First introduced in Star Wars Episode 2: Attack of the Clones, Count Dooku is the Separatist leader and a Sith Lord. Played wonderfully by the late Christopher Lee, Dooku is a devilishly menacing villain, albeit one that doesn’t really get fleshed out in the actual mainline movies. Despite appearing throughout Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Dooku’s character remains fairly one-dimensional. Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi rectifies this issue, giving fans just three 15-minute episodes that go a long way in developing Dooku’s motivations, and his backstory, which would work very well in a video game setting.
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Count Dooku’s Journey in Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi
Over the course of six bite-sized episodes, Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi spans multiple decades in the Star Wars saga, focusing specifically on Count Dooku’s fall from the Jedi order, and Ahsoka’s training and journey to rebellion. With three episodes each, Tales of the Jedi manages to explore a surprising amount of depth in both of these fan-favorite characters, despite having only about 30-45 minutes of screen time each.
Count Dooku’s first episode sees him and a young Qui-Gon Jinn, his apprentice, travel to a planet to aid in a hostage situation. Upon arriving on the planet, Dooku demands the local residents show him where the kidnaped senator’s son is. The entire village escorts him there, all being complicit in the crime. The townsfolk state that this is the only way to get the Senate and the Jedi to listen to their cries for help, and the hostage agrees, condemning his father’s selfish actions. Dooku then protects the town from the senator’s security team, and begins to Force Choke the senator. Qui-Gon stops him, and the senator agrees to help the people, though Dooku is skeptical that any real change will occur.
The second Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi episode centered on Dooku sees him and Mace Windu going to retrieve the body of a fallen Jedi Master, who is believed to have been ambushed on the way to a meeting with a senator. Dooku uses intimidation to discover the truth: the senator’s guards killed the Jedi in an attempt to force the Senate to put through legislation that would help the planet’s poorer citizens. Dooku is told once again that the Jedi are merely lap dogs for the corrupt Senate, and he begins to agree.
Dooku’s third and final Tales of the Jedi episode takes place during Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. After deleting Kamino from the Jedi Archives, Dooku meets up with an older Qui-Gon, who tells him that he met a Sith Lord on Tatooine, and Dooku tells him to be careful. A quick time jump then takes place, and Dooku stands in front of a tree in the Jedi Temple, telling Master Yaddle that Qui-Gon used to love being by this tree when he was young. Yaddle asks if he can let him go, and Dooku walks away.
Dooku takes his ship and flies to a derelict building, not knowing that Yaddle is following behind. Dooku meets Darth Sidious, expressing his anger that he let Maul kill his old apprentice. Upon hearing that Dooku has betrayed the Jedi, Yaddle confronts the two, and Sidious forces Dooku to kill her, cementing his status as a true Sith Lord.
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Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi Paves the Way for a Count Dooku Video Game
It’s very rare that Star Wars video games let fans play as the villain, and it’s even rarer for that villain to be a sympathetic one with complex motivations. Count Dooku would make for one incredibly complex Star Wars video game protagonist, and Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi has paved the way for that to happen. A fully-fledged single-player Count Dooku game could provide a Star Wars gaming experience like no other, exploring depths of the character never seen before in canon, while also giving players some combat mechanics they’ve never experienced.
Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi has already given a Count Dooku game the perfect structure. Over the course of a 30-hour campaign, players could control Dooku through the ages, encompassing all of his major life events, from his training with the Jedi, to his eventual death aboard the Invisible Hand. Making Dooku’s tale a multiple-decade-spanning epic would emphasize just how important Dooku is to the plot of the prequels, and would finally show his fall from grace in a realistic timeframe.
Setting a Dooku game across multiple Star Wars eras would also open the door for players to experience a wide range of iconic Star Wars planets and locales, as well a vast array of different enemy types from across the galaxy, from security droids to clones and Jedi. This would also allow players to experience some of Dooku’s most memorable duels first-hand, from his fight with Yaddle, to his battle with Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Yoda on Geonosis.
Dooku’s more conflicted ideology would also lend itself well to some unique combat abilities. While Star Wars fans have used Force Lightning and Force Choke a bunch over the years, in everything from Jedi Knight to Force Unleashed, Dooku’s conflicted nature could lead an interesting progression system, whereby players develop their Dark Side abilities over time, becoming more powerful and deliberate with each use. Dooku’s lightsaber fighting style is also something fans haven’t really seen in a Star Wars video game, aside from his role as a villain in Star Wars: Battlefront 2. Dooku uses an elegant fencing-like style of lightsaber combat, with more pointed and deliberate strikes. Fans are used to just wailing on enemies with their lightsaber, even in games with more methodical combat like Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. Dooku’s fighting style could bring a more thought-out, efficient form of combat to Star Wars video games.
Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi is on Disney Plus.
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