Woke Disney Director MELTS DOWN After Show Is Canceled

Liberal stars of Disney’s woke Star Wars spinoff “The Acolyte” are furious after the network pulled the plug on a second season.

Cast members panned the decision in a series of interviews and social media posts spotted by the New York Post. Lee Jung-Jae, who played Jedi master Master Sol in the show, expressed surprise that the initially successful show would not be renewed. “To hear the news, I was quite surprised personally as well,” he told Entertainment Weekly on Friday. Despite seeing his character killed off in the first season, the South Korean actor said he was hopeful “The Acolyte” had a healthy viewership that would necessitate a second season.

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“I wouldn’t have appeared in the second season if there was one anyway,” said Jung-Jae, 51. “But personally speaking, I really loved Leslye’s writing. I thought that she was a great writer and director who was very talented in the storytelling, as well as creating characters and creating meaningful structures within the story. So I was actually personally really looking forward to watching a season 2 with her at the helm.” Jung-Jae, who rose to prominence as a central figure on the hit Netflix series “Squid Game,” added, “Honestly, I’m hoping that maybe there could be changes in the future. Because you never know what’s going to happen. So on a personal level, I really hope we could get to see further stories of Leslye’s second season.”

The brainchild of director Leslye Headland, “The Acolyte” drew a fierce backlash from conservatives and legacy fans of the “Star Wars” franchise upset over woke symbolism within the show, including a scene in which the character of lead actress Amandla Stenberg reprimands herself for using the wrong pronouns about another character. Headland previously touted the show’s “inclusive” approach to the franchise and initially saw success; “The Acolyte” garnered a 78% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes but starkly divided fans, leaving many to ask whether the revisionism in their childhood universe was appropriate or even necessary. Upon launching June 4th, “The Acolyte” brought in a strong 4.8 million viewers on its first day and over 11 million after five days, making it the best rollout for Disney+ in 2024.

However, enthusiasm for the show quickly dropped off. By its third week, “The Acolyte” had dropped out of the top 10 most-viewed shows on the company’s streaming service. Before its cancellation, Headland admitted in interviews that she had pitched company executives on her ideas for continuing the mystery-thriller about the last days of the High Empire and a former Padawan who reunites with her Jedi Master to investigate a series of crimes. Critics dubbed the $180 million venture “The Woke-olyte” after Stenberg, the lead actress, described the series as “gay” according to National Review. “It’s canon that R2-D2 is a lesbian” Headland stated in an interview, asking rhetorically, “Are you telling me with a straight face that C-3PO is straight?” Other progressive cultural critics have praised the series for “centering on a coven of lesbian space witches” and “giving space to queer people in the Star Wars universe.”

Manny Jacinto, who played Qimir on the show, gave a curt reaction to the cancellation by posting a photo on Instagram of him and Stenberg, 25, holding hands. A return of the eight-episode series was called into question earlier this year when Headland admitted in an interview that she had not yet been asked by Disney to produce her vision for a second season. Since its debut, “The Acolyte” has seen its rating on Rotten Tomatoes plummet to 18%. She pushed back on the notion that her series was devastating to “Star Wars” enthusiasts.

“I don’t believe that I’ve created queer, with a capital Q, content,” she told the Advocate but adding her own sexual identity would inevitably come through in her direction of “The Acolyte.” “There’s just no way that me being a queer woman is not going to be reflected in my work.”

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