Back in October 2022, Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi was released to Disney+ subscribers. The anthology series highlighted unseen chapters of Count Dooku and Ahsoka Tano’s lives from before, during and after the Prequel Trilogy. Now a new anthology series is set to unfold in a galaxy far, far away alongside the Star Wars movies in order called Star Wars: Tales of the Empire. While the trailer that just dropped for it promises fans more from Thrawn, what excites me more is that this series is bringing back a fan-favorite Clone Wars character: Barriss Offee.
Let’s start with Barriss first. In case you’re unfamiliar with the character, who’s voiced by Meredith Salenger, she was the apprentice of Luminara Undili during the Prequel era, as well as a close friend of Ahsoka Tano. However, at the end of Star Wars: The Clone Wars Season 5, Barriss became disillusioned with the Jedi Order, bombed the Jedi Temple and framed Ahsoka for the crime. Fortunately, Anakin Skywalker was able to prove his own apprentice’s innocence and bring Barriss to justice, though this fiasco resulted in Ahsoka leaving the Jedi Order. Now this upcoming Star Wars TV show has revealed what happened to Barris after she was imprisoned.
It turns out she’s one of the handful of the Force-sensitive individuals who’s recruited by the Empire to become an Inquisitor, meaning it’s now her job to hunt down Jedi who survived Order 66. In fact, Barriss is approached directly by Jason Isaacs’ The Grand Inquisitor, who was Star Wars Rebels Season 1’s main antagonist. As teased in the official Tales of the Empire synopsis, Barriss Offer will do what she must to “survive a rapidly changing galaxy.” Though it is ironic that by becoming an Inquisitor, she’ll be serving the man who exposed her crimes, though he’s now known as Darth Vader.
As for the Lars Mikkelsen-voiced Thrawn, rather than him taking center stage for Star Wars: Tales of the Empire, he’ll instead be a supporting player in a story centered on Morgan Elsbeth, reprised by Diana Lee Inosanto. Introduced in The Mandalorian Season 2 and featured as one of the main villains in Ahsoka Season 1, Morgan was one of Thrawn’s most dedicated followers. Now we’ll learn the origins behind that loyalty and why she joined the Empire, though it’s made pretty clear in the trailer that her allegiance is rooted in her people having been wiped out by the Separatists during the Clone Wars. The younger Morgan also had the unfortunate experience of fighting General Grievous.
In addition to the Star Wars: Tales of the Empire trailer premiering, Lucasfilm also released the below poster spotlighting the characters we’ll be spending time with come next month.
As you can see, Star Wars: Tales of the Empire will premiere on May 4th, a.k.a. Star Wars Day, which is also when the entire Skywalker Saga will be playing in theaters. Presumably like Tales of the Jedi, this anthology series will consist of six episodes. Creator Dave Filoni serves as supervising director and executive producer alongside Athena Yvette Portillo and Carrie Beck, and Josh Rimes is a co-executive producer and Alex Spotswood is the senior producer.
