Star Wars: The Acolyte is perhaps one of the most exciting projects to come from a galaxy far, far away, not least because the series is set in a time we have yet to see on screen or on the big screen. screen — namely at the time of the High Republic, when the Jedi are at the height of their power, so about 100 years before the prequel trilogy. Accordingly, many Jedi will also be seen in the series. We saw that for ourselves in the first trailer, shown exclusively to local audiences at the Star Wars Celebration in London.
And during the celebration, we also got to see the latest cast announcement for “The Acolyte” live: Joona Suotamo is in a role that is an absolute first for a film or series in the franchise. He plays Wookie Kelnacca, a Jedi Master! Incidentally, Suotamo is not new to Star Wars. The 211 cm tall Finn has also played Chewbacca since 2015.
In the movie and series universe of “Star Wars”, representatives of a wide variety of alien species have already held the rank of Jedi Master, but a Wookie has not yet joined them. The species fan favorite Chewbacca isn’t entirely new to the Jedi Order though – be careful, there’s a spoiler for “The bad partySeason 2: It features a Wookie Padawan named Gungi, who previously appeared in Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
Samurai style martial arts
The idea for The Acolyte was something like “Frozen meets Kill Bill,” showrunner Leslye Headland joked on stage in London, though the “Kill Bill” part is meant to be pretty serious. The Disney Plus series will be heavily influenced by martial arts and samurai movies, which was also impressive to see in the trailer – there have probably never been such fight scenes in “Star Wars”. Headland cited Akira Kurosawa’s (“The Seven Samurai”) cinema as one of the sources of inspiration, explaining that the typical teacher-student relationship from the samurai genre is also reflected in “The Acolyte”.
The teacher in this case, of course, is a Jedi Master, played by “Squid Game” star Lee Jung-jae. He teams up with a young Jedi (Amandla Sternberg) he once trained to investigate a series of mysterious crimes. The duo soon discover that the forces behind it all are a lot darker than they thought… And the action-packed trailer had a sinister tone too. The new “Star Wars” series should therefore be more of a thriller than an adventure.
In addition to those already mentioned, “The Acolyte” also stars Carrie-Anne Moss, Jodie Turner-Smith, Manny Jacinto, Dafne Keen, Rebecca Henderson, Dean-Charles Chapman, Charlie Barnett and Margarita Levieva. The Acolyte is coming to Disney+ in 2024.