#pie211-jedi

[doopcafe]

Tales of the Jedi E4: The Sith Lord 

LOL, we open on Dooku literally deleting the location of Kamino from the archives. If there was ever any mystery regarding that, this show just evaporated it at the one-minute mark of this episode. Dooku literally just pressed two buttons and deleted it. That’s it, that’s what happened. 

We get a scene of Yaddle, Qui-Gon, and Dooku chatting in the Jedi Temple in the immediate aftermath of Phantom Menace, Qui-Gon having just met Maul. We then cut ahead to Dooku standing by the tree in the Jedi Temple, having just learned of Qui-Gon’s death. It’s suggested that Dooku blames the Council for this.

Dooku flies to meet with Uncle Palps and Yaddle follows him, to see where he’s going, but like... right behind him. Somehow Dooku doesn’t notice and there’s no precautions in place to ensure he’s not being followed. There’s an awkward lightsaber fight (tiny-ass Yaddle v. six-foot-four Dooku) and Dooku ends up just smashing her into the ground with the lightsaber after she’s defeated, defenseless, and barely alive. Good stuff, Disney. 

I think I enjoyed this episode way more than I should have because, from that screenshot, I honestly thought Disney gave Yoda hair. They've done fucked up pretty badly in the past, but no where nearly as bad as giving Yoda hair . So I was pleasantly surprised to find out that it was Yaddle, and not Yoda-with-hair.

My enjoyment: 4/5

[doopcafe]

Tales of the Jedi E3: Choices 

Comments: We open on Windu and Dooku explaining to the audience what’s happening: some Jedi lady was killed while protecting a Senator and they’re going to the planet where it happened to retrieve her body. They arrive, investigate, and reveal the Senator’s guards as the real murderers. A half-baked explanation is offered, but the episode isn’t really about what’s happening on screen, but rather what’s happening with Dooku as a character. 

There’s undoubtedly a wealth of storytelling and character work that can be done with Dooku’s character during the time he was a Jedi knight, but this show seems unable to engage with that material or really explore its potential. Instead, we get heavy-handed evidence that Dooku was a bad apple from the start (Anakin-style) with just as much subtlety as Anakin’s “fall” to the Dark Side. He uses Dark side powers, he’s overly aggressive, accuses people of crimes on scant evidence, quick to activate his lightsaber... 

For example, during their investigation, Dooku examines the ship they arrived on. He asks why, if the Jedi lady was supposedly attacked by people from the direction of woods, why are there no blaster marks on the ship? There can be any number of reasons to explain this (namely, it’s a different ship, or, they had it washed), but Dooku uses it as evidence of them lying. It’s all terribly forced and blunt, with the script taking shortcuts to tell us Dooku is a bad guy (and has always been). 

Aside from being wholly unnecessary, it’s also a little disappointing: if this show can be seen as a “prequel to the Prequels”, then the more interesting story is showing how Dooku became a bad guy, not simply showing him as already a bad guy with no room for his character to grow, TCW-style. 

This is a shame, because it can be argued that there’s the necessary distance to comprehensively delve into all the questions and ambiguities raised by the issue of Dooku’s fall and subsequent rise to power. Although, it’s also possible that Tales of the Jedi is simply not a show well-equipped to deal with a character study this big, or central to this universe (or this complex). There’s three episodes left and by the time they air, I’m sure the events of this one will have been easily forgotten. 

Anyways, the episode ends on a scene that strongly implies that Windu is at least one reason Dooku began to hate the Jedi, meaning that, now (after watching this), Windu was the reason both Dooku and Anakin fell to the darkside. At least in Revenge of the Sith, that simplification could be justified on the grounds that, in a two-hour movie, there’s only so much you can show to explain Anakin’s fall, and encapsulating “the Jedi” into a single character (Windu) was perhaps a necessary shortcut. But here, when you’re free to do whatever you want, it’s just disappointing that everything is treated so simplistically and the same thing being done yet again.

In the end, the episode has nothing meaningful to say about Dooku or his motivations. I can’t believe it’s 2023 and we’re still doing TCW. 

My enjoyment: 2/5 

[doopcafe]

Tales of the Jedi E2: Justice

Comments: Apparently, this story takes place before every other Disney Star Wars movie or show (so, not including books or video games). 

Dooku and his padawan (a young Qui Gon) go to a village to rescue a Senator’s son, who’s been kidnapped by people demanding a better life for themselves. There’s a lightsaber fight and Dooku (the Jedi knight) force-chokes someone. 

