The Star Wars prequels are, of course, one of the great missed opportunities in cinematic history. They are riddled with shallow characterizations, missing plot threads and back story, and numerous half-baked ideas that just failed to come together on screen. The good thing about half-baked ideas, however, is someone can come along and finish the job later. The old Legends canon did a fabulous job of providing depth and context and continuity to the prequel era that the movies themselves failed to provide, culminating in the Clone Wars cartoon which ran for 6 (and soon to be 7) seasons and mostly succeeded in telling the story the prequels were always meant to tell: a story of a slowly declining republic tricked into hastening its own demise, of a Jedi Order losing its way and leaving itself open to division and destruction by the Sith, and most importantly a fully-realized Anakin Skywalker who is truly the best star pilot in the galaxy, a cunning warrior, and a good friend.
One character who was not adequately served by either the books and comics of the expanded universe or either Clone Wars cartoon, however, was Count Dooku. While the various forms of Clone Wars media certainly gave Dooku more of a role, they mostly failed at giving him an actual character. The Dooku we see in the expanded universe is merely the same cipher we see in the movies repeated many times over: a mustache twirling villain who does little besides following Palpatine's every command with a "yes, my master" and snarling evil-ly at the Jedi who cross his path. Outside of the excellent Yoda: Dark Rendezvous, one of the only books that explored Dooku's relationship to his old master in detail, almost all of the books/comics/shows that featured Dooku simply used him as a device for furthering Palpatine's will rather than a character with his own motivations and aims.
This was a tremendous waste, of course, because based solely on his description Dooku is one of the most potentially interesting characters in Star Wars lore. The apprentice of Master Yoda, the master of the unorthodox and rebellious Qui-Gon Jinn (another character mostly wasted by the movies but unlike Dooku one who has been properly salvaged by the expanded universe), a principled leader of the Separatist Movement, and one of the Lost Twenty Jedi Masters, played by none other than f--kin Saruman Himself, Christopher Lee? It's almost unbelievable such a character could end up so unremarkable. Dooku could have been a truly complex character, a man of seemingly noble principles, trying to convince his fellow Jedi that they were backing the wrong side in supporting a Republic that has already fallen (which, in fact, they were). Sadly, he leaves no doubt from his first appearance on screen that he is objectively evil and the Jedi are clearly objectively correct in opposing him. Much of the promise of his character's potential goes out the door right there.
If the new audiobook Dooku: Jedi Lost, by Cavan Scott, is the first of hopefully several Dooku stories we will get in this new canon, then maybe we will begin to see some of that potential reclaimed, however. I was very excited to hear about this book when it was announced, having spent much of the last 17 years demanding a book willing to do a deep dive into Dooku's origins, and while I am still not sold on the need for it to be an audio-only book (and also am disappointed in Del Rey for not even publishing so much as a transcript for hearing-impaired fans), this book mostly delivers, giving us a fully-developed Dooku who for once stands apart from his peers.
I must warn you, however, if you've spent any time imagining what a Dooku origin story might look this is probably not the book you expected. I know I was expecting Dooku's fall to the dark side, a story about young Dooku clashing over the true nature of the force with Yoda, or disagreements over the Jedi and their flaws with Qui-Gon, weighted with events foreshadowing his eventual fall to the dark side and the beginnings of his apprenticeship under Palpatine.
This book gives you none of that, actually. Sure, Yoda features prominently throughout, and Qui-Gon Jinn also gets a few scenes, and Palpatine is very, very briefly introduced, but this story is from beginning to end Dooku's. Where the movies tried to take a shortcut and convince us of Dooku's importance and provide a cheap emotional connection by mentioning in passing that Dooku was Qui-Gon's master and Yoda's apprentice, Dooku: Jedi Lost gives a complete picture of Dooku without ever relying on his connection to other characters to provide context.
In this book we are introduced to Dooku at a very young age, where we see early on that he was a somewhat aloof initiate, making few friends and mostly immersing himself in his studies. Unlike the old Legends version of Dooku, however, who was often depicted even in his Jedi days as more or less the same haughty aristocrat that he was in the movies (making the question of how Yoda and the rest of the Jedi failed to see the darkness within him a real problem), this Dooku is not shown as vain or arrogant so much as he's depicted as socially awkward, studious to a fault and incapable of bonding with the other young Jedi. He also suffers from feelings of abandonment over his family's decision to abandon him to the Jedi Order.
A trip to his home planet of Serenno early in his training and a chance meeting with his sister sets the plot in motion, however, providing young Dooku with a sorely needed friend and confidant and also creating a dangerous attachment that will continue to haunt him throughout his years as a Jedi. I will not spoil the plot, but I will say only that rather than Darth Sidious or the Sith providing the pretext for Dooku's split with the Jedi Order, Dooku's primary motivation for breaking with the Jedi is his love for his family and loyalty to his home planet. This gives Dooku a much more noble and relatable cause, and one that foreshadows his ultimate role as the leader of the Separatist movement, a man ostensibly championing the cause of planets neglected or mistreated by the Senate.
