Our first big look at The Acolyte last month brought with it the news that just one character from the High Republic transmedia era would make the leap from books to live-action, with Rebecca Henderson taking on novel hero Vernestra Rwoh. But now we have a better picture of how the show will use her… and examine the encroaching darkness.
Although The Acolyte is set about 100 years before the events of The Phantom Menace, we met Vernestra as one of the youngest Jedi Knights of the Order, having achieved the rank at just 15, in the High Republic novels set roughly another 100 years before that—meaning that she’s seen a lot in her time by the time we get to The Acolyte. And in that time, according to showrunner Leslye Headland, Vernestra has “been through some shit.”
“Because she has been around for so long, she has basically met everyone that has come through the Temple,” Headland recently told Empire about Vernestra’s perspective in The Acolyte, before adding quite a grim twist on that perspective to boot. “[She’s] seen them all die their natural deaths if they’re living a natural human life,” the showrunner continued. “She’s known [Lee Jung-jae’s Jedi Master] Sol since he was a tiny child.”
There are of course a few more Jedi who’ve lived long enough to see the age of the High Republic—and with it, the Jedi’s apex—give way to the recalcitrance we see by the time of the prequel trilogy, like Yoda and Yarael Poof, who were both members of the Jedi Council even during the 200 year period prior to where we meet them in Phantom Menace. We don’t know how much longer Vernestra lives beyond The Acolyte (or if she even survives the first season)—Star Wars has always been fuzzy about Mirialan lifespans—but it’s still interesting to examine her long past the time she was considered a prodigy of the Order’s best and brightest, to someone who has seen so much change, not just in Jedi coming and going, but the myriad ways it begins to change between the highs of her youth to the lows of the prequel era.
The Acolyte begins streaming on Disney+ June 4.
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