Just as there’s no bit of unused Star Wars concept art Dave Filoni won’t repurpose, there’s no bit of backstory or loose end, no matter how trivial, that he’ll ever hold back from telling eventually. Tales of the Empire, comprised of six ten-minute episodes but effectively two half-hour character spotlight cartoons, feels like the backstory a writer concocts for the real script. Only later do they decide that since the main show didn’t include it, and the demand for content remains constant, it’s time to make it its own thing.
Morgan This
The first three episodes, then, tell the crucial Morgan Elsbeth backstory that it might have been nice to know before she showed up on The Mandalorian and then in Ahsoka. Of course, those shows were desperate for big surprise reveals, so the fact that she knew Thrawn was played for shock. But the short build-up we get here of how they met might have made their ultimate reunion more dramatically impactful than just another Twitter spoiler.
The second three, unrelated to the first, follow what happened to Barris Offee after the Clone Wars and her imprisonment by the Jedi. No spoilers here beyond the fact that she encounters at least one fan-favorite bad guy and has to figure out which side she’s really on.
For better or worse and however dark the Star Wars cartoon episodes might get, they rarely lose sight of the fact that kids are the target audience. As such, the Empire versus Rebels struggle is still pretty black-and-white, and anyone interesting among the ranks of the villains is usually someone who was once good in some way but deceived or abused into breaking bad. Morgan Elspeth’s origin, at this point — and especially after Rebel Moon Part 2 — is a variation of something we’ve seen again and again and a cliche at this point. (To its credit, it does make those goofy Battle Droids legit frightening in a way we rarely see.) Once the second episode catches up with adult Morgan, things get more interesting…and Filoni gets to reuse some familiar old concept art again.
Get Offee
The Barriss tale can mostly dispense with origins, not bothering or needing to rehash the hows and whys of her winding up in a prison cell. Meredith Salenger’s English accent, like so many in Star Wars cartoons, occasionally falters on the “a” sounds, but otherwise, her journey takes some interesting turns even as its ultimate destination feels somewhat predictable. Aside from Palpatine, it doesn’t seem like any Imperial is capable of honestly knowing everything the Empire is doing yet still sincerely believing in it. It’s a wonder the Empire ever held together at all. Then again, these are ultimately morality tales for children, and when the shows go too far in the other direction, we get the dour, boring Andor. Designed for ten-minute bites, Tales of the Empire certainly isn’t dull, though it has predictable moments.
Familiar guest stars are the highlight, which suggests the difficulty the franchise has had at creating new iconic characters. Aside from The Mandalorian, which let Carl Weathers and Giancarlo Esposito do their thing while also offering up the endlessly marketable Din Djarin and Grogu, modern Star Wars has relied heavily on the familiar. These shorts won’t change that — they very specifically visit locations we’ve seen recently. But here’s hoping The Acolyte does.
Keep It Unreal
As for the animation, it’s jarring sometimes to see almost photo-realistic dirt and fabric textures combined with the default smooth-skin stylization of the people. It’s not quite an uncanny valley effect, but there’s a mild mental disconnect when the locations look almost exactly like their live-action counterparts, now populated by toons instead. You’ll get over it, and the youngest kids likely won’t see an issue. But it is what it is.
If you’re looking for stuff that feels crucial to continuity, add episodes 2 and 3 to the mix when doing a rewatch of the Morgan Elsbeth episode of The Mandalorian, and all of Ahsoka season 1. Watched first, those bits will make you appreciate the character more, as opposed to taking her as a human mystery box. The rest of this microseries is disposable entertainment — but at least it’s entertaining.
Grade: 3/5
Star Wars: Tales of the Empire drops on Disney+ on May 4.
