The galaxy far, far away is continuing to expand on the small screen, and The Acolyte promises to take Disney+ subscribers in some brand new directions with a cast full of Jedi and story set a century before the prequel trilogy in the Star Wars timeline. There will be no shortage of Jedi (including a Wookiee Jedi master) with lightsabers, but one star says that one familiar Star Wars element will be lacking. According to Dafne Keen, that's not a bad thing!
Dafne Keen is no stranger to performing in fantasy projects, as she joined the cast of The Acolyte fresh off of starring as Lyra Silvertongue in all three seasons of HBO's His Dark Materials. She will play a Jedi for the upcoming Star Wars show, and she spoke with EW about what The Acoylyte will be missing that fans may be used to from the franchise's other series and films. Keen said:
I don't know if I'm allowed to say this, but I will just say it. There's a lack of guns, which personally as someone who loves fighting and stunts and stuff, I love. Because it gives you that body-to-body choreography — that dance feeling. It actually looks like a real fight as opposed to just I point and I shoot, which is kind of an easy cop out in a way. We get a lot of that body-to-body. We have a lot of the sabers.
There will evidently be a shortage of blasters in The Acolyte compared to other entries in the Star Wars franchise, so fans can look forward to a lot of lightsaber action. Even in the prequel trilogy and Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which were all set almost entirely before the fall of the Jedi Order, there was plenty of blaster fire to go with all the lightsabers, so what Dafne Keen describes as "a lack of guns" is just one more way that The Acolyte is already setting itself apart.
That said, this isn't the first time that the use of blasters (or lack thereof) has been notable for a Star Wars show. In Ewan McGregor's Obi-Wan Kenobi, the title character used a dreaded blaster when he was hiding his identity as a Jedi, and it was a sign of how he was returning to his old ways when he finally started to use his lightsaber again. Thanks to The Acolyte's place in the timeline during the High Republic era, one of the few things that we can say for certain about the plot is that there's not going to be an Order 66 to wipe out the Jedi.
There are some more specific plot details for The Acolyte available, even though Disney+ will presumably aim to keep big spoilers under wraps for as long as possible. The female-centric show will follow a former padawan as she teams up with her former Jedi master for the purpose of investigating crimes, which leads to some sinister discoveries. The series will also focus on the perspective of the villains, with the Sith attempting to function in the shadows while the Jedi Order is at the height of its strength. As Dafne Keen previously noted, a "Sith-led story" has "never been done before."
Unfortunately, The Acolyte has not yet received a premiere date from Disney+, although it is expected to debut at some point in 2024. The next entry in the Star Wars saga will be Ahsoka, set to premiere in the 2023 TV schedule on Wednesday, August 23 on the Disney streamer.
