The official Star Wars site provides some information about a mysterious new project via the Star Wars Celebration 2022 schedule. An animated anthology series, the new Tales of the Jedi might be how Lucasfilm finally makes Revan officially canon.
Revan, for those not deep into the Star Wars lore, is the central figure of the Knights of the Old Republic video game. Outside of a few game-adjacent novels and brief appearances in comic books, there aren’t many stories about him. With all the old Star Wars Expanded Universe now relegated to “Legends” material, the canonicity of Darth Revan is an open question. Yet now that we know Dave Filoni is involved with Tales of the Jedi, this might be the way Lucasfilm introduces this character to the masses.
Fans first heard of Tales of the Jedi when an image of a Christmas gift from Lucasfilm to staff hit the internet. It featured the logos of all the series from Lucasfilm on Disney+ such as The Bad Batch and The Book of Boba Fett. Yet the familiar logo of the Tom Veitch-written comic series Tales of the Jedi appeared on the box as well. This was our first clue, and the Star Wars Celebration 2022 panel information is the confirmation that it’s a new show for the streamer.
The comic series dealt with the ancient past of the Star Wars galaxy and features some things modern audiences might not enjoy. Back then, Star Wars fans still didn’t really know what the Sith were, and the prequels were merely a decade-old rumor. The Sith are an ancient alien race and a dolphin-like Jedi turns into a sentient tree. It gets weird. The show probably won’t be a straightforward adaptation of the comics. But this sounds like the perfect premise to introduce canon stories about the Old Republic.
One of the reasons Revan is such a beloved character is because Knights of the Old Republic was a very popular BioWare role-playing game. Like Dragon Age and Mass Effect, you play a character who makes choices that affect the outcome of the game one way or another. Who Revan is as a character differs depending on the choices made for Revan in the game. Adapting this character presents certain risks to cause outrage among the normally calm and level-headed Star Wars fandom. So, who better than Lucas’s own Padawan, Dave Filoni, to try it?
On the Season 3 DVD’s special features, Filoni revealed he was almost able to bring Revan into the famed “Mortis Arc” of The Clone Wars. Only, the scene was cut between the animatic and final animation stages. George Lucas didn’t like the idea that Sith Lords could live on past death. Easiest fix for that problem is to set the story they’re telling when he was alive.
The introduction of a character that means this much to the fans will come from the Lucasfilm brain trust. The focus stays on the characters first, using any larger Star Wars lore to contextualize their individual experiences. It’s a pattern established first in Star Wars Rebels and then in The Mandalorian. The storytellers make the audience care about the people in the story more than they care about the trappings of the Star Wars universe. This way, when legacy characters like Ahsoka Tano or Luke Skywalker show up, that moment feels earned. To just flatly introduce Revan would be the wrong way to do it.
Instead, Tales of the Jedi can tell the stories about how this character and the war that led him astray affect the rest of the galaxy. The biggest empty space in the story of Revan is about the war between the Mandalorian and the Jedi. All we really know is that he and a group of Jedi wanted to join the fight, and the Jedi Council disagreed. This recontextualizes the core conflict in the Prequel Trilogy, where the Jedi did fight a war allowing the dark side to overcome the light. When Tales of the Jedi eventually tells its Old Republic stories, they will almost certainly be from the perspective of those Jedi who didn’t (or won’t) join Revan.
One of the most incredible accomplishments Dave Filoni and his colleagues were able to do with The Clone Wars was tell exciting, mysterious stories about characters we already knew “everything” about. For some fans, the cartoon changed the way they felt about the live-action movies. During a time when the Prequel Trilogy was the recently released Star Wars project fans were contentious about, Filoni and company enriched the source material and created characters who feel as if they’ve always been there. If Revan is ever going to be adapted and brought into the official Star Wars canon, he’ll need a series capable of doing just that.
This premise is reminiscent of another old Dark Horse comic series, also titled Knights of the Old Republic. Instead of following the story of the game, it followed a Jedi named Zayne Carrick whose master tried to kill him. He has a whole big adventure and assembles a classic cast of Star Wars toughies and cuties. Yet, in one or two issues, he crosses paths with Revan and Malak on their way to fight in the Jedi and Mandalorian war. Throughout Zayne’s story, the saga of Revan unfolds off the page.
Whether Revan eventually shows up as a character or remains merely a name mentioned with fear or sorrow, Tales of the Jedi is the perfect place to do it. It puts the character firmly into the Star Wars canon and could tell the story in a way that preserves fans’ connection to their individual version of who Revan will ultimately become. At the very least, Dave Filoni has earned the trust given to him by both George Lucas and Star Wars fans across all generations. His respect for the universe and understanding of its unique style of storytelling makes Tales of the Jedi perhaps the most exciting upcoming Star Wars project.
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