Star Wars: The Acolyte's Showrunner On Making "Fanfiction"

By 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Stacey Henley

Published Jun 1, 2024

Followed

When I heard that 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Star Wars: The Acolyte was going to pull from all different eras of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Star Wars, I was a little concerned. To me, that signalled a desꦑire to pull characters out of the toy box, cram cameos everywhere you look, explain wider parts of the mythos better left open to interpretation, and wrap up each stray story thread, however minor, with the passionate aggression of an anorak-sporting trainspotter. Then I watched the first four episodes, and I was relieved.

There isಞ not a cameo in sight, the story feels human and grounded, and the freshness and lack of a recognisable hero who must live to fulfil some nebulous 💯destiny gives The Acolyte more tangible stakes. So what does it mean to showrunner Leslye Headland to touch on each era of Star Wars?

"I just wanted to get in as much Star Wars as I could," Headland says. "I mean, I wanted to shoot my shot. Sometimes when I watched the show, I'm like, 'is it just a bunch of fanfiction?'. Because there's so many things that I wanted to pack in there. I wanted the practical sets and the puppeteering of the original trilogy, I wanted to have the Jedi at their height the way 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:the prequels are. I wanted to give a fresh, new take on it, which the sequels have. I just wanted all of it. Even having a coven of witches comes from 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Clone Wars. Having a Jedi Wookie comes from Clone Wars. So it was drawing from everything because, as a fa༒n, I🐻 got the opportunity. So I'm just going to pack it full of stuff."

The word 'fanfiction' stuck with me (is it two words? Note to self: look that up). The Acolyte couldn't seem further from fanfiction - if it were, then it would have those tired origin stories and cameos. I told Headland as much, and asked how she felt fans might respond to something that on the one hand, feels so fresh and original, but on the other, is thoroughly 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Glup Shittoless.

Fanfiction is definitely one word.

"I have no idea. I have to say I'm totally terrified," Headland laughs. "My wife just keeps saying, 'there are going to be people that like it, there are going to be people who hate it, there are going to be people who love it, there are going to be people who despise it', there's just no way around it. The fans feel a particular ownership over Star Wars. That's how I feel as well. I have my own reaction to Star Wars media. I think what I would say is that as this is a fresh entry point, it affords the opportunity for people who do not know Star Wars, and are not super familiar with the lore and cameos from the Skywalker saga, or Clone Wars, or the Empire versus Rebellion. They don't need to know anything to watch it. So hopefully, it'll be faܫns, but it'll also be newcomers and people that don't know the franchise as well as the fans do."

I just🤪 wanted to get in as much Star Wars as I could. I wanted to shoot my shot - H⛎eadland

Manny Jacinto, star of The Acolyte, was also present foᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚr the interview, and had a more inside perspective on Headland's embrace of the classic Star Wars, including the return of practical shooting effects and the ditching of the once heralded, now controversial green screen technique The Volume, wherein LED panels are used to give an otherworldly depth, but of🎃ten end up looking cheap.

"Coming from the perspective a🌠s an actor, [I loved] having all these practical, tangible things around you,” he says. “When you first step in, it's such a big world. A lot of the previous shows are in The Volume and used CGI, but just having these real, tangible things triggering all of your senses really helps you ground the character. You really don't have to use your imagination at all, because it's all taken care of by the puppeteers and the creatures and the sets in the backgrou꧙nd. It's an incredibly helpful thing. We were super fortunate to be able to do that."

In a separate interview, Rebecca Henderson also praised the more practical a🐈pproach of The Acolyte.

Part𓆉 of the reason fans are so protective of Star Wars is because of what it represents about their childhood, whether that be a microcosm of a happy memory, an escape, a catalyst for a relationship, or an obsession. The Acolyte doesn't have cameos that harken back to these days, but, of course, these projects didn't rely on cameos either, and so The Acolyte may be able to tap deeper into those memories.

But The Acolyte is also about childhood in a far more literal sense, as it centres a ba💞ttle between sisters. It explores those memories from a more personal perspect𝓀ive, as Headland explains.

Amandla Stenberg with her knife in Star Wars The Acolyte.

"I don't want to get too personal, but the sister-sister dynamic is absolutely something I experience in my life," she tells me. "I have a sister that is on the opposite end of the spectrum, I would say, in terms of her belief system. And there is a world where I understand that she thinks she's right, and [a world where] I think I'm right and in a way, that's who we are. lt feels unlikely that your whole belief system is going to change because one person doesn't like you. Then the other thing again, this might be too personal, but it started as a story about two sisters because of my experience with that. And then my father got very sick when I started working on physical production and writing the production scripts, and so it really went from a sister-sister story to a father-daughter story with Sol and Osha [168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Lee Jung-jae and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Amandla Stenberg], it just naturally morphed into that becoming the mai꧙n dynamic."

The Acolyte, streaming exclusively on Disney Plus from June 5