Star Wars: Tales of the Empire Review

The animated anthology series returns, this time focused on a prequel-era Jedi and a character more recently introduced via a Disney+ live action series.

Following Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi in 2022, the animated anthology series returns with a new title, Tales of the Empire, debuting this May the 4th on Disney+. Title tweak aside, the format is the same, once more offering six mini episodes (ranging from 11-15 minutes) that are split between two characters, jumping through different eras and key moments in their lives. 

Season 1’s focus was on two fairly prominent and important characters, Count Dooku and Ahsoka Tano - one an intriguing character from the films with plenty of room to fill in more blanks about him and the other standing out as the most well known and popular Star Wars character introduced via animation (yes, I know you could argue Boba Fett qualifies for that label, but there’s some asterisks there). 

Comparatively, Season 2 is dealing with lower profile characters. Barriss Offee was one of the many non-speaking background Jedi in the prequels, though a handful of appearances on The Clone Wars gave her more screen time and significance. Morgan Elsbeth meanwhile is a much more recent part of the franchise, having been introduced on The Mandalorian and then playing a role as one of the primary antagonists on the Ahsoka series. 

Unlike Season 1, which went back and forth between Ahsoka and Dooku – and in doing so, underlined parallels between the two, as both became disillusioned with the Jedi and ultimately leave the Order behind – the new Tales keeps things more separate, with the first three installments focused on Morgan and the last three all about Barriss, though one of these stands out much more than the other.