Review: ‘Tales of the Jedi’ Is Some of the Best Animated ‘Star Wars’ Content in Years
Dave Filoni returns to Star Wars animation with Tales of the Jedi, a new anthology animated series of shorts that is now available to stream on Disney Plus. In its six episodes, we see how Ahsoka Tano became a Jedi Knight, from her literal birth to her going into exile as the Empire begins its reign over the galaxy, and how Dooku became Darth Tyrannus after realizing that the political system of the galaxy was letting more people down than it was helping.
Overall, the series delivered upon its promise of giving us meaningful Star Wars stories in a short format. While it features the return of two fan-favorite characters in Ahsoka and Dooku, and also the return of Filoni himself to the medium he dedicated the better part of his life to, the true MVP of the series is composer Kevin Kiner, who arguably delivered the best work he’s ever done for Star Wars animation. While the composers that worked on the live-action Disney Plus series so far have been top-notch, particularly Ludwig Göransson and Nicholas Britell, I really hope Kiner gets his hands on one of those soon — The Acolyte sounds like a perfect candidate for that! With all of that said, let’s dive in.
Spoilers for Tales of the Jedi ahead…
There is a lot going on in Tales of the Jedi, no doubt about it. As usual, Dave Filoni taught us lessons about the Force and Star Wars in general. In the first episode, we see how Ahsoka is able to tame a giant creature very shortly after she was born — as described at Star Wars Celebration by Dave Filoni, this short is posing a simple question. Is she using the Force, or was she just not afraid? But are those really two different questions? This was a cute episode, but I think what worked the best about it is the introduction to the overall concept of the series. These will be (beautifully) animated shorts that will deliver a message or pose a question to the audience about a specific adventure that either Ahsoka or Dooku went on.
We meet Ahsoka again in the fifth episode, where she is now training under Anakin’s guidance. She has no problem fighting against training droids, even under the most complicated conditions, but Anakin isn’t having any of it. We initially think he might be a bit jealous, but this is not the case — he’s being overly cautious, trying to protect her from the dangers ahead by teaching her how to be better, relentlessly. The best part of the episode comes when, after Ahsoka is defeated over and over again, and Anakin gives his inspirational speech, we cut away to another training in the future. She’s now been five minutes undefeated, but she still hasn’t fully mastered her abilities. Even as we cut to the Siege of Mandalore arc at the end, Rex and Ahsoka aren’t sure she will be able to fight her way through it, because nobody ever ceases to learn. All we can do is prepare ourselves as best as possible. It’s a beautiful message to parents and sons/daughters out there, and the overall theme of Star Wars in disguise — it’s alright to be afraid of what the future may lay ahead of you because nobody is ever truly ready. A simple but beautiful episode that easily became my favorite of the three Ahsoka episodes.
Last but not least on the Ahsoka arc, we have her going off against an unnumbered Inquisitor after a member of the village she was working as a mechanic in ratted her out. The best part of the episode was definitely when the villain appeared on screen, and their (short) fight was definitely one of the highlights of the series for me, but overall, I wasn’t invested in the rest of the characters, so when she decides to call Bail Organa and save them, I didn’t much care. The confrontation between Bail and Ahsoka at the beginning of the episode was really cool, though.
However, the true highlight of the series was the Dooku arc, in particular the second episode. Clearly, the fourth one is the one everybody will be talking about, but my favorite was the second one. In Justice, Dooku and a young Qui-Gon get to travel to a post-apocalyptical planet, where the locals have kidnapped their Senator’s son to try to grab his attention once and for all. Dooku, as a representative of the Republic, asks the obvious question. Why not elect a new Senator? The answer is clearly not that simple.
The Clone Wars, as well as the prequels, worked best when they showed how the political system in place was actually doing more harm than good. With such a centralized system and an upper class that lives on a few planets, it’s obvious that many worlds will be left out quickly, and with that hierarchy in place, people in power will always crave more, leaving those in need to take care of themselves. The Jedi Council, as members of that upper class and inhabitants of those planets, can’t ever realize this unless their attention is called for. Dooku realized this, and his blindness over what the Jedi Council should be really focused on quickly turns to rage against the corrupt Senator, the symbol of what he most fears. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to suffering.
We’ve always known that Qui-Gon’s death was the key that allowed Darth Sidious to finally move forward with his plan. The Duel of the Fates in The Phantom Menace is, as Filoni has described it before, a fight to the death over the destiny of nine-year-old Anakin Skywalker. And while Obi-Wan came out on top, the argument could be made that Maul won that fight simply because he defeated Qui-Gon, the one that could have prevented Anakin’s fall. This episode sets up perfectly why that would have been the case, as he was the one that stopped Dooku from going one step too far.
It’s interesting, though, that Lucasfilm made such a splash when they announced that young Qui-Gon would be voiced by Liam Neeson’s son, and that Neeson himself would voice older Qui-Gon — in actuality, the former had less than a dozen lines in his episode, and the latter was in just one scene in episode four.
In the second episode, we saw how Dooku’s fear led to anger. We see in the third one how his anger over the death of one of his own leads to hate, as he is on the edge of collapse next to a young Mace Windu, who was apparently not in the Jedi Council yet. (The third episode was probably my least favorite of the series.) And finally, in the fourth episode, hate led to suffering. After the cold open, we see him in pieces over Qui-Gon’s death. His suffering. But soon, it will be someone else’s. It’s interesting how in three short episodes, we were able to follow Dooku’s fall into the Dark Side perhaps even better than Anakin’s in the three prequels. Obviously, we missed quite a bit of nuance, but I would even argue that we got a lot of subtlety from Dooku in these three episodes.
In the fourth episode, we finally see the realization of a moment many had been expecting. Yaddle, looking better than she ever dreamed of, was killed after the events of The Phantom Menace, and Filoni, I mean Dooku, was holding the lightsaber. I’ve always loved seeing all of these moments that are simultaneous to the events of the movies that give us further insight into what’s happening in the galaxy overall — this is the case for the Mandalore Siege in The Clone Wars, where we got to see what Anakin and Obi-Wan were up to in addition to everything else going on, the entire book of Lost Stars, and even the short moment in the fifth episode before Rex fake-turns Ahsoka in.
There were a lot of parallels between The Sith Lord and the third act of Revenge of the Sith, and I think it worked great in that regard. The overall story and everything else going on were very solid, and to a degree hurtful to watch, but the best part of this episode was Kevin Kiner’s work to me, who elevated it to its full potential. I particularly loved the moment when Yaddle lifts the giant door right before dying, showing that she wasn’t gonna run away.
The choice of having Yaddle here was certainly very interesting. On the one hand, it brought an extra layer of danger, rightfully so, to the episode. We, as the audience, don’t know what happens to her after this point, so everything is on the table. And we are right to think that way. At the same time, this is a character we’ve only seen once and we are listening to her speak for the first time. (Bryce Dallas Howard was hardly recognizable to me personally, I would have never guessed it was her if it hadn’t been announced in advance.) I am not particularly attached to her, so it’s more about my investment in Dooku and seeing his turn from Jedi Knight to Sith Lord than anything else.
Overall, Tales of the Jedi is a massive win for Lucasfilm and Disney Plus. After three short episodes, I am absolutely ready to call for a full animated series to capture Dooku’s turn to the Dark Side. Anyone with me? Let us know in the comments!
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as movies from Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
