'Star Wars: Tales of the Empire' Series Review: A Strong String of Anthology Shorts
The second entry in Star wars’ tales series delivers a consistent and intriguing look at the corrupting powers of the dark side.
The animated branch of Star Wars storytelling has long been used to tell new stories that bridged gaps between various pieces of Star Wars media, operating in a unique niche of their own, eventually building up enough stories of their own to expand on, which is where theTales series exists. The idea of the Tales banner of animated Star Wars hails from Lucasfilm’s now Chief Creative Officer, Dave Filoni, having sketched random ideas for short stories about characters from his existing animated Star Wars series. The announcement of Tales of the Empire came as a surprise, being announced out of the blue without so much as a rumour in Star Wars fandom spaces. There’d been word from executive producer Dave Filoni about a second installment of Tales of the Jedi, but nothing suggested that it would deviate from the set precedent of following Jedi stories. Tales of the Empire marks the second entry, trading the two 3 episode arcs of former Jedi Ahsoka Tano and Count Dooku for two more distinctly different arcs, the first following the origin story of Morgan Elsbeth, (Diana Lee Inosanto) who served as a villain in both The Mandalorian and Ahsoka, and the second delivering the long-awaited story continuation of disgraced Jedi Barriss Offee (Meredith Salenger) as she is recruited to join the ranks of the elite Jedi-hunting Inquisitorius.
The choice to follow these two characters specifically can come off as sort of strange initially, with Morgan Elsbeth always being a sort of secondary villain in her appearances, and Barriss Offee long speculated to return as a foil to her former friend Ahsoka Tano in some way. Nonetheless, Tales of the Empire, for the most part provides intriguing looks into these characters, providing a cohesive and beautifully-animated parallel journeys about the legacy of the dark side of the force.
The first three shorts span the timeline of Morgan Elsbeth from a young Dathomiri Nightsister to becoming a warlord aligned with the Galactic Empire. The first episode depicts Morgan witnessing the genocide of her clan by the Separatists, an event seen in The Clone Wars, this time, with the tragedy accentuated by seeing this from a Nightsister point of view, apropos to that of General Grievous (Matthew Wood) and the Separatists. This dark, ruminative episode is full of understated sorrow and serves as a thematic precursor to both Morgan Elsbeth’s arc, and the series as a whole. The next two Morgan Elsbeth episodes follow her journey rising through the ranks of the Empire, and show how she becomes affiliated with the dark powers we see her serving during her live-action appearance on The Mandalorian. Despite a strong coda in the last few minutes of Morgan’s arc, propped up on the beautifully animated visual metaphor for her descent into darkness, these episodes never truly being out an overly interesting character of Morgan in her own right, ultimately feeling like a loosely aligned, yet still enjoyable, ‘connect-the-dots’ journey of how she acquires the accolades and resources that put her into the position we first see her in during The Mandalorian. However, there is a lot to admire about the understated nature of her short stories in particular, matching the very reserved, steely nature that Elsbeth is seen having in her live-action appearances, and Diana Lee Inosanto’s voice acting is as spirited and commanding as her renowned live-action physical presence. The Elsbeth entries are by no means bad, or even unengaging, and are very well-made, but simply pale in relation to the series’ second half.
The Barriss Offee shorts have the advantage of telling a completely new story, not necessarily bound by having to end the character’s journey at a certain place, like Morgan’s. Rather, they take a character we are more familiar with, and pick back up with her during a drastically new era from when we saw her last, differing again from the Elsbeth episodes, in which many familiar faces from previous Morgan appearances are seen. The first of Offee’s episodes begins with her imprisoned, as she was found guilty of bombing the sacred Jedi Temple during the final arc of The Clone Wars’ fifth season. She is given the chance by an old friend, Lyn, who now goes by the moniker of ‘4th Sister,’ a member of the Imperial Inquisitorius, (previously seen in Star Wars Rebels and Obi Wan-Kenobi series) a hand-picked group of ex-Jedi who now hunt down and exterminate surviving Jedi. As Barriss undergoes the trials and tribulations of the dark-sider group, her inner darkness is unleashed, but unlike Morgan in the earlier episodes, she shows remorse, and fear of what she has become. These emotions serve as the catalyst to Barriss’ arc throughout the three shorts, as well as her complicated relationship with Lyn/4th Sister. These shorts, while littered with familiar situations and inhabiting familiar environments, feel distinctly new. All episodes contain a noticeable time jump from one another, and this anthological levity allows the series to visually reflect the semblance of character progressions masterfully.
Dave Filoni’s stories very rarely offer introspective looks into more villainous or morally-ambiguous characters, which is what makes the Barriss storyline feel more heightened, in a sense. These episodes have a genuine element of surprise in them, as for all the audience knows, anything can happen to Barriss and Lyn, with their fates unbound to existing pieces of Star Wars media. The final episode of the series is ultimately its standout, breaking the tonal, visual and thematic molds that the previous 5 episodes more-or-less fit into, in varying ways. It feels quintessential as a coda for a series rooted in darkness, and serves as a great thematic connector between the two journeys and story arcs, accentuating their parrallel nature. Despite both protagonists never interacting, or having any narrative intersection sans the titular Imperial element, their arcs (without spoiling too much) operate as mirror journeys, from falling to darkness to recovering from it, a choice which works greatly in the show’s favour.
In a world where it seems there will be no forseeable end in sight for Star Wars’ numerous live-action TV spinoffs, homogenous with both look and feel, the simplistic, moody, visually stunning ambitions of a smaller project like Tales of the Empire feel all the more refreshing. Seeing a series that is so decisive and embracing of its short-form storytelling to encompass these dark, thematically rich vignettes is commendable, and a welcome bi-annual entry into the vast Star Wars canon. When Tales of the Empire is at its best, it’s a great reminder of how important the animated medium can be to Star Wars, pushing visual and narrative boundaries that its live action contemporaries cannot reach, while building on an already storied, beautiful legacy of its own.