The Acolyte Star Manny Jacinto Knows What The Star Wars Franchise Is Missing

Ever since the end of the sequel trilogy, "Star Wars" has been a series of fits and starts. Insanely high highs ("Andor," you can do no wrong) have been matched by low lows (Obi-Wan, what did they do to you my sweet boy?) on basically every occasion. "The Acolyte" was both extremes in one. On one hand, the show struggled with poor pacing, uneven writing, and a production that spent far too much (reported) money just to look ... not great. But then there were the moments where it all came together — fantastic lightsaber fights, interesting thematic ideas, and that one thing "Star Wars" has so often struggled with: It was sexy.

Nearly a year and a half out from "The Acolyte" getting canceled, the less memorable aspects of the show have faded from common memory, leaving the highlights, and the dark side/light side romance designed to launch a hundred tumblr shipping pages is perhaps the greatest things Disney's quick chop took from us.

Manny Jacinto, who played sympathetic dark side murderer Qimir, aka the Stranger, on the show, recently echoed the resounding sentiment of "Acolyte" fans the world over: "Star Wars" needs more romance. In an interview with TV Insider, Jacinto discussed why he loved working on the and the shame that its early cancellation cut short the budding romance between his character and Amandla Stenberg's Osha.

"I feel like with a lot of the franchises that we currently have, it's missing the romance," Jacinto said. "It's missing a lot of love and relationships." And while the "Acolyte" haters out there will continue to whine in misery, the man is absolutely right.

When George Lucas set out to create Star Wars, romance was a central pillar. His primary inspirations — old sci-fi film serials, Arthurian legends, and classic adventure stories — all hold romance at their center. I'm not just referring to love stories between individual characters; romance can be a core piece of the fabric of a story. Pursuing peace, joy, beauty, truth, these are romantic ideas, frequently manifested in these genres by explicitly romantic storylines.

The problem is that Lucas was never quite as adept at writing or directing romance as he was interested in the idea of it. Like any good millennial, I love the prequels with all my heart, but we can all acknowledge the shortcomings there. Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford carried Han and Leia's love story with their natural onscreen charisma, but since then, Star Wars has had an uneven relationship with romance.

This is apparent nowhere more than in the sequel trilogy, where natural chemistry between the characters of Finn and Poe Dameron — shipped to no end by primarily queer fans — was steamrolled into a series of entirely unconvincing romantic side plots with underdeveloped supporting characters. Say what you will about "The Last Jedi," but the Reylo arc goes hard, only to be undone by some of the most anti-sexy material one can write in "The Rise of Skywalker."

"The Acolyte," for all its flaws, was willing to dig its feet into actual romance — the thrill, danger, and seduction of it. And in a sea of middling Star Wars shows (again, not talking about "Andor" here, which, as we all know, is incredibly sexy), Oshamir gave fans something with actual juice to hold onto, only for it to be ripped away.

In his interview with TV Insider, Manny Jacinto lamented that the modern action-adventure franchise too often obsesses over action without investing in real character relationships, romantic or otherwise. "We have the big fight scenes and the origin stories of these heroes and whatnot, but they don't really have a relationship with other people," the actor explained. "It's such a weird thing. And that's why I loved the Qimir and Osha relationship, because we were taking it back to having a relationship in this big world. I think we just need more of that."

To be clear, he isn't even specifically talking about Star Wars here, but the generalized media franchise, which frequently expects "fans" to deploy immense emotional investment in characters and storylines as "brands" but rarely engages in the level of emotional storytelling that warrants that investment. Perhaps, when it's a family-friendly, Disney-owned franchise like Star Wars, or the Marvel Cinematic Universe, there's a fear of vulgarity, but the gap between the two is immense and impossible to cross by accident.

While Oshamir has been lost like so many interesting ideas to Lucasfilm's questionable planning, Star Wars continues on with the same sort of point-at-the-screen Easter-egging that it's always relied on. Zeb Orrelios is on the theatrical poster for "The Mandalorian and Grogu," and half of you don't even know who that is. For those who do, maybe Disney can also bring Kallus back and make amends for never giving us Finnpoe.