Star Wars: The Acolyte’s greatest, weirdest Easter egg is Jedi Plo Koon

Lucasfilm’s new Star Wars sequence The Acolyte has earned reward for merely current exterior of the Skywalker Saga — after 47 years of tales set in the identical stretch of timeline, a leap again “100 years earlier than the rise of the Empire” to the shinier Excessive Republic period is sufficient for aching Star Wars followers. However even with a prohibitively outdated setting and a forged of characters divorced from Anakin and Luke, The Acolyte creator Leslye Headland continues to be discovering methods to pepper the drama with Easter eggs. Episode 4 gave these within the know a whopper: Plo Koon.

Plo Koon, the Kel Dor Jedi identified for his stylish oxygen masks, first appeared in scenes of the Jedi council in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace and grew right into a fan favourite when he took on an motion function in Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Plo’s greatest fan is perhaps The Clone Wars creator Dave Filoni, who has made his ardour for the B-tier Jedi extraordinarily clear to the Star Wars fandom over the past 20 years, having cosplayed at conventions because the Jedi, snapped images with fellow cosplayers, and confirmed off his Plo Koon toy assortment on social media. His “private life” part on Wookieepedia is totally info about his Plo Koon collectibles. Regardless of him being one or two ranges faraway from a Glup Shitto, Dave Filoni is all in on Plo Koon.

I imagine Filoni when he says he has talked extensively about Plo Koon with George Lucas. Reportedly, when the animator was pushing to beef up Plo’s half within the The Clone Wars, there have been plans to forged an actor who seemed like Toshiro Mifune in Seven Samurai to present the Jedi a samurai really feel. However Lucas thought the character was goofier than that and wished a Jim Carrey kind. Filoni landed on actor James Arnold Taylor due to his Gandalf vibes. The Lucas-versus-Filoni Plo-off doesn’t finish there; at Star Wars Celebration 2023, Filoni admitted that he made the case to his boss that Plo Koon, on account of #skillz, clearly would have survived Order 66. Lucas shot down the canon alteration request, however Filoni stands by his protection.

None of this was related to The Acolyte… till now. For a cut up second, standing in a drop store with Osha on their solution to meet the Wookiee Jedi Kelnacca, is a blink-and-you’ll-miss-him look by Plo Koon, who has not truly appeared in stay motion since Revenge of the Sith. How may Plo be alive in the course of the Excessive Republic period? That’s very human of you to ask, however similar to Yoda, he’s technically sufficiently old to be round kicking; nerd number-crunching primarily based on decanonized Legends supplies places him round 382 years outdated in the course of the time of The Clone Wars, which ought to make him already a seasoned veteran of the Jedi in The Acolyte.

For a sizzling second, it seemed like Filoni could have snuck his man into The Mandalorian. Leaks hinted at a possible reveal within the season 2 finale, however because it turned out, early storyboards and VFX footage had been all an elaborate scheme to cover the return of a de-aged Luke Skywalker. “All it takes is one individual treating the movie in colour correction, one one that goes on social media and says, ‘Guess what I noticed in the present day?’” Mark Hamill stated within the Disney Gallery making-of doc centered on the episode. What nobody appeared to care about on the time was how mad Filoni’s fellow Plo Koonheads will need to have felt!

Technically, The Acolyte is without doubt one of the few Star Wars tasks that Dave Filoni doesn’t appear immediately concerned with; he doesn’t share any writing or directing credit on the sequence, nor does he maintain a common producer credit score. (By all accounts, his consideration is totally on Ahsoka season 2.) And possibly it’s THE Plo Koon. In principle this unnamed Jedi is simply one other Pressure-sensitive Kel Dor.

However c’mon, it’s Plo Koon. And it is smart why Headland would need the cameo. Because the showrunner has stated, she purposefully arrange her writers room to characterize a broad spectrum of Star Wars fandoms and surrounded herself with individuals who may carry their very own Easter egg wishlists to the desk. So whereas longtime followers could have prayed on the altar of George Lucas, others concerned had been weaned on The Clone Wars — and Filoni’s pro-Plo model of fandom. So it’s no shock that The Acolyte would discover methods to nod to the OT, the prequels, and even the cartoons which have little in widespread with its world: If you’re on the correct aspect of Star Wars historical past, you make room for Plo Koon.

Correction: A earlier model of this story acknowledged that Plo Koon final appeared in live-action in The Phantom Menace, however his ultimate live-action look was in Revenge of the Sith. We’ve edited the article to mirror this.