Ever since the first trailer of The Acolyte dropped in April, fans have been divided into 2 camps. Those who are interested, and those who feel as though a greater affront to Star Wars has never happened in the history of Star Wars.
While the usual complaints (too “woke,” too many POCs, too many women) are circling in the social media spheres, one “true cause” for alarm has cropped up. While The Acolyte promises to be newcomer-friendly regarding the lore of Star Wars, actor Charlie Barnett doesn’t seem to have picked up on the tie-ins.
What did Charlie Barnett say about Star Wars?
Before we jump down Barnett’s throat, it’s important to remember that those characters mentioned don’t even exist in the new series’ timeline. The Acolyte is set one hundred years before the Prequel trilogy even starts, during the High Republic, an era when the Jedi were at the height of their power.
The conversation around The Acolyte has mirrored that of Andor. Fans questioned every aspect of the series until it hit streaming and rocketed to top-tier media for most viewers. But one of the biggest things that Andor had going for it that The Acolyte apparently lacks is a cast that knows enough about the lore to discuss it during interviews.
While promoting the series, Charlie Barnett who plays the Jedi Yord Fandar, misspoke multiple times about the series lore. His minor faux pas saw him mixing up Luke and Anakin Skywalker while speaking on the morally grey writing of The Acolyte.
While trying to keep things vague about his character he told Collider that Yord is committed to leading the people he protects down the path of good. But as Barnett says, “life is much more complicated.” With online movements like The Empire Did Nothing Wrong, it only makes sense for Star Wars to explore moral ambiguity, which was where Barnett was headed with he fumbled his words.
“Darth Vader is a bad person, it’s very clear. But if you can’t look and see that Anakin blowing up the Death Star possibly killed millions and millions of people…” He doesn’t quite manage to finish his sentence as co-star Dafne Keen gently squeezes his wrist and pleads with him to, “just shut up.”
Its a truly embarrassing moment for the cast, though Manny Jacinto quickly laughs it off while Dafne “I saw the movie you should shut up” Keen suffers through the mortifying mistake. While it was clearly a slip of the tongue, some fans took it as a sign of disrespect or as outright proof that the series was going to suffer from the actor’s lack of background knowledge.
One Redditor took to the site to voice their concerns culminating with, “It’s really concerning when main characters don’t really know some key elements to a franchise.”
Commentors on TikTok saw the slipup as a sure sign of Disney’s money-grubbing nature as if the company doesn’t make $5 billion dollars in toys, apparel, games, and accessories yearly.
“It’s Disney they don’t care MCU writers Star Wars writers they have no idea what the hell they’re talking about they’re just looking to get money,” one ranted.
“Are there actual Star Wars fans at this point,” asked another, “It kinda feels like dead internet theory.”
For the most part, the less vitriolic side of the fandom sees no problem with actors who don’t know the lore, or directors willing to take risks in new areas of the galaxy. For every enraged or disheartened message there were 2 more siding with Barnett and asking their peers to give the series a chance.
“He’s an actor. As long as he can act well, I don’t care how much Star Wars he knows.” One Reddit user countered. “in fact, Harrison Ford barely knows anything about the franchise and he played one of the most beloved characters ever.”
“To be fair,” a Toktokker replied, “Walton Goggins never played Fallout before and intentionally didn’t play or learn anything about the series and it was fantastic.”
The “controversy” has generated a ton of hilarious responses in addition to the vitriol. Some of the highlight mass multiple pop-culture references together like, “My favorite Anakin scene is when him and Optimus fight Dominic Torreto.” Or “Obi-wan always says. With great power comes great responsibility,” and “Such a great scene when Anakin fights Gandalf on Deathwing’s back.”
But perhaps the perfect summation came from this Redditor, “I think that’s a dumb thing to care about and has nothing to do with the quality of the Acolyte.”
In the end, let’s go with Barnett’s own words, “it’s not about not holding people to the fire when they do make the wrong decision,” rather it’s about recognizing why they did the things they did. Based on the overblown backlash, we’re pretty sure Barnett was held to the proverbial flames by his Disney handlers. Maybe Anakin Skywalker can help him with those burns.
