In truth, Count Dooku should be heralded as one of the absolute best Star Wars villains, but the prequels never really devoted enough time to fully develop his backstory.
Much like his apprentice Qui-Gon, Dooku (later named Darth Tyranus) was a rebel on the Jedi Order and a master swordsman. Seeing great corruption in the Rebublic, he leaves and goes his own way, before falling under the tutelage of Lord Sidious.
The interesting thing about the Count, though, is that he's secretly one of the more sympathetic Sith Lords out there. Yes, he succumbs to evil as the Clone Wars progress, but there was a time where he genuinely believed what he was doing was just, hoping to put an end to the corrupt Republic bureaucracy in order to fashion a system of government that governed justly.
Obviously that didn't work out, but when you scratch beneath the surface, Dooku becomes one of the most fascinating figures in Star Wars history.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
