Leslye Headland talks The Acolyte: “The bad guys are actually the underdog”

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The Acolyte trailer is out there, the fandom is talking, the world is getting its first glimpses of this new era and over at StarWars.com showrunner Leslye Headland discusses the trailer and how the world really shouldn’t jump to any fixed assumptions of what they’re going to see when the show launches with a double-header on 4th June on Disney Plus.

Set during the era of the High Republic, The Acolyte will begin to unravel how an esteemed organization like the Jedi Order could be in its golden age and also on the cusp of the chaos that unfolds in the Skywalker saga. “If Star Wars is about the underdog versus the institution, [in The Acolyte] the Jedi are the institution,” Headland says. “I was so interested in a storyline where the Jedi were at the height of their power — and I don’t mean The Phantom Menace, because at that point, there’s a Sith Lord in the Senate that they’re not picking up on.” Headland wanted to explore further back, when seeing a Sith seemed as likely as encountering a velociraptor. “Like it’s a thing I’ve heard of, but it’s not a thing that you would ever consider you’d be interacting with.”

With a darker tone focusing on the duality that exists beyond the simplistic black-and-white view of good versus evil, The Acolyte asks a key question before the fall of the Jedi: “What went wrong?” Headland asks. “And if the bad guys are actually the underdog, it just seemed like a cool reversal.”

Sale
Star Wars: Temptation of the Force (The High Republic) (Star Wars: The High Republic)
  • Hardcover Book
  • Gratton, Tessa (Author)
  • English (Publication Language)
  • 448 Pages - 06/11/2024 (Publication Date) - Random House Worlds (Publisher)
Mark Newbold
Mark Newbold
Exploring the galaxy since 1978, Mark wrote his first fan fiction in 1981 and been a presence online since his first webpage Fanta War in 1996. He's contributed to Star Wars Insider (since '06) and Starburst Magazine (since '16) as well as ILM.com, SkywalkerSound.com, StarWars.com, Star Wars Encyclopedia, Build The Millennium Falcon, Geeky Monkey, TV Film Memorabilia, Model and Collectors Mart, Star Trek magazine and StarTrek.com. He is a four-time Star Wars Celebration Stage host, the only podcaster to have appeared on every Celebration podcast stage since the stage began in 2015, the Daily Content Manager of Fantha Tracks and the co-host of Making Tracks, Canon Fodder and Start Your Engines on Fantha Tracks Radio.
- Advertisement -
- Advertisement -

The Acolyte trailer is out there, the fandom is talking, the world is getting its first glimpses of this new era and over at StarWars.com showrunner Leslye Headland discusses the trailer and how the world really shouldn’t jump to any fixed assumptions of what they’re going to see when the show launches with a double-header on 4th June on Disney Plus.

Set during the era of the High Republic, The Acolyte will begin to unravel how an esteemed organization like the Jedi Order could be in its golden age and also on the cusp of the chaos that unfolds in the Skywalker saga. “If Star Wars is about the underdog versus the institution, [in The Acolyte] the Jedi are the institution,” Headland says. “I was so interested in a storyline where the Jedi were at the height of their power — and I don’t mean The Phantom Menace, because at that point, there’s a Sith Lord in the Senate that they’re not picking up on.” Headland wanted to explore further back, when seeing a Sith seemed as likely as encountering a velociraptor. “Like it’s a thing I’ve heard of, but it’s not a thing that you would ever consider you’d be interacting with.”

With a darker tone focusing on the duality that exists beyond the simplistic black-and-white view of good versus evil, The Acolyte asks a key question before the fall of the Jedi: “What went wrong?” Headland asks. “And if the bad guys are actually the underdog, it just seemed like a cool reversal.”

Sale
Star Wars: Temptation of the Force (The High Republic) (Star Wars: The High Republic)
  • Hardcover Book
  • Gratton, Tessa (Author)
  • English (Publication Language)
  • 448 Pages - 06/11/2024 (Publication Date) - Random House Worlds (Publisher)
Mark Newbold
Mark Newbold
Exploring the galaxy since 1978, Mark wrote his first fan fiction in 1981 and been a presence online since his first webpage Fanta War in 1996. He's contributed to Star Wars Insider (since '06) and Starburst Magazine (since '16) as well as ILM.com, SkywalkerSound.com, StarWars.com, Star Wars Encyclopedia, Build The Millennium Falcon, Geeky Monkey, TV Film Memorabilia, Model and Collectors Mart, Star Trek magazine and StarTrek.com. He is a four-time Star Wars Celebration Stage host, the only podcaster to have appeared on every Celebration podcast stage since the stage began in 2015, the Daily Content Manager of Fantha Tracks and the co-host of Making Tracks, Canon Fodder and Start Your Engines on Fantha Tracks Radio.
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