WARNING: This review may contain SPOILERS for Star Wars: Tales of the Underworld.
Since its beginning, the Star Wars: Tales series -- Tales of the Jedi, Empire, and now Tales of the Underworld -- has operated on the premise that in order to better understand familiar characters from a galaxy far, far away, we needed to experience more vignettes of their lives. These animated shorts have explored characters such as Ahsoka Tano and Count Dooku, mostly showing never-before-seen key moments of their stories.
Tales of the Underworld, however, featured a slightly updated and arguably much better approach to the animated series' format. As with past Tales series, each of the two featured characters -- this time Asajj Ventress and Cad Bane -- got three episodes of story each. Unlike previous installments, however, Underworld linked all three episodes for each character together in one continuous, and thus much more impactful, story.
Ahsoka's episodes in Tales of the Jedi, for example, were well-made but isolated stories told at different points throughout her life. In the first episode, we see her on her home planet and how her family first discovered her Force sensitivity. But that is never addressed in the other two episodes, which feature her training with Clone troopers, attending an important funeral, and meeting with Bail Organa in secret. All these stories themselves are good, but they don't allow enough time and space to create a truly emotional arc that sticks with the viewer when it's over.
And this is where Underworld truly shines. In both trios of stories -- the first featuring Ventress picking up a "stray" Jedi and attempting to help him find The Path and hide from the Empire; the second following Cad Bane from his first steps into bounty hunting to his final transformation into a ruthless, seemingly unfeeling assassin -- each character is given exceptional room to grow. Viewers are given every possible opportunity to fall in love with and feel for even the episodes' secondary characters. And the weight of each story lingers at its end, in a good way, which wasn't always the case with previous trios of episodes in this series.
You're supposed to feel devastated when Ventress's "friend" breaks off toward the Path ship at the end of that final episode and overjoyed when he decides not to leave. You're supposed to look into that young child's face at the end of Bane's stories, knowing who he is, what he represents, and the heart-shattering reality of what it must mean for the kid to watch Bane disappear into the distance.
This flood of emotion and purpose never would have been possible in just one short, 15-20-minute story. Star Wars: Visions has done it time and again, but Tales, up to this point, has struggled to match that magic. It's not a criticism of the series that it needs a three-episode arc to really sell the answer to the all-too-common "why did we need this" question fans like to ask. Some stories and characters simply need these backstories -- if we're going to get them -- stretched out a bit to really hit home.
Never in a million years did I think I'd care about Cad Bane for even a second, but here I am, caring a lot. There's power in that. Good writing, and provided the room to really let it shine, is powerful when properly executed. This is why the first season of the Ahsoka live-action series could have worked well, but didn't. A good premise that lacked the space to flourish.
Hopefully, in the future, they'll continue to apply what they've learned with this series. Perhaps they'll continue to focus on already established characters but build a vibrant world around them, featuring dynamic supporting characters and emotional moments that linger in the minds of viewers long after another short series of episodes comes to a close.
Stream Tales of the Underworld and the other Star Wars: Tales series exclusively on Disney+.