Series like The Mandalorian and Star Wars: The Book of Boba Fett have found opportunities to pay respects to the Star Wars Legends corners of the galaxy far, far away, and now creator of the upcoming series Star Wars: The Acolyte Leslye Headland has confirmed this new series will honor a similar tradition. Headland played coy about what specific elements of the Star Wars Legends, formerly known as the Star Wars Expanded Universe, area of the franchise she’ll be embracing, but did tease the inclusion of fan-favorite components in the upcoming series. Star Wars: The Acolyte is set to debut on Disney+ on June 4th.
“There were certain things that I really wanted to do. You’ll see a half-Theelin, half-human Jedi, Jecki, played by Dafne Keen, which was always a dream of mine,” Headland recently shared with StarWars.com. “There’s also some [Star Wars Legends] lore that I decided to put in because I thought it was so cool and no one told me I couldn’t.”
She added, “There are a couple of really big [Expanded Universe] ideas that are utilized both early on in the series and later in the series.”
These comments echo remarks Headland previously made about her approach to the concept and how the stories of the ’90s were fundamental to her in developing her fandom for Star Wars.
“The truth is that I, as a major mega fan, came to them with this idea. And I said, ‘I think the best place to put this is in an era you guys have not quite explored yet,'” Headland revealed to Vanity Fair in 2022. “They were very enthusiastic. It wasn’t that they didn’t want to explore that [existing] world, but I think that they already were because The Mandalorian and a lot of the other television projects were really relying on legacy characters.”
She continued, “I was coming at it as a fan who was much more into the RPG that the Extended Universe feeds on. I came hard at that in the ’90s, and then got introduced to [Star Wars:] The Clone Wars. I knew the timeline really well. And I was like, ‘I think if you want to explore Star Wars from the perspective of the bad guys, the best time to do it is when the bad guys are wildly outnumbered. When they actually are essentially the underdogs, for lack of a better term.’ So this would be that era.”
Star Wars: The Acolyte is set to premiere on Disney+ on June 4th.
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