I quite enjoyed all the episodes but I agree that Morgan is absolutely overshadowed by Thrawn.
Man his voice is so cool
Man his voice is so cool
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Morgan's first episode is pretty cool, but the latter two really just cement that there's nothing interesting about this character or her goals.
The Barriss episodes are all good, but it really sucks that these are as short as they are. You could've spent a full 90 minutes on her story. This really deserved more time to make more impactful.
The Barriss episodes are all good, but it really sucks that these are as short as they are. You could've spent a full 90 minutes on her story. This really deserved more time to make more impactful.
The back end was much better. The Morgan stuff was straight-up forgettable for me. The first Tales series was a lot more engaging imo.
Morgan continues to be boring, the Bariss stuff was alright but a bit rushed. I always enjoy Lars Mikkelsen I think he's always been the better actor of the two brothers even before they became international stars
I guess I'm the only one who enjoyed Morgan's episodes more than the Barriss ones. It was fun to see Grievous in action again, and interesting to learn that there were other clans on Dathomir besides the nightsisters. Thrawn looks glorious in the Clone Wars style, and all the little callbacks to that Mandalorian episode were a nice touch.
Barriss Offee's change of heart when confronted with the hunted jedi felt a bit odd to me, after she had become so disillusioned with the Jedi order that she had no problems with murdering innocent people and framing one of her friends. I also expected Vader to have some kind of reaction to seeing her again.
Barriss Offee's change of heart when confronted with the hunted jedi felt a bit odd to me, after she had become so disillusioned with the Jedi order that she had no problems with murdering innocent people and framing one of her friends. I also expected Vader to have some kind of reaction to seeing her again.
"Hey, I've noticed you make really cost-inefficient space fighters, and a vague-at-best personal vendetta against... nobody in specific. Truly I need you in my cabinet of elite bad guys."
I agree with all of this really. Barriss fomented a Sith ass type plot against the Jedi and murdered people. I see her as certainly wanting to change the wholesale slaughter methods of the Inquisitors, but flat out rejecting it AND returning fully to the light felt odd. Fourth Sisters turn was silly as well.
I've gotten really annoyed with the "switch flip" representation of dark siders of late. Darth Vader turns back under extremely unique circumstances. Outside of that, people throwing off the dark side like a cape shouldn't be happening. Not to say that it can't, but it should certainly be gradual. Kylo Ren was represented such that you could see him going either way, but IX didn't nail the landing for me on it.
Bariss never seemed to 'like' the idea of the Inquisitors but still went with it instead of dying. I feel like all throughout the second episode + even in the first she questions their methods while trying to do it a way she thinks is better. My impression is she was fine with the terrorism because she thought it was in service of a greater good, but she quickly grows disillusioned with the Inquisitors just like many others have grown disillusioned with the Empire. She's basically deconstructing their methods throughout, just like Thrawn did in the other episode. She probably just doesn't have enough knowledge to know she could be a non-aligned force user and went back to calling herself a Jedi out of process of elimination.
I also wanted more with Vader but we could always she that later.
Barriss committed an extreme act of terrorism in order to make a point, not because she was an evil person. That doesn't mean she'd be ok with the wholesale slaughter of innocents when the circumstances do not in anyway justify the means to an end. She accepted a new opportunity in a galaxy that was no longer at war and saw what "maintaining order" actually meant. Hence her leaving. A good amount of inquisitors left for various reasons and she's just another example of someone pushing through the overwhelming feeling that there was no way out.
The art style is based on Gendy's OG clone wars show, not Dreamworks.
The term has been used to describe that wide spread use of caricatured face shapes with minimal details, texture, and lighting.
Just want to shout out that first group of inquisitors we see. Two faceless nobodies, Bariss and Lyn. Then there's the Grand Inquistor a character whose name we still don't know for some reason. This being star wars where random ass background characters get a name and a backstory, but this main antagonist has now gone like more than a decade without having just his actual name revealed. Amazing group of villains guys.
Not really, Dreamworks style means a very specific thing across quite a few number of styles from their inhouse studio, and TCW never really reflects that. (Out of some god awful promo images back in the day.)
Now if you were to say this style is starting to reach the limits of what can be done with it, as it first came to screen in 2008, and there's only so much new character rigs can do to spruce it up, I would agree with that.
