I guess Star Wars isn’t interested in women’s storytelling?

London, 2023. Leslye Headland stepped onto the Star Wars Celebration stage to talk about her new show, The Acolyte. The excitement in the room grew as she explained her vision and showed a sneak peek. However, I found it most endearing when she mentioned she used to write fan fiction.

That was the moment I knew I was going to fall in love with The Acolyte. That was the moment I knew that Star Wars was finally making something with fans like me in mind. They brought out the cast, and it was immediately clear that so many people who have historically been left out of the narrative would see themselves reflected in this story.

And I did fall in love. It was a Star Wars show that finally centered the female gaze. The Acolyte breathed new life into the franchise with brand new, compelling characters, incredible fight scenes, and an explicit enemies-to-lovers storyline. It let fandom be silly again with hashtags like #YordHorde, #JeckiJam, and #SolPatrol.

So you can imagine my complete disappointment when Deadline broke the news that The Acolyte will not be getting a Season 2.

Sometimes, it’s exhausting to love something

Of course, anything that doesn’t cater to cisgender, white, heterosexual masculinity has a tendency to bring out the trolls. From the beginning, the show was plagued by negative backlash from so-called “real fans.” Many people in the online fandom experienced a barrage of hateful messages just for daring to …*checks notes* … enjoy Star Wars.

Then, of course, who could forget the terrible Wookieepedia fiasco of 2024. Because it’s not enough for these people to insert themselves into every conversation to spout parroted “opinions.” They also need to go through official channels to bother people minding their business.

And where are these people now? In Amandla Stenberg’s comment section, being terrible while the rest of us stand by to see if Lucasfilm will actually support Amandla. Or maybe they’ll just let them get run off of social media like Kelly Marie Tran or John Boyega or Moses Ingram. Hm … I’m sensing a pattern here.

I don’t want to say that trolls are solely responsible for the cancellation of The Acolyte. I’d like to believe they aren’t that powerful. What I will say is that they are loud and relentless, and if you’re someone from the outside looking in, I see how that could look like the majority opinion—which is why campaigns like #RenewTheAcolyte focused on letter writing and making sure that the opinions of people who genuinely liked the show were being seen as well.

It’s really hard to be chill about this

A question a lot of fans are asking is “What is the point?” Why get invested in characters or stories when we are just going to get left at the top of the cliff? Why go through the abusive online treatment? That’s a lot to ask of your femme and queer fans.

It’s hard not to feel a bit of betrayal here. I have loved Star Wars all my life, even when it wasn’t particularly marketed to me and even when there was no internet to connect to other fans. Even when the only voices I ever heard get to talk about Star Wars were men who couldn’t fathom what this story meant to a girl. But Leslye Headland knows. Leslye is us. Amandla is us. Manny is us. For once, the boys’ club let us sit in the driver’s seat. This cancellation feels like getting kicked out of the car entirely. We can say Star Wars is for everyone, but it’s hard to say it with a full chest when our viewpoints are so devalued.

What Disney/Lucasfilm can do to make it up to us

I’d love to see Lucasfilm and Disney make their intentions clear. Just, for our own peace of mind, we need to know how this decision was made. Will there be live-action offshoots? How about a film? Will Headland get another opportunity to write and direct? Give us something. In my most optimistic moments, I can picture some announcements happening at Star Wars Celebration 2025, but I think I’m a little too grumpy to fully believe that.

I’d also like to see some artistic integrity. This isn’t a problem unique to Disney, but Disney does have the capital to make some non-greed-driven decisions to value art over profit. There is a lot of respect to be gained from committing to the vision from the start. This means longer seasons with longer run times per episode. This means marketing campaigns. (Hello? Andor?) This means supporting the creators they hire. This means not bailing on the talent or the fans who actually like the stuff that Disney is making.

It might seem a little dramatic, but it’s okay to feel grief over this. It’s doubly okay to protect your peace and turn on those privacy tools for a little while. Lean into the community that was built around this show and these characters because we’re here and still determined to carve out space for ourselves. We deserve more consideration, and if we’re loud enough, we might just get it.