When Does "Star Wars: The Acolyte" (2024) Take Place?
"The Acolyte" is a science fiction television series showran by Leslye Headland that first released June 4th, 2024. So when is "The Acolyte" set?
It takes place on the fictional Star Wars timeline in the year:
We know this because ALL the Star Wars franchise stories are simply set “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…”. As stated on Wikipedia, the final scenes of "Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope" (1977) depict a space dogfight and "This battle has become known as the Battle of Yavin, and its date is used as a place-marker for events in the expanded Star Wars universe. Events before the Battle of Yavin are marked by BBY ("Before the Battle of Yavin"), and events that occur after are marked by ABY ("After the Battle of Yavin")."
119 BBY
We know this because ALL the Star Wars franchise stories are simply set “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…”. As stated on Wikipedia, the final scenes of "Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope" (1977) depict a space dogfight and "This battle has become known as the Battle of Yavin, and its date is used as a place-marker for events in the expanded Star Wars universe. Events before the Battle of Yavin are marked by BBY ("Before the Battle of Yavin"), and events that occur after are marked by ABY ("After the Battle of Yavin")."
Episode 1 "Lost / Found" begins with an opening crawl title card that opens with the phrase: "A hundred years before the rise of the Empire", referring to the creation of the Galactic Empire in "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith" (2005), which takes place in 19 BBY. That makes the current year 119 BBY, though this does not seem to be confirmable with context.
-19 - 100 = -119.
This is the system most fans use as it was introduced first. It originates in a 1996 role-playing game. Wookieepedia includes an explanation entry.
There are also two more fictional calendars created for the Star Wars universe in the 2010s. By the CRC or Coruscant reckoning calendar, year 119 ABY is 7858. It's explained on Wookieepedia. By the Lothal Calendar, year 119 ABY is 3158 LY (for Lothal year). It's explained on Wookieepedia.
If you want to read a scientific attempt at making sense of an actual year on the Gregorian calendar when the Star Wars franchise takes place, there's an excellent article at Wired. Taking the "long time ago" part as gospel but recognizing the time it takes for any "galaxy far, far away" to form with stars and solar systems and planets with intelligent lifeforms. The author, Patrick Johnson, can only place it somewhere between 4.7 billion years ago to the more recent past something like 1,000 years ago.
Additionally, episode 3 "Destiny" and episode 7 "Choice" are flashbacks to events described by Jedi Master Sol in episode 1 as "16 years ago," so it must be 135 BBY during these episodes.
-119 - 16 = -135.
It is the third chronologically earliest TV series in the Star Wars universe and can be watched at its timeline point.
