While the franchises are very different, I can’t help but think of The Venture Bros. when considering the modern state of Star Wars—specifically, the scene where Henchman 24 asks his colleagues “why did we suck” and “how can we not suck in the future?” Now that The Acolyte has been canceled, Disney is presumably asking themselves these same questions in the fervent hope of avoiding this show’s mistakes in the future. However, both Disney and the fandom should consider that The Acolyte had some of the best things we have seen from this franchise, and these things should carry forward into future shows.

The Fights

When it comes to The Acolyte, what are some of the best things I would personally like to see from future shows? For one, if we absolutely have to have more shows featuring Jedi fighting Sith (not my preferred direction for the franchise), I hope they have the kind of killer lightsaber battles that we saw in this now-canceled show.

The series admittedly had a slow pace building up to the cool action, but by the time Qimir was slicing and dicing his way through Jedi warriors, the wait was worth it to see some of the best lightsaber fighting since the prequels.

Qimir

Speaking of Qimir, this character from The Acolyte was one of the best things in the show if not Star Wars as a whole. He managed to exude palpable menace as needed, but he also had hidden depths and his own surprisingly understandable motivations for working against the Jedi.

Thanks to that and Manny Jacinto’s good looks, the Dark Side was finally presented as a kind of truly seductive evil. In the past, it was almost always represented by damaged and deformed people who want the good guys to suddenly turn evil because of something something unlimited power, so Qimiri is the blueprint for better bad guys. Plus, he might have genuinely had the coolest villain design since Darth Maul.

Flawed Jedi

Additionally, my inner Knights of the Old Republic 2 fanboy was squealing at The Acolyte’s bold portrayal of the Jedi as flawed and possibly even malicious…after Lucas deified these guys for decades, one of the best things about this new show is that it took the Jedi down a peg.

For so long, fans have had to deal with the paradox that the Jedi are simultaneously powerful exemplars of wisdom and yet easily hoodwinked by any Sith with a half-baked plan. If future shows present the Jedi as similarly flawed, it will make them more compelling while retroactively adding much-needed context to Palpatine’s rise to power.

Expanded Universe Deep Dives

The Acolyte included some wonderful deep diving references into the expanded universe, including the first ever live-action appearance of the Tynnans. Bazil the scout is a Tynnan, a race introduced in the 1979 novel Han Solo’s Revenge. More deep dives like this will always be welcome.

Will Disney Learn The Right Lessons?

With all this being said, it’s easy for me to conduct a post-mortem of The Acolyte and pick and choose the best things from this show; it remains to be seen, however, whether Disney will learn the right lessons from this failed series.

Considering that we have Jedi-centric content like Ahsoka season 2 and the solo Rey movie right around the corner, now would be the perfect time to add some depth and complexity to our favorite Force-wielders. Otherwise, it will be like The Acolyte all over again where we just wait for the newest cool guy with a sweet mask to put these idiots in their place.