It still looks better than a lot of shows of its caliber, but 90% of that is carried by framing, lighting and environment design. There were moments in Tales of Empire where I thought the dated character design didn't connect with me at all.
No it hasn't?
💯
I personally think the deeper level of realism adds a lot. We've gone VERY far away from CW Dooku/Gendy's level of caricature and the characters in general look far more like the people they're based on.
Like, "Yes this is young Liam Neeson."
and imagine what he'd look like in CW S1.
The fourth sister in particular is spot on with her actress in Obi-wan. There's a major focus on facial animation that I love in comparison to before. It's really night and day quality wise. I also wonder if they might consider using more mocap in the future. It's more expensive but
Ahsoka vs. Maul
If anything I was lowkey hoping for an
Ahsoka cameo if only to see what she'd look like an as older character with the added realism compared to what she looked like in Rebels.
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The Morgan episodes were a waste of time. Didn't learn anything about her that I hadn't already guessed by the end of Ahsoka, minus how she met Thrawn…which wasn't worth telling a story about.
The Barris stuff was fun though. Glad we got to see how her story went.
The Barris stuff was fun though. Glad we got to see how her story went.
Since people are talking about Thrawn overshadowing Morgan, it made me realize that they could've done three episodes focused on him instead. Maybe adapted some key moments from Zahn's first novel in the current canon, like when he first encounters the Empire and is brought before Palpatine.
I really hope they're still doing that at some point. Right now most people still have no idea about Thrawn's backstory.
Just watched all of it. Morgan's episodes felt like kind of a waste. She's just not that compelling a character, and it felt like they only wanted to show how she became connected to Thrawn, nothing more.
Barriss' episodes definitely hit better, although it basically being a three episode arc means each episode doesn't stand on its own as well. I thought Jedi did a better job with its singular episodes.
Overall, still a fun experiment, but I would've like an additional character or two to give this season more variety.
Barriss' episodes definitely hit better, although it basically being a three episode arc means each episode doesn't stand on its own as well. I thought Jedi did a better job with its singular episodes.
Overall, still a fun experiment, but I would've like an additional character or two to give this season more variety.
Just finished this and, yeah, add me to the chorus of the Bariss' episodes were good and the Morgan's lackluster.
The Morgan episodes annoyed me in particular, I kept expecting/hoping the show would come up with something to snap the character into focus but after these three episodes she feels the same as she has been in all of her previous appearances: she is just kind of vague. Vague of purpose, vague of intent, vague of motivation. When Thrawn asked her the question again and told her to be honest, her response of(to paraphrase) "Anger, and the crush my enemies" left me scratching my head, 'anger' I get but what enemies lady? And in the final episode of hers she starts talking about how she had a vision and knows her destiny or something and then we get her thugs just burning down the forest right outside the village and I'm like 'Oh, you are this level of cartoon villain now.'
Just super disappointing.
The Bariss ones were great though, although I wish they got more run time. Thankfully it avoided the Dark Side hurdle I was wary of and it had a really great finish.
I hope if they do another one of these they do more episodes, either for each character we are following or to do more stories at once, because this is twice in a row where its sucked that this new thing comes out and we got 3 tiny episodes that are good and then three that aren't.
The Morgan episodes annoyed me in particular, I kept expecting/hoping the show would come up with something to snap the character into focus but after these three episodes she feels the same as she has been in all of her previous appearances: she is just kind of vague. Vague of purpose, vague of intent, vague of motivation. When Thrawn asked her the question again and told her to be honest, her response of(to paraphrase) "Anger, and the crush my enemies" left me scratching my head, 'anger' I get but what enemies lady? And in the final episode of hers she starts talking about how she had a vision and knows her destiny or something and then we get her thugs just burning down the forest right outside the village and I'm like 'Oh, you are this level of cartoon villain now.'
Just super disappointing.
The Bariss ones were great though, although I wish they got more run time. Thankfully it avoided the Dark Side hurdle I was wary of and it had a really great finish.
I hope if they do another one of these they do more episodes, either for each character we are following or to do more stories at once, because this is twice in a row where its sucked that this new thing comes out and we got 3 tiny episodes that are good and then three that aren't.