OP!Jedi just be like “oops-a-daisy just makin’ violence happen again”

My enjoyment: 3/5

[doopcafe]

Tales of the Jedi E1: Life and Death 

Comments: I had no idea this existed, but 20-minute episodes of Prequel-era “characters”? Let’s go! 

So we open on some asshole waking up an entire village to announce his baby girl is born. It’s Ahsoka. We jump ahead one year and Ahsoka’s mom is taking one-year-old Ahsoka on a hunt. The father rightfully objects to this child endangerment but she wins the argument by stating that the trees are their ancestors.

???

On the hunt, Ahsoka’s mom dishes out some wisdom, such as “Look, ahsoka, everywhere there is life. Value it. Honor it.”

*twenty years later* Ahsoka commits violent, unprovoked murder, takes pleasure in torture, and makes decisions that lead to the death of thousands. 

It’s also a strange thing for someone to say while hunting. Immediately after saying this, she discovers some deer and shoots one. The mom physically forces her child to watch the wounded animal suffer before sliding a knife into its chest. Good stuff, Disney. 

Oh, a tiger then attacks them, and steals Ahsoka (for some reason), Ashoka uses The Force (I’m assuming) on the tiger, and rides the tiger back into the village, bringing a violent and probably hungry monster right into their midst... So, we’re at least consistent with Ahsoka’s characterization. The plot asks the tiger to leave and Ahsoka’s mom asks what the hell she just watched. 

My enjoyment: 2/5

[doopcafe]

Tales of the Jedi E6: Resolve

Comments: We open on Ahsoka attending Padme’s funeral and being told by Jimmy Smits to contact her in the future if she needs anything. That takes about 1/4th of the episode. 

The remainder of the episode involves Ahsoka hiding on a farm, apparently trying to start a new life, but after her powers are revealed (by using the Force to save a girl), an Inquisitor shows up, burns down the village, and so Ahsoka kills him. She then calls Senator Jimmy Smits to come help the survivors...

There’s a tonal disjointness here where Kiner’s score has a nice epic Western showdown feel and is generally competent, but it’s overlaid by this most ridiculous dialogue between a character we’ve just met and... an Inquisitor. 

Hah! Jokes about Ahsoka’s lack of character. I love ‘em! 

Anyways, that was the last episode of this, so now I can cross more Star Wars content off my list.

My enjoyment: 2/5

[doopcafe]

Tales of the Jedi E5: Practice Makes Perfect 

Comments: Well, I watched this one on a business trip a few weeks ago, but let’s see... 

The episode begins with Master Sinube administering a test on Ahsoka, who needs to cut apart floating balls with her lightsaber. Yoda, Prequel!Wan and others apparently have nothing better to do than sit around and watch Ahsoka perform (ew). She asks Anakin how she did and he complains that the floating ball test is not a real test. 

For the remainder of the episode, Anakin tortures Ahsoka in his version of a “test.” So the setup is that Anakin orders his soldiers (Rex and Jesse are named) to stand around her in a circle and shoot at her with stun blasts until they succeed in stunning her. After the first time she succumbs, it takes her an hour to wake up, barely able to stand, her vision blurred, clearly delirious, and so Anakin orders his soldiers to go again. 

This horrific scene of child abuse repeats again and again as this poor child is rendered progressively less able to defend herself and Anakin becomes increasingly annoyed with her failure to die. 

After what I assume to be several hours, Rex wonders aloud how much more she can take. Anakin dismisses his (completely legitimate) concern and, in true Anakin style, continues to order his troops to shoot her without offering any insight, instruction, or lesson. There’s some training montage music but she’s not actually being taught anything. She’s just being tortured, her body broken down, her mind shattered. 

Eventually it’s implied that she gets better at this, but we never see how and—like most TCW content—we’re once again subjected to the abhorrent message that, in order to get better at something, you just gotta really believe in yourself!

I was only a teacher for six years, but never in that experience did “believing in yourself” prove to be an effective teaching tool. There’s a quotation from The Wee Free Men (Terry Pratchett) that I feel is relevant: 

“If you trust in yourself... and believe in your dreams... and follow your star... you’ll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things [...]” 

The episode ends with a cut to that scene at the end of TCW where Ahsoka must fight Jesse and a bunch of other troopers in the hangar bay... meaning this entire episode was intended as an explanation for how Ahsoka could fight so many troopers trying to stun her. But—just like the entirety of that stupid Solo movie—no one needed or even asked for that explanation.

My enjoyment: 1/5