A member of the Jedi High Council is back, but it’s not who you expected. While a Yoda cameo in The Acolyte feels increasingly unlikely, one future council member did appear in “Day,” the 4th episode of the new Disney+ series. Don’t be surprised if you didn’t recognize him; this was a subtle appearance of an obscure character.
When Sol and Vernestra discuss the improbable fact that Mae seems to have been trained by a Master whose identity she doesn’t even know, another Jedi with a very large head says, “An apprentice, who doesn’t know their master? It’s absurd.” And if that comment reminds you of the infamously clunky line, “What about the droid attack on the Wookiees,” it should. Jedi Master Ki-Adi-Mundi has snuck into The Acolyte and caused a weird canon storm.
Who is Ki-Adi-Mundi?
For those who just think of him as the conehead Jedi, Ki-Adi-Mundi was a member of the Cerean species and an (apparently) venerated member of the Jedi Council by the time the prequels began. Now, The Acolyte has retroactively revealed that Ki-Adi-Mundi was an established Jedi a century before the events of The Phantom Menace.
This makes Ki-Adi-Mundi much older than we thought. Technically, this is also a retcon of Star Wars trading cards from 1999, which gave fans the sense that he was a little younger around the time of The Phantom Menace. And in December 1998, Ki-Adi-Mundi got his own adventure in a Dark Horse prequel-to-the-prequel comic book series subtitled “Prelude to a Rebellion.” He took on a Tusken Raider apprentice, teamed up with a mysterious Jedi, and helped track down an infamous bounty hunter. But none of this has been canon since 2014, and had tentative canonicity even back then. Still, it raises a few questions about what Ki-Adi-Mundi’s appearance in The Acolyte means.
Did Ki-Adi-Mundi know about the Sith?
Because Ki-Adi-Mundi is present for this fretful discussion about Mae’s master in The Acolyte, fans may wonder why he so confidently declared, “The Sith have been extinct for a millennium” in The Phantom Menace. But at no point in this conversation does anyone suggest a Sith Lord trained Mae. A Sith reveal may be coming, but Ki-Adi-Mundi might not witness it. Maybe the affair gets hushed up... or maybe the Sith actually have nothing to do with this at all.
Regardless, all that’s really changed here is that we’ve learned Ki-Adi-Mundi has been embedded in the Jedi’s bureaucracy for a very long time, and it seems he’s always been a naysayer. He’s probably not anyone’s favorite Jedi, but The Acolyte has reminded us that sometimes you need a random cranky Jedi to help move the story along. In that sense, Ki-Adi-Mundi’s function in The Acolyte is exactly the same as in the prequels: he’s there to make the other Jedi look good.
