A long time ago was we at Gamereactor happy in the animated mini-series Tales of the Jedi which, by recreating several moments in the lives of Ahsoka Tano and Dooku, provided interesting backgrounds for these prominent characters in the galactic saga, while showing a ‘next-gen’ version of The Clone’s animation style Wars, with an unparalleled quality. Almost two years later, team Dave Filoni and company are back on this Star Wars day and repeating the formula, but this time focusing on two less relevant characters who flirted with the Empire.
The premise is fine, and since the 3+3 episodes together are under an hour and a half long, I watched them as cartoons on Saturday morning this May 4. But aside from the quality reaching new heights, the truth is that the miniseries has left me pretty empty.
First, it’s not Tales of the Empire per se. OK, there’s some politics, and some of the tactics used by the various admirals, Moffs, and Inquisitors during Palpatine’s dictatorship are explored, but it’s really more about filling out the lives of Morgan Elsbeth and Barriss Offee. The first big difference is that there is much less of the Empire than there was of the Jedi in the first “Tales of”, pun intended. The other is that these characters, even though Filoni gave them such a big place in The Mandalorian and Ahsoka series respectively and in The Clone Wars, don’t come close to having the same personality and importance as Ahsoka and Dooku themselves.
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On the plus side, unlike the Ahsoka Tano series, it doesn’t really matter here that knowing what happened before in the Philo universe makes the series that much better and more exciting and interesting for the fans. What was a burden in the Rosario Dawson series (and once loosely elevated the series to one of the best Disney has ever made) doesn’t matter here because it’s taken for granted: This is filler for those looking for it.
And what a beautiful piece of filler it is. Chronicles of the Empire is perhaps the finest and most beautiful thing ever made in Star Wars animation, from some memorable images, to the use of color, to the incredible wealth of detail in the ships and planets, to the movements of the characters, and not least a well-suited soundtrack that gets Obi -Wan Kenobi series to sound ridiculous. It retains the style that made The Clone Wars popular as a hallmark, but takes it to a new level, and the truth is that the 3D models created for Diana Lee Inosanto at her various ages are amazing and accurate, as much or more than the which was optioned in 2022 for Liam Neeson and Christopher Lee.
Speaking of planets, and as you’d expect from Filoni, it’s nice to explore places familiar to fans at different points in their existence. On the witch side, we won’t give too much away by saying that we’ll return to Dathomir at “that” time in The Clone Wars Season 4, or that we’ll see how Corvus and the city of Calodan transform before The Mandalorian. Imagine that she, on the side of the traitorous Jedi, ends up stopping at a place that both Cal Kestis and Obi-Wan himself know well.
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But these stories lack substance. And climax. And, surprisingly, darkness. The two major cameos from the villains of the two branches remain just that, cameos (although Elsbeth’s at least leaves the best dialogue about the Empire). And again, as Barriss himself hears, “you hold back, and that makes you predictable”. Neither story adds anything really new to this fic, no particularly new conflict or motivation, beyond a few notes and perhaps the brief mention of the Jedi’s controversial “kidnapping” of sentient children.
And, geez, both main characters come from Ahsoka and converge on Ahsoka. Yes, she is to me the best character in all of Star Wars, and I’m looking forward to Dawson’s second season, but if Filoni doesn’t stop navel-gazing, we’ll all end up sick of what started out so well. In short: see it as a nice filler if you know where Morgan and Barriss are coming from and you’ll be fine with it, but it won’t bring much to the table that isn’t audiovisual either.