Targeting two of “Star Wars”‘ maximum infamous outlaws, “Star Wars: Tales of the Underworld” introduced on Disney+ May 4, 2025, to assist rejoice Star Wars Day. It’s a six-episode anthology inspecting those nefarious denizens of the galaxy a long way, a long way away: Count Dooku’s former apprentice, Asajj Ventress, and Duros bounty hunter Cad Bane.
This is the 3rd day out for Lucasfilm Animation’s “Tales Of” animated sequence that started with 2022’s “Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi” and persisted with 2024’s “Star Wars: Tales of the Empire.”
Created by means of Dave Filoni with lead author Charles Murray, every season follows a identical dual-pathway arc for a duo of second-tier characters from the “Star Wars” timeline. “Tales of the Underworld” makes a speciality of a couple of fan-favorite bounty hunters, voiced once more by means of Nika Futterman (Ventress) and Corey Burton (Bane).
Lucasfilm’s Alex Spotswood is well-versed in the ins and outs of “Star Wars” animation, having began out running on “Star Wars: The Clone Wars,” then “Star Wars Rebels,” and sooner or later emerging to a manufacturer stage on “Star Wars: The Bad Batch.” Now right here on “Tales of the Underworld” Spotswood has added the identify of Senior Producer.
“We have used the ‘Tales’ series as kind of proving grounds for a lot of technology and testing various ways of producing episodes for our normal core shows like ‘Rebels,’ ‘Bad Batch,’ and ‘Clone Wars’,” Spotswood tells Space.com.
“There’s not a lot of noticeable differences visually between the series, but there’s definitely some things we tried to do in the Cad Bane arc in color correction to give it more of an old world vibe. It covers decades, and you’re seeing the creation of the ultimate gangster and Cad Bane is one of my favorite characters. I thought he was so cool and super noir-ish and I was really excited about the possibility of producing something that was Cad Bane-focused. Corey Burton voices him, and does in the live-action as well. But we can do a lot more in animation than you can do in live-action so it’s an interesting thing.”
Both Asajj Ventress and Cad Bane are indelibly tied to their distinct voices and getting Futterman and Burton within the studio to report their performances was once a real spotlight.
“Corey speaks for himself,” Spotswood provides. “There’s no other person. If you’d watch “The Bad Batch” episodes, you hear Cad Bane before you see him. Corey is a huge talent. He’s played hundreds of voices, but hearing that Cad Bane voice is just so iconic. When it comes to Nika and Ventress, the same thing is true for her. We’ve had the opportunity to play with that character a couple times before. You hear that voice, you go with it, and everyone knows it.”
Standing again from the decidedly darkish deeds of Ventress and Bane, we requested Spotswood to outline what it’s concerning the attraction of those two characters for “Tales of the Underworld” that lures fanatics to their felony tactics within the huge “Star Wars” universe.
“They are undoubtedly villains,” he notes. “They murder people in cold blood. It’s not any shades of gray. Ultimately, they have very clear motives. Usually, they’re killing other bad guys and people who had it coming, as it were. One of the things that Star Wars does great is make these iconic interesting characters, and especially in animation, where we get to really explore them, that allows you to feel for them a little bit and have some compassion despite the fact you wouldn’t be friends with them in real life.
“Specifically for Ventress, we get to look an murderer who is been murdered, and we get to inform slightly of that tale of the place she comes from and why she abandons part of her existence. It provides a way of who those persons are. Good villains are advanced. Ventress has this nice foil to play in opposition to too. You’ve were given this badass Separatist murderer, and now she will get paired with this younger, terrified Padawan Jedi, and they have got to co-exist come what may. Just to look this is so glorious and thrilling. There’s numerous humor there.”
“Star Wars: Tales of the Underworld” is now streaming all episodes on Disney+.