All six episodes of Tales of the Empire debut on Disney+ on Saturday, May 4.
On the face of it, Tales of the Empire does everything right. It features painterly animation, catchy music that plays into each action sequence, and storylines that weave new chapters in the lives of two characters from Star Wars history. What it lacks are names as big as those at the center of its predecessor, 2022’s Tales of the Jedi. Where that series offered stories that seemed precisely designed to flesh out previously untold moments in the life of Ahsoka Tano and from Count Dooku, Disney+’s latest Star Wars Day offering can’t do the same for the notable but lesser-known likes of The Mandalorian’s Morgan Elsbeth and The Clone Wars’ Barriss Offee.
Tales of the Empire aims to shift the perspective of Star Wars animation toward the dark side, examining how Morgan and Barriss fell under its seductive power. The series serves as an origin story for the former and an epilogue for the latter, attempting to take a closer look at a downfall and redemption from fear, anger, and hatred. But it often struggles to achieve these objectives, neither for one nor the other of its protagonists.
Morgan’s is definitely the most disappointing of the six episodes, giving audiences a cursory look at how she got to where we met her in The Mandalorian. Promising something more, the three episodes that follow Morgan are titled “The Path of Fear”, “The Path of Anger” and “The Path of Hate”, which any long-time Star Wars fan would know as the steps towards the dark side of the force. The first of this trilogy does the best job tracing Morgan’s loss, highlighting what scares him and how that leads to anger. Subsequent episodes feel less concerned with how anger leads to hatred (and don’t forget suffering), but instead focus on the more superficial aspects of his life that lead to his eventual antagonistic role in the series Ahsoka. An inside look at Elsbeth’s psyche is abandoned in favor of a retroactive setup for an entirely different spectacle.
Tales of the Empire finds much more success in Barriss’ storyline, taking her on a path tailor-made for the character. The padawan’s fate remained somewhat ambiguous at the end of the Clone Wars, and the stories of the Inquisitors have been told in various forms and avenues since then. Being a former Jedi disillusioned with the Order’s methods, Barriss is an obvious candidate for a league of Jedi-killing assassins. The problem is that maybe it’s Also an obvious story to tell, one that moves forward without surprises and at a pace that makes things feel rushed. With the brief 12-15 minute time frame we’re given in each episode, she doesn’t have much time to sit with her cognitive dissonance, so when she makes her crucial decision, it feels abrupt, or like she’s had come to the end. from his bow too soon. However, the final episode’s focus on character is able to solidify Barriss’ arc into something more satisfying overall and succeeds in giving her a conclusion worth telling.
Series creator and Lucasfilm honcho Dave Filoni is as much a fan of these characters as any of Wookipeida’s top contributors, and has ensured that Tales of the Empire has Star Wars diehards pointing and whistling the television like Leonardo DiCaprio in Once Upon. a time… in Hollwyood, and that might be enough. That’s not to say this stuff isn’t worth talking about – it’s one of my favorite parts of the vast Star Wars universe – but with Tales of the Jedi, we’ve added all of that to the stories deep and meditative from two fans. -favorites. Tales of the Empire attempts to do the same for Morgan and Barriss, but with so little of their stories previously told, these episodes had a lot of work to do. They end up feeling like they’re checking boxes instead of being the introspective character studies they aspire to be.
Gn entert
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