The Glaring Problem Star Wars Has Now

In 2024, Star Wars is increasingly hard to define. Is it a space opera? A sci-fi western? A detective show in space? As illustrated by Disney+’s never-ending mill of Star Wars content—most recently The Acolyte, a new series starring Squid Game star Lee Jung-jae—George Lucas’ anti-imperialist sci-fi epic has by now become nebulous, less a recognizable world than a series of IP extensions. The Acolyte, like many of the past five years’ additions to the franchise, attempts to diversify the narrative scope of the vast Star Wars universe, depicting a mystery-cum-revenge story in space. But the result is lackluster, not least because the series—and others like it—fails to capture the franchise’s magic on the small screen.

I can still remember, in vivid detail, watching X-wings tumble into the Death Star’s trench, among other iconic moments that have stayed with me in singular focus: the kinetic duel between Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) and Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) that caps Episode III—Revenge of the Sith; the AT-AT walker breaking through the trees in Rogue One; the hyperspace ram of the “Holdo maneuver” from The Last Jedi. Mileage will vary on what Star Wars’ most memorable scenes are, but what unifies so many of them is a startling sense of spectacle that imprints itself on the brain.

Trying the same exercise with Disney+’s slate of Star Wars series, I’m unable to call anything to mind. Ask me to recall what happened during The Book of Boba Fett, or anything from Ahsoka, and I’m at a loss. The visual buzz that made Star Wars memorable is gone, replaced by an evocation of Star Wars through a rotating inventory of recognizable elements—lightsabers, X-wings, and knockoff Boba Fetts—and mere reference, in lieu of cinematic magic. There’s simply nothing in these shows that captures the visual intoxication that comes from Star Wars’ unbridled brilliance.

Take the opening scene of The Acolyte. Mae (Amandla Stenberg), a Sith-trained assassin, confronts Jedi Master Indara (Carrie-Anne Moss) in a typical Star Wars cantina. Indara is, according to an Empire interview with series creator Leslye Headland, “very much inspired by Trinity,” Moss’ iconic character from The Matrix. While reference to Trinity comes in the form of brief Wuxia-inspired wirework, it’s otherwise a sluggish, unenthusiastic fight, far removed from the dynamism of past Star Wars duels. This is our introduction to two of the most important characters in the series, but it feels more like neither actor had time to adequately prepare. The exciting, energetic movement of Star Wars—that admittedly came into the franchise after a similarly lethargic duel in A New Hope—is noticeably lacking, both from this singular moment and the series as a whole. Compare this, perhaps unfairly, to Revenge of the Sith’s climactic showdown on Mustafar. The months McGregor and Christensen spent preparing and perfecting the fight are reflected in how long viewers had to wait for that moment, and are a major part of why the duel is still greeted with glee by fans, across screens big and small. In Disney’s rush to push content onto its streaming platform, that excitement—that dynamism—has been lost.

To be fair, there’s a lot to celebrate in Disney+’s new series. The Acolyte pushes back against the binary of “good versus evil” that defines so much of Star Wars, even if it falls short of making that truly narratively compelling. The show’s costume design, production, and hair and makeup are also exemplary, creating a beautiful—if at times unconvincing—facsimile of Star Wars befitting the series’ staggering $180 million budget. Yet, in relegating Star Wars to the small screen, it feels like the ambition has been sucked out of the franchise. The rendering of the Star Wars universe is no longer a fantastical escape but an uncanny valley that fails to iterate upon, or innovate, the visual identity that makes Star Wars so recognizable.

StageCraft—the visual effects technology, colloquially known as “The Volume,” designed by Lucas-founded company Industrial Light and Magic—shoulders some blame here. As opposed to a traditional greenscreen, StageCraft is composed of a soundstage that, through the use of 20-foot LED screens, can integrate CGI into filming. Since it was first used in the production of The Mandalorian, StageCraft has become a mainstay of Disney’s Star Wars. Yet, while groundbreaking and technically impressive, the result often resembles a boxed diorama more than another world. Scenes and objects are robbed of their depth and definition, making for unnaturally smooth visuals that are quickly becoming synonymous with the franchise—never more jarring than the absurdly flat rock Elia Kane (Katy O’Brian) and Penn Pershing (Omid Abtahi) stare at in The Mandalorian Season 3.

The Acolyte doesn’t use StageCraft, per Headland, but the series still maintains the visual lexicon that the technology has instilled in Disney’s Star Wars. The rich color of the prequel trilogy’s Republic has transposed into a sallow façade that makes The Acolyte’s High Republic era appear sterile, subdued, and indistinct, even when compared to the rusty, worn world of Lucas’ original trilogy.

This is not to advocate for Star Wars’ return to the big screen. We know Star Wars can thrive on TV—case in point: Andor, a series that not only expanded the narrative potential of the franchise, but was also visually memorable, thanks to filming on location and art direction set down in Rogue One. As it is, we already have far too much rhetoric about how certain things must be viewed at the cinema, often without consideration of those who can’t. The real issue is that Star Wars needs to rediscover its energy and show us just how much can be done on the small screen—much as Lucas, for better or worse, persistently pushed the envelope in what could be achieved visually on the big screen. Sometimes you just need to see a honking-big spaceship do something weird, or lasers whiz across the screen until nothing else can be seen. Lucas thrived on making kids exclaim “cooooool” under their breath; those moments stayed with us across decades, even now inviting us to experience them one more time with a well-timed rewatch.

Star Wars has so much potential as a vehicle for bold storytelling. I’m not arguing for it to be boiled down to just naked spectacle—nor would that salve The Acolyte’s many flaws. But I can’t help thinking that the lack of imagination that infects Disney+’s version of Star Wars starts in its visuals. In losing its optical edge, its dynamism, and visual splendor, Star Wars is starting to feel like a strange cannibalization of itself, shifting into a generic science fiction that, like so much science fiction before it, simply references Star Wars rather than understands it. Until, finally, it becomes visually bleak, empty, and lightsabers don’t swish anymore.