As part of the annual Star Wars Day celebration, the second installment in Lucafilm’s Tales anthology, Tales of the Empire, debuted on Disney Plus on May 4th. Like the first installment, 2022’s Tales of the Jedi, Tales of the Empire was well received by critics and fans, with former Jedi Barriss Offee’s three-episode arc stealing the spotlight. Dave Filoni, who has created both seasons of the anthology, has made it clear he’s having a lot of fun with these animated shorts which means a third season of Tales has a good chance of coming together. While we await official confirmation from Lucasfilm, we put together a list of characters who might be worth exploring further.
Tales of the Jedi: Plo Koon and Baylan Skoll
Obviously, there’s a story there. We’re in a wait-and-see pattern [about the rest of Skoll’s story] at this point.
Dave Filoni on Baylan Skoll’s future in Star Wars media
In the first two seasons of Tales, the two key figures of the series have been juxtaposed against one another, helping to shine a brighter spotlight on some central themes. Should Lucasfilm be interested in producing a true sequel to Tales of the Jedi, two characters who could make the cut are Jedi Master Plo Koon and former Jedi Baylan Skoll. It’s fairly well-known that Koon is a favorite of Filoni’s and while his age is undefined in canon, he lived quite a long time and helped the Jedi Council navigate many major crises before being killed following Order 66 being given. If Koon were chosen, Skoll, who was played by the late Ray Stevenson in Ahsoka, would be a fascinating character against which to juxtapose him. Disillusioned with the Order, Skoll lost his faith before Order 66 and after surviving the Jedi purge, moved on in search of power. Given the very divergent paths the characters took, there’s plenty of fertile storytelling ground to craft some intriguing 3-episode series.
Tales of the Sith: Asajj Ventress and Darth Maul
Though the two have had plenty of screen time already, the best parts of the stories of Asajj Ventress and Darth Maul may have yet to be told. The excitement around the return of Ventress in Season 3 of The Bad Batch should be all Filoni needs to give the audience a three-episode arc focused on the Nightsister who has truly walked one of the most interesting and complicated paths of any character in the Star Wars universe. The series could pull from the novel Dark Disciple to fill in the gaps between The Clone Wars and The Bad Batch and give a glimpse of what the former Jedi padawan is up to following her brief appearance in The Bad Batch. As for Maul, given his cameo in Solo: A Star Wars Story, the studio clearly had plans to tell more of his story on screen. If Maul’s arc were to flesh out the “Son of Dathomir” story that was never used in The Clone Wars and follow up on his Solo appearance, fans would eat it up.
Tales of the Bounty Hunters: Embo and Bossk
From Cad Bane to Zuckuss and everyone in between, bounty hunters have been a staple of Star Wars storytelling since A New Hope. It seems like a near certainty that Filoni–who has given plenty of screen time to Bane, Boba Fett, Fennec Shand and other hunters–will eventually get around to putting the focus on a pair of the galaxy’s most dangerous hunters. One solid bet to make the cut if such a Tales series does go into development is Embo. Voiced by Filoni in The Clone Wars, Embo lived a long and interesting life that lasted beyond the time of The New Republic. Another favorite of Filoni’s from his time on The Clone Wars, Bossk was revered as one of the galaxy’s finest bounty hunters and, like Embo, survived well into the New Republic era.
Of course, dozens upon dozens of other characters may deserve the spotlight of the animated shorts more than these characters; however, given previous rumors that some future seasons of the Tales anthology may focus on Sith and bounty hunters and the uncertainty of how to move forward with Skoll’s story in live-action, these are some characters that merit some consideration.
Tales of the Empire is now streaming on Disney Plus.
