[The following review contains light spoilers] Tales of the Underworld is another animated mini series Star Wars project, similar to Tales of the Jedi and Tales of the Empire. It’s stylized in the Clone Wars animation style, and is a fun story. It’s split into two parts, Ventress and Cad Bane. I was very excited when it was announced and found myself excited to watch the next episode when one finished. I will give my review of both Ventress and Cad Bane below.
Ventress
I really love Ventress as a character, watching her arc in Clone Wars, seeing where she came from, to being Doooku’s apprentice, to becoming a bounty hunter. She is a dynamic character and has a lot of growth and depth. She is almost the counter to Ahsoka, in how Ahsoka grew and progressed as a character while being Anakin’s apprentice. In Tales of the Underworld, we see it start out with how the Dark Disciple novel ended. Which was very nice to see how she came back from that. Due to the fact that she came back in Bad Batch, and the confusion as to how that happened. This mini series explains it. And we see how her life is, trying to lay low under the reign of the Empire. Not to give too much away for it if you haven’t seen it yet, but she makes an unlikely alliance with someone, and is trying to find Quinlan Vos. She has to face facets of her past, and come to terms with them, as well as let them go, so she can redefine her path and move towards a new life and new journey. I think it was a fun and well developed three episodes that expand on Ventress from the point after the Empire rose to power, and starting the potential for more stories with her.
Cad Bane
The Cad Bane episodes are an origin story for Cad Bane, and as a big fan of Cad Bane, I really loved these episodes. Seeing the dynamic between him and his friend Niro, when they were kids, and how they survived on the street. You have two characters that are cut from the same cloth, and have nothing to their name and have to scrounge and scavenge for anything. Yet it all comes down to a singular choice that sets them both on two different paths on the opposite side of the spectrum. And we see how this choice can then shape the outcome of each character from Niro having learned that the life he was leading was not the right way, and wanted to uphold the law instead. To Cad Bane becoming a criminal outlaw that end up turning him down the path of being ruthless and always trying to make credits by any means necessary. The love interest was an interesting point as well, as this gave Cad Bane and out, he could have left with Arin and lived a good life with her. But another choice made, lead Cad Bane even deeper into his criminality and solidified his fate. To then having another choice laid before him for a last time, and that fully cemented his character to what we know him to be. Each episode coming down to a choice being made by Cad Bane that then sets off a series of events that deepen his resolve into being the cutthroat outlaw, is in my opinion beautifully done. And the twist at the end, was interesting, and heartbreaking in a way. And leads to questions of if they will do anything with Isaac in any other stories in the future.
Final thoughts
Overall I really enjoyed this mini series, and I think it’s on par with Tales of the Jedi. I wasn’t displeased with anything about this show and loved how they expanded upon both Ventress and Cad Bane. By giving Ventress peace from her past and growth to the future, and Cad Bane’s origin to understand where he’s come from to further appreciate where he ends up in Clone Wars. If you’re interested in learning about Ventress’ story before watching her episodes in this show, to understand where we start the first episode off and what’s happening. I will leave a link to Christie Golden’s novel, Dark Disciple here.
For any future “Tales of the” mini series that they make, I hope they will explore Tales of the Sith. I think it would be perfect to do Maul and Sidious. Two origin stories to see where Maul came from and his training under Sidious and the agony Sidious put him through. As well as seeing Palpatine’s rise to being apprenticed and trained under Plagueis. And that way we’d also get Plagueis in a show as well, fully fleshed out and speaking and training Palpatine. I think that would be cool. And hopefully they will do it one day, or maybe I will make it myself.