DUBAI: The second anthology of the “Star Wars” animated shorts “Star Wars: Tales of the Empire” — following the 2022 collection “Tales of the Jedi” — offers a look behind the curtain at two powerful but under-explored characters from the franchise, Morgan Elsbeth and Barriss Offee.
The first three episodes of the six-parter go back in time to explore how Nightsister Elsbeth was initially drawn to the Empire. Fans of “Star Wars” will be familiar with the character after her live-action appearances in “The Mandalorian” and “Ahsoka.”
Now, with “Tales of the Empire,” Elsbeth makes her animation debut. Diana Lee Inosanto, who plays Elsbeth in both live-action and animation, said she did not feel there was much difference between the two mediums.
In the recording booth, Inosanto — a trained martial artist and godchild to the late Bruce Lee — moved her body to match the action of the scene.
“In my acting approach, I don’t see any difference between being on the set and being in the recording studio, other than the fact that I had to kind of create my own little bubble in being in this space. I still physically do the same preparation and work and the breathing,” said Inosanto in a recent interview with Arab News.
“But yeah, when I first initially read the script for ‘Tales of the Empire,’ I went: ‘Oh my gosh, finally, I understand her,’ because all of those little details were now filled in for me as well. So, I hope the same happens for all the fans. I really think fans are really going to understand now why Morgan was shaped the way she was mentally, why she was wired the way she was, and that she was really coming from a place of being a survivor all her life.”
Meanwhile, the last three episodes of “Tales of the Empire” reveal what becomes of Barriss Offee after Order 66 toward the end of “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” series. A Jedi prodigy, Offee’s character was forever branded a traitor after she turned her back on her kind by bombing the Jedi Temple and framing her friend Ahsoka Tano for it.
Actress Meredith Salenger, who has been waiting for more than a decade to find out what happens to Offee, said to Arab News about her character: “Barriss at the very beginning of ‘Tales of the Empire,’ she is in jail. She has recently been jailed by the Republic. And I think she is particularly conflicted, because she can see what’s happening to the rest of the Jedi. I think she knows when the Jedi Temple explodes and all of these things. She knows it’s gone perhaps too far.”
“And when she’s approached by the Fourth Sister, who is an Inquisitor, it’s sort of like: ‘This is not what I thought my journey would be. I don’t know if I should go along with this. But I also know it’s the only way I’m going to survive.’ There’s a fear that anyone at any time can be killed. I think she’s curious as to what the next step is going to be for her.”
