Development While traveling to work on the live-action
Star Wars series
The Mandalorian (2019–2023), executive producer
Dave Filoni began writing short stories about different
Jedi characters from the franchise's
prequel trilogy era. Carrie Beck, senior vice president of development and production at
Lucasfilm, asked if Filoni wanted to turn these into a series, which he compared to her "find[ing] the money" to revive his animated series
Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008–2020) for a
final season on the streaming service
Disney+. In December 2021, the logo for
Tales of the Jedi was included on holiday gifts for Lucasfilm employees alongside logos for upcoming film and television projects at the studio. This was also the name of
an unrelated comic book series published by
Dark Horse Comics in the 1990s. Lucasfilm confirmed the project when announcing the schedule for
Star Wars Celebration Anaheim in May 2022. Filoni discussed the animated
anthology series in a dedicated panel, revealing that it consists of six shorts, five of which were written by Filoni and the other by
The Clone Wars writer Charles Murray with Élan Murray. Each short is around 15 minutes long. Filoni also served as creator,
supervising director, and executive producer, with Athena Yvette Portillo and Beck also as executive producers. At
Star Wars Celebration London in April 2023, Filoni announced that
Tales of the Jedi would receive a second season.
Star Wars: Tales of the Empire was announced a year later. Lucasfilm described it as the second installment of the "
Tales franchise". The second set of six shorts were written by Amanda Rose Muñoz, Matt Michinovetz, and Nicolas Anastassiou from stories by Filoni.
Star Wars: Tales of the Underworld was revealed in April 2025, and was referred to by Lucasfilm as "the third installment in the
Tales anthology series" and a "third season of original shorts" after
Tales of the Jedi and
Tales of the Empire. Each of its six shorts were written by Michnovetz. Disney+ created a
Star Wars Tales collection for the three series.
Writing Filoni said the shorts were slower paced than episodes of
The Clone Wars and called them "a series of tone poems" with less dialogue and more visual storytelling. This was inspired by the works of
Hayao Miyazaki as well as Filoni's mentor,
Star Wars creator
George Lucas. Each installment explores "two paths and two choices". For
Tales of the Jedi, one path follows
Ahsoka Tano and the other focuses on
Count Dooku. Each character is explored in three different eras of their lives.
Tales of the Empire focuses on the characters
Morgan Elsbeth and
Barriss Offee, while
Tales of the Underworld focuses on
Asajj Ventress and
Cad Bane. Filoni's first idea for
Tales of the Jedi was to show how Ahsoka was brought to the Jedi Order by
Plo Koon, but he changed this to a story about Ahsoka's first hunting trip with her mother because there had not been many stories about "moms being moms" in
Star Wars. He felt it was important that "Ahsoka's first experience with someone telling her, 'Don't be afraid', is her mother". Beyond the first episode, which has a happy ending and features the "adorable baby Ahsoka", Filoni warned that the series would not just be "fun, happy stories" and he felt that Dooku's life in particular was "surprisingly tragic". He attributed some of the series' darker episodes to them being written during the
COVID-19 pandemic. An aspect of Dooku that Filoni wanted to explore was the relationship with his
Padawan learner,
Qui-Gon Jinn, whom Filoni found to be one of the most interesting Jedi due to his different philosophy from the Jedi Council. He asked, "where did [Qui-Gon] learn that, if not from his mentor, Count Dooku?" The final episode of
Tales of the Jedi, "Resolve", loosely adapts the events of the 2016 novel
Ahsoka by
E. K. Johnston. Filoni explained that he based "Resolve" on the same outline that he had given Lucasfilm's publishing side for the novel, which is why the two projects tell the same story.
Ashley Eckstein, the actress who voices Ahsoka, said the novel had not come into discussion while "Resolve" was in production but she regarded the episode to be an extension of the novel and the beginning of "that chapter" of Ahsoka's life.
Casting voices
Ahsoka Tano in
Tales of the Jedi, one of many actors who returned from previous
Star Wars media for the series Some casting was revealed with
Tales of the Jedi announcement in May 2022:
Liam Neeson reprising his role as
Qui-Gon Jinn from the
Star Wars films; his son,
Micheál Richardson, as a younger version of the character;
Matt Lanter reprising his role as
Anakin Skywalker from
The Clone Wars; and
Janina Gavankar, who voiced
Iden Versio in the video game
Star Wars Battlefront II (2017), as Ahsoka's mother Pav-ti. In July 2022, Eckstein said she was reprising her role as Ahsoka from
The Clone Wars. A day before the series was released,
Bryce Dallas Howard announced that she was voicing the
Star Wars film character
Yaddle in the series; Howard, a fan of the animated
Star Wars series, was approached for the role by Filoni after they worked together on
The Mandalorian. Also reprising their
Star Wars roles in
Tales of the Jedi are
Corey Burton as
Count Dooku,
TC Carson as
Mace Windu,
Ian McDiarmid as
Darth Sidious,
James Arnold Taylor as
Obi-Wan Kenobi,
Phil LaMarr as
Bail Organa, and
Dee Bradley Baker as
Captain Rex,
Jesse, and other
clone troopers.
