The best Star Wars villain after Kylo Ren allowed Disney to flip an annoying Sith trend on its head. When thinking of the best Star Wars villains, there are still none who have supplanted the likes of Darth Maul, Darth Vader, or Emperor Palpatine. These powerful Star Wars Sith Lords remain at the top of the pack, though some others are worth mentioning.
Kylo Ren came close to matching those who came before him, partly driven by Adam Driver’s fantastic performance. Upcoming Star Wars movies are hoping to continue the strong villain trend, be it the potential of Grand Admiral Thrawn in the New Republic stories or renowned horror actor Mia Goth and Doctor Who alum Matt Smith playing villains in Star Wars: Starfighter.
When looking at the past six years, though, since the sequel trilogy concluded, there have been several great villains in Star Wars TV. Perhaps the strongest of the bunch, and the best since Kylo Ren, was deemed so as they managed to subvert a frustrating trend that has persevered since Disney acquired Star Wars in 2012.
The Acolyte’s The Stranger Was Unapologetically A Sith
The villain in question was Qimir/The Stranger from The Acolyte. The Acolyte is undoubtedly Star Wars‘ most divisive show, but many would agree that The Stranger was the best part of it. Manny Jacinto’s performance was excellent, portraying a bumbling idiot with a secret identity as an unapologetic Sith Lord.
The Acolyte even revealed ties between The Stranger and one of the most well-known, if underexplored, Sith Lords in the franchise: Star Wars’ Darth Plagueis. Plagueis trained Palpatine himself before the prequel trilogy, with implications that The Stranger also learned under the mysterious figure.
The Stranger even states that the Jedi of the High Republic era would call him a Sith for his practice of the dark side of the Force. Since Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm, the word “Sith” has rarely been used to describe the main villains of most Star Wars projects. The Acolyte unequivocally changed this via The Stranger, as well as the inclusion of Darth Plagueis.
Why Disney’s Star Wars Avoided The Sith For So Long
The question this raises is exactly why Disney’s Star Wars avoided using outright Sith for as long as it did. Of course, the sequel trilogy introduced Kylo Ren, who, despite idolizing Sith like Darth Vader, was never crowned one himself. The other enforcers of the First Order were not Sith, unlike the prequels’ secondary villains, such as Maul or Tyrannus/Dooku, but were instead Knights of Ren.
Darth Vader and the Emperor did appear in a show like Star Wars Rebels, but the main villains of that show were either Star Wars’ Inquisitors, dark side users who were distinct from the Sith Order, or Imperial tacticians like Grand Admiral Thrawn. The Bad Batch then used more Imperial leaders as its villains, as did The Mandalorian and Andor.
Ahsoka used “dark Jedi” like Baylan Skoll and Shin Hati alongside Thrawn, and so on. Clearly, Disney was against using Sith in its Star Wars projects for so long, with only really Obi-Wan Kenobi doing so, though not without another major Inquisitor villain in Reva. As for why Disney avoided using the Sith, it was likely to distance its Star Wars projects from the controversy of the prequels.
Although the prequel era has undergone a period of revisionism recently, George Lucas’ entire decision to sell Lucasfilm to Disney was based on the overwhelming criticism, hatred, and vitriol aimed at him and the franchise after the divisive prequel trilogy. Immediately, Disney sought to revert to a version of Star Wars that was unanimously loved.
The sequels were more akin to the originals, and Star Wars Rebels replaced The Clone Wars. Star Wars began moving towards a version of the franchise that would seemingly unite the fanbase once more, meaning a move away from the Sith. After all, the prequel trilogy and adjacent stories were undoubtedly where the Sith were explored the most.
In fact, the word “Sith” is not used once in the original Star Wars trilogy. It was only the prequels’ introduction of the Sith hierarchy and The Clone Wars’ exploration of that which delved deeper into the Jedi Order’s antithesis.
In moving away from the prequels and back to the era of the Empire, or First Order, where the sequels are concerned, Disney put distance between controversial Star Wars stories. This also meant that the Sith took a back seat in favor of Imperials, First Order officers, Knights of Ren, Inquisitors, and many more Sith-like villains, but none that were truly Dark Lords of Star Wars.
The Acolyte’s Sith Story Was Not Without Problems
This made The Acolyte‘s story involving The Stranger and Darth Plagueis the first Disney project to promise an actual Sith story. Obi-Wan Kenobi included Darth Vader, yes, but even then, it was set before the original trilogy, thus making Vader more the head enforcer of the Empire than a deep dive into Sith culture.
This gave Star Wars something it had been lacking for a while, but that does not mean it was without its problems. Most of these problems were not with the show itself, but with Disney’s premature cancellation of The Acolyte. This meant that the teases of The Stranger’s Sith upbringing and how that tied to Plagueis would not be explored further.
As it was left, Star Wars had an unfinished story that didn’t answer what Plagueis’ goal was, how he eventually came to train Palpatine, where The Stranger fit into all that, and how it all happened without the Jedi being made aware that the Sith were not extinct, as they thought in the prequels.
Future seasons of The Acolyte would undoubtedly have answered these questions, but Disney canceled the show amid its controversial response and a lack of viewership. Therefore, despite the excitement around more Sith stories and how good a villain The Stranger was, the story still had problems.
Will The Stranger Return After The Acolyte’s Cancellation?
The question now turns to whether The Stranger will ever return after The Acolyte was canceled. In live-action storytelling, it is admittedly unlikely that he will. The reaction to The Acolyte and its subsequent cancellation means that Disney’s return to that era and those stories is doubtful.
However, The Stranger could well return in books or comic books that outline his story. This has typically been the way Star Wars has further explored stories that did not get to play out on-screen, be it the printed adaptations of some Clone Wars arcs or old Legends stories that carried on concepts that were started by George Lucas.
In film or TV, though, The Stranger’s return is unlikely. This is a shame, as his Sith ways and ties to an exciting character like Darth Plagueis were what many actually wanted from The Acolyte. Ultimately, Disney Star Wars‘ first Sith villain in years broke a frustrating trend, only with the equally frustrating reality that we likely won’t get to see how his story pans out.
- Release Date
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2024 – 2024-00-00
- Showrunner
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Leslye Headland
- Directors
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Leslye Headland, Alex Garcia Lopez
- Writers
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Leslye Headland, Charmaine De Grate, Kor Adana
