Each short episode of Star Wars: Tales of the Empire ends with one name, before all others. “Created by Dave Filoni.” Sure, George Lucas’s name comes next, but there’s no question that Tales of the Empire is a journey into the Filoni-verse.

Lucasfilm’s chief creative officer has proven adept at steering the storylines for hours of streamable entertainment, while maintaining an internally consistent canon, by branching out from the franchise’s signature characters in quasi-fractal profusion: revisiting themes and tropes while leaving room for variation, always keeping a clear path back to faces familiar from ’80s bedsheets.

Tales of the Empire, being released as a dash of Disney+ spice on Star Wars Day, is a series of six animated episodes totaling 81 minutes — the second in an anthology series that began with Tales of the Jedi (2022). In two three-episode arcs, the Empire episodes show the beginning of one character’s journey (Morgan Elsbeth, seen in middle age in The Mandalorian and Ahsoka) and picks up with another (Barriss Offee) we last saw taking a dark turn way back in The Clone Wars circa 2013.

Both characters have made deals with the devil — this is Tales of the Empire, after all — but both have opportunities to change their ways. Who does what, and which iconic evildoers show up along the way, is something I will not reveal, but Filoni and the writers use the stories to illustrate the grand moral calculus of the Star Wars universe: along one path lies repression out of fear, along the other lies freedom underwritten by courage.

Tales of the Empire showcases the growing ambition of Lucasfilm animation, once stylish but cartoonish and now something more akin to a stylized version of photorealism. While character animation is held carefully back from the uncanny valley, the world in which those characters move is increasingly converging with the space opera photography of the franchise’s live action installments.

While the episodes are short, the fast-paced Star Wars aesthetic leaves plenty of room for epic sweep alongside detailed storytelling in concise segments. (Each Tales of the Empire episode is about the same length, from launch to landing, as the Death Star space attack sequence from the original movie.) Filoni and the directors particularly relish having six different opportunities for opening shots that establish momentum, scale, and cinematic sweep.

Tales of the Empire functions well as intended: a “holiday” treat for dedicated fans. Whether it makes any sense at all to someone who hasn’t been following the franchise’s sprawling narrative is something I’m too far down the exogorth hole to judge.

– Jay Gabler