'Tales of the Empire' Review: Turn to the Dark Side

Diana Lee Inosanto and Meredith Salenger star in Dave Filoni's new Star Wars animated series, available May 4, only on Disney+.

Got 15 minutes? Ready to embrace the darkness? 

Created by Dave Filoni, Tales of the Jedi is a six-episode animated series featuring Ahsoka Tano and Count Dooku during the era of the prequel trilogy films. As I wrote at the time: 

Thanks to the brevity of their running times, each episode gets right to the narrative point, while still featuring beautiful animation and shedding a little light into a dark corner of the Star Wars universe. It’s a good treat for fans, and I enjoyed it too.

The second season of the series, Tales of the Empire, follows a similar pattern. This time, Dave Filoni serves as supervising director; he wrote the stories for each episode, while others wrote the scripts, with the first three following Morgan Elspeth (Diana Lee Inosanto) and the second three following Barriss Offee (Meredith Salenger). 

Morgan Elspeth was introduced as an antagonistic Magistrate in The Mandalorian, Season 2, portrayed by Diane Lee Inosanto. Her story was hinted at in the live-action show, and the first three episodes here dramatize that story and flesh out the details. It's a very dark story, in which the fate of Morgan's mother is revealed within the first few minutes, which is quite devastating, and supplies fuel for her actions. 

Barriss Offee first appeared in Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002) as a Jedi apprentice and friend of Ahsoka Tano. She becomes unhappy with Jedi decision making during wartime, betrays Ahsoka, and ends up in prison. (Later she appeared in The Clone Wars series, voiced by Meredith Salenger. ) The fourth episode finds her in prison, but given the opportunity to join a rebuilding Empire under the oversight of dark forces, she acquiesces. 

Both story arcs deal with adult issues that play out in a succinct manner, which is very impressive in view of the running time (11-15 minutes) each. And each episode is handsomely animated; it's like hiring Picasso to paint your garage. You have no doubt that he could do it quite quickly, but he can't keep from lavishly embellishing the painting until it becomes a work of art. 

Each episode of Tales of the Empire is extremely tasty, like bite-sized pieces of chocolate. It is dark chocolate, to be sure, but highly recommended. [Disney Plus]