The Acolyte must avoid making this same mistake as The Last Jedi

Star Wars: The Acolyte just gave us a flashback in its most recent episode, detailing from one point of view the events on Brendok 16 years prior. While this gives us important insight into the characters in the series, it must avoid making the same mistake that was made in The Last Jedi.

The Acolyte must avoid making this same mistake as The Last Jedi

In episode 3, "Destiny," of The Acolyte, we learn the answers to the most pressing question raised by the first two episodes of the series: What happened on Brendok? Or...do we? An argument could be made that what we saw in that episode was only from a certain point of view. Perhaps this was just Osha's recollection of what happened. If it is, would Mae's, her twin, differ significantly? Or the Jedi?

We see Mae start the fire, but we do not see her, the twins' mothers, and the witch coven actually perish. We see their dead bodies later on, but it leaves open the possibility that it was not the fire that killed them.

If we see any more flashbacks from this period, the series should take great care not to make the same mistake as The Last Jedi. In that movie, director Rian Johnson presented us with a Rashomon-style telling of what led to Ben Solo turning to the dark side. He shows us Luke's perspective, Ben's perspective, and then what actually happened, according to Johnson. In Johnson's "actual" version, we see Luke invade his nephew's mind while he is sleeping, detect darkness in him, and then ignite his lightsaber in a moment of "pure instinct," where he briefly considers killing his nephew in cold blood. While Star Wars fans have and will continue to debate this moment forever, Johnson certainly does not paint Luke in the best of light, which, at least for me personally, tainted the movie.

With The Acolyte, creator Leslye Headland certainly has more leeway with the characters since they are mostly brand new, and we do not have decades-long conceptions of them the way we do with Luke. Conceivably, she could have Master Sol and the Jedi do something horrific like kill the coven of witches. Or maybe they had a chance to save the witches but chose not to so they would be able to take Mae and Osha.

Having complex characters is important, but the trope of "good guy does bad thing" is so tired at this point and would make it so difficult to cheer for the Jedi in this series. Perhaps that is the point, though. The Jedi Order certainly has flaws and the show has done a good job at this point of exploring those flaws while at the same time not painting the Jedi as irredeemable.

However, if the series begins to show us different versions or different perspectives of what happened on Brendok, it will be doing the same thing as The Last Jedi and could tip too far into the territory of making the Jedi impossible to root for.