Leslye Headland Explains Why One ‘Acolyte’ Writer Never Watched ‘Star Wars’: “I Want You To Be Questioning Narrative”

‘Star Wars: The Acolyte’ has been in the making for a long time, but this week plenty of announcements have been made with the show’s first public trailer being released. Little is known about the plot of the show, but most fans are excited by the fact that ‘The Acolyte’ will be taking place during the High Republic Era, something previously unseen in live action.

Despite the unique setting, ‘The Acolyte’ is the second show overall that takes place during that time frame, the first being ‘Young Jedi Adventures’ that recently ended its run. Judging by Headland’s own words so far, ‘Acolyte’ will be something entirely different than what we’re expecting. She originally pitched the show as ‘Frozen meets Kill Bill’ and described samurai movies & Wuxia films as one of her main inspirations.

Being a huge geek for Star Wars ever since she was a teen, it’s not surprising that she partially drew references and inspiration from Star Wars Expanded Universe, with one notable character being taken from the High Republic series of books. Headland also surprised all of us when she revealed that one of the writers had never actually seen Star Wars, she elaborated on why made that choice in her interview with The Hollywood Reporter:

Yeah, I just thought it would be good to have the perspective of a person that had literally never seen Star Wars until she was in the room. And she said to me, “Why do you want me in this room? I’ve never seen Star Wars. I have no idea. I think there’s a dog in it, but I don’t know anything.” And I was like, “First of all, you’re an incredible writer, but that’s why I want you here. I want you to be questioning narrative. I don’t want myself, who’s a lifelong fan, to just be relying on particular references in order to create emotional beats. I want those emotional beats to be earned and checked by someone that isn’t super familiar with it.”

Headland further explained that the writer in question is now a fan after catching up to all relevant Star Wars content over a matter of weeks:

And it was really funny because she finally watched the Original Trilogy over that Christmas. She watched the Prequels, too, but she kept texting me [about the Original Trilogy] and was like, “Luke and Vader are …” All those things that we’ve known forever were blowing her mind. She was like, “Luke and Leia are brother and sister!? What the fuck!?” She was writing all these things to me, and I just thought it was so funny. So she educated herself in order to be in the room, but it was really fun to have somebody like her to help collaborate.

And it makes sense if you try to think about it, you certainly can’t rely on references and timeline decisions when it comes to the writer who is not familiar with the universe at all, but you can most likely get good objective input regarding the story from someone who is not a fan at all, but I have to admit, the reactions on social media are extremely polarized when it comes to this with some claiming that only die-hard fans should have a say in the making of Star Wars products and the other side advocating for just about anybody having the right to create the story.

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