David Bridges
With three episodes left within the first season of The Acolyte, present creator Leslye Headland admits she isn’t fairly executed incorporating items of old-school Star Wars mythology from the Expanded Universe, aka Legends.
Legends, after all, is the title for Star Wars tales written earlier than Disney purchased the franchise and put all the pieces below one large canon. Although these tales are not thought of to have “formally” occurred anymore, they’ve components some creators are slowly bringing over into the canon. One current occasion: Grand Admiral Thrawn from Inheritor to the Empire showing on Ahsoka.
That is occurring on The Acolyte too and a giant instance got here within the fifth episode of the present, “Evening.” The episode launched a metallic referred to as cortosis, a specialised ore that originated within the 1998 novel I, Jedi by Michael Stackpole and may briefly deflect a lightsaber. It’s the metallic the Stranger’s helmet is product of and you’ll learn a lot, far more cortosis and its historical past right here. Chatting with Inverse, Headland defined why canonizing cortosis in The Acolyte was not taken evenly, and hints there may be extra to return.
“It’s a difficult factor since you respect George Lucas within the sense that you just don’t need to weaken the facility of a lightsaber,” Headland mentioned. “It’s virtually hallowed in that sense, not simply throughout the collection, however in popular culture. However cortosis was such an important new component, and I had all the time considered it as such a cool factor to include. [Lucasfilm story group’s] Pablo Hidalgo and I labored quite a bit on the machinations of it earlier than we began designing it. It was crucial that it’s breakable, that it mainly not be tremendous exhausting. It’s why Jecki can get the helmet off him so rapidly. It’s type of a brittle factor. There’s additionally a restricted useful resource of it, which is why he doesn’t have an entire go well with of armor, and it solely works for perhaps a minute. We labored actually exhausting on what it might appear like, as a result of we didn’t need it to look too highly effective or too goofy. Pablo, [visual artist] Rob Bredow, and I talked quite a bit about it. In order that’s the cortosis story, however the different Legends stuff we will speak about after the finale.”
The entire interview over at Inverse is improbable and value studying however this reply stood out for just a few causes. First, you may simply inform how respectful Headland is to Star Wars mythology right here. She thinks about it, she considers it, and he or she doesn’t decide evenly. Then there’s that tease on the finish. Extra Legends to return? Is there something specifically you’d prefer to see?
The Acolyte is streaming on Disney+ with a brand new episode coming Tuesday at 9 p.m. ET.
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Daniel Mercer
