George Lucas' Political Themes To Return For ‘Star Wars: The Acolyte' On Disney+
image credit: Disney, thedirect.com
Next year will mark ten years since George Lucas sold his Star Wars franchise to Disney. Prior to the sale, Lucas imbued his original Star Wars Skywalker saga with his own political beliefs against a sci-fi space opera backdrop. Lucas built his simple story into a multi-billion dollar empire. Despite a board seat as part of the sale, Lucas had no idea how Disney would treat the Star Wars property. Would they keep his message, or would they embed their own?
Since the sale, Disney released five films and several television shows, with several more announced. Of the publicized shows, The Acolyte had the most intrigue surrounding it. It would be the first show to explore the rise of the Sith. We now finally have a sense of the show's direction from none other than its showrunner, executive producer, and head writer Leslye Headland.
Headland sat down for a candid conversation with The A.V. Club recently. During this interview, she spoke about George Lucas's influence on her and her show, especially when it came to politics. She would indeed follow in Lucas's footsteps, taking inspiration from his style.
"We're all just following in George's footsteps. He is such a deep worshiper of film, and not just the medium of film, but the history of film and the way film has been used, and all the different genres that he infused the original trilogy with is something that only he can do. He was such a believer of "film as tone poem," that it only makes sense that people who are doing their own side stories or their own series or their own standalones. It makes sense that they're kind of taking one aspect that he may have been interested in, or are taking inspiration from and infusing it into their particular content."
She also noted Lucas's obvious admiration of film history and many other references within the original and prequel trilogies. Lucas had always used his films as a vehicle to teach, even if ever so subtly.
"When you watch his original trilogy, you can kind of pick out all the different references, all the different things that he pulled from. And then there's the kind of gestalt of how everything comes together and is so much greater than just the reference, which is what kind of ended up happening in the '90s. There were all these references being made and recognized. It's the same with being online—we've either seen a clip of it or we've seen the movie. Whereas, someone like George, he had to be a dogged admirer and ardent devotee to the art of cinema, in order to be cherry-picking the way that he did."
Incorporating Politics Into The Acolyte
Headland bristled at the notion that Star Wars was not political. Whenever fans warned her not to inject politics into her show, her response was, "George Lucas made it political."
"In a way, that's why that ends up happening. I don't know for sure, but if I had to take a guess as to why the standalones and the series ended up feeling like we're going to move just into this particular space or we're going to lean into this particular genre, which we know inspired George. And that goes for ideology as well. I mean, it's funny, because a lot of the feedback that I'll get—and I use the term feedback very lightly—but when I do go on social media, the feedback is "Don't make Star Wars political." I'm like, "George Lucas made it political. Those are political films." War is, by nature, political. That's just what's up. It's truly what he was interested in talking about and looking at and digging into. So it's kind of impossible to tell a story within his universe that doesn't have to do with something that has to be that the characters see externally reflected in whatever's happening in the galaxy at that particular time period of when it takes place. You know? That's another thing that we all kind of inherited from him as well, and hope to kind of keep reflecting in the work, hopefully."
Headland made it clear that she would be following in Lucas' footsteps. As an enormous fan of the original trilogy, she wanted The Acolyte to stay on message with the themes presented in them. Headland's choice to continue with Lucas's style will help the series meld seamlessly with the rest of the franchise canon.
Lucas leveraged politics as the foundation of the Star Wars franchise from its inception. The entire saga was set against the political power struggle between the Galactic Empire and rebels working to overthrow it. He created a world where everything was a response to the current political climate of the galaxy. It was only fitting that the Sith emerge because of a similar reaction.
The Acolyte series takes place after the comics and novels based on the High Republic era, well before the events of the original trilogy. Its production will supposedly begin in London in 2022.
Source: The Direct