Earlier this month, Star Wars: The Acolyte was cancelled after just one season, marking the end of the first live action series set in the Star Wars franchise’s High Republic era. Now, series star Amandla Stenberg is opening up about their reaction to the series’ cancellation and their experience. In a new message shared on their Instagram Story, Stenberg said that the show’s cancellation was “not a huge shock” for them and then went on to talk about their experience with “a rampage of vitriol” that the cast faced from the show was first announced.
“Hello, I thought I would get on here, and just speak candidly. I hate doing this. I hate doing this, but I’m gonna do it. I honestly, I don’t use social media very much anymore, and I’m so happy about that, but there are many folks out there that I want to acknowledge and I want to show appreciation and love and support for so that’s why I’m hopping on here to talk about this, which is that our show, our Star Wars show, has been canceled. And I’m gonna say, I’m really transparent, and say that it’s not a huge shock for me,” Stenberg said. “Of course, I live in the bubble of my own reality, but for those who aren’t aware, there has been a rampage of vitriol that we have faced since the show was even announced, when it was still just a concept, no one had even seen it. That’s when we started experiencing a rampage of, I would say, hyper-conservative bigotry and vitriol, prejudice, hatred, and hateful language towards us. This really affected me when I first got the job, because it’s just not something even though I anticipated it happening, it’s not something you can fully understand what it feels like until it’s happening to you.”
They continued, “On that topic, I just have to say it has been an incredible honor and dream for me to be in this universe. Even though, of course, I’m very sad about the show being canceled and I’m sad about us not being able to give people who are invested into it more, because…. I still just feel a lot of levity and joy around the fact that it that I got to experience it, and that people loved it, and that people were so responsive. I poured through a lot of different iterations of fan art and ship art and fan theories and things that were just so beautiful and filled my heart with joy. I just want to let those people know out there who supported us in that way and supported us vocally, despite and in the face of all of the vitriol that we received and the kind of the targeted attack, I would say we received by the alt-right, just that you are deeply loved and appreciated. It made this job all the worthwhile for me, and it made all of the challenging elements of it completely worthwhile for me. That plus my love of sci-fi and fantasy and being able to be a part of the legacy of something that I so deeply value, and something that means so much to me and I’ve looked up to for so long.”
Stenberg also went on to thank Lucasfilm as well as series creator Leslye Headland and everyone who watched The Acolyte before addressing the divisive reactions to the series.
“I also just want to say thank you to Lucasfilm, for just being a f-king awesome team. They were so wonderful to work with. Everybody that I worked with in Lucasfilm, particularly Rayne Roberts, my producer. Who just had such vision and hope and such a mission for what we were going to continue bringing into the Star Wars universe,” Stenberg continued. “And it was a really beautiful, energizing, life changing experience to be a part of. And I have to thank Leslye Headland, who just, I just f-king love that b-ch. Excuse my French. She’s just one of the best people in the world. I think she’s so incredibly talented and unique and kind, and I’ll love her forever, and I will love this experience with her forever. But at the end of the day, I also just want to thank everybody who watched it. Thank you for being so loving and supportive and excited and nerdy and awesome, and I’ll continue to process this for a long time.
“Maybe the last thing I want to say on the subject is that we all exist in the context of all in which we live (laughs) But I’m serious. it’s not lost on me how the way that these events have unfolded is also due to the hyper divisiveness of the time that we live in. That is driven, I would say at this point, by echo chambers of thought and algorithms that reinforce our biases. And I think that applies to everybody, but I think that in a particular sect of people, it manifests as a lot of fear for what is changing, a lot of hatred for anything that is other. And I would challenge us all and challenge myself to continue questioning what it is that I digest and think critically about what shapes it. And let’s vote. Y’all, let’s vote. Let’s vote. I think that’s all I have to say.”
Stenberg’s Instagram Story is not the first time that they have addressed some of the backlash they faced with Star Wars: The Acolyte. Earlier this year, Stenberg released a music video responding to the matter, sharing that they had worked on the video for 72 hours to come up with lyrics and choreography to fire back at critics, which included a review-bomb campaign when the series was released.
What Is Star Wars: The Acolyte About?
Set during The High Republic, Star Wars: The Acolyte delivers an investigation into a mysterious string of crimes, which pits a Jedi master against his former apprentice in a race to uncover the truth. The more that the pair learn about the situation, the darker their journey becomes, as they confront things that darker than either of them could have imagined.
The series stars Amandla Stenberg, Lee Jung-jae, Manny Jacinto, Dafne Keen, Charlie Barnett, Jodie Turner-Smith, Rebecca Henderson, Dean-Charles Chapman, Joonas Suotamo, and Carrie-Anne Moss. Star Wars: The Acolyte premiered on Disney+ on June 4th.
