Star Wars is an inherently political franchise and always has been. For as much as the pulpy science-fiction serials of his youth were integral to inspiring George Lucas to want to make a big space opera, the films themselves were always rooted in the very present-tense politics of the moment.
Lucas himself has detailed how the original trilogy of Star Wars films explicitly house his own reactions to things like Watergate, Richard Nixon, and the Vietnam War. Furthermore, the prequel trilogy is explicitly about Bush-era politics, with Lucas going out of his way to structure Order 66 and Anakin’s descent into tyranny in ways that would be immediately recognizable to audiences of the "War on Terror" era.
So when modern fans complain that the new Disney-owned Lucasfilm is making "political content" out of Star Wars, it’s more than a little silly. There’s plenty to bemoan about the ways in which the Star Wars franchise has been handled in the past decade, but the fact that some of the works have been political in nature is not one of those things.
In fact, Andor, easily the most overtly political work of the Disney era, is the most acclaimed and renowned project of the whole bunch, which is why it isn’t necessarily surprising to see fans once again rallying behind Leslye Headland’s Star Wars series, The Acolyte, which was cancelled amid changing political tides for nebulous reasons.
Since its cancellation, a Change.org petition has generated more than 90,000 signatures from fans who want to see the show return. Every few months, a new post from someone who just watched The Acolyte pops up on Reddit and questions why "everyone" thought The Acolyte was so bad in the first place.
Why The Acolyte was unfairly canceled
I’m sure I don’t have to tell you this, but it’s worth mentioning: the term "political" as it is applied to media has been a bit weaponized in recent years. Generally speaking, there’s a certain subsection of viewers who have come to levy this term against any project that features representation beyond the realm of cisgender white men. So it doesn’t exactly take a verified sleuth’s mind to figure out why this same subsection of viewers might have taken umbrage with The Acolyte, a show whose primary cast quite literally featured no cisgender white men and was created by an openly queer woman.
So when such viewers complained that The Acolyte was "too political," they weren’t actually engaging with the political subject matter that is very much there but rather glossing over any and all of the actual substance of the series to comment on the most surface-level attributes.
Just as happened with The Last Jedi years earlier, this obscene and vocal minority generated enough noise online to well-and-truly scare Disney executives into changing course. Despite having firm plans in place for a second season and tentative ones in place for a third season and even a feature film finale, as Headland would later reveal, Disney management made the rash call to unceremoniously cancel the show just weeks after its release.
The Acolyte fans are still advocating for season 2
In the years since then, The Acolyte has trended several times regularly, including after the most recent elections in the United States. The series also ranks among the most-watched material on Disney+ regularly. There have been campaigns and petitions, with fans trying to express to Disney just how badly they want to see more of the series. And now, amidst changing political tides once more, fans are using the “blue wave” of the changing American political scene to rally for an Acolyte renewal once more.
In all likelihood, this is very much not going to happen. The cast and crew have all moved on, and Disney+ has gotten so cagey about streaming budgets that they’re even cancelling the vast majority of Marvel shows now.
However, the desire for fans to see more of The Acolyte speaks to just how wrong Disney was to cancel the series in the first place. This was a show that was bringing in new fans and speaking to a segment of the audience that felt distinctly under-catered to in the years prior. In the past year, Disney has gone all-in in the opposite direction, banking heavily on seemingly apolitical safe bets, like The Mandalorian and Grogu, and suffered because of it.
Stay tuned for more Star Wars news!
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