Next week, The Acolyte will premiere on Disney+, introducing fans to a whole new era in the Star Wars timeline. The series attempts to bridge the gap between the popular Star Wars: The High Republic novels and comics, which are set during the zenith of Jedi power a few centuries before the Skywalker saga and the rise of the evil Empire in the beloved film franchise.
The Acolyte follows a young student of the Dark Side named Mae (Amandla Stenberg) as she embarks on a mysterious mission to murder unwitting Jedi knights. It’s a crime spree the Jedi Order is eager to keep quiet so as not to cause a panic in a time period when evil is supposed to be extinct and the Jedi are thought to be all powerful.
Because The Acolyte is set about one hundred years before Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, it means that we’ll see Jedi sporting the luxurious golden robes of the High Republic era. (No rough-spun duds for these powerful warriors!) It also means that The Acolyte is full of Easter eggs for hardcore Star Wars fans who have spent the last few years gobbling up Star Wars: The High Republic material… Easter eggs like Vernestra Rwoh’s (Rebecca Henderson) iconic lightwhip, or lightsaber whip!
After playing mum for years, Disney+ finally confirmed that we’ll see Vernestra Rwoh’s lightwhip in live action in a thirty second ad released last week. The video, titled “Plan,” teases The Acolyte‘s action sequences. Eleven seconds in, we get our first peek at Vernestra’s lightwhip in action and no one is more thrilled about it than Acolyte star Rebecca Henderson…
“I’m really glad that they released this clip, because the interviews that I did before they released the clip, I had to say ‘No, you don’t see the whip. You don’t see it,'” Henderson dished to Decider during a recent press junket for The Acolyte.
While we were queuing up the question about the lightwhip, Henderson’s co-stars, Charlie Barnett and Dafne Keen, were giddily miming using the weapon even though their characters, Yord Fandar and Jecki Lon, sport traditional lightsabers in the series. Clearly the lightwhip has its fans.
“I don’t know, it looks incredible. Didn’t you think it looks really cool?” Henderson asked. “It’s really cool.”
In the High Republic books, a teenaged Vernestra Rwoh has a Force vision that shows her how to modify her existing purple lightsaber into a lightwhip. She does so, but initially keeps the redesign a secret, partially because lightwhips were traditionally associated with the Nightsisters of Dathomir. Nevertheless, she would eventually use it as both a tool and a weapon.
When it was announced that The Acolyte‘s creator Leslye Headland was incorporating Vernestra Rwoh into the series, fans hoped that they’d get to see the unique lightsaber in action…and we will!
“Yeah, it feels very special that she has this capability with her lightsaber and, you know, the way you see it in the series is so cool,” Henderson teased.
The first two episodes of The Acolyte premiere on Disney+ on Tuesday, June 4 at 6PM PT/9PM ET.