Canon exists to be reshuffled every once in a while
From the Star Wars prequels we learned that the so idolized Jedi were too drunk on their own importance to notice the falling dominoes until it was late. However, the self-inflicted decline of the Jedi developed over a long time; Anakin Skywalker was born in a galaxy that was already headed for chaos. The Disney+ series The Acolyte takes advantage of this narrative opportunity and shows us the widening cracks in the Jedi Order a century before the prequel trilogy. Predictably, it was a bad idea to try to maintain a monopoly on the Force and treat alternative doctrines with suspicion, although it would take many years, until the time of the sequel trilogy, for a Jedi to learn that lesson. In the manner of classical tragedy, The Acolyte illustrates the lamentable consequences of sticking to a rigid view of who should have the right to wield power. And just like happens in tragedies, the characters who are unable to evolve and adjust their views end up dead, but not before leaving behind a trail of ruined lives and numerous regrets.
While yet another story about the mistakes of the Jedi shouldn't have surprised anyone, The Acolyte has ideas of its own to propose. First, the use of twin protagonists who take opposite paths challenges the narrative of fate that has so often prevailed through the Star Wars timeline. Osha and Mae, born of the Force in probably the same manner Anakin would a century later, lead parallel lives that almost feel like diverging timelines. This is reinforced with the reveal that, at some obscure metaphysical level, they're actually one person. The same girl could as easily have gone the way of good or evil. If there are Chosen Ones, it's each of us who does the choosing.
The flat opposition of good vs. evil is another of the Star Wars staples that The Acolyte dares to challenge. Back when the Jedi where the only authorized enForcers in the galaxy, back when there was no big baddie to rebel against, it was dangerously easy for the Jedi to accumulate bad habits and lack the perspective to correct them. It's no wonder that the series inserts a couple of scenes where there's friction between the Jedi Order and the Galactic Senate; as a rule, things get nasty when spiritual power and military power are in the same hands. As a crude analogy, let's remember when the Catholic Church was the sole authorized (indeed, self-authorized) provider of salvation in Europe, and then Luther's dissent gave rise to competing institutions. The Catholic Church's insistence in removing all other spiritual practices led to millions of deaths.
At the time of The Acolyte, the Jedi Order is taking the first steps on the road to a similar catastrophe. Much like the medieval Church, it's adamant about not answering to secular power and in preserving its exclusive position as arbiters and teachers of spiritual matters. When four Jedi arrive in the planet Brendok to investigate a possible miracle and end up finding a secret sect of independent Force users, their unquestionable belief in the wrongness of dissent is what sets the tragedy in motion.
The doomed hero is Jedi Master Sol, who until the moment of his death remains convinced that Osha and Mae needed to be protected from whatever tradition their mothers wanted to teach them. In a display of arrogance resembling the real-life kidnapping of the boy Edgardo Montara, Sol decides that he knows what's best for these girls who are growing up in a culture he never bothers to try to understand. At some level he must be aware that he acted wrong, because he's taken pains to hide the truth of what happened, but he's too good at lying to himself.
The Acolyte follows the example of The Last Jedi in deconstructing the myth of the Jedi Order and the dichotomy of the Force. However, unlike The Last Jedi, it's limited in how much it can deviate, because The Acolyte is a prequel and events need to lead to the status quo we met in The Phantom Menace. What is nevertheless gained by placing The Acolyte so far back in the past is an unspoken denunciation: the fall of Anakin is not an isolated event. Sooner of later, the institutional power of the Jedi was going to be demolished by one of their own. But this was not destiny—The Acolyte doesn't subscribe to such a simplistic view of history. The hard truth is that the end of the Jedi is the result of a chain of avoidable choices.
What is lost by the choice of temporal setting is what has always been lost in the Disney era of Star Wars. Disney is way too cautious about rocking the boat, and The Rise of Skywalker demonstrated how far the company is willing to walk back to please everyone. Even if the Jedi are sincerely sworn to the goals of peace and harmony, their discipline does deep harm to the children they remove from their families. It shouldn't be shocking to lay bare the self-destructive tendencies that the Jedi have been cultivating for the centuries they've spent dominating the galaxy. Yes, it's true that the enemies of the Jedi turn out to be space nazis (there's only so far you can buy into a "power through emotion" creed before you fall into irreversible fanaticism), but that doesn't automatically turn the Jedi into saints. Treating the Force as a dichotomy is part of the problem. The Jedi antagonized Osha for mourning her family, the same way they'd later fail to see Anakin's emotional needs.
Everyone has flaws. What dooms the Jedi is that their method for overcoming personal flaws doesn't comport with psychological reality, the one type of reality we should ask of a story about space wizards. Admitting this does not negate the evil of the likes of Palpatine. Rather, it helps understand why the Jedi, with all their lofty ideals, were so unprepared against the formation of the Galactic Empire. The Acolyte, despite its uneven pacing and its tangible fear of its own ambition, adds to the picture of an institution that did more than any enemy to undermine its own cause.
Nerd Coefficient: 7/10.
POSTED BY: Arturo Serrano, multiclass Trekkie/Whovian/Moonie/Miraculer, accumulating experience points for still more obsessions.
