Star Wars: The Acolyte trailer takes us back to an even longer time ago

You’ve heard of a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away—now get ready for a time before that, “the furthest back in time we’ve been in live action” Star Wars, as creator Leslye Headland teased back in 2023. The Acolyte takes place in the High Republic era, 100 years before the prequel trilogy and blissfully free of the constraints of the Skywalker saga. But there’s still the Force, there’s still light and dark, there’s still Jedi, and it looks like there’s Sith, too. But mystery is inherent to the latest Disney+ Star Wars show, which premieres June 4.

In the new series, “an investigation into a shocking crime spree pits a respected Jedi Master (Lee Jung-jae) against a dangerous warrior from his past (Amandla Stenberg),” per a synopsis for The Acolyte. “As more clues emerge, they travel down a dark path where sinister forces reveal all is not what it seems….”

The Acolyte trailer opens with a class of Jedi younglings, which should be unsettling for the fans out there who know what keeps happening to classes of Jedi trainees. And the danger is very real as it becomes apparent that someone out there is picking off Jedi one by one. The assassin appears to be Mae (Stenberg), but maybe that’s a little too obvious, given that we see her engaged in a martial arts battle with Indara (Carrie-Ann Moss) right off the bat. What’s clear is that the Jedi are unprepared to face a new kind of enemy—these guys have never even seen a red lightsaber before! But “This isn’t about good or bad,” Mother Aniseya (Jodie Turner-Smith) clarifies. “This is about power, and who is allowed to use it.”

Speaking with Vanity Fair in 2022, Headland said her interest in exploring the High Republic is that it was a golden era of peace for the Jedi. But “are things what they seem to be? Are things as good as everybody’s saying they are? That’s the big question of any society that has these big booming periods,” she said. “There is some form of counterculture or some form of underground, whether good or bad, you know what I mean?” Pitching her vision to Kathleen Kennedy, “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,’” Headland explained.

The Acolyte stars Stenberg, Lee, Moss, Turner-Smith, Manny Jacinto, Dafne Keen, Charlie Barnett, Rebecca Henderson, Dean-Charles Chapman, and Joonas Suotamo.