Star Wars: Tales of the Empire

[Frontier]

Was anyone asking for more Morgan Elsbeth? I feel like most basically wrote her off as a disposable villain in Ahsoka but now she's a disposable villain with a backstory?

The Nightsisters now have pants.

Man, the smile on my face seeing Grievous again in the new animation style and laughing like a madman. And a confirmed kill!

Oh, so there was a totally different religious sect on that planet that lived on the mountains. How much interaction, if any, did they have with the Nightsisters? Mutual non-aggression pact?

It's kind of funny to me that even as a teenager Morgan had this "I'm totally going to grow up to be a villain" attitude.

I guess the lesson from the first episode was "don't give in to fear or else others will suffer the consequences."

Felt like a big jump going from Morgan as a teen to an adult running her own planet, basically, and being a businesswoman introducing the Tie-Defender to the Empire. Like, when did she previously show skills for any of that!?

Rukha and Thrawn look amazing in the Clone Wars style. I didn't have the problem with the Rebels art style for the most part but dang, what a glow-up...

Canon Police! I might be mis-remembering but I'm pretty sure per the Zahn novels Thrawn only got paired with Palleon before the Rebels finale on Lothal and now it seems like they'd been working together the whole time. Sometimes it feels like Filoni is "Heirs to the Empire is the only Thrawn canon that matters!" Where is Eli Vanto!?

Showing up with the moral high ground, small guard detail, and expecting the easy outcome...yeah, that sums up the New Republic when you're not a main character. Girl was screwed the moment she landed. As it went along Wing seemed to realize exactly what was going to happen.

I guess you start out the victim only to grow up being another abuser inflicting the same pain of your childhood onto others.

I see that Rex's plan to ward off his squad in the final episode was a decent plan, so long as you're not officially a Jedi the Clones don't feel compelled to kill you over Order 66. Which means Barriss gets a front row seat to the destruction of the Jedi Temple.

So they make you wear binders in your cell? That must make it really hard to use the bathroom. Although I guess they also negate their Force powers?

So we find out Fourth Sister was Lyn, and Barris knew her, but what was her deal? She seems older than the other Padawans, but familiar with Barris, and unsatisfied with the Jedi. I feel like she at least deserved more depth and information just because the climax of Barris' story hinges on her and their connection.

In construction Fortress Inquisitorius!

Jason Isaacs returning as the Grand Inquisitor in the Clone Wars art style was a thing of beauty. It was just great seeing the Grand Inquisitor again.

I wonder about those two other Padawns, Barris knew them but we don't get a lot of time to explore that or how they got recruited. Horn guy really didn't seem cut out as a Jedi personality-wise.

I'm a little surprised the other guy was more gung-ho about killing Barris than she was about killing him.

We don't even learn what Barris' Inquisitor designation was?

Somehow I'm not surprised Vader was basically just a cameo (and all those speculations about his reaction to Barris went nowhere). I wonder if the software for deepfaking James Earl Jones' voice is capable of being used by any piece of Star Wars media.

So is this meant to be the legit first Inquisitors?

So Barris was an Inquisitor for the people genuinely thinking they were doing as service for the good of the galaxy and not out to kill people and Jedi. Like, did she really not realize what she was signing up for when they made her kill one of her peers? Or the fact that she was a former terrorist who framed her best friend for murder? And she bails on her first Inquisitor mission!

Oh hey, first on-screen non-binary Jedi!

I guess points for not going for the obvious of Barris hunting Luminara plot but feels like there were a lot of unaddressed feelings and issues there.

Of course we then totally jump ahead to her completing her character arc and is in full zen Jedi healer mode.

I feel like they always leave out the fact that the Jedi never forced any families to give up their children when they discovered they were Force Sensitive, though at least it didn't seem like Barris was condemning them and actually seemed to come back around to the Jedi by then.

Oh, and I guess she patched things up with Ahsoka totally off-screen (because we couldn't have a Filoni show that didn't at least reference Ahsoka).

I was wondering to myself whether she had a lightsaber and how she would've gotten one but I see she's mastered fighting with the Force.

Letting yourself get stabbed to prove a point. Honestly I almost hope she did die of those wounds but we've seen multiple times that getting stabbed by a Lightsaber isn't a death sentence.

[sunofdarkchild]

The Morgan stuff was really good, the Barriss stuff less so.

These Tales shorts excel at fleshing out arcs, not in being arcs in and of themselves. We already knew that Dooku became disillusioned with the corruption of the Republic and the Jedi's tolerance of said corruption, but seeing how that happened lent more weight to his choices. Similarly, we already knew Ahsoka survived Order 66 and joined the Rebellion as Fulcrum, but seeing how Anakin's overprotectiveness led to her survival and why her joining Bail Organa was such a big deal added to her story.

The Morgan episodes fell into that mold, filling in the gaps to show why she was so loyal to Thrawn. The Barriss episodes, on the other hand, added an entirely unnecessary redemption arc just for the sake of it, and there is simply not enough time in these shorts to make that sort of redemption arc work. And said redemption arc was done in place of anything involving the fact that she is now serving the man who arrested her for bombing the Jedi Temple, anything involving her old master Luminara or how the apprentice of such a pacifist could become a mass murderer without being groomed by Palpatine, any remorse for all the people she murdered at the Jedi Temple or for framing her best friend, or anything involving the friend she betrayed. Even the way she was killed off just felt lazy, like the entire story was just a way to get rid of a loose plot thread with the least effort possible.

[Frontier]

The Morgan stuff was really good, the Barriss stuff less so.

These Tales shorts excel at fleshing out arcs, not in being arcs in and of themselves. We already knew that Dooku became disillusioned with the corruption of the Republic and the Jedi's tolerance of said corruption, but seeing how that happened lent more weight to his choices. Similarly, we already knew Ahsoka survived Order 66 and joined the Rebellion as Fulcrum, but seeing how Anakin's overprotectiveness led to her survival and why her joining Bail Organa was such a big deal added to her story.

The Morgan episodes fell into that mold, filling in the gaps to show why she was so loyal to Thrawn. The Barriss episodes, on the other hand, added an entirely unnecessary redemption arc just for the sake of it, and there is simply not enough time in these shorts to make that sort of redemption arc work. And said redemption arc was done in place of anything involving the fact that she is now serving the man who arrested her for bombing the Jedi Temple, anything involving her old master Luminara or how the apprentice of such a pacifist could become a mass murderer without being groomed by Palpatine, any remorse for all the people she murdered at the Jedi Temple or for framing her best friend, or anything involving the friend she betrayed. Even the way she was killed off just felt lazy, like the entire story was just a way to get rid of a loose plot thread with the least effort possible.

I'd have rather a full-blown Inquisitor show.

[ChrisIII]

When Vader is introduced to them, this is the first line up.