The Acolyte Episode 3 / Force Baby Controversy

Editor's Note: This entry contains spoilers for The Acolyte; read at your own caution.

Overview

The Acolyte Episode 3 Controversy, also known as The Acolyte Force Baby Controversy, revolves around the third episode of the Disney+ original series The Acolyte, in which a group of force-wielding lesbian witches use the universe's iconic power to conceive the two main characters of the show. The episode itself created a large amount of controversy within the Star Wars fandom, with many calling it out on things that seem to break previously established canon, as well as being perceived as very far removed from all prior Star Wars shows in terms of tone and plot.

Background

Prior to the episode's release in June 2024, many fans who claimed to have been part of the test audience or seen leaks of the show had said that episode three of The Acolyte would be divisive among fans.

On June 1st, 2024, film and show reviewer @mypalal^[1] posted a QRT on X / Twitter claiming that episode 3 of the show would finally kill the franchise for pre-Disney Star Wars fans, sparking early arguments over the premise of the show two weeks before the episode released (shown below).

On June 11th, the episode premiered on Disney+. Shortly after its debut, many fans were already picking out parts of it and posting online to either trash or call attention to certain things that happened.

The X account for the content creator @Nerdrotics^[2] uploaded a video from the Witches chant, simply captioning it with a laugh and pointing out how Star Wars is different now with Disney at the helm, earning over 6.5 million views in two days (shown below).

Online Reactions

As more people watched the episode, further reactions to the "Force Baby Conception" began to be posted online across various sites and platforms.

For example, on June 12th, 2024, the X account @XwingsHangar^[3] created a post in which he openly lamented the direction that Star Wars had taken and wondered what went wrong behind the scenes to allow for the show to be made. The post, along with a video contrasting the fight between Revan and Darth Malak to the Witch Force Conception scene, earned over 284,000 views in one day (shown below).

Moving on from the topic of the "force baby," fans began to note that the series is unusually expensive, with each episode reportedly costing between $22 and $25 million. This was called out by fans as a way of increasing the amount of scrutiny the series should be getting, with X user @TheBugleDaily1^[4] pointing toward the film Godzilla Minus One as costing less than that while being generally well received by fans of both Godzilla and monster films, earning over 350,000 views in less than a day (shown below).

Search Interest

External References