Disney recently released two action sequences to tease the debut of its Disney+ streaming show The Acolyte . One shows Indara, the character played by Carrie-Ann Moss, trading blows with Amanda Steinberg’s character, Mae.
The other clip shows Sol, the character played by Squid Game’s Lee Jung-Jae, once again up against Mae.
But something feels off here. At least Sol and Indara are clearly Jedi, so I’m kinda baffled that they’re keeping their lightsabers off when possibly up against an assassin of Jedi. It’s very strange that they’re only resorting to their fists, martial arts, and the force. I get that they might just be testing Mae, or trying to extract intel out of her since this is Star Wars’ detective story, but there’s a funnier possibility.
The reason behind this new Jedi approach to battle might be one of the most infamous Star Wars games ever made. I’m talking about Star Wars: Masters of Teräs Käsi.
The old ways
What’s that, you ask? Well, Teräs Käsi isn’t just a Star Wars gibberish word. It’s a Finnish word that means “Steel Hand”. If that sounds a lot like the “Iron Fist” tournament from Tekken, it’s because someone at LucasArts at some point apparently had the dream of making a fighting game that would rival Tekken. Their dream turned into a meme.
Even though LucasArts was on a roll back then, Masters Of Teräs Käsi is still known as one of the worst fighting games of all time. Not only are the controls bad and the mechanics pretty much non-existent, but the game doesn’t even make sense in the world of Star Wars.
The main character is Arden Lyn, an original character who wears a fist literally made of steel, and also uses a martial art named Teräs Käsi to beat his opponents. That’s very convenient and cool, too bad that Lyn’s opponents are people like Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, two dudes who know that the best use for a mechanic fist is swinging a lightsaber.
It’s unconfirmed at this moment whether this truly is Teräs Käsi in action, or just a different style of fighting than we’re used to seeing in the Star Wars universe. It seems designed specifically to deal with Jedi, frequently attempting to both remove their main weapon – the lightsaber – and use sneak attacks to gain the upper-hand.
The Teräs Käsi game has been a joke among fans of Star Wars and fighting games in general for over 20 years now, but fist-fighting Jedi might finally be becoming a thing. Why? Well, Disney very transparently said that Indara is heavily based on Trinity, the character Carrie-Anne Moss plays in The Matrix quadrilogy. I guess having Space Trinity showing off her kung fu chops makes more sense as an homage than having her be a Jedi with dual-wielding blasters.
But I’d really like it to be because of that Han Solo movie, the most bizarre film they ever slapped the Star Wars title on, and naturally the only one courageous enough to promote Teräs Käsi into actual Star Wars lore.
The Acolyte comes out on Disney + on June 4 and, despite the bad feeling I have about this, the series has been garnering a lot of positive buzz from early viewers.
