At D23 over the weekend, Disney unleashed a new wave of trailers and information about their upcoming projects. Among them is an animated Star Wars series called Tales of the Jedi, an anthology show centered around different Jedi from the prequel era and before. Disney+ subscribers will be able to stream Tales of the Jedi on October 26. Check out the trailer below:
What is Tales of the Jedi about?
Tales of the Jedi was created by Dave Filoni, one of the masterminds behind Star Wars Rebels, The Clone Wars and The Mandalorian. The show’s first season will feature six episodes and will tell new stories about characters like Ahsoka Tano and Count Dooku.
Dooku
Most people remember Count Dooku as the Sith villain from the Star Wars prequel series, but Tales of the Jedi will feature a story about him back when he was still a good guy. Not a whole lot is known about Dooku from this period; he came from a wealthy family and at some point struggled to stay on the path of the Jedi. I think he is the perfect character to focus on in this show because he had just 11 minutes of screen time in the prequels. Although he appears extensively in The Clone Wars, he is kind of reduced to a mustache-twirling generic bad guy in that show.
Hopefully Tales of the Jedi can channel Christopher Lee’s captivating performance and show a different side of this character. The trailer seems to indicate a deep inner struggle similar to what Anakin Skywalker went through (except Dooku’s turn to the Dark Side took decades). The trailer also shows glimpses of a young Qui-Gon Jinn when he was Dooku’s apprentice. We will finally get to see what kind of relationship the two shared and how Dooku’s disillusionment with the Jedi order impacted Qui-Gon’s journey.
Ideally, we would also get to see Dooku’s point of no return. He has a lightsaber fight with the Jedi Yaddle in the trailer, but it’s unclear whether this is a training exercise or a real battle. We do know that Yaddle only appears in The Phantom Menace, so it could make sense for Dooku to kill her, perhaps as one of his first villainous acts.
Ahsoka Tano
Don’t get me wrong: I love Ahsoka Tano. Her character transformation is up there with Vader’s arc. The reason I’m disappointed they chose Ahsoka for this show is because she is already getting her own live-action series. She was also one of the main characters in The Clone Wars, played a prominent role in Rebels and appeared in The Mandalorian. Do we really need to see how her village figured out she was a Jedi? They probably figured it out when she started using telekinesis. I guess Dave Filoni seems to think there is more about Ahsoka’s past worth exploring, so we’ll see how it turns out.
I just think that there’s a huge number of Jedi who need fleshing out more than Ahsoka. It will be cool to see how Master Plo Koon finds her and brings her to the temple, but I fear his appearance onscreen will make me think “why didn’t they dedicate three episodes to that guy?”
But I digress. There must be a good reason Ahsoka was chosen so hopefully we get some new information or something that teases her new show. I think Tales of the Jedi has a bright future. It will start streaming on Disney+ on October 26.
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