Lucasfilm’s new Star Wars series The Acolyte has earned praise for simply existing outside of the Skywalker Saga — after 47 years of stories set in the same stretch of timeline, a jump back “100 years before the rise of the Empire” to the shinier High Republic era is enough for aching Star Wars fans. But even with a prohibitively old setting and a cast of characters divorced from Anakin and Luke, The Acolyte creator Leslye Headland is still finding ways to pepper the drama with Easter eggs. Episode 4 gave those in the know a whopper: Plo Koon.
Plo Koon, the Kel Dor Jedi known for his chic oxygen mask, first appeared in scenes of the Jedi council in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace and grew into a fan favorite when he took on an action role in Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Plo’s biggest fan might be The Clone Wars creator Dave Filoni, who has made his passion for the B-tier Jedi extremely clear to the Star Wars fandom over the last 20 years, having cosplayed at conventions as the Jedi, snapped photos with fellow cosplayers, and showed off his Plo Koon toy collection on social media. His “personal life” section on Wookieepedia is entirely facts about his Plo Koon collectibles. Despite him being one or two levels removed from a Glup Shitto, Dave Filoni is all in on Plo Koon.
I believe 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 part in the The Clone Wars, there were plans to cast an actor who sounded like Toshiro Mifune in Seven Samurai to give the Jedi a samurai feel. But Lucas thought the character was goofier than that and wanted a Jim Carrey type. Filoni landed on actor James Arnold Taylor because of his Gandalf vibes. The Lucas-versus-Filoni Plo-off doesn’t end there; at Star Wars Celebration 2023, Filoni admitted that he made the case to his boss that Plo Koon, due to #skillz, obviously would have survived Order 66. Lucas shot down the canon alteration request, but Filoni stands by his defense.
None of this was relevant to The Acolyte… until now. For a split second, standing in a drop shop with Osha on their way to meet the Wookiee Jedi Kelnacca, is a blink-and-you’ll-miss-him appearance by Plo Koon, who has not actually appeared in live action since Revenge of the Sith. How could Plo be alive during the High Republic era? That’s very human of you to ask, but just like Yoda, he is technically old enough to be around kicking; nerd number-crunching based on decanonized Legends materials puts him around 382 years old during the time of The Clone Wars, which should make him already a seasoned veteran of the Jedi in The Acolyte.
For a hot second, it sounded like Filoni may have snuck his guy into The Mandalorian. Leaks hinted at a potential reveal in the season 2 finale, but as it turned out, early storyboards and VFX footage were all an elaborate scheme to hide the return of a de-aged Luke Skywalker. “All it takes is one person treating the film in color correction, one person who goes on social media and says, ‘Guess what I saw today?’” Mark Hamill said in the Disney Gallery making-of doc centered on the episode. What no one seemed to care about at the time was how mad Filoni’s fellow Plo Koonheads must have felt!
Technically, The Acolyte is one of the few Star Wars projects that Dave Filoni does not seem directly involved with; he doesn’t share any writing or directing credits on the series, nor does he hold a general producer credit. (By all accounts, his attention is fully on Ahsoka season 2.) And maybe it’s THE Plo Koon. In theory this unnamed Jedi is just another Force-sensitive Kel Dor.
But c’mon, it’s Plo Koon. And it makes sense why Headland would want the cameo. As the showrunner has said, she purposefully set up her writers room to represent a broad spectrum of Star Wars fandoms and surrounded herself with people who could bring their own Easter egg wishlists to the table. So while longtime fans may have prayed at the altar of George Lucas, others involved were weaned on The Clone Wars — and Filoni’s pro-Plo brand of fandom. So it’s no surprise that The Acolyte would find ways to nod to the OT, the prequels, and even the cartoons that have little in common with its world: If you are on the right side of Star Wars history, you make room for Plo Koon.
Correction: A previous version of this story stated that Plo Koon last appeared in live-action in The Phantom Menace, but his final live-action appearance was in Revenge of the Sith. We’ve edited the article to reflect this.
