The Acolyte Controversy Revolves Around Star Wars Character Nobody Cares About

You know, from all the rage welling up inside you. Wait, you don’t even know who Ki-Adi-Mundi is? Oh that’s right, because he’s a lame background character with like three scenes spread across the three Star Wars prequels. The way the trolls are turning his cameo in The Acolyte into such a big controversy, though, you’d think he was everyone’s favorite character.

“Retcon!” the Fandom Menace screamed in unison after the fourth episode of The Acolyte aired. Apparently, Mundi’s Legends birthdate was 93 BBY—Before The Battle of Yavin—which conflicts with The Acolyte being set 132 BBY, hence the controversy. I’d love to take their complaint seriously, but 1) Disney announced over a decade ago that Legends stuff wasn’t canon, and 2) Ki-Adi-Mundi’s design is based on “What if Obi-Wan but whale?”

I just can’t seem to get worked up over Obi-Whale-Head Kenobi suddenly being older than he was in a non-canon continuity. Especially since the Prequels did me dirty way before The Acolyte controversy.

A long time ago, in a galaxy called the ’90s, Boba Fett’s backstory was fleshed out in a few comics and novels. Fett was originally a Journeyman Protector named Jaster Mereel who worked on the planet Concord Dawn. One day, Jaster killed a fellow Protector and went rogue to become the most feared bounty hunter in the galaxy.

Or so I thought.

Imagine my surprise when I went to see Attack of the Clones in the theater and found out Boba Fett is actually a clone of some new character, Jango Fett. A character, I might add, that, for all intents and purposes, could have just been Boba Fett—it’s not like we knew his age or anything. If you think the trolls are salty now over The Acolyte controversy, I had to have my sodium checked after I walked out of that theater back in 2002.

But then I realized what the Fandom menace needs to realize now: Star Wars has been retconning itself since the Empire Strikes Back. Never mind that the EU was never canon; the franchise straight-up retcons canon events, too. Darth Vader killing Luke’s dad became Darth Vader is Luke’s dad. Obi-Wan never owned a droid became Obi-Wan had a droid named R4-P17 throughout the Clone Wars.

None of these changes was as reviled as The Acolyte‘s Ki-Adi-Mundi controversy. I could go into the reasons why the trolls treat this change differently, but c’mon, we know why they hate the show. I refuse to believe there are really that many Ki-Adi-Mundi diehards out there.

The only reason the character is still talked about at all is because the r/PrequelMemes community—oh yeah, that’s a thing—made his one line from Revenge of the Sith into a meme. What about the droid attack on the Wookies?” I feel kind of gross that I didn’t have to Google that, by the way.

So yeah, not only is The Acolyte controversy not a real controversy, all of the faux outrage is over a character that nobody could have given two poop emojis about before this week. I apologize to the one or two legit Ki-Adi-Mundi fans out there if I offended you. The rest of the trolls, however, need to stop riding Obi-Whale Kenobi’s tale and get over the fact that Disney owns Star Wars now.