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Leslye Headland, former personal assistant to Harvey Weinstein, is slated to helm one of the many upcoming Star Wars projects in production from our beloved media overlords at Disney. The Acolyte is rumored to be a 2023 release and very little is known about the show thus far. But one striking detail has emerged: it will be set in a heretofore unknown and unexplored era of the Star Wars setting called The High Republic.

As a product line, the High Republic is apparently LucasFilm‘s short-term reaction to fans’ (to be delicate) ambivalent reception of the Sequel Trilogy, which itself appears to have joined the Prequel Trilogy as a subject the company studiously avoids in terms of product development. Perhaps, like the Prequel Trilogy, it will be gradually rehabilitated by other, more popular projects? Could The Acolyte be part of that process?

In any case, the High Republic era is 200 years prior to Episode I (and thus even farther away from Episodes VII-IX) and depicts both the Galactic Republic and the Jedi Order at their apogee of influence and nobility. In contrast to the gritty aesthetics of The Mandalorian and the incoherent cynicism of the Sequel Trilogy, High Republic is set to emphasize fantasy design sensibilities and moral idealism.

The High Republic was initially announced in early 2020 as a publishing-focused initiative embracing children’s literature, YA novels, and more traditional genre novels aimed at teenage and adult fans, as well as comic books. The launch date for these materials was pushed back to early 2021 in light of the global pandemic with the first novel to launch this January. One major element of the announcement was that the Sith will NOT feature as the major antagonist, liberating at least one aspect of the franchise from the suffocating theme of Jedi-Sith conflict that has dominated Star Wars storytelling for the past twenty years and more.

Troublingly, marketing for Star Wars: The Acolyte seems to position the show in direct opposition to this refreshing course change:

The Acolyte is a mystery-thriller that will take the audience into a galaxy of shadowy secrets and emerging dark side powers in the final days of the High Republic era.

source

Nothing about this sounds or looks like idealistic high fantasy. Indeed, the show is explicitly described as the END of the High Republic era and the description heavily implies the rise of that version of the Sith which eventually undermines and destroys the Republic and the Jedi Order. Obviously, nothing about the prospective merits of The Acolyte can be meaningfully discussed at the moment (and a lot can change in two years, especially in Hollywood) but this does raise interesting implications about the scope and purpose of the High Republic project. Just as Filoni’s Clone Wars and Rebels series have fed characters and themes into The Mandalorian, perhaps the High Republic novels and comics will provide a similar basis for The Acolyte. Moreover, the whole prospect seems to be Disney’s wide-angle take on the themes of Lucas’s Prequel Trilogy, a bright and noble world haunted by the pall of its inevitable fall. Whether that’s a good thing for the IP remains to be seen.

Ill be curious to see how they fit a Skywalker or Palpatine into this.

 AduroT wrote:
Ill be curious to see how they fit a Skywalker or Palpatine into this.

Topkek. I hope not, though Solos and Fetts were somehow shoehorned into KotOR era lore.

A quick wiki walk (wookie walk?) later and I see the Jedi order in the old EU were first warned that there may be surviving Sith a little under 200 years before the battle of Yavin - though apparently they didn't really believe it until Maul tried to drive-by Qui-Gon over a century later.

It could be that kind of story - but I think it would be better if they teased our expectations and threw us a curve ball.

It would be better if they actually spent a bunch of years exploring this golden age before going right to the end of it with the same old same old sith versus jedi shtick.

Yeah, I was hoping that there would be a show about the High Republic before there was a show about the end of the High Republic ...

 Lance845 wrote:
It would be better if they actually spent a bunch of years exploring this golden age before going right to the end of it with the same old same old sith versus jedi shtick.

Agreed. It kind of reminds me of Bioware (or Obsidian) and their tendency to introduce a new property and immediately start stomping on the setting so it's in pieces by the end of its introduction.

With long form storytelling like this, a mystery-thriller works, but it should be setting up the contrast been the cultural pinnacle and the 'secrets,' with the end a long ways off. The decline and 'final days' can be picked up over the course of a decade of further novels/shows/whatever.

Bearing the lede!

Leslye Headland, former personal assistant to Harvey Weinstein

How does this qualify you to make TV series and movies? Hollywood is strange!

 Easy E wrote:
Bearing the lede!

Leslye Headland, former personal assistant to Harvey Weinstein

How does this qualify you to make TV series and movies? Hollywood is strange!

I imagine the actual reason she was selected is her writer/producer/director credits on Russian Dolls, but why talk about that when we can bring up Jabba the Hutt again.

My dude, in Hollywood this and nepotism are the main factors that qualify you for anything. Headland has gone on to be a prolific writer but she got her start with six years at Miramax culminating in her job with Harv. She immediately leveraged the connection to write a transparently autobiographical play about the experience. (About Weinstein, Headland was publicly sanguine, commenting “There’s nobody like him. He’s genius. You sit across from him and you’re like, ‘I cannot believe how brilliant this guy is.’”) The big man didn’t take it badly at all, buying one of Headland’s projects a few years after and thereby making her dreams come true. Just something to keep in mind when you contemplate the social justice marketing angles. Hollywood is a jungle and apex predators like Weinstein are just a part of that ecosystem. One falls, and others fill the role (and might even be women).

Ok, this was a satire, but now i know it's coming...

I mean... I'd watch it. it could be the SW answer to WAL-E

 Easy E wrote:
Bearing the lede!

Leslye Headland, former personal assistant to Harvey Weinstein

How does this qualify you to make TV series and movies? Hollywood is strange!

What's really buried is why the hell that was put into the OP, given that this is the quote from the actual source:

The Acolyte

Leslye Headland, Emmy Award-nominated creator of the mind-bending series Russian Doll, brings a new Star Wars series to Disney+ with The Acolyte. The Acolyte is a mystery-thriller that will take the audience into a galaxy of shadowy secrets and emerging dark side powers in the final days of the High Republic era.

Everything prior to that is just speculation/gripes about things. Literally no mention of Weinstein was needed other than to complain about "Hollywood".

Rather than speculation, it’s actually a summary of what LucasFilm has said about The High Republic.

Headland is well-known for writing scripts that focus on female characters. It’s interesting that her career began and took off because of her connection to the infamous producer Harvey Weinstein, whom she publicly admires.