‘Tales of the Empire’ Review

The Big Picture

• Tales of the Empire
  follows Morgan and Barriss, revealing personal challenges amidst the Empire’s reign.
• Morgan & Barriss’s stories complement each other thematically, focusing on pain, loss, and survival.
• The anthology format allows for a deep exploration of character arcs, providing a thoughtful reflection on the Star Wars universe.

For every Star Wars tale with impossibly high stakes and galaxy-shaping consequences, there are also a handful of stories with a smaller focus. These often follow characters who exist on the periphery of the larger narrative, present enough to attract the audience’s attention but not central enough to warrant time devoted to exploring their arcs. While these types of stories are generally told via either books or comics, the animated Tales anthology has brought these more focused narratives to the small screen. 2022’s Tales of the Jedi began the exploration of this new mode in a familiar medium, but this year’s Tales of the Empire really proves why the anthology format is such a good means of continuing these stories.

What Is ‘Tales of the Empire’ About?

Like Tales of the Jedi before it, Tales of the Empire follows two characters during the days of the Empire: Morgan Elsbeth (Diana Lee Inosanto), whom we first met in The Mandalorian and who met an untimely end in Ahsoka, and Barriss Offee (Meredith Salenger), last seen at the end of The Clone Wars Season 5.

Morgan’s three episodes, which kick off the season, follow the Nightsister in her early days before we ever meet her in The Mandalorian, fighting alongside her sisters against General Grievous (Matthew Wood), and eventually getting into her meeting with Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen). Though the broad strokes of her story are something the audience could have made an educated guess about, watching it play out makes Morgan a far more tragic — or sympathetic — character. The most boring thing a character can be is evil for evil’s sake, or for the sake of amassing power just because, and fortunately, Morgan doesn’t fall into either of these traps, with the series instead painting a nuanced portrait of why she is the way she is by the time Ahsoka (Rosario Dawson) goes to confront her on Corvus.

The second arc follows Barriss Offee in the days after she was arrested for the bombings at the Jedi Temple. Unlike Morgan, whose story serves as a prequel, Barriss’s arc is completely uncharted, albeit unsurprising, territory, as she is recruited into the Inquisitorius — Vader’s legion of Jedi-turned-Jedi hunters, and forced to fight for her survival under the new Galactic Empire. Unlike Morgan, Barriss is never explicitly painted as a villain, though like with all Star Wars “baddies,” this label seems largely subjective depending on your perspective.

Barriss and Morgan’s Stories Complement Each Other in ‘Tales of the Empire’

Although Morgan and Barriss come from different places in the galaxy, have different relationships to the Force, and experienced the fall of the Republic and the rise of the Empire differently, the two actually have more in common than not, making them a perfect duo for Tales of the Empire. Where Tales of the Jedi paired Ahsoka (Ashley Eckstein) and Count Dooku (Corey Burton) because of their fraying relationship with the formal Jedi Order, Morgan and Barriss’s pairing in this anthology makes sense on a more thematic level. The two are united not by affiliation or circumstance, but instead by how they react to the horrifying reality of losing everything they thought mattered to them.

Tales of the Empire is, at its heart, a story of pain and loss, and trying your best to survive despite it all. It presents two different pictures of two different women each doing what they think is best to regain all that they’ve lost, and dealing with the consequences of learning that you can never really go back to the way things were before. They must learn to live with the consequences of their actions but also, unfairly as it always is, the consequences of the actions of those around them.

‘Tales of the Empire’ Is the Right Place for More Focused Stories

It becomes startlingly clear while watching Tales of the Empire that this short anthology format is the best way to tell stories like this onscreen. As compelling as they are, weaving them into, hypothetically, a Clone Wars arc or an episode of Ahsoka would distract from the larger narrative, particularly when there aren’t 22-episode seasons that can afford to spend a whole installment away from the Big Story. It was absolutely the right move to save these character arcs for a series where they could be the entire focus instead.

I have great affection for Star Wars books. For me, they hold just as much importance in the overall narrative as any of the movies or shows. Of all of them, certainly of all the shows, Tales of the Empire feels the most book-like. Its entire narrative exists on the periphery of the larger story, with familiar moments and characters to situate us in a time and place, but otherwise stands wholly on its own. It tells a complete story within its six episodes, though the series doesn’t go as far as giving either of its narratives a definitive end. This is more of a side effect of modern media, rather than Star Wars itself, where every story must be left open-ended enough for more, should there be a demand for it. Fortunately, if this is what we can expect, then a second season would be more than welcome.

Like the books, Tales of the Empire will most likely find a target audience in those looking to dive into Morgan and Barriss’s arcs a little deeper, rather than viewers with only a vague knowledge of Star Wars, but that’s by no means a bad thing. Sometimes, a big franchise like this can get a little too stuck in its own cycle, focusing on and repeating the same in-references over and over. That’s not the case for Tales of the Empire. Instead, this anthology series is a thoughtful character piece that reflects on the questions of pain, loss, and healing that make up the galaxy far, far away.

Tales of the Empire premieres May 4 on Disney+.

Watch on Disney+