us to this shadowy figure in the distance in The Acolyte Episode 1 and makes it clear that not even Mae or her partner in crime Qimir (Manny Jacinto) know this master’s identity. All we know after the four episodes sent to critics is that he — he’s a he, right? — carries a red lightsaber, sports a getup similar to Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), and wants Mae to kill a Jedi without using a weapon. If she succeeds, she moves forward in her dark education. If she fails, he will kill her.

The Acolyte is a show propelled by bursts of exhilarating action, incredible performances, and profoundly delightful twists. As a lifelong Star Wars nerd, I was elated to see all the subtle ways Headland not only worked various Easter eggs into the story, but how she interrogates the franchise’s most beloved touchstones. When Sol tells younglings that their eyes can deceive them, it’s not merely a lesson in trusting the Force, but advice to the audience. All is not what it initially appears. Likewise, after four episodes, it’s hard not to get the sense that the story we’ve been told so far depends greatly, as Obi-Wan Kenobi might say, on the characters’ points of view.

Which brings us back to the idea of power and who is allowed to wield it. Sure, Kathleen Kennedy runs Lucasfilm, but until The Acolyte, most of the big creative calls have been made by men. Men who happily admit to being shaped by George Lucas’s storytelling. What we’ve seen so far has largely been reverential to the original Star Wars trilogy, be it the copy-paste plot of the sequel trilogy or the decision to use a CGI version of Luke Skywalker for key dramatic moments. The Acolyte is clearly made by a fan of Star Wars, but one who wants to expand the conversation to include new points of view.

“The Acolyte is a show propelled by bursts of exhilarating action, incredible performances, and profoundly delightful twists.”

Of course, any conversation about The Acolyte would be remiss if it didn’t mention leading lady Amandla Stenberg’s incendiary performance. Stenberg not only has to dig deep to present Mae as someone far more complex than your typical Star Wars antagonist, but she also — like Natasha Lyonne did in Headland’s big Netflix breakout hit, Russian Doll — has to pull the audience along on The Acolyte‘s idiosyncratic ride. Stenberg proves she’s not only one of the most exhilarating actors of her generation, but an indelible action star, as well.

The Acolyte‘s first four episodes are a brilliant addition to the larger Star Wars universe. By looking backwards to the waning days of the Jedi Order, Leslye Headland has pushed the franchise further into the future than ever before. Star Wars doesn’t need to focus only on the Skywalkers, the Rebels, and the Empire. It’s a whole galaxy, far, far away, full of new stories waiting to be told.

The first two episodes of The Acolyte premiere on Disney+ tonight, June 4, at 6 PM PT/9 PM ET.