One Good Deed

Say what you want about Disney Star Wars. There is a lot of bad content, but also good content every year. Tales of the Underworld is good content, but rated rather low, don't you think?

There is no political propaganda in this show, just a very good Star Wars story about two of the best Star Wars characters. We finally get the backstory of Cad Bane and an explanation of what Asajj Ventress is doing after the Clone Wars. The animation is top notch, dialogue and messages of the episodes are great. World building is superb. Just look at the old separatist, learning to lay down his weapon and help a Jedi! And Cad Bane's cruelty as he kills his best friend oit of revenge.

These are the stories we need more often! And when we get them, we rate them equally low as the bad ones? Come on we can do better!

These occasional "May the Fourth" additions to the "Star Wars" canon have been fun, if perhaps inessential additions to the series. This third run, "Tales of the Underworld", is no exception to that rule, nor the formula that has been settled upon.

A resurrected Asajj Ventress (Nika Futterman) is keeping a relatively low profile under the reign of the Empire, until she helps a young, force sensitive boy escape bounty hunters and Inquisitors on his was to finding the Jedi Path. Two young Duros residents survive by joining the criminal gang of Lazlo (Philip Anthony-Rodriguez). Separated in a robbery gone wrong, Niro (Eric Lopez/Artt Butler) grows to become a deputy but Colby, renaming himself Cad Bane (AJ LoCascio/Corey Burton) becomes a notorious criminal in his own right.

Apart from a weird element in the first run, the formula is now set. Two stories, three episodes, each filling in some aspect of the Star Wars universe with a story that doesn't, perhaps, need a full series or movie to get too. I've not seen "Rebels" yet, so Asajj Ventress wasn't a character I was particularly familiar with, so starting with her reincarnation was interesting - but the show did enough to clue me in on who she was and why her continued redemption was interesting. Cad Bane has been introduced enough in stuff I have seen that I knew who he was. He gets one of the standard Western tropes, that of friends as youngster who end up on opposite sides of the law and have to decide whether their loyalties are to each other, or their responsibilities. Both stories were good but, like with the rest of this series, nothing is essential for continued appreciation of the Star Wars Universe.

They look good, animated in the same style as "Clone Wars" and "The Bad Batch" that of impressive 3D CGI work. Voice actors return in a lot of cases, particularly the two main characters.

Based on the fact I can only vaguely remember what happened in "Tales of the Empire" I suspect, in a years' time, I'll only vaguely remember these, but they were solid enough.

I really don't understand how Disney can make always the same errors!!! This new version of Tales is completely unnecessary, poor written.. it doesn't add anything to Star Wars Lore. I'm disgusted especially from the Cad Bane Arc. PATETIC!! We saw his death in The Book of Boba. Star Wars fan know that the relation between Boba Fett and Cad Bane should have been analyzed in the 7th Season of The Clone Wars, but sadly it was cut. Now, how can be FILONI & Co. Be so unable to conclude ONE plot they have started?? Using this episodes to show the freindship/rivality between them would have fixed part of the bad script of Book of Boba, giving sense to both shows. But Disney Star Wars, because of its decision to make only bland, useless, forgettable project, decide only to add new stories nobody asked. I don't understand how people can be happy about this, If you guys love this pointless fan service, good to you!!

Godd*mn, can we give one of the millions of other storytellers of the world a chance and let Filoni play out these lazy trope rehashes in the privacy of his own mind?

You never like to look at 45 minutes of expensive animation with the privilege of being in the Star Wars IP and think "man. This would've been better as a Wookieepedia article." But here we are.

This story supplies Cad's backstory with nothing but the most bland show pitches. At least in a Wookieepedia article, you can take a small paragraph about a character's backstory and infer all kinds of meaning and scenes with your own imagination, but unfortunately, we're stuck with Filoni's post Rebels imagination. What a sad thing.

Filoni is so creatively bankrupt he even repeats plot points within a single 15 minute short story, like a certain character going to an official organization just to have the same conversation he just had with another official only 30 seconds before. Which should sound familiar to anyone who saw Tales of the Jedi.

The pacing is all over the place, characters say the most boring and basic dialogue you can imagine, and make inexplicably stupid decisions not sufficiently anchored in character flaws or errors. All dressed in the same repetitive boring action trope that has suddenly somehow become Cad Bane's only way of fighting others

At no point does Filoni do something like give his characters a challenging decision, pose an interesting thematic question, or connect with a character's core struggles.

And runtime is no excuse. The YouTube music video for Cyberpunk Edgerunner's Ending Theme provides a more engaging and compelling theme in a ninth of the runtime. Star Wars' own Visions animations has provided many compelling character arcs with engaging action sequences like Screecher's Reach, Aau's Song, and In the Stars.

Star Wars has always been a thoughtful character character study space opera struggling to become a slop farm, not the other way around.

Star Wars started with Luke's story of choosing love over hate; it wasn't always slop, and fans need to stop excusing garbage soulless stories by saying it was, and we need to expect more.

This was one incredible episode and just what I had imagined that this show could turn into! This might be the one episode thst really reached the potential of what a show like this could turn into!

Banes arc is my favorite and this episode solidefies that! Its feels like that inevetable outcome that was set up in the first episode! We knew we woulf get here, but the journey was still great!

Bane's story was tragic and you kinda feel sorry that it turned out this way, since you know that a few changes could have made things very different!

Niro also makes for a great side character and essential to Bane's development! We see how they both came from the same, but turned out very different!

The last scene was well directed, animated, tense, emotional! Yeah just straight up the best of the show!