Star Wars: Tales of the Underworld

I wasn't around on May 4th so this review is definitely late and I wonder whether anyone is still even talking about Star Wars: Tales of the Underworld. I watched all 6 episodes today and here is my review for the show. The premise of the show sees Asajj Ventress trying to protect a young Jedi from the Empire, while we see the origins of Cad Bane.

Main Character Asajj Ventress is once again voiced by Nika Futterman and she could play this role in her sleep. Ventress is a cool character and it is good seeing her on screen. Honestly, I am not a huge fan of the way her character is treated but that isn't the problem with the performance.

Corey Burton is back as Cad Bane and I just love this character. I mean, I am not sure if we needed an origin story for his character but I thought they did well enough with the material and Bane is still a really cool character.

Supporting Characters Niro is an old friend of Bane and he was easily the most interesting character other then the two protagonists. We see how his relationship sours with Bane and how that sets them both on the path that the show intended and I did like it.

Lyco is a young Jedi that teams up with Ventress and I found him really annoying. I didn't care about his relationship with Ventress and it felt really underdeveloped which made it a forgettable character and storyline.

The rest of the characters are forgettable and offer very little. Including a really stupid Inquisitor appearance that feels way overused in 2025.

Story Similar to Tales of the Jedi & Tales of the Empire this story is split into two halves and it is a mixed bag. I liked the Cad Bane story, the rivalry between Bane and Niro is well handled and I just thought it was pretty well done. But I really didn't care about The Ventress story, nothing really happens and it just feels like a waste of time. I don't like Ventress in this more good guy role and I just kind of wish we got 6 episodes about Cad Bane.

Script The script and writing isn't that great and honestly I think this is some pretty weak writing. There wasn't any real dramatic scenes that truly worked and the humour is poor or not even here. I never grew to care about anyone and the writing is a big part of that.

Style The show looks great, it continues the style from the other newer Star Wars animated shows and I do still enjoyed it with some decent action scenes. But the pacing of the show is terrible, I swear these episodes are getting shorter and shorter and with only 3 episodes per character it feels like everything is underdeveloped and not given a definitive ending.

Overall Overall, Star Wars: Tales of The Underworld is a below average show that is a big let down. I think we are starting to get to the point that these animated shows are just being released for contents sake and this is a big example of it. If you are a Star Wars fan then you have already watched it, if you aren't then don't bother.

Rating - 4/10.

I have been a huge star wars fan since watching the prequel trilogy in the movies but i have not been that into star wars content in the past few years except for some shows mostly animated which i think almost always hit the mark when it comes to making star wars something that fits George's vision. Tales of the underworld hits all the marks that i think are needed for a quality star wars product and this makes me think every star wars show should be animated because quite frankly I think every animated show so far that has been created by filoni has been everything that the live action shows are not.

Part of what is slowly turning into an annual tradition of a slew of short Clone Wars-era minisodes loosely grouped by theme. This third time is that particularly 20th Century American aspect of the Wars universe, "the vague seedy underbelly". The bounty hunters and lawbreakers, none of it ever more than euphemistically gritty, especially compared to the shockingly raw contemporaneous Andor Season 2.

Here the first set are the strongest; following an unlikely resurrection, Asajj Ventress is walking the path between light and dark in aide of a likeable young Jedi played by the phenomenally brilliant Lane Factor (Reservation Dog's evergreen Cheese). The Filoniverse is as by-the-numbers as Star Wars gets but this was a deceptive little arc that surprised me. I'd like to see more of these two. I want a Strata subplot in the Mando movie.

The Cad Bane part is less interesting, he's always been more Scrappy-Doo than Clint Eastwood for me as a character, forever showing up and adding little beyond cliché and mannered vocal delivery. His three-part tragic backstory doesn't flesh him out much and plays out like any well-worn "two street-rats separated by destiny doomed to never reconcile" story. Eff.

After the first Jedi series I keep hoping these continuity stocking fillers are far more consequential than they are, but that's not what the Clone Wars era Star Wars was built for. It's there to keep the wheels turning, the content churning out, and to go nowhere particularly interesting in no particular hurry.

Like every year (for the past couple of years), Star Wars offers us the premiere of an animated series on "May the 4th be with you" that expands a bit on the lore of characters we've met in the prequels, the Mandalorian, animated series, etc.

In addition to the excellent "Tales of the Jedi" and the average "Tales of the Empire," we now have this third version, "Tales of the Underworld." Far inferior to the first but considerably better than the second, it offers us two sets of three episodes, the first focusing on Asajj Ventress and the second on Cad Bane.

The result? A very interesting first half that leaves us wanting more, and a rather average sequel that fails to generate much interest.

I suppose that with the fans' responses, those in charge of Star Wars will gather data on which stories interest us most and which less.

Hopefully, this will result in more series like "Mandalorian" or "Andor" and less "Acolyte" or "Kenobi." In short, an entertaining batch of episodes to binge-watch in one afternoon.

I love what Dave Filoni does, but this one and Tales of the Empire were not as good as, lets say, Tales of The Jedi. Why?

I was happy to see Asajj Ventress, but I was hoping to see a more important part of her life. Here, we don't get any special story, just a random episode in her life. To avoid giving any spoilers, I won't say what she's doing, but it's really nothing special. I wish we had more of Asajj, she's a great character.

I wasn't happy to see Cad Bane. For personal, subjective reasons, I don't like this character. A cowboy in a galaxy far far away? Anyway, I also don't think this character is so important that it needs his own story, and neither did Morgan Elsbeth in Tales of the Empire in my opinion. Tales of the Jedi presented us two very special characters: Dooko and Ahsoka. And now we get Morgan Elsbeth and Cad Bane. Some characters deserve a better presentation, showing their beginnings, just not these ones. Again, this is a personal, subjective opinion.

Getting back to Cad Bane, his story presented here is just not interesting. They could've come with a better, more interesting story.

Anyway, the "Tales" could come back with many interesting characters that deserve more presentation. Can't wait for the next one (if there will be one).