Star Wars Celebration: Tales of the Jedi

Television

Star Wars Celebration has finally brought us an explanation for the mysterious project entitled Tales of the Jedi. Tales of the Jedi used to be a series of comic books in the EU, but chatter arose surrounding the title when Lucasfilm gifted some of their employees record players inscribed with it and several already-announced shows. The anthology series will consist of six animated short films following Ahsoka Tano, Count Dooku, and Qui-Gon Jinn. Liam Neeson is returning to voice Jinn, and his son Michael will voice a younger version of the character. New designs for a youthful Count Dooku before he left the Order were displayed, and one of Ahsoka’s episodes – titled “Life and Death” – was shown at the convention. 

Tales of the Jedi will follow various characters across different animated shorts, including Count Dooku and Ahsoka. pic.twitter.com/4phkbz4IzD

— Star Wars Holocron @ SWCA (@sw_holocron) May 28, 2022

This is far and away the most exciting new series announced at Celebration. I wish there were more episodes and that they were full-length, but this sounds incredible! I’m excited to see some of Qui-Gon’s exploits before training Obi-Wan; heck, knowing he can’t die in this is exciting. We could get a lot of him in the Dooku episodes, especially since they’re including a younger version of him. I had heard that Tales of the Jedi would be animated in the same art style as The Clone Wars and The Bad Batch, but that doesn’t seem to be the case from the images of Count Dooku. I love this new design for him; it looks very much like Christopher Lee, especially the beardless version. I assume he will be voiced by Corey Burton, who provided his line reading for the Clone Wars TV series; Lee played him in the 2008 premiere movie. I love the Clone Wars art style, but Dooku is one character who never looked quite right. I see this as a significant improvement, a tribute to the actor. I’m excited to see his days as a Jedi, which are only alluded to in the films and previous series. The design for young Qui-Gon Jinn looks good too, and I can’t wait to see it in motion. Qui-Gon only featured very briefly in The Clone Wars, and only as a Force Ghost, of course. 

Dave Filoni said (skip to 00:55) he came up with these stories while working on The Mandalorian. Although they are prequel-era and concern characters that appear in The Clone Wars, they didn’t fit in with the 7th and final season of that show. The series is being scored by Kevin Kiner and will have very little dialogue; that reminds me of the Clone Wars microseries from the early 2000s, and that’s exciting. This announcement also seems to confirm that Matt Lanter has been working on another Star Wars animated project. In short, it’s a good time to be a Star Wars animation fan. When I saw the screenshots from the Ahsoka episode they played at the con, I thought her mother was her, and I was confused about who the baby was. They did an excellent job designing her mom; upon further inspection, I can tell it’s a different character, but the familial resemblance is definitely there. 

Who are you the most excited to see in Tales of the Jedi? Would you like the series to expand into other time periods? Let us know in the comments!