There are hints, of course, of the darkness within Dooku. He is intrigued from the start by a Jedi Master named Kostana, whose expertise is the controversial collection and study of Sith artifacts. Like Kostana, Dooku comes to believe there is more value than danger in the study of the dark side, and while we do not see those seeds come all of the way to fruition in this book, we obviously know that it has consequences eventually. His occasional outbursts or flashes with anger in moments of stress and conflict also show the temptation he feels towards the dark side, but it is important to note there is no moment similar to Anakin slaying the Tuskens, no single moment where his fate appears to be sealed. Dooku's path towards the darkness appears to have been a never-ending series of small decisions, rather than a rapid seduction like Anakin's, but regardless the moment he picks up the mantle of the Sith seems to be a story for another day.
Ultimately Dooku: Jedi Lost ends just where it says it does, not with the rise of the Sith Lord we see in the movies but the end of his time as a Jedi Master. Hopefully future stories will cover the gap between this story and his first appearance in Episode II, but even if they do not I am glad we got this start. There is a great character hidden in Count Dooku, and after far too long they have finally begun to tell his story.
This was a tremendous waste, of course, because based solely on his description Dooku is one of the most potentially interesting characters in Star Wars lore. The apprentice of Master Yoda, the master of the unorthodox and rebellious Qui-Gon Jinn (another character mostly wasted by the movies but unlike Dooku one who has been properly salvaged by the expanded universe), a principled leader of the Separatist Movement, and one of the Lost Twenty Jedi Masters, played by none other than f--kin Saruman Himself, Christopher Lee? It's almost unbelievable such a character could end up so unremarkable. Dooku could have been a truly complex character, a man of seemingly noble principles, trying to convince his fellow Jedi that they were backing the wrong side in supporting a Republic that has already fallen (which, in fact, they were). Sadly, he leaves no doubt from his first appearance on screen that he is objectively evil and the Jedi are clearly objectively correct in opposing him. Much of the promise of his character's potential goes out the door right there.
If the new audiobook Dooku: Jedi Lost, by Cavan Scott, is the first of hopefully several Dooku stories we will get in this new canon, then maybe we will begin to see some of that potential reclaimed, however. I was very excited to hear about this book when it was announced, having spent much of the last 17 years demanding a book willing to do a deep dive into Dooku's origins, and while I am still not sold on the need for it to be an audio-only book (and also am disappointed in Del Rey for not even publishing so much as a transcript for hearing-impaired fans), this book mostly delivers, giving us a fully-developed Dooku who for once stands apart from his peers.
I must warn you, however, if you've spent any time imagining what a Dooku origin story might look this is probably not the book you expected. I know I was expecting Dooku's fall to the dark side, a story about young Dooku clashing over the true nature of the force with Yoda, or disagreements over the Jedi and their flaws with Qui-Gon, weighted with events foreshadowing his eventual fall to the dark side and the beginnings of his apprenticeship under Palpatine.
This book gives you none of that, actually. Sure, Yoda features prominently throughout, and Qui-Gon Jinn also gets a few scenes, and Palpatine is very, very briefly introduced, but this story is from beginning to end Dooku's. Where the movies tried to take a shortcut and convince us of Dooku's importance and provide a cheap emotional connection by mentioning in passing that Dooku was Qui-Gon's master and Yoda's apprentice, Dooku: Jedi Lost gives a complete picture of Dooku without ever relying on his connection to other characters to provide context.
In this book we are introduced to Dooku at a very young age, where we see early on that he was a somewhat aloof initiate, making few friends and mostly immersing himself in his studies. Unlike the old Legends version of Dooku, however, who was often depicted even in his Jedi days as more or less the same haughty aristocrat that he was in the movies (making the question of how Yoda and the rest of the Jedi failed to see the darkness within him a real problem), this Dooku is not shown as vain or arrogant so much as he's depicted as socially awkward, studious to a fault and incapable of bonding with the other young Jedi. He also suffers from feelings of abandonment over his family's decision to abandon him to the Jedi Order.
A trip to his home planet of Serenno early in his training and a chance meeting with his sister sets the plot in motion, however, providing young Dooku with a sorely needed friend and confidant and also creating a dangerous attachment that will continue to haunt him throughout his years as a Jedi. I will not spoil the plot, but I will say only that rather than Darth Sidious or the Sith providing the pretext for Dooku's split with the Jedi Order, Dooku's primary motivation for breaking with the Jedi is his love for his family and loyalty to his home planet. This gives Dooku a much more noble and relatable cause, and one that foreshadows his ultimate role as the leader of the Separatist movement, a man ostensibly championing the cause of planets neglected or mistreated by the Senate.
There are hints, of course, of the darkness within Dooku. He is intrigued from the start by a Jedi Master named Kostana, whose expertise is the controversial collection and study of Sith artifacts. Like Kostana, Dooku comes to believe there is more value than danger in the study of the dark side, and while we do not see those seeds come all of the way to fruition in this book, we obviously know that it has consequences eventually. His occasional outbursts or flashes with anger in moments of stress and conflict also show the temptation he feels towards the dark side, but it is important to note there is no moment similar to Anakin slaying the Tuskens, no single moment where his fate appears to be sealed. Dooku's path towards the darkness appears to have been a never-ending series of small decisions, rather than a rapid seduction like Anakin's, but regardless the moment he picks up the mantle of the Sith seems to be a story for another day.
Ultimately Dooku: Jedi Lost ends just where it says it does, not with the rise of the Sith Lord we see in the movies but the end of his time as a Jedi Master. Hopefully future stories will cover the gap between this story and his first appearance in Episode II, but even if they do not I am glad we got this start. There is a great character hidden in Count Dooku, and after far too long they have finally begun to tell his story.
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