Disney’s Tales of the Jedi have a unique opportunity to replicate the impact of Star Wars: The Clone Wars on Anakin Skywalker (Matt Lanter) for another critical character: Count Dooku (Corey Burton, as of The Clone Wars). The spin-off series, which ran from 2008-2014 in its original capacity, and then again from February to May 2020, delved into the period originally covered by a single movie in the prequel trilogy. Over time, the series grew to critical acclaim for both its writing and voice acting, becoming a pillar of the Star Wars series.
Disney+ is set to release another animated series in the same vein as The Clone Wars. While The Clone Wars covered the wartime period just before the original Star Wars trilogy, Tales of the Jedi will cover periods alternating between Ahsoka Tano’s (Ashley Eckstein) life before and during the war, as well as Count Dooku’s time training as a Jedi. For both of these series, each serves as a precursor to important villains that appear during the franchise at large, showing both Anakin and Count Dooku before they fell to the dark side.
During The Clone Wars, Disney was able to engender respect and affection for Anakin as a Jedi, taking greater time than the prequel movies were able to provide, to depict him as the war hero and master that he was. Tales of the Jedi now has a similar opportunity to show Count Dooku as not just Palpatine’s henchman while he groomed Anakin, but also as a great Jedi Knight himself. In both cases, these series allow, audiences to become familiar with the characters that were lost, adding tragedy and nuance to both Anakin and, presumably, Count Dooku.
Tales of the Jedi Could Make Count Dooku Better
While viewing The Clone Wars, audiences were able to spend so much time with Anakin, Obi-Wan Kenobi (James Arnold Taylor), Ahsoka, and the clone troopers (Dee Bradley Baker), creating emotional depth forged through war for all involved. Having seen Anakin nurture Ahsoka, lead and protect the clones, and work with Obi-Wan throughout seven seasons gave audiences the chance to truly care about Anakin beyond his portrayal in the prequel movies, which met with a mixed reception. This connection impacted how Anakin was seen throughout both the original and the prequel trilogy retroactively, making Anakin’s fall more tragic due to the knowledge of how he was throughout The Clone Wars series.
Count Dooku will have the opportunity to mimic this experience in Tales of the Jedi. In the prequel movies and The Clone Wars series, Count Dooku, as Darth Tyranus, was only ever seen as a series villain at best, a precursor to Darth Vader. Chancellor Palpatine (Ian Abercrombie, Tim Curry, Ian McDiarmid) certainly treated Count Dooku as such as he put his time and effort into becoming close with Anakin and laying preparations for Order 66. But Tales of the Jedi can show viewers Count Dooku in his prime, making him not just a pre-Darth Vader henchman, but a hero in his own right before he falls to the dark side. Hopefully, Disney is smart enough to utilize the same kind of sympathetic storytelling in Tales of the Jedi that worked so effectively in Star Wars: The Clone Wars.