The Acolyte showrunner Leslye Headland has compared the show’s big bad to Elden Ring in an amusing and pretty relatable way.
Inspiration strikes in mysterious ways, occasionally coming from surprising places. With Star Wars being a sci-fi series, even if there are some very light fantasy elements, you wouldn’t expect it to necessarily borrow from a game like Elden Ring, but in a recent interview with Inverse, Headland shared that she did actually take something funny from the FromSoftware game into the prequel series.
Spoilers ahead for the fifth episode of The Acolyte.
In the fifth and most recent episode of The Acolyte, we finally got a reveal of who The Stranger is, a Sith that’s been leading one of the show’s two main characters astray, and it was none other than Manny Jacinto’s quite conversely goofy Qimir. It wasn’t particularly surprising, who else could it have been, but what was a bit of a shocker is just how powerful he is. He managed to take down a whole gaggle of Jedi, and by take down I do mean full on kill, without wearing all that much armour – which just so happens to be where the Elden Ring comparison comes into play.
When asked about whether Jacinto’s arms would be a big draw for fans (they’re big and buff, you see), Headland responded while laughing, “Yes. And Manny did, too. His character design was a long process. I mean, it was for everybody, but specifically for his character, to create a new Sith. Sith have been done so well, so it was very difficult to say ‘All right, this is a guy in hiding. This is the guy that moves differently. This guy’s helmet has a different purpose…’ and having to unpack that. I remember we were showing him a Qimir costume sketch, and it just showed his arms a little bit, and he was like, ‘No.’
“So much of Qimir was understanding how to use your body and not just standing there in a suit or being encumbered by a suit. We were like, ‘We have to get him in something flowy.’ As soon as I said he didn’t have armor, everyone lost their mind. ‘How can you not have armor?’ I was like, ‘Why would you wear armor if you’re not going to get hit?’ It’s like the Elden Ring costume. The Elden Bling. When you summon people, you always summon the people that aren’t wearing anything, and it’s like, ‘These people are f**king crazy.'”
It’s a funny comparison to make, the one I can see in both the show, and also the general experience of playing Elden Ring (some of you really should put more clothes on, The Lands Between look like a cold place). Now we just have to see if we can Headland to put Jacinto’s arms in that rumoured Elden Ring TV show/ movie.