If you're looking for your next Star Wars fix now that The Bad Batch season three is over, you're in luck. While animated series lovers can almost get their fix with the new Disney Plus series Tales of the Empire, live-action Star Wars lovers don't have long to wait, as Star Wars: The Acolyte is just around the corner.
Serving as Disney's first venture into the long past of the Star Wars universe, Star Wars: The Acolyte is the first opportunity for Star Wars fans to truly visualize the era of the High Republic outside of Marvel's The High Republic comic series. With it comes a whole wealth of opportunities to provide, you might say, a new hope for future Star Wars series, but there are a few things I'd like to see from this latest Disney Plus series to ensure that this is the case.
Did you ever hear the story…
The story of Darth Plagueis the Wise is not a story the Jedi would tell you, but it's definitely one that Disney should at least allude to. Given its setting in the High Republic era, Star Wars: The Acolyte provides the perfect backdrop for Disney to truly unpack the infamous tale outlined by Palpatine in Revenge of the Sith, as not only could Darth Plagueis – or Hego Damask II as he was known publicly – be alive, but he almost certainly could be the rising darkness alluded to in the one full trailer Star Wars: The Acolyte has received.
Were Darth Plagueis to indeed be the focus of the series, not only would we be in for a near fully-fledged dark side antagonist to propel the show forward, but we might also get some much-needed context on how he would come to gain the powers Palpatine, and eventually Anakin, desperately crave in Revenge of the Sith. Plus, if we were to see a glimpse into his development, we might find out more than the little we do currently about the impact of the Rule of Two on the development of the Sith plot against the Jedi, as Darth Plagueis was the last Sith to have known of the plans before Palpatine executed him, and implemented Order 66, over the course of the prequels.
Neimoidian dealings
While the bumbling dealings of the Trade Federation were seemingly much less planned and effective during the prequel movies, the early Trade Federation was a much different entity, and one which we now know will make an appearance during Star Wars: The Acolyte. Unlike most people, however, I'm hoping this blockade is, in fact, legal, and that we see a fair chunk more of the Trade Federation than we have so far in the films.
Given that the formation of the Trade Federation occurred in 350 BBY (Before the Battle of Yavin) and that we expect Star Wars: The Acolyte is going to be set around 132 BBY, the series will see the Trade Federation not only at a much earlier point in its lifespan, but also at a time prior to the interventions of Lord Sidious. This not only means we'll likely see a more assertive concept of Neimoidian leadership, but we may also see quite how close – or far away – the Neimoidian-run Trade Federation was to achieving its own goals, rather than those of Lord Sidious.
True Jedi control
While it would be easy for casual fans of Star Wars to say that we saw true Jedi control up until the execution of Order 66, it becomes a much different picture when you look closer at the puppeteering impact of Palpatine. His time as a Senator and as Supreme Chancellor saw a level of Jedi uncertainty enter even the Jedi Council itself, which made the eventual execution of Order 66 all the easier for the Sith Lord. “The dark side clouds everything. Impossible to see, the future is.” Yoda says in, somewhat ironically, a conversation with Palpatine himself, and given the immense power the Grand Master of the Jedi held, this all but proves just how weak the Jedi actually were.
In Star Wars: Acolyte, however, we see an earlier Jedi Order; one which was yet to be manipulated by the Sith Lord, and one which, based on what we can tell from the trailers, seems much more organized and more knowingly in control. As a result, instead of the more vast, chaotic battles we saw in the movies across the likes of Geonosis, we could in fact see a more organized Jedi Order, managing from within much like the Empire in later films, though with just a tad less oppression. This would also complement the running theme of the film, as we would be able to see the shock and unnerve caused by the emergence of a previously absent darkness which the Jedi had thought has been successfully eradicated.
Star Wars: The Acolyte arrives on Disney Plus on June 4 at 6pm PT / 9pm ET in the US. If you're in the UK or AU, you'll have to wait till 2am BST / 10am AEST on Wednesday 5 June to start streaming the latest Star Wars TV series from Disney.
