A Deleted Scene From The Acolyte Would Have Made Qimir So Much Scarier
Manny Jacinto reveals a “brutal” moment left on the cutting room floor.
Lucasfilm might not have recognized the potential in The Acolyte, but the Star Wars series is still showing fans what’s possible in that galaxy far away, even a year after its cancellation. Though we’re probably never getting another season of the show, it’s still a topic of constant conversation, with fans sharing love for its doomed twin siblings, Osha and Mae Aniseya (both played by Amandla Stenberg), its hunky anti-hero Qimir (Manny Jacinto), and its incredible lightsaber combat.
It’s the latter that first clued doubters into the true merit of The Acolyte: after a few slow-paced episodes, the series broke out with Episode 5, “Night,” which was basically one long duel between Qimir (who revealed himself to be the Sith-adjacent warrior called the Stranger) and a small army of Jedi. The Acolyte is the rare Star Wars story that sheds a more scrutinous light on the Jedi Order, and “Night” doubled down on that premise by allowing the Stranger to mow down the show’s most stalwart heroes. Not only did the episode bring the concept of cortosis from Star Wars legends into canon, it made lightsabers a frightening, dangerous weapon for the first time in years.
The Stranger wasted no time proving his ruthlessness — or his prowess with his double-bladed lightsaber — in The Acolyte. According to Jacinto, though, one deleted scene would have taken his introduction in an even more gruesome direction.
Jacinto made an appearance at this year’s Denver Fan Expo to chat about The Acolyte and shared that his character’s introduction nearly pushed the franchise out of family-friendly territory and into a much darker realm.
“Star Wars has always been PG, but you want to find some brutal aspects of these fights,” Jacinto explained. “There was one moment, I think, where I just take one Jedi and keep slamming his head onto a rock, because we wanted to show how brutal this guy could be, without any remorse.”
That sequence definitely would have succeeded in conveying the Stranger’s brutality, but given that we’re meant to root for this character (or at least sympathize with him) down the line, it probably would have been a bridge too far. In “Night,” the Stranger already murders a handful of characters that were becoming fan favorites in The Acolyte, like Jecki Lon (Dafnee Keen) and Yord Fandar (Charlie Barnett), and he doesn’t pull any punches there, either.
The Stranger’s ruthlessness is established well enough in these scenes — he also fully headbutts a lightsaber to establish his utter fearlessness — without the need for that particular moment. Showrunner Leslye Headland and her stunt coordinators struck the perfect balance with the Stranger’s introduction. There’s a chance that, if The Acolyte had been renewed for another season, the character could have earned that darker turn. Unless Lucasfilm walks back the show’s cancellation, though, we’ll probably never get to see it.
