David Bridges
For essentially the most half, The Acolyte has set itself other than the remainder of Star Wars—each by way of its placement within the timeline, 100 years earlier than the prequel trilogy, and in its need to deal with new characters and explorations, moderately than the acquainted. However that doesn’t imply there aren’t some intriguing connections…
… or, some acquainted faces. Coming into The Acolyte, we have been informed that whereas the collection was going to be set through the waning days of the Excessive Republic period, only one character from the Excessive Republic novels and comics would seem within the present, Rebecca Henderson’s Vernestra Rwoh. Past that, nobody else we knew. Which is true! From a sure perspective. As a result of whereas we didn’t get another person from the world of the Excessive Republic transmedia initiative in immediately’s episode, we did truly get somebody we all know from the movies.
In a short scene on the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, Vernestra and a cadre of different Jedi talk about with Grasp Sol the place his homicide investigation ought to take him subsequent. It’s a short second, however moreover one of many different Masters discussing a possible rogue sect of Jedi being behind this murderer, we see a Jedi from a well-recognized race be a part of the dialogue: a large-headed Cerean, carrying a model of the white and beige Temple Robes of the Excessive Republic period. And also you suppose for a second, it may possibly’t be. However he has these yellow eyes. His hair and bear are gray and longer, however in an analogous model. Is it?
Sure. Because the credit of “Day” verify, that’s certainly Ki-Adi-Mundi—performed right here by Derek Arnold—future member of the Jedi Council, famous carer about assaults on Wookiees (which makes his presence in context even funnier, actually), and The Acolyte’s first main Star Wars cameo.
Ki-Adi-Mundi’s presence, as fleeting and transient it’s—you actually don’t even discover it’s him till his title reveals up within the credit, it’s not essential, he might’ve simply been any Cerean Jedi—raises a complete bunch of questions. Not the uninteresting kind, like what this implies for his line in The Phantom Menace in regards to the Sith not having been seen in a milennia: actually on this scene, the gathered Jedi, Ki-Adi included, don’t even dare ponder that Mae may very well be educated by a Sith, leaning in the direction of a rogue Jedi as a substitute—and even then, it’s a gathering the place the Jedi go away it having been explicitly informed to maintain all of this info underneath wraps. Jedi are good liars, and hey, if Ki-Adi-Mundi washes his fingers of this investigation from right here on out, by no means to be seen in The Acolyte once more, then properly, he actually did by no means truly see a Sith both means.
No, like the chair droids earlier than him, the questions listed below are as a substitute extra existential: simply how outdated is Ki-Adi-Mundi right here? That is 100 years earlier than Phantom Menace, and he appears like a grown man right here. Was he actually that outdated by the point of the Clone Warfare? We don’t know a lot about Cerean society or biology in Star Wars canon proper now, however within the outdated Expanded Universe, Cerean males truly aged at a a lot faster price than their much-more-populous feminine counterparts—a male Cerean who lived previous their 60s was thought-about to be virtually historical. However now, because of The Acolyte, it looks as if Ki-Adi was pushing a minimum of round 130, 150, by the point he bites it in Revenge of the Sith (from repeated blaster bolts to the chest, after all, not outdated age). And provided that, how lengthy was he on the Jedi Council? The way in which he refers to it right here, he’s not on it but—he’s only one Jedi Grasp amongst many. However what’s it with the Excessive Council and members who sit on it for doubtlessly a whole bunch of years? Yoda, Yaddle, Yarael Poof, now Ki-Adi-Mundi… why did nobody ever put time period limits in!?
And on the very least, these questions will not be truly about The Acolyte itself. Which is good! His presence right here isn’t like, say, Luke Skywalker or Ahsoka Tano exhibiting up in The Mandalorian, or Mando himself dominating a pair episodes of Ebook of Boba Fett. It’s a cameo, sure, however not one which utterly takes over the narrative of the episode, or is even highlighted as one to the purpose you’re distracted whereas the present pauses to go “look! you recognize them!” Ki-Adi’s right here, he has just a few strains among the many Jedi, he’s gone, the episode carries on. A shock to make certain, however a welcome one.
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