Aside from the first episode, the Morgan block was more about things around her than about herself. I push back on that they're inherently bad or even all that boring, but Morgan Elsbeth didn't feel well served when there is promise to the character.
Second episode is the first film media to make it clear that the Empire as a whole was about exploitation. Not just to the citizenry, colonized systems, or the purpose of competitive machinations of people like Tarkin, but to its own fundamental structure of power. Pellion, Rukh, and Thrawn working in the same space was cool, but ultimately didn't feel well written and more-so to give action to an otherwise subdued piece. There was also an edge of the Empire being a means to an end between her relation to the people of Corvus and her discussion with Thrawn, but it felt incredibly clumsy to something that was better done and clearer with one line of dialogue in Ahsoka S1.
The third is just another case of driving home the naivety of the New Republic, and the reality of victory. It's also primarily just a bridge to S2 of The Mandolorian. The burning of the forest unfortunately felt like it was to serve the visual (it's like where we left the first episode, it's poetry it rhymes!) than something that fits a character that conducted a well orchestrated plan that we see play out in Ahsoka S1. There's also a bit of an issue of where she was a well known loyalist with a warrant of arrest that was allowed to maintain holdings on the Corellian shipyards.
Morgan's actual vision that incites the events of that last episode, how she came to employ a former Inquisitor (that we see in the next episode for Barris' block ffs) that she may or may not have raised from the dead despite the Mountain Clan Matron's claim of the Nightsister's magick having broken for Morgan, and the purpose of the factories Morgan was subjugating the populace to if Lothal was the factory for the TIE Defender program. All of those were missing, and I think her block really suffers in tackling otherwise excellent themes around her than putting her agency in the front.
All-in-all, the first three episodes felt like a truncated adaptation of a decent novel. Perhaps a Morgan Elsbeth novel by Timothy Zahn can be manifested, and we can see more of the internal grappling on how she felt she was actually helping people and her purpose beyond the Empire before and after her vision sent by the Great Mothers of Peridea.
Second episode is the first film media to make it clear that the Empire as a whole was about exploitation. Not just to the citizenry, colonized systems, or the purpose of competitive machinations of people like Tarkin, but to its own fundamental structure of power. Pellion, Rukh, and Thrawn working in the same space was cool, but ultimately didn't feel well written and more-so to give action to an otherwise subdued piece. There was also an edge of the Empire being a means to an end between her relation to the people of Corvus and her discussion with Thrawn, but it felt incredibly clumsy to something that was better done and clearer with one line of dialogue in Ahsoka S1.
The third is just another case of driving home the naivety of the New Republic, and the reality of victory. It's also primarily just a bridge to S2 of The Mandolorian. The burning of the forest unfortunately felt like it was to serve the visual (it's like where we left the first episode, it's poetry it rhymes!) than something that fits a character that conducted a well orchestrated plan that we see play out in Ahsoka S1. There's also a bit of an issue of where she was a well known loyalist with a warrant of arrest that was allowed to maintain holdings on the Corellian shipyards.
Morgan's actual vision that incites the events of that last episode, how she came to employ a former Inquisitor (that we see in the next episode for Barris' block ffs) that she may or may not have raised from the dead despite the Mountain Clan Matron's claim of the Nightsister's magick having broken for Morgan, and the purpose of the factories Morgan was subjugating the populace to if Lothal was the factory for the TIE Defender program. All of those were missing, and I think her block really suffers in tackling otherwise excellent themes around her than putting her agency in the front.
All-in-all, the first three episodes felt like a truncated adaptation of a decent novel. Perhaps a Morgan Elsbeth novel by Timothy Zahn can be manifested, and we can see more of the internal grappling on how she felt she was actually helping people and her purpose beyond the Empire before and after her vision sent by the Great Mothers of Peridea.
They should have called this Tales of the Survivors cause there's a not a lot of Empire in this. It was okay and it was nice to see Bariss' story post Revenge. The visuals and animations are drop dead gorgeous, I hope we another series with this quality but hopefully set in the sequel trilogy timeline or High Republic cause I think they squeezed enough out of the post Revenge timeline.
I hope the next set of Tales series are either about the Sith (give me some young Sheev adventures lol) or First Order (Let's see The Rise of Hux/Kylo).
