The Acolyte showrunner Leslye Headland admitted that one of the main purposes of the show is to “break down the Jedi as a concept.”
Master Sol (Lee Jung-jae) in Lucasfilm’s THE ACOLYTE, season one, exclusively on Disney+. ©.
Speaking with Maggie Lovitt at Collider, Headland was asked, “For you, as a fan of Star Wars, how much fun has it been to get to pick apart these ideas that have been baked into the franchise for so long and then flip the narrative a little bit and make people look at things from a very different point of view?”
Headland responded, “I hope it’s making people look at it from a different point of view. I can understand that fans — especially people who don’t know the High Republic — may feel like I’m criticizing the Jedi as they exist in George Lucas’ oeuvre, meaning the prequels and Episodes 5 through 6, but that’s not the case.”
“We’re so much further back from that. We’re in that era that Obi-Wan is talking about in A New Hope. We’re in that period where the proliferation of power is so huge and far-reaching. Actually, in the next episode, you’re gonna see how far-flung particular missions with Jedi are and the lack of oversight,” she attempted to explained.
(L-R): Amandla Stenberg , set PA Taylor Young, director Leslye Headland and director of photography Chris Teague on the set of Lucasfilm’s THE ACOLYTE, exclusively on Disney+. ©.
However, in a follow-up question, Headland made clear what her intention was. Lovitt stated, “We get a little bit of a tease of that here in this episode with the whole thing with Rayencourt talking about doing this audit, essentially, of the Jedi Order, which I think is great. That’s very true to where George Lucas was approaching things in the prequels, which is very political, very much a response to that kind of dynamic with the Jedi.”
Headland replied, “Yeah, so comparing these Jedi to the Jedi in the prequels is a little difficult because it’s 100-ish years. It’s a century. So you see Vernestra’s like, ‘We cannot let this happen.’ She gets more and more concerned about that at the end of the season, and rightfully so because she, as a very powerful Jedi Master, can sort of see what’s on the horizon, whereas, when we meet the Jedi in the prequels, they’re completely enmeshed at that point.”
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – MAY 23: Leslye Headland attends the launch event for Lucasfilm’s new Star Wars series The Acolyte at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, California on May 23, 2024. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for Disney)
She added, “Going back to your question, one of the interesting ways to unpack the Jedi is, when they are at their height as they are here, what are the things they’re doing differently? A Jedi doesn’t pull their weapon unless prepared to kill — that’s just a High Republic concept. hey don’t have battle droids, they don’t have other people with lightsabers. There isn’t any reason to pull it. Comparing that to anybody in the prequels, it’s not the same. They’re just not the same Jedi.”
Headland then declared, “So, in my opinion, and in my experience, and what I was interested in digging into is, it seems like it’s a time where you can break down the Jedi as a concept, whereas I wouldn’t want to touch what has been established of them a century later.”
(Third from left): Master Sol (Lee Jung-jae) and (center, background) Master Holden (Indra Ové) and Master Ki-Adi-Mundi (Derek Arnold) in Lucasfilm’s THE ACOLYTE, season one, exclusively on Disney+. ©.
It’s not shocking that Headland would want to tear down the Jedi because later in the interview, she admitted that she put her personal ideology into the character of Qimir, the Sith villain.
After briefly touching on the relationship between Qimir and Osha, Headland said, “Once the response happened, I was like, ‘Great, everyone’s responding the way I did,’ to Manny’s performance, to the intention of the character, to his personal ideology that I really relate with. Because, if you think about it, he’s very much the counterculture character in the show. So I love that everybody’s focused on everything else.”
The Stranger (Manny Jacinto) in Lucasfilm’s THE ACOLYTE, season one, exclusively on Disney+. ©2024 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.
If you have not seen the show, Qimir’s personal ideology is embodied in a line from the show’s fifth episode when he informs Master Sol that he wants “Freedom. The freedom to wield my power the way I like. Without having to answer to Jedi like you. I want a pupil, an Acolyte. But this one went back on our deal. She exposed me. So, now I have to kill every single last one of you. I don’t make the rules. The Jedi do. And the Jedi say I can’t exist. They see my face, they all die.”
That’s right, Leslye Headland is admitting that she’s a sociopath and wants to destroy anyone who gets in the way of her so-called freedom. Her freedom to commit all kinds of evil. It’s wild that she’s admitting, but she is.
The Stranger (Manny Jacinto) in Lucasfilm’s THE ACOLYTE, season one, exclusively on Disney+. ©2024 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.
Headland previously told Vanity Fair that she found religion to be oppressive. Headland said, “It is unusual to point to pieces of pop culture that have representations of extreme spirituality. The concept of God is such a heavy concept. The concept of religion is such a really oppressive one, especially for people like myself and many, many others. So what you just made me realize is that part of the lasting effect is that Star Wars is a spiritual story.”
She continued, “Even Tolkien is not as spiritual as the Force is, or as Yoda is. I remember as a child being raised in a Catholic home … When Yoda says, ‘Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter,’ even as a kid I understood that so much more than I understood catechisms and sacraments and all of those other things. I got that immediately: That I have a spirit in addition to having a body. For George to have done that, it’s almost an impossible thing.”
She then confirmed this was part of The Acolyte, “That would be my big hope in getting to play in this world, to continue to search through a spiritual story that changes someone’s identity or destiny. That to me is the heart of it.”
The Stranger (Manny Jacinto) in Lucasfilm’s THE ACOLYTE, season one, exclusively on Disney+. ©2024 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.
READ: ‘The Acolyte’ Viewership Declines For A Second Week In A Row, Nearly 60% Decline From ‘Ahsoka’
The ratings for the show are in massive decline. The latest Luminate numbers detailed that the total minutes watched for the show declined to 232.2 million for the fifth episode.
Luminate Streaming Originals: Television Ratings for the week of June 21-June 27, 2024
In comparison, Ahsoka’s fifth episode had a total of 577 million minutes watched. That’s a difference of 344.8 million minutes. The Acolyte’s fifth episode has a run time of 34:05 while Ahsoka’s fifth episode had a run time of 51:44. If you do a simple total run time divided by the episode’s run time, Ahsoka has around 11.3 million views while The Acolyte has 6.8 million.
Based on minutes watched its nearly a 60% decline from Ahsoka to The Acolyte. Based on the rough total views number it’s still nearly a 40% decline.
Manny Jacinto in Lucasfilm’s THE ACOLYTE, season one, exclusively on Disney+. ©2024 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.
READ: George Lucas Blasts Disney For Not Understanding Star Wars And The Force
George Lucas, during an appearance at the Cannes Film Festival in May, said, ” was the one who really knew what Star Wars was … who actually knew this world, because there’s a lot to it. The Force, for example, nobody understood the Force.”
He added, “When they started other ones after I sold the company, a lot of the ideas that were in [the original] sort of got lost. But that’s the way it is. You give it up, you give it up.”
George Lucas and his wife Mellody Hobson on the red carpet at Cannes via AFP News Agency YouTube
What do you make of Headland admitting she wanted to break down the Jedi as a concept in The Acolyte?