Clancy Brown voices an
Inquisitor. When
Tales of the Empire was revealed in April 2024, several voice actors were set to reprise their
Star Wars roles:
Diana Lee Inosanto as Morgan Elsbeth,
Meredith Salenger as Barriss Offee,
Rya Kihlstedt as the
Fourth Sister,
Wing T. Chao as Governor
Wing,
Lars Mikkelsen as
Admiral Thrawn,
Jason Isaacs as the
Grand Inquisitor, and
Matthew Wood as
General Grievous. In the first short,
Cathy Ang voices a younger version of Morgan while Inosanto voices her mother, Selena. Also reprising their
Star Wars roles in
Tales of the Empire are
Xander Berkeley as
Gilad Pellaeon,
Warwick Davis as
Rukh,
Katee Sackhoff as
Bo-Katan Kryze, and Baker as a clone trooper.
Darth Vader, Marrok, and the Inquisitor from
Tales of the Jedi also appear. For
Tales of the Underworld,
Nika Futterman and Burton reprise their respective roles as
Asajj Ventress and
Cad Bane. Other voice actors announced for the series were
Artt Butler,
Lane Factor,
AJ LoCascio,
Clare Grant,
Dawn-Lyen Gardner, and Eric Lopez. Grant reprised her role as Latts Razzi from
The Clone Wars. Also reprising their
Star Wars roles in
Tales of the Underworld are
Barbara Goodson as
Mother Talzin and
Al Rodrigo as
Quinlan Vos.
Animation and design The series use the same animation style as
The Clone Wars; work on
Tales of the Jedi overlapped with the final season of
The Clone Wars and the start of
Star Wars: The Bad Batch (2021–2024). Animation supervisor Keith Kellogg, cinematography and effects lead Joel Aron, and sound designer David W. Collins all returned from previous Lucasfilm Animation projects. Charles Murray, Nathaniel Villanueva, and Saul Ruiz directed the
Tales of the Jedi shorts, Villanueva, Ruiz, and Steward Lee directed the
Tales of the Empire shorts, and Villanueva, Ruiz, and Lee directed the
Tales of the Underworld shorts. Aron said the Lucasfilm Animation team, working with animation provider
CGCG, Inc., were "pushing the limits of what we can do within our sandbox" to make each new project as cinematic as possible. With
Tales of the Jedi, Aron chose to change the "lensing style" of the animation to the wide-screen
anamorphic format used by many live-action films, including Lucasfilm's first production
American Graffiti (1973), which allowed for "a refined depth of field and ability to artificially add layers of film grain". This approach was then carried over to
The Bad Batch. After they successfully used some practical effects in the latter, the team did the same with
Tales of the Empire: for an establishing shot on the planet
Dathomir, a physical model of a mountain range was filmed in front of an
oil-painted background. A
computer-generated set was added later by the animators.
Music Kevin Kiner composed the music for
Tales of the Jedi, returning from
The Clone Wars,
Star Wars Rebels (2014–2018), and
The Bad Batch. As with the other animated
Star Wars series, Kevin collaborated with his children
Sean and Deana. David Glen Russell and Peter Lam also provided additional music for
Tales of the Jedi. Sean and Deana are credited as co-composers with Kevin starting with
Tales of the Empire. The Kiners started with the three Ahsoka shorts. For Ahsoka's younger years in the first two shorts, Kevin wanted to call back to his earliest material for the character in the film
Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008). He had to review the original compositions because it had been nearly 16 years since he started working with the character, and put a particular focus on
woodwind instruments. For Ahsoka's third short, Sean and Deana created a new variation of Kevin's Ahsoka theme to represent her new status as a
rōnin. Because Filoni was influenced by the works of
Studio Ghibli and other
Japanese cinema, they studied the music of
samurai films when creating this new variation. They later expanded on this rōnin motif and the Japanese influences in the score for
Ahsoka (2023–present). They did not try to repeat the Japanese influences for Dooku's shorts, but Kevin felt some of those sensibilities carried over. Because
Star Wars film composer
John Williams did not make a theme for Dooku, the Kiners created a new theme that represents his fall to the dark side of the Force. It gets darker across the three shorts. When Yaddle follows Dooku in his final short, they revisited some of the
synthesizer sounds that they used for the final season of
The Clone Wars, along with some "experimental" vocal work. A soundtrack album for
Tales of the Jedi was released digitally by
Walt Disney Records on October 26, 2022, alongside the series' premiere. An album for
Tales of the Empire was released on May 10, 2024, and an album for
Tales of the Underworld was released on May 9, 2025. == Marketing ==