Star Wars, Tales of the Underworld Review

Focusing on Asajj Ventress and Cad Bane, Tales of the Underworld carries on in the same vein as previous ‘Tales of…’ series,
telling two succinct, character driven arcs filled with pathos and world building.

Arc one focuses on Asajj Ventress during the rise of the Galactic Empire and very satisfyingly opens by picking up from the end of Micheal George’s book, Dark Disciple.

In typical Filoni fashion there are a number of call backs to other stories within this arc, these are neither distracting nor essential to understanding the story being told, but do delicately world build.
For example, Asajj proclaiming to Lyco that he ‘smells like a Jedi’ is reminiscent to when one of the Great Mothers in Ahsoka states that Sabine Wren ‘reeks of Jedi’ – reinforcing that there are many facets to how the Dathomiri sense the force.

Nika Futterman’s Asajj has a wonderful foil in this story in the way of Lyco Strata , played by Lane Factor.
Strata is an Order 66 survivor, searching for ‘the Path’ a secret underground network that work to shelter surviving Jedi and other Force-sensitives from the Empire.
Factor’s performance is charming and his character very likeable, it felt familiar without ever becoming a monotonous retread.

There is undoubtedly plenty more story to be told with Asajj and with Dave Filoni’s often derided habit of returning to ‘his’ characters,
I wouldn’t be surprised to see Asajj turn up in future projects after this.

The Second Arc was a story nobody knew they needed, a Cad Bane backstory. Cad, formerly known as ‘Colby’ is referred to as a ‘street rat’ multiple times in his first episode and goes on an elaborate and comical mission to steal fruit with his best friend.
This struck me as a purposeful comparison to Ezra Bridger, however where Ezra had the good fortunate to be taken in by good people and find love in his found family, Cad does not and it subsequently leads to a tragic chain of events culminating in a powerful heart breaking climax that caught me off guard.

Some yearn for the time where bad guys *were* bad guys and dislike this kind of expansion of characters history that lends understanding to their motivations and actions, but I love it.
It fleshes out and thickens not only the individual but the world, giving context organically and lending a more human element often to characters, concepts or events that seem overly simplified or under-developed, that for me has been one of the real successes of all of these ‘Tales of…’ stories.

All six-new Star Wars, Tales of the Underworld shorts are streaming now on Disney +