Star Wars: Dooku: Jedi Lost Review

Going through The Light Of The Jedi made me curious to see what else the current canon of Star Wars had in store.

I read some comics and books already set in this new timeline but I never gave it a proper shot so I thought why not.

Chronologically Dooku: Jedi Lost was the next chapter along.

I was recommended the audio cast version and it’s not hard to see why. The sound, music, cast and their performances are all excellent. With that being said, this is primarily a review of the narrative as the content and words are the same regardless of how you consume this story.

I was a fan of both versions of The Clone Wars, the 2D and CGI versions, when they aired on Cartoon Network here in the UK. The 2D show was easy to keep up with thanks to its short length but the CGI show was something that went on for longer than I had an interest in finishing it. I got to the tail end of the show later on and I grew to appreciate them on an equal level.

One of my favourite aspects of these shows were the characters of Asajj Ventress and her master Dooku.

This story takes place during Ventress’s initial training under Dooku whilst he recounts his past.

The way the past and present flow back and forth feels natural and work to form a strong overall narrative. As for the details with that narrative, I feel like this is a hit or miss depending on what you were expecting.

The character of Dooku was but a brief appearance in the live action films and the animated shows paint a fair but standard by the numbers adaptation of who the character could’ve been with a bit more time. There’s not too much to go on apart from his magnetic personality. Not surprising considering Dooku was practically mapped to Christopher Lee’s dramatic performances.

With that out there, I think it’s important to say that Dooku in his youth might not be what you’re expecting. For me I wasn’t too jaded but with one of the main traits surrounding the character’s incarnations was his pride. The story certainly ties in with that but his tale tells a story of a brash boy turned into a man who has trouble talking about his feelings.

The bits in-between are vastly important and getting me to believe this and that’s where I feel the divide in opinions may lie. For me I found the tale of young Dooku charming enough for me to let the inconsistencies slide.

Ventress is fine enough as a POV for sections, with elements of her past being used to add depth but I never considered Ventress’s turn to the dark side to be anything I wanted to read. Still it’s done effectively enough, just not to the point where I deem her a stronger character.

With this being said, the story itself is definitely an intriguing one.

Exploring what these characters went through may not sound too interesting upon initially hearing that premise but a number of things came to mind the further the story went.

Remembering that Yoda was his Jedi Master was something that excited me, even if the potential of that thread doesn’t go as far as I’d wanted it too, only then to remember that he trained Qui-Gon Jin.

Film wise the character of Qui-Gon was fine enough for me but one thing that sat with me weirdly was the Council’s distrust of him as he seemed like one of the most by the books Jedi there could be. And then you read this and things start to make a little more sense.

Then it clicked with me. This wasn’t just a story to link in with Dooku’s origin but it was also the mop and bucket for The Phantom Menace and Attack Of The Clones.

This was the sand paper meant to smooth out the many rough edges of those films and for me personally... I get it but I don’t accept it. The issues of those films cannot be solved by having some else write up the answer. The only way you could fix those films is by having these answers in them in the first place. With that being said it does add a layer of satisfaction to know that some loose ends were addressed.

With that being said, the base of the present day story, once again Ventress’s character is fine in this, is dull. Ventress spends the majority of it reading Dooku’s journal and watch his diary holocrons. In other words it’s pretty uneventful. Sure she goes through some mental challenges but the journey isn’t one that takes any interesting twists or turns. In fact you could guess where it’s going to end up from the start.

In the end this is a story that’s at war with itself. It’s a half complete origin story for Dooku whilst being a present day initiation test for Ventress along with being her origin story.

If this book was any one of these it would’ve been amazing in my mind. What we are left with is still good but so much time is spent of convincing us that Dooku went from Jedi to Sith without actually showing it.

This was a neat little tale about some fun characters in a period of time that the story excels in.

7/10