Star Wars has been stepping up its Disney Plus offerings recently, with Andor impressing fans and more recently with the release of Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi. Tales of the Jedi consists of six animated shorts, animated in the style of Star Wars: The Clone Wars. The series was created by Dave Filoni who worked on The Clone Wars, and created Star Wars Rebels, Star Wars Resistance, and the spinoff of The Clone Wars, Star Wars: The Bad Batch.
Tales of the Jedi is non-linear, skipping time periods to fill in the backstory of both Anakin’s Padawan Ahsoka Tano, and Jedi Master-turned-Sith Lord Count Dooku. The series is split into three episodes following Dooku and three episodes following Ahsoka. Join us as we go through the six shorts and rank them from worst (not that any episode is bad) to best.
6. Episode 3 – “Choices”
The worst short in the series is a Dooku episode, episode three: “Choices”. The episode follows Jedi Masters Dooku and Mace Windu as they journey to Raxus Secundus to take a fellow dead Jedi Master’s body back to Coruscant. However, Dooku notices that the story the witness told does not line up with Master Katri’s death and he aggressively pursues Katri’s murderers, even though Windu feels that they should be following the High Council’s orders.
The episode served to show us the disillusionment festering within Dooku, juxtaposed with Mace Windu’s strict following of the High Council’s orders, resulting in Windu being given Jedi Master Katri’s seat on the High Council. While the comparison was needed, it resulted in an episode that felt weaker compared to the other two Dooku episodes, especially seeing as it retreaded the same territory that the previous episode had.
5. Episode 1 – “Life and Death”
Episode one: “Life and Death” is the longest episode in Tales of the Jedi, and it features the birth of Ahsoka Tano. While it starts with her birth, a majority of the episode follows baby Ahsoka and her mother Pav-Ti hunting. While hunting, a large beast attacks Ahsoka and her mother, taking Ahsoka into the jungle. It is here that she develops her connection with the force using it to not only survive her encounter with the animal but she also leads it peacefully back to her village. While the episode serves as Ahsoka’s origin story where she learns important lessons about life from her mother and learns to interact with life by using the force, we did not really need it as her origin in The Clone Wars was good enough. With that being said there were enough nods to events that occur later in Ahsoka’s life that make this episode completely watchable.
3. Episode 2 – “Justice”
The third episode in Tales of the Jedi, “Justice” followed Dooku and his Padawan Qui-Gon Jinn. They were sent on a mission to rescue the son of Senator Dagonet only to arrive on the planet and find that the entire town had kidnapped his son. Senator Dagonet had neglected his duties, and let the planet and its people suffer. “Justice” culminated in Senator Dagonet and his forces attacking the town, and the two Jedi. It took the Senator’s son to stop Dooku from force-choking the life out of Dagonet, in what might have been the coolest scene in the series.
The episode planted the seed of Dooku’s frustration with the Jedi High Council, and their complacency with the Republic. His point was that the Jedi are peacekeepers, not hired goons for the senators of the Republic to use for their own personal gain. Plus seeing Dooku teach Qui-Gon to do the right thing even if that means going against authority was something that is rarely seen, and it was a great element of this episode.
4. Episode 5 – “Practice Makes Perfect”
The shortest episode of the six is episode five: “Practice Makes Perfect.” The story of this episode encapsulates the entirety of The Clone Wars as after one of Ahsoka’s first training exercises Anakin suggests something more realistic. Instead of training against a machine, Anakin puts her in front of Captain Rex and the rest of his clone troopers who set their blasters to stun and try to hit the Padawan. They succeed, multiple times. Not only does the episode give fans another insight into the life of their favorite characters from The Clone Wars, but it also sets up why she was able to survive Order 66. So at the end of the episode when it cuts to the end of The Clone Wars where she faces the clones, we know that Anakin’s training helped her survive.
2. Episode 6 – “Resolve”
The last Ahsoka episode, episode six: “Resolve” featured one of the most heartbreaking lines in all of Star Wars animation. It is revealed that after Order 66, Ahsoka went to Naboo to be at Padmé Amidala’s funeral. She was confronted by Senator Bail Organa after the funeral who recognized Anakin’s old Padawan. Here the voice actor behind Ahsoka, Ashley Eckstein, brilliantly delivers a line when Bail asks why she came, and Ahsoka replies “She was my friend.” This will make any fan of The Clone Wars emotional.
The episode, like much of Star Wars lately, revolves around a former Jedi coping with the fallout of Order 66. Ahsoka tries to lie low, doing labor to get by, but she is eventually turned in to the Empire, luring an Inquisitor to her position. She quickly defeated the Inquisitor and contacted Bail to give safety to her fellow coworkers. This was important as it set up Ahsoka’s life after Order 66, making it clear how she became the character we see later in Ahsoka and Star Wars Rebels.
1. Episode 4 – “The Sith Lord”
The best episode of Tales of the Jedi is the fourth episode in the series, “The Sith Lord.” The last Dooku episode sees his turn to the dark side and his reason for doing so – his immense disappointment and hatred toward the Jedi for the death of Qui-Gon Jinn at the hands of Darth Maul. Even though he played a part in his former Padawan’s death, he warned the Jedi that their alignment with the Republic was corrupting the Order and they did not listen.
“The Sith Lord” also featured Jedi Master Yaddle, who was previously not too well known in Star Wars, and her inclusion in the episode acted as Dooku’s tether to the Jedi Order after Jinn’s death. So when he killed her at the end of the episode, Count Dooku — the Sith Lord — came to be. The episode is an extension and amplification of the conflict Dooku feels throughout the Clone Wars, and it was great to see his frustration with the Jedi finally explode.
Did you take the hour and change to watch the six episodes of Tales of the Jedi, and do you agree with our rankings? One thing is for sure, they better make a second season of this with different characters, because it worked so well. Stream Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi on Disney Plus.