I hope the next set of Tales series are either about the Sith (give me some young Sheev adventures lol) or First Order (Let's see The Rise of Hux/Kylo).
Is Dolby Vision borked for anyone else during Episode 4 of the series? The three episodes before it were perfectly fine (and gorgeous!), but the 4th is completely messed up on an LG CX.
I jumped to the previous episodes and even jumped forward to episode 5 to watch the beginning and all of those look as they should, it's just episode 4 that's hilariously wrong. They must have used a slightly different setting on the Dolby Vision encoding that's not playing nice with the CX, for whatever reason.
I jumped to the previous episodes and even jumped forward to episode 5 to watch the beginning and all of those look as they should, it's just episode 4 that's hilariously wrong. They must have used a slightly different setting on the Dolby Vision encoding that's not playing nice with the CX, for whatever reason.
Oh it looked super fucked up. And in a way, that stark intense lighting kinda made it look interesting, but it was absolutely a busted upload.
Same on my LG C series, though it's a much earlier model. That exterior shot was a putrid mess.
E1-3, probably will be fine just jumping in or watching some Clone Wars episodes revolving around Dathomir if you want to know about them. S3E12-14 is the intro arc of Dathomir. S4E19 takes place in the same time and place as episode one of Tales of the Empire, and provides more context on why that's occuring.
Clone Wars S5 E17-20 is all the background you need for Tales of the Empire e4-6.
same, but on my vizio
I stopped and restarted the stream thinking my tv was glitching out
Living in a frozen desert for several years takes its toll on the body I guess?
I was pretty disappointed in the Bariss stuff. The initiation episode was fantastic, but the other two felt like a real rush through the story one of the most interesting characters from Clone Wars. I can't believe whatever confrontation/reconciliation she had with Ahsoka was just sort of vaguely hinted at (am I understanding that line correctly?). Maybe they're saving that for a future show, but if they are it's a strange choice to show this stuff first. I wish we had gotten to see more than 15 minutes of her life as an inquisitor! I feel like there was so much more to explore in the consequences of her big decision in CW.
Prevailing theory is that being a "healer" has accelerated her aging since canonically Force-healing others comes at the expense of your own vitality.
I continue to be confused about exactly how Dathomir "works". Like I originally was under the assumption that the Night Sisters were the females of Darth Maul's race (Zabraks) which I already had questions about (do they just have a mating season and then go and split the genders at birth to live separate from each other?), but now they apparently only have the majority of their markings due to Night Sister magic? So a female Zabrak just looks like a regular human without the magic? And there's a whole other clan of females in the mountains that just look human? I'm lost lol.
The Dathomiri are a branch of Zabrak from Peridea, but other Zabrak in the galaxy have the horns across all genders.
We don't know anything about the Mountain Clan. Probably are the same people, just a different culture.
There's multiple subspecies of Zabrak. The Nightsisters and Nightbrothers were specifically of the Dathomiri Zabraks, whose females lacked the horns of other Zabraks and look more or less like humans (with the degree varying across depictions).
The Nightsisters are ultimately a cultural/religious group, just like the Sith and Jedi, just one specifically tied to Dathomiri culture (or rather Peridean I guess). It's not an innate part of the species. The mountain tribe are just another tribe of Dathomiri with their own culture/religion/ethnic backgrounds.
Regarding the markings, I *think* them being tied to their magicks is new, but in the case of the Nightbrothers they're actually specifically tattoos.
There are also plenty of normal-ass Zabraks in the Galaxy - they're actually the majority. There's even a couple Jedi Zabraks in the prequels as background characters.
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IIRC the other main type is the Iridonian Zabrak, like Bao Dur in Kotor 2.
There is some info for them in the old EU, but probably safe to assume only the name is carrying over.
Having it be based around the Empire and not the Jedi was surprising, who knows what they will do. Could just as easily be about the High Republic.
I know I am probably in the minority here but my goto when I heard that line was Ventress. We know she is still alive and Quinlan Vos is confirmed to be involved with the Path. I don't think they have ever connected Ahsoka to the Path, not that it would be a stretch but it seemed she got actively involved with the rebellion instead.
Had the exact same issue on my Sony OLED. Weird.
