Josh Reviews Star Wars Visions: Season Two!

I quite enjoyed the first season of Star Wars: Visions, and I was happy to see the series return with a second season consisting of nine new animated shorts!

Whereas in season one, all nine episodes were created by different Japanese animation studios, here in season two the show expanded to a more global scale, giving us nine shorts created by nine different animated studios from across the world: Ireland, England, France, South Korea, India, and more.  I loved this approach!!  The result was a more diverse group of animated films, with fantastically distinct looks and feels.  For this reason, I enjoyed season two even more than season one!

Interestingly, one comment I’d made in my review of season one was how I wish the shorts had been reigned in just slightly so they could have been actual in-canon Star Wars adventures.  I wonder if the makers of Visions felt the same way, because while these nine new shorts all push at the edges of Star Wars storytelling, giving us lots of wonderful new characters and new settings, all told in extremely unique, distinctly different styles, I don’t think there’s anything in any of these stories that makes them unable to fit into the established Star Wars canon.  That’s very cool!

Here are some brief thoughts on the fantastic new animated shorts contained in this new season:

01 — Sith — Lola is an artist, powerful in the Force, who uses her art as a way to express herself… but her peaceful life of isolation is shattered when a Sith lord tracks her down.  What a great kick-off to this new season.  The animation was staggeringly beautiful, and I was blown away by the cool idea of how the animation in this short uses Lola’s art as a visual way to express her internal struggle between light and dark.  Brilliant and creative and beautiful.

02 — Screecher’s Reach — Three kids sneak away from their life of slavery, following the visions of a young girl.  But what they find in a haunted cave is darker than they expect.  I loved the gorgeous and unique look and feel of this short; the texture of the beautiful 2-D animation was so different from the 3-D animation of the first short… but they were both incredible in their own way!  Even more than that, I was quite taken by the short’s unexpectedly dark ending.  It was cool to see a Sith version of Yoda’s test of Luke in the Dark Side cave in The Empire Strikes Back.  What a great concept.  Also: the music in this short was hauntingly beautiful.

03 — In the Stars — Two sisters live alone on a planet whose environment has been destroyed by the industrial factory created by the Empire.  The younger sister believes she can use her Force powers to fight the Empire; the older sister wants her to hide her powers in the hopes of staying alive and safe from the Empire’s notice.  I loved the way this short developed the characters of these two very different sisters; I loved the environmental message; I loved the gorgeously detailed animation.  Another winner.

04 — I Am Your Mother — From Aardman Animations, the company behind Wallace and Gromit, comes this tale of a young girl at flight school who is embarrassed by her hard-working but lower-class mother.  But the two find common ground in a tense race in which they’re forced to work together.  This was the short I was most looking forward to in this season — a Star Wars short by the makers of Wallace and Gromit??  How could that be anything but great?  Spoiler alert: it was even better than I’d hoped.  I loved seeing the Star Wars universe viewed through Aardman’s distinct lens.  This sweet and funny short was beautifully animated and perfectly paced.  Just amazing.

05 — Journey to the Dark Head — I wasn’t sure about this one, at first, as I thought the story was a little jumpy and confusing, but it built to a wonderfully powerful and moving ending about how light and dark can be more connected than one might think.  This story might have been even stronger with a few more minutes’ run-time, to better flesh out the characters and situations, but even as-is I thought it was pretty great.  And yet again we got another unique and beautiful animation style.

06 — The Spy Dancer — I enjoyed the way this short, produced by a French animation studio, took a story of the French resistance during WWII and transposed it to the Star Wars universe.  This short focuses on a dancer in a cabaret on an Imperial-occupied planet, who uses her position to try to help the Rebellion.  The more cartoony look of the animation wasn’t my favorite among the many different incredible styles seen in this season, but I was nevertheless interested in this story.

07 — The Bandits of Golak — A young boy tries to help his younger, Force-sensitive sister escape those who are hunting her.  There are a lot of great ideas in this short, but it was my least favorite of the season.  It’s not bad, I just didn’t think the pieces of the story fit together in a satisfying way.  (There’s a long sequence of local bandits attacking an Imperial train that doesn’t seem to go anywhere; there’s an old woman character revealed as a Jedi who wasn’t established enough so that I’d care about that revelation… the short was filled with those sorts of problems.)  Also, while I was intrigued to see the many Indian elements this Indian animation studio brought to their short, I thought in many ways the Indian influence was applied with too heavy a hand.  I thought most of the other shorts were more effective in incororating a strong influence from their local culture while blending that influence with familiar Star Wars elements.  This short felt more like an Indian cosplay version of Star Wars.  It just didn’t quite click for me.

08 — The Pit — A group of slaves is forced to dig a deep pit for the Empire, in search of Kyber Crystals.  One young man (voiced by Hamilton’s Daveed Diggs) attempts to escape and rally others to help.  As with The Bandits of Golak, I thought there were a lot of cool ideas in this short but it was a little thin in my view to be as effective as it wanted to be.  I was frankly far more moved by the behind-the-scenes featurette, which explored writer/director LeAndre Thomas’ admirable goal of telling a Star Wars stories focused on characters of color.  That was wonderful to see.  I was also impressed that Lucasfilm let Mr. Thomas take the story into some grim places as it progressed (while ultimately still being a story all about the power of hope).

09 — Aau’s Song — Aau is a young girl being taught the dangerous trade of mining Kyber crystals that were long-ago corrupted by the Dark Side.  Aau longs to sing, but her father worries that her voice might cause the crystals to erupt in violent energy, so she is forced to keep her voice hidden… until one day, she no longer can.  I was a little concerned in the first minute of this short; I didn’t at first love the cartoonish look of the main characters.  I thought to myself: I’d loved this new season of Visions at first, but was the final third going to wind up being a disappointment?  Not at all!!  This short quickly sucked me in and, in the end, it might have turned out to be my very favorite of the whole second season!  It was certainly the one that I found the most moving by the end.  I quickly grew to love Aau and the other characters in this short (especially the kick-ass female Jedi!) and I was blown away by the gorgeously beautiful look of the animation.  The short feels like it was created in stop-motion, but from the behind-the-scenes featurette, I think this was all CGI.  Either way, it’s incredible — you can really see and almost feel the textures of this world.  It’s deliriously beautiful.  The entire short is, too.

As much as I enjoyed each of these new episodes, I was thrilled that in the “extras” section on Disney+ was an accompanying ten-ish minute behind-the-scenes “making-of” featurette for every one of these new shorts!  I loved these featurettes!  It was so cool to learn about each of the international animation studies that created these new episodes.  I loved learning about the people who made these stories and what they brought to the table… and the unique approach and style of animation that each studio brought to their short.  That was fascinating and super-enjoyable.  After I finished watching each new episode, I couldn’t wait to click over to the “extras” and watch each new “making-of” featurette!

Will there be more Star Wars: Visions?  I hope so!!  But based on all the recent reports of Disney cutting back on the Star Wars and Marvel TV shows on Disney+, I feel like it’s unlikely.  This show seems to have flown somewhat under the radar.  If this is all we get, I’m happy.  This second season was terrific, and well-worth your time to watch if you’re a Star Wars fan.  If you missed it, go check it out!

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