Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi landed on Disney Plus on Wednesday, giving us six CGI animated shorts in the style of The Clone Wars. Half of the stories are devoted to the legendary Jedi Ahsoka Tano (years before her union with The Mandalorian), while the others focus on future Sith Lord Dooku during his time as a Jedi.
They were written by Clone Wars executive producer Dave Filoni, who is currently working on the live-action series Ahsoka, which is slated to hit Disney Plus next year.
They all take place in the prequel era, decades before the events of the original Star Wars film A New Hope (and the current Andor live-action show). Let’s use the Force to dive into the SPOILERS of each episode.
Life and death
On her homeworld of Shili, before the events of The Phantom Menace, baby Ahsoka (Ashley Eckstein) has been taken by a saber-toothed creature and seems doomed. When she instinctively tames him with the Force and rides him back home, the village elder recognizes her power and declares her a Jedi.
We know from The Clone Wars that she was inducted into the Jedi Order by Master Plo Kun and became Anakin Skywalker’s Padawan.
justice
Jedi Master Dooku (Corey Burton) comes close to murdering a corrupt Republican senator after witnessing the suffering of his people. His Padawan Qui-Gon Jinn (Michael Richardsonson of actor Qui-Gon Liam Neeson), manages to save the senator by freeing his kidnapped son, whose love for his father helps Dooku escape.
This takes place years before The Phantom Menace and highlights Dooku’s disillusionment with the Republic (a story also told in audio drama Dooku: Jedi Lost). We can see too Dooku’s blue lightsaberwhich has a great curved handle similar to the one he will use as a sieve.
Elections
Sent to retrieve the body of a dead Jedi along with fellow Master Mace Windu (TC Carson), Dooku takes the mission in a direction that leads to the death of a corrupt senator. He identifies with the rebel group responsible for the incident, reiterating its distrust of the Republic and its control over the Jedi.
Mace is given the fallen Jedi’s seat on the Council, which annoys Dooku. He probably sees him as Mace playing politics to rise in the Order and Republic system, in the years before The Phantom Menace.
Lord of the Sith
This takes place during the events of The Phantom Menace, after encounters with Qui-Gon Darth Maul on Tatooine, but before the return of Naboo. Dooku erases the planet Kamino from the Jedi archives, hiding the plot to create the Clone Army (not to be discovered until another decade, in Attack of the Clones).
He also has his last meeting with Qui-Gon before his former Padawan is killed by Maul.
After Qui-Gon’s death, Jedi Council member Yaddle (Bryce Dallas Howardwho directs episodes on The Mandalorian and The Boba Fett Book) follows Dooku on a secret meeting with Darth Sidious (Ian McDiarmid). Faced with a choice between the Jedi and the Sith when she was discovered, Dooku sided with Sidious, killed Yaddle, and became an apprentice to the Sith Lord, Darth Tyrannus.
This reveals the fate of Yadle, who is of the same species as Yoda and Grogu. Before that, she only appeared briefly in The Phantom Menace and was gone from Attack of the Clones. It is unclear if the Jedi ever discovered her fate.
This episode also suggests that Sidious took advantage of Dooku’s grief over Qui-Gon’s death to lure him fully to the dark side. Ultimately, he will reject Dooku in favor of Anakin Revenge of the Sith.
Practice makes perfect
After the events of The Clone Wars, Anakin (Matt Lanter) takes Ahsoka to a secret training session where she tries to deflect blaster fire from clone troopers for as long as possible before being stunned.
She continued this training during the war and it eventually enabled her survive Order 66in which Sidious makes clone troopers all over the galaxy to kill their Jedi allies.
This episode was the first that Filoni wrote for the series. It also includes a cameo from a young Caleb Dum, a Padawan who would see through the destruction of the Jedi Order. He will take the name Kanan Jarrus and become the Jedi hero of Rebels.
Allow
After the rise of the Galactic Empire (seen in the finale of Revenge of the Sith and the Clone Wars), Ahsoka quietly attends the funeral of Padme on Naboo and future leader of the Rebel Alliance Bale Organa (Phil Lamar) gives her a communicator.
Living hidden in an agricultural world, Ahsoka finds work in agriculture until she reveals her cover by using the Force to save a colleague and draws an Imperial Inquisitor (Clancy Brown) to them.
She kills the Inquisitor with his own a lightsaber with a red blade and connects with Bale to rejoin the fight. Not clear how this fits in 2016 Ashoka novelwhich tells a similar story, but all the contradictions can be explained as an alternative narrative.
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