A day after Lucasfilm and Disney announced the release date of the next Star Wars show, the first trailer for The Acolyte has been unleashed. As the bloody poster teased, this is shaping up to be a dark chapter in the Star Wars universe. A Jedi killer is wreaking havoc on the galaxy, and the age of light is under threat of being swallowed by darkness.
The Acolyte will premiere with two episodes on June 4, 2024. After that, we’ll get one new episode every week until the finale on July 16.
In the trailer, we get our first look at Lee Jung-jae’s Jedi Master Sol, who is training a group of younglings at the Jedi Temple. We also see Carrie-Anne Moss as Master Indara and Amandla Stenberg as Master Sol’s apprentice-turned-enemy.
This live-action Star Wars series is set earlier in the timeline than any other movie or show to date, at the tail end of the High Republic era. As such, we shouldn’t expect to see many familiar faces, though fans of the Expanded Universe might want to keep their eyes peeled.
The series was created by Leslye Headland (Russian Doll), who also directed the first two episodes. Alex Garcia Lopez directed episodes 104 and 105, Kogonada directed episodes 103 and 107, and Hanelle Culpepper directed episodes 106 and 108.
“If Star Wars is about the underdog versus the institution, [in The Acolyte] the Jedi are the institution,” Headland said in an interview with StarWars.com. “I was so interested in a storyline where the Jedi were at the height of their power — and I don’t mean The Phantom Menace, because at that point, there’s a Sith Lord in the Senate that they’re not picking up on.”
