So, yeah, The Acolyte is Star Wars written from a feminist perspective, and that's the way it's intended to be interpreted.
I personally wouldn't call it feminist leaning in nature. ( But we can all agree to disagree on that point )
Lucas set up the Prequel Trilogy where Qui Gonn basically made up new rules for himself as he went along. Just did what he wanted. Then later, despite realizing Anakin is a threat, the Council, mostly Yoda, allows young Anakin to train as a way to honor Qui Gonn's last wishes. Again, despite centuries of rules and standards, just making it up as they went a long. Nothing stoic nor pragmatic about it, just emotional, reactionary and impulsive.
IMHO Lucas gave us emotionally driven passive aggressive Beta male Jedi. Which had no bearing on their samurai inspiration/origins. So Headland just stayed the course - the Jedi, especially Sol, were emotionally driven passive aggressive Beta males. I wouldn't say that's feminism centric as much as it denotes the current industry trend of making women more hyper masculine and men more Beta oriented to blend out the differences between the two.
Complex compact efficient character dynamics needs a push/pull of complementary and competitive interplay. It's OK if Han, Luke and Leia often disagree and each have their own faults, but you also need to see how their individual strengths actually support each other in growth and uplift the success of the collective altogether. Part of the current struggle with Star Wars characters IMHO is there are no longer any complementary dynamics in play anymore. Why would the writers do that now? It would detract from having the women in the show, on any Star Wars show, as the dominant figure in the interaction. Where I draw the distinction is overt feminism in mass entertainment truly reveals itself when it covets. Real feminism doesn't take bloom in character development until an archetype untamed male is created that they can't stop thinking about but pretend that they despise.
Current Star Wars is IMHO written from the perspective of the aggrieved passive aggressive overly emotional reactionary non working class Beta male.
But it's what Lucas gave everyone through the Prequel Trilogy. Sol isn't that much of a deviation. He's limp wristed in nature, but then again all the Jedi outside of the Holy Trilogy were limp wristed in nature ( One could argue that without Kershner's massive influence in Empire, the entire franchise surrounding the Jedi would have spun out much faster)
As for what Headland has said in interviews, she's an industry mercenary. She worked for Harvey, that's one thing, but she survived him, that's another. She'll say what is needed to 'play the game', and tragically the game is about identity politics and pseudo intersectional agendas getting pumped into the various shows. I wouldn't take anything Headland says all that seriously. One of the main tension points I see is what happened IMHO very closely with Anne Rice. At some point, she became too famous, too wealthy, too "important" and she lost all basic touch with a working class readership across the country. This is a bane with modern mass entertainment now, it's created, produced and developed by people who aren't struggling to live check to check. By people who aren't cleaning their own toilets. By folks who aren't clipping coupons every weekend.
Part of the struggle to hold onto the audience now is the open disdain for basic working class viewers. Lucas just didn't get old and lose his fastball, he lost the ability to touch grass with the large part of the fandom that's about two paychecks away from being homeless.
I appreciate The Acolyte. It's remarkably faithful to how badly Lucas set fire to his own lore. What kind of industry self righteous narcissists try to shame countless millions of fans around the world for loving what they loved as kids? The same ones who want to spit on you for committing the crime of living paycheck to paycheck. Kathleen Kennedy hears all your complaints, laughs in all your faces when she sees your Star Wars preorder lists, then decides she's going to keep spitting on you.
, change character genders, etc. And of course this piggy-backing always has the "new" characters as "better" and more unique e.g. snowflakes.
Some stuff like Sol just got weird, attempted comedy failed, then there's the trope "falling for the bad boy" who murdered all your friends.
The question is, how long can KK, Disney, Feige, etc. dodge reality? It doesn't get more real than your stock tanking.
