As anybody who knows me knows, I’m a huge Star Wars fan. I’ve watched all the movies multiple times, and I’ve kept up with the Disney Plus shows. That includes animated shows. The Clone Wars, Rebel, Visions, and The Bad Batch have all been part of my routine.  With that in mind comes the new animated series Star Wars Tales of the Empire. Similar in length to Visions, but around fifteen-minute episodes. These episodes are shorter in length but not bad at all. 

The series has three episodes. The first three episodes feature the origin story of Magistrate Morgan Elsbeth (Diana Lee Inosanto). She has been a mysterious character that first appeared in The Mandalorian Season Three. She had more of a role in Ahsoka season 1. These episodes are fantastic, and they give a back story of this woman who worked for Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen). She had a tragedy in her childhood, and this is something that The Empire and Sith love to pray on. 

The second set of episodes from episodes four through six feature unexplored Jedi Knight Barriss Offee (Meredith Salenger) She was part of a sect of witches and is mentored by Lyn aka the Fourth Sister (Rya Kihlstedt) She starts out as an apprentice to the Grand Inquisitor (Jason Isaacs), but realizes she isn’t cut out for this kind of job and escapes and goes on her own. I was very interested in learning more about this character. She is one I haven’t followed as much as others, but I very much enjoyed her arch.

This series has amazing animation that looks a little different from a couple of the other series. The Bad Batch has a grittier style to it. This show has a cleaner and more crisper animation style. There is a bit of a darker look to some of the episodes I saw. I only saw six episodes of the series so far, but that all looked amazing. I love the fact that these Disney Plus animated shows change up the animation but also keep it similar to the other shows somewhat. 

There are some cool cameos in the series from General Grievous to Darth Vader and the already mentioned Grand Admiral Thrawn. These villains play a big part in the origins of these two women. It just shows that Star Wars is always an interconnected universe. Even when they do newer or underdeveloped characters like these, they still connect to the overall Star Wars universe. I know fans are sick of this, but Dave Filoni likes to make the connections.

Even though Dave Filoni has finally crossed over into the live action Star Wars universe with his episodes in The Mandalorian Season 2 and 3  and his running of the Ahsoka series, He will always be remembered as an animator to me, though, and Star Wars: Tales Of the Empire proves that. The first six episodes Ep 1 The Path of Fear, Ep 2 The Path of Anger, Ep 3 The Path of Hate featuring Magistrate Morgan Elsbith and Ep 4 Devoted, Ep 5 Realization and Ep 6 The Way Out featuring Barriss Offee are some of the best things he’s been involved in. If this series is this good after 6 episodes, then I can’t wait for the rest of the series.

6 Episodes watched and reviewed

4 ½ stars

Dan Skip Allen