The Acolyte Is Going Full Rogue One To Save Star Wars Canon?

Before The Acolyte even came out, fans were complaining about it breaking canon. How can the Jedi face a Sith 100 years before The Phantom Menace when Ki-Adi-Mundi tells Qui-Gon Jinn they’ve been extinct for a millennium? Simple. The Acolyte is going to kill everyone, like Rogue One.

When Rogue One was first announced, I immediately had one thought: How are they going to explain these characters’ absence during the original trilogy? I was floored when Lucasfilm opted to just flat-out murder all of the main characters instead. That’s one way to explain why Jyn Erso and Han Solo never grab a beer together.

Similarly, the fans complaining about The Acolyte seem to have never considered the series having a Rogue One ending. Surprisingly, I don’t blame them. Oh, that doesn’t mean that I condone their endless whining about The Acolyte ruining canon or anything.

More like I was assuming there was going to be a Jedi cover-up or something. I, too, never considered that The Acolyte would have Darth Teefs massacre all the Jedi on Khofar like Vader at the end of Rogue One. But then again, why would I?

When I saw Ahsoka Tano in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, I started mourning her right away. After all, she had to die at the end right? I had seen the original trilogy enough times to know she wasn’t in it. Little did I know at the time that Dave Filoni had no intention of killing off his favorite OC.

In fact, the Disney+ era of Star Wars has been reluctant to kill off any important characters altogether. There was no indication that The Acolyte would be closer to Rogue One than Ahsoka in terms of its character’s mortality. Although, in hindsight we should have seen it coming based on the first episode.

Carry-Anne Moss was featured heavily in the early marketing for The Acolyte, only to have her character bite it in the first five minutes. At the time, it seemed odd. Why cast a big name as Generic Jedi #1 and then kill her so early?

I realized last night that The Acolyte was teasing its Rogue One-ness from the start. Leslye Headland cast a known actress for the role because we didn’t know Jedi Master Indara. It was her way of saying that anyone was fair game.

If Carrie-Anne Moss could die, so could anyone else. A promise the series made good on last night. And while The Acolyte Episode 5 didn’t go full Rogue One, it was close. The only Jedi who saw the Dark Sider and lived was Master Sol.

Everyone else became shishkabob—in one case, literally. Meanwhile, Yord got his neck snapped like in an ’80s action movie, and Jecki Lon…well… Okay, so you know how bowling balls have three holes drilled into them for your fingers? I’m not saying that a strong individual could use Jecki to pick up a 7-10 split, but I’m also not saying it.

So yes, it looks like Headland surprised us all. Trolls and fans alike were banking on some deep-state Jedi conspiracy to keep from breaking canon. Instead, The Acolyte—like Rogue One before it—decided to take a page from Mettallica and kill ’em all.