Leslye Headland, the showrunner behind the forthcoming Star Wars show The Acolyte, said in a panel at Star Wars Celebration that the series was pitched as “Frozen meets Kill Bill.” But what does that even mean?
How could a popular kids movie about a snow princess mix with a bloody-as-all-hell martial arts flick from Quentin Tarantino? And in the Star Wars universe? What???
Well, have no fear; Headland just gave fans a bit of a sneak peek as to how the two beloved films have influence on The Acolyte.
“I saw Frozen in the theater, obviously, when it came out,” Headland said. “I was a grown woman and I cried all the way through it. And I thought, if this movie had come out when I was younger, I would’ve had a completely different life.
“So much of it was about the sister relationship, so much of it was about the villain actually being a powerful, misunderstood woman. There was just so much of it that I couldn’t believe what I was watching. I couldn’t believe that it was a cartoon with music. It was hitting me on such a deep level and yet servicing the genre so well.”
Headland says that it’s that combination of emotional resonance with genre genius that The Acolyte hopes to capture.
“[The Acolyte] is hitting a lot of very deep emotional moments, and yet, it is servicing exactly what you want from the genre from a Star War show,” she said.
But what about Kill Bill, Tarantino’s two-part martial arts film that sees Uma Thurman slash off limbs, explode hearts, and so much more? How could that kind of movie fit into Star Wars?
“I say Kill Bill because I think it’s a really good reference for the modern day martial arts film,” Headland explained. “Obviously, Tarantino took inspiration from a lot of the movies that our action team and a lot of our design team pulled from — which is stuff from the Shaw brothers to Akira Kurosawa in his samurai films, but also films like Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.”
The Acolyte, which will stream on Disney+ in 2024, is set during the final days of the High Republic Era, over a century before the events of The Phantom Menace. The series will be the farthest back the live-action Star Wars universe has ever gone and will follow the “bad guys.” Squid Game star Lee Jung-jae and Amandla Stenberg are set to lead the series.
“When doing a Star Wars show that was going to be from the perspective of who we usually see as the villains, it made sense to set it during a time period where the Jedi were in power,” Headland said. “That meant that it was a time of peace, which meant, where is your war in your Star Wars? So martial arts films felt like the next logical step.”
She continued: “Not only did [martial arts films] inspire George Lucas, but they also are able to be about spiritual war, emotional warfare that’s always deep, deep relationships like brother and sister, father and son, master and pupil. And so that was my way in of how to make a Star Wars show that took place technically during a time of peace.”
For those of you worried that the Frozen influence might mean that the Jedi Order are going to be prone to breaking out in song, don’t worry. “There’s no songs in it,” Headland quipped.
For more, check out all the big announcements from Lucasfilm’s Studio Showcase, our full interview with Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau, and Ahsoka’s cast on bringing beloved Rebels characters to live-action.
Carson Burton is a freelance news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter at @carsonsburton.
