With three episodes left within the first season of The Acolyte, present creator Leslye Headland admits she isn’t fairly performed incorporating items of old-school Star Wars mythology from the Expanded Universe, aka Legends.
Legends, after all, is the identify for Star Wars tales written earlier than Disney purchased the franchise and put the whole lot underneath one massive 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 show, “Night.” The episode launched a metallic referred to as cortosis, a specialized 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 manufactured from and you’ll read much, much more cortosis and its history here. Speaking to Inverse, Headland defined why canonizing cortosis in The Acolyte was not taken flippantly, and hints there’s 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 ability of a lightsaber,” Headland stated. “It’s nearly hallowed in that sense, not simply throughout the collection, however in popular culture. However cortosis was such an incredible new ingredient, and I had at all times considered it as such a cool factor to include. [Lucasfilm story group’s] Pablo Hidalgo and I labored lots on the machinations of it earlier than we began designing it. It was essential 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 sort 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 possibly a minute. We labored actually exhausting on what it might seem 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 lots about it. In order that’s the cortosis story, however the different Legends stuff we are able to speak about after the finale.”
The entire interview over at Inverse is improbable and value studying however this reply stood out for a couple of causes. First, you possibly can simply inform how respectful Headland is to Star Wars mythology right here. She thinks about it, she considers it, and she or he doesn’t decide flippantly. Then there’s that tease on the finish. Extra Legends to return? Is there something specifically you’d wish to see?
The Acolyte is streaming on Disney+ with a brand new episode coming Tuesday at 9 p.m. ET.
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