Star Wars: Tales of the Empire

"Tales of the Empire" is a delightful gem in the vast galaxy of Star Wars content. As a fan who watched this series alongside the disappointing "The Acolyte," I was pleasantly surprised by the depth and storytelling prowess of this show. The intricate narratives, well-developed characters, and attention to detail in world-building truly set "Tales of the Empire" apart.

The series manages to capture the essence of the Star Wars universe while offering a fresh perspective on the Empire's inner workings. Each episode delves into the lives of characters with complexity and nuance, making it easy to become emotionally invested in their journeys. The production quality is top-notch, with stunning visuals and captivating performances that transport viewers to a galaxy far, far away.

After experiencing the lackluster storytelling of "The Acolyte," "Tales of the Empire" was a breath of fresh air. It proves that there is still hope for meaningful and engaging content within the Star Wars franchise. I wholeheartedly recommend this series to any fan craving a more fulfilling and satisfying Star Wars experience.

Here's to more content like "Tales of the Empire" that honors the legacy of Star Wars while pushing boundaries and exploring new horizons. May the Force continue to guide us on thrilling adventures through the galaxy!

It happens every year and we have finally reached May 4th aka Star Wars Day and Disney decided today to release the follow up to the successful Tales of the Jedi with a new show Star Wars Tales of the Empire and I have watched it this morning and this is my review of the show. The premise of the show documents the journey's of Morgan Elsbeth & Barriss Offee and how their lives were affected by different events.

Main Character The first 3 episodes of the show documents the journey of Morgan Elsbeth with Diana Lee Inosanto reprising her role from The Mandalorian & Ahsoka and she is great. It shows how she became the character that we met in those shows. She does a really effective job of showing the anger and the devotion that she has to her new mission, her character was great in live action and it continues here.

The latter 3 episodes focus on Barriss Offee who is once again voiced by Meredith Salenger. The show picks up after she was expelled from the Jedi Order in The Clone Wars. Salenger does a good job, we still see the inner turmoil of her character and that even though she was against the Jedi, she might not be fully on board with the Empire and it is just nice to get some follow up on her which people have been asking for years.

Supporting Characters To be honest this show is all about the two main characters and doesn't have too much time for the rest of the cast but everyone does a good job. Probably the main one is The Fourth Sister who has a good story with Barriss and gives some more character to this pretty dull character so that was good to see.

It was also nice to see cameos from characters from the Star Wars universe such as General Grievous, Thrawn & The Grand Inquisitor. They all offer something to the stories and it was just nice to see them make a return here.

Story The stories are good. Seeing how Morgan Elsbeth went from surviving on Dathomir to become a Magistrate is well realised and it does set up future events in Ahsoka which is appreciated. I also enjoyed seeing Barriss journey to becoming an Inquisitor and how it showed her different viewpoints of the galaxy. But, there is no doubt that there is something missing here, it just isn't as interesting as I wanted it to be. Morgan's story doesn't do enough to tell us more stuff about her, it probably would have come across better if we had seen it before Ahsoka was released and we knew what happened to her. Barriss story does feel a little bit like missed potential and I think maybe they could have had 6 episodes just on that and it would have been better and the ending is incredibly abrupt and doesn't quite work like I think Disney thought it would.

Script The script is okay, this show is incredibly mature and dark and that does work and I am glad that this show goes with that tone and the lack of humour isn't an issue. The issue is that none of the drama really nails the mark fully, similar to the story I think Disney expected more and it just fell a bit flat at crucial times.

Style The animation looks fantastic. We have seen with other animated Star Wars shows that the animation has got better and better and this is up there with the best yet. The character models look fantastic and the action flows incredibly well and feels very smooth. But the pacing is where the issue is, with us only having 3 episodes each with these lesser known characters, plenty is left out and it feels a bit janky especially with Morgan Elsbeth which made it hard to really get invested in it.

Overall Overall, Star Wars: Tales of The Empire is a good show that has some merit to it and will entertain fans of the franchise. But it doesn't hit the landing as much as it should and feels like a slight let down in that way but it is still a decent watch.

Rating - 7/10.

Was so enjoyable watching the characters wrestle with their inner light & darkness, until nearing the end of episode 5...

If I was to retell others about this episode the way the filmmaker tells the story without spoiling it by referring to names and what had just happened, then it would be like... (read without the stuff in the brackets)

"It was utterly ridiculous hearing 'them' (plural, the Sith Inquisitors) commenting on 'them' (singular, a person) whom 'they' (pl.) have just dealt with, as if 'they' (pl.) cared about 'their' (sing.) life enough to a point that 'they' (pl.) decided to referred to 'them' (s.g.) as 'they/them' (sing.)... Were 'they' (pl.) trying to show 'them' (sing.) 'their' (pl.) respect? Were 'they' (pl.) trying so hard to not offend 'them' (sing.) Whom 'they' (pl) came to offend in the first place?

It also confuses the audience whether there were more of 'them' out there that 'they' were referring to whom 'they' might have forgotten about?"

Also, Disney isn't being consistent when 'they' wanted to refer to an individual person as 'they/them' in other languages, if you can read subtitles in other languages, give it a try and have a look/laugh!

Clearly 'they' wanted to play safe and didn't want to rattle the non-English speaking market.

Your perception of the show may differ quite drastically from others depending on how much you care about the characters that the show focuses on. Personally, I do not care much for Morgan Elsbeth as she doesn't really come off as an interesting character so I found the first 3 episodes to be relatively average, nothing insulting by any means but nothing that exciting either. The episodes focusing on Bariss Offee were more interesting to me as I like her more as a character but they weren't anything special. Overall there's a lot more they could've done with the show, but if you are interested in those characters then it might be worth a watch for you. Do not expect anything ground-breaking though.

Honestly, who cares about Morgan Elsbeth.

A one off character of the MANDALORIAN who became a mainstay in AHSOKA, but even then she wasn't all that interesting. Not sure why TOTE wanted to showcase her backstory when we already know it.

The issue with Morgan's three episode arc is that it doesn't tell us anything new about her and it doesn't make any sense.

Morgan states to Thrawn that she "seeks revenge," but revenge against who?? Grievous is dead, Dooku is dead, the CIS has been defeated-everyone responsible for the destruction of her people are dead. Sooo...what vengeance is she seeking? Morgan just becomes some corrupt bureaucrat for the imperials who basically turns a random village into a hard labor camp, but why though? Why is she going out her way to mistreat these people? We don't know. She just winds up running a pyramid scheme and then murders anyone who challenges it, and again, it's never understood why she's doing any of it outside of be generic "I want power," which isn't a goal Morgan states. Again, she's somehow doing this to "get revenge," one day against people who are already dead.

So in the end, we wind up learning nothing new about Morgan and her episodes were largely a waste of time.

I just stuck around for Barris, because we get to see what happened to her post RoTS. Barris' story does what Morgan's should had, which is sbowing us things we don't know, and exploring the depth of Barris herself. It was great seeing the Fourth Sister since we didn't get anything from her out of KENOBI. I won't go into detail about Barris' story because I'd be spoiling, but I do feel that it was better handled than Morgan's.