Tag: The Acolyte

The Acolyte Won’t Return for Season 2

Posted on by faz_business


It’s a sad day in a galaxy far, far, away. Deadline reports that the Star Wars Disney+ show The Acolyte has been canceled after its first season. Lucasfilm confirmed to io9 it won’t be moving ahead with a season two, which had never been officially greenlit.

Set during the era of the High Republic, The Acolyte told the story of two sisters, Mae and Osha, whose mysterious existence raised a number of questions for the Jedi and Sith of the time. In the end, the pair switched roles, with the former Jedi apprentice Osha siding with the evil Sith, the Stranger, and former Sith apprentice Mae ending up with the Jedi. It was a fantastic show that told a bold, exciting new Star Wars story. Which is probably why audiences rejected it.

After a debut that put up very good numbers, those numbers dwindled as the series went on so news of its cancelation isn’t a total surprise. However, fans like myself certainly hoped that the exciting direction season two was teeing up, as well as the inclusion of a fan-favorite character at the end, may have given it a second chance. But it seems there’s no luck.

The move also makes The Acolyte the first Disney+ Star Wars show to be out-and-out canceled. While shows like Obi-Wan Kenobi and The Book of Boba Fett have not returned for second seasons, there has yet to be any official word on either. (Plus, in the case of Kenobi, a second season doesn’t make much sense.)

Next up for live-action Star Wars on Disney+ is Skeleton Crew, which similarly to The Acolyte faces an uphill battle without any recognizable characters. That’ll be followed by season two of Andor in 2025 and after that… we don’t know. Season two of Ahsoka is in development; the first movie since 2019, The Mandalorian & Grogu, is in production. Any number of other other movies are in various stages of development.

The Acolyte seemed as if it was going to be a great place to fit new, exciting Star Wars stories. But now, it seems we’ll never find out the tale of Darth Plagueis the Wise, what was next for Osha and the Stranger, and how the Jedi would react to their blatant disregard for decency. See? Doesn’t that all sound awesome? I’m going to go cry now.

Created by Leslye Headland, The Acolyte starred Amandla Stenberg, Lee Jung-jae, Charlie Barnett, Dafne Keen, Rebecca Henderson, Jodie Turner-Smith, Carrie-Anne Moss, Manny Jacinto, and Joonas Suotamo. You can, at least for now, stream the entire series on Disney+.

Update 8 p.m. August 19: We added Lucasfilm’s confirmation to the story. 

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No, That Acolyte Planet Is Not Where You Think It Is

Posted on by faz_business


Star Wars fans love only one more thing than a mystery: speculating about how that mystery could have connections to other parts of the galaxy far, far away. But for as much as the franchise does indeed share that love of keeping it all connected, it’s not always actually planning on doing that.

Ever since we’ve seen its cluster of islands on The Acolyte, the unknown planet that the Sith Stranger calls home has been speculated by fans as potentially being another key locale: the planet Ahch-To from The Last Jedi. It certainly looks very similar, given the vast oceans and lush, mountainous island outcroppings—although location filming for the planet took place on the Portuguese island of Madeira, rather than Skellig Michael, the Irish island used to film Ahch-To in the Star Wars sequel trilogy. In the latest episode we learned it even has its own Porg-esque local wildlife in the form of the Skura, little beings that look like a mashup of a duck and an anteater. Plus, there would be something incredibly Sith about the idea of dark side users hiding in the shadows where the Jedi would least expect it: the home planet of the first Jedi Temple.

But alas, Star Wars fans craving connection, according to showrunner Leslye Headland, the planet is very much not Ahch-To. “It’s not Ahch-To. I know it’s similar, and it was intentionally supposed to be similar in terms of terrain and feeling isolated and surrounded by water and less lush green and more rocky,” Headland recently confirmed in an interview with Collider. “But the idea is that cortosis is mined on this planet, so I don’t think that’s the case with Ahch-To. Part of the reason this is his home base is that cortosis is a very rare metal. I don’t think we say it explicitly in the show, but that’s a reason it’s not Ahch-To.”

Headland further noted that explicitly only identifying the world as “Unknown Planet” in The Acolyte‘s location cards was an intentional nod to the series’ primary perspective being that of the Jedi Order and the Republic. “It’s an uncharted planet that they haven’t [mapped],” Headland added, touching on an element of the High Republic setting that’s not come up often in The Acolyte, but serves as a major piece of worldbuilding in the transmedia book and comics initiative that established the era: that this is a time period where the Republic and its allies are still expanding territory and charting the galaxy. Just because it’s unknown to them, doesn’t mean people like the Stranger didn’t know about it already—and in knowing it, he got access to a tool like cortosis he could wield against his enemies.

Whether or not the world will remain unknown by the end of The Acolyte‘s first season remains to be seen—the presence of cortosis deposits has had as many fans as those speculating it could be Ahch-To speculating that the world could instead possibly be a canonical version of Bal’demnic, a cortosis-rich ocean world that acted as a base of operations for Darth Plagueis and his master, Tenebrous, in the EU novel Plagueis. For now, sometimes a planet just looks like another planet.

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.