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6 episodes for 2 stories felt really short, especially the second story which kinda ends abruptly
Obi Wan Kenobi went from Ewan Mcgreggor to Alec Guinness in the span of twenty years to be fair.
People in the Star Wars universe age on speed run.
In the OT Anakin went from being Obi Wans apprentice to looking about 10 years older than him in RotJ. I don't know if Anakin had a canon age in 1983 but he looked almost twice as old as he was supposed to.
Years of force healing taking its toll seems to be the implication.
Anakin aged like milk because of the dark side.
I was actually referring to his force ghost, which didn't show those effects. I suppose that is what they get by hiring an actor that was a decade older than Alec Guinness. Even in the 90's when we assumed Anakin would be much older when he first encountered Obi-Wan, that casting choice never sat well with me. I think that is the reason is why I am fine with them sticking Hayden into Jedi.
Yea initial concepts had Anakin portrayed as a lot older for the prequels. Hilariously Kylo Ren is canonically older throughout the ST than Anakin was in the prequels.
Yea, Kylo is what 29/30 during the ST whereas Anakin is 9-22 and Vader 22-45.
I am definitely gonna feel weird when I am older than Vader.
Tales of the Empire was gorgeously animated, but overall I'm somewhat disappointed.
Morgan Elisabet's side story seems unnecessary. I do think she's a cool henchman but she is just as relevant as Rukh or Bosch when it comes to screentime. Compare it to Count Dooku who has prominence in the franchise, inasmuch he had a more interesting tale to share. The attempt to garner sympathy for her role as Magistrate fails hard, to me she's just like any other corrupt politician. Also I didn't realised the Magistrate and Morgan were the same person until watching this.
Bariss episodes were better, however her sudden return to the jedi ways felt premature; it way too soon. Her character going against the Jedi in TCW was also stupidly done (even though I agreed with her sentiments). Ideally, they should have explored her time as a sith more. It'd be fascinating to see her realisation that the sith's dogma was no different to the jedi's i.e abducting and indoctrinating force sensitive children.
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- Morgan is a human Nightsister that's why she doesn't look Dathomirian.
- Bariss is an alien, she would age differently to humans and other sentient lifeforms.
Morgan Elisabet's side story seems unnecessary. I do think she's a cool henchman but she is just as relevant as Rukh or Bosch when it comes to screentime. Compare it to Count Dooku who has prominence in the franchise, inasmuch he had a more interesting tale to share. The attempt to garner sympathy for her role as Magistrate fails hard, to me she's just like any other corrupt politician. Also I didn't realised the Magistrate and Morgan were the same person until watching this.
Bariss episodes were better, however her sudden return to the jedi ways felt premature; it way too soon. Her character going against the Jedi in TCW was also stupidly done (even though I agreed with her sentiments). Ideally, they should have explored her time as a sith more. It'd be fascinating to see her realisation that the sith's dogma was no different to the jedi's i.e abducting and indoctrinating force sensitive children.
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- Morgan is a human Nightsister that's why she doesn't look Dathomirian.
- Bariss is an alien, she would age differently to humans and other sentient lifeforms.
Didn't think this was very good at all.
The Morgan stuff just doesn't come across as interesting or meaningful since it's not explored in any real depth and the character herself is not particularly engaging on her own. We learn a bit more of her backstory but otherwise there's just not much there. Bonus points for having yet another New Republic character act like a complete moron.
The Bariss stuff had more potential but with such short run times everything happens way too quickly characterwise, with no time taken to let the story breathe/play out. There's nothing inherently wrong with the general outline of the story they presented, but having it happen over 30-35 minutes felt very rushed and unearned.
The Morgan stuff just doesn't come across as interesting or meaningful since it's not explored in any real depth and the character herself is not particularly engaging on her own. We learn a bit more of her backstory but otherwise there's just not much there. Bonus points for having yet another New Republic character act like a complete moron.
The Bariss stuff had more potential but with such short run times everything happens way too quickly characterwise, with no time taken to let the story breathe/play out. There's nothing inherently wrong with the general outline of the story they presented, but having it happen over 30-35 minutes felt very rushed and unearned.
You've summed it up nicely. They should have do-away Morgan's plot and span the 6 episodes on Barris.