Star Wars: Tales of the Empire is bringing General Grievous back, and there's a great explanation behind it
Not every tale in this new mini-series is set during the Empire's reign.
Wait, didn't General Grievous perish in Revenge of the Sith? Are they bringing another dead villain back? No, don't worry. It's just that he's a key part of the Nightsisters' fall, and Star Wars: Tales of the Empire will be exploring that event as the most crucial one in Morgan Elsbeth's life.
The six part animated mini-series, which will drop all its episodes on May the 4th, was a surprise announcement. While fans were waiting for new 'seasons' that followed the Tales of the Jedi format, we didn't know for sure what that would be or when it would arrive. Now, we know that it's right around the corner and that it'll flesh out the individual stories of Ahsoka baddie Morgan Elsbeth and Jedi-turned-Inquisitor Barriss Offee.
The second surprise is that Tales of the Empire won't be filled with stormtroopers and all the Imperial stuff we're quite tired of at this point. Instead, it'll focus on two overlooked characters whose lives completely changed due to the Empire's creation. And in the case of Elsbeth, her 'defining moment' happened way before meeting Grand Admiral Thrawn. More specifically, when she watched most of her people die at the hands of General Grievous near the end of the Clone Wars.
IGN has shared an exclusive clip of the upcoming mini-series, and it's all about the huge Dathomir massacre, something we'd already witnessed in season four of The Clone Wars, but from a different point-of-view. While this event is no Order 66, it's slowly become a big part of the Star Wars mythos, and works such as Jedi: Fallen Order have referenced it. Moreover, the reveal in the Ahsoka series that Elsbeth was actually a proper witch was kind of shocking, so it only makes sense to further explore the whys and hows of a Dathomirian survivor becoming a key Imperial figure.
This also raises the question of whether Tales of the Empire and Grievous' role in the mini-series will also touch on the following events that once were planned for The Clone Wars before a season was scrapped and some of those subplots were used to develop the Darth Maul: Son of Dathomir comic book series (yes, this entire arc is full of well-known characters and soap opera dynamics).
Regardless, diehard Star Wars fanatics will surely appreciate getting to spend more on-screen time with the coolest cyborg character in Star Wars and witnessing the dramatic events in sharper, more striking fashion before the live-action show The Acolyte arrives on June 4.