Why Star Wars: Visions evolved beyond anime

Brothers and sisters separated by the machinations of mystical warriors and galactic empires. Tribal peoples terrorized by TIE fighters before striking back gloriously. Parent and child on opposite sides of an ideological divide.

The stories of Star Wars: Visions are familiar and reminiscent of the tragedy and pulp fantasies of George Lucas’ long-running franchise. And yet this animated series makes Star Wars seem new, both through the angles its episodes take on these archetypal stories and, perhaps more importantly, through the diversity of its visual palette from the many animation houses that have spawned the individual visions shorts. Season 2 continues to eschew the saga of the Skywalkers and the Palpatines in favor of smaller episodes that reimagine the Star Wars universe. But it also has new looks. visions isn’t just an anime anthology anymore: it’s gotten so much bigger.

“We’ve always seen visions like it really has the potential to be a wider canvas,” producer James Waugh tells Polygon. The anthology setup is, as he sees it, the perfect “framework that allowed the finest creators of their craft and media to explore and celebrate Star Wars in new ways.” Season 2 commits to doing just that, incorporating a mix of animation styles and production houses from around the world.

As with Season 1 of visionsthe individual directors and studios naturally overlay their own story and style War of stars. Many of the best moments from visions

Image: Cartoon Saloon/Lucasfilm Ltd.

Image: 88 Pictures/Lucasfilm Ltd.

Each of these new windows on the world offers a different take on the Star Wars mythos and marks Season 2 of visions an even more exciting reach than Season 1. Waugh says he’s realized that visions‘ first season that these were stories “that you could really only get from filmmakers who came out of Japan, who had unique perspectives on the world, but also cultural influences, religious influences, historical touchpoints or points of reference.” That led to Season 2’s mission of “expanding something visions can be with this band and see what new voices we can bring in.”

The inclusion of all of these cultural backgrounds, with the creators drawing from their own historical encounters with fascism, makes this a more politically charged season. Many of the artists’ first stations are inspired by the idea of ​​imperial occupation, which develops out of the aftermath of resistance or the plight of freedom. “Screecher’s Reach”, “The Bandits of Golak”, “In the Stars” and “The Spy Dancer” all imagine different corners of the universe under the rule of the Empire. Each of these short films finds a different and compelling approach to depicting how people might escape this oppression – sometimes based on folklore, sometimes on real-world parallels.

Take in the haunting evocation of Irish folklore in the Cartoon Saloon-produced Screecher’s Reach, directed by Paul Young. Expressive animation transforms a familiar heroic dare into something sinister and harrowing. Gabriel Osorio’s “In The Stars” is another highlight that shows how it’s done visions expands his canvas. Produced in stop-motion style 3D digital animation by Chilean studio PunkRobot, it has a tangibility that feels important and takes a distinct hold on Chile’s history of colonialism and oppression as it depicts the surviving daughters of a bis represents the extermination of a hunted tribe.

Removed from the context of the Skywalker saga, visions takes the opportunity to simply tell lower-stakes stories in the Star Wars mold, which feels like a fresh approach — perhaps even more so after the mythology-heavy third season of The Mandalorian. As in the previous season, some fans are interested in the stories that the constant momentum of the other works in the franchise does not allow. How do people live in this galaxy when there is no war or when its inhabitants are not focused on resisting tyrants?

Where Season 1 answered that question in Tatooine Rhapsody, this season has Aardman Studios’ I Am Your Mother with something rarely explored in the Star Wars franchise: a mother-daughter story. Following a cadet pilot who hides her upcoming family day from her boisterous mother, director Magdalena Osinska plays much of her story for laughs, through a series of visual gags and callbacks to both Star Wars and Aardman Studios history. (Many viewers have already pointed out the appearance of the ski robot from Aardman’s 1989 short film Wallace and Gromit A great day

Aardman’s likable stop-motion animation sits comfortably alongside works like Cape Town studio Triggerfish’s ‘Aau’s Song’ – another stop-motion work, but of such scale and natural beauty that I began to wonder about it wondering if this one was made like PunkRobot’s season 2 short film “In the Stars” which is a beautiful stop motion style 3D digital animation. It’s not, and the felt puppets in “Aau’s Song” absorb the episode’s vivid lighting in a delightfully hazy glow as it tells the story of Aau, a child gifted with a magical song.

As someone who spent a large part of his childhood in South Africa, it was an uplifting experience to hear the accents reflected here and the episode’s Cape Town-inspired people and vistas (with maybe a bit of Peru in it too). see what is so incredibly striking about it Star Wars: Visions“Global Approach. While the franchise has always drawn inspiration from different cultures in its fiction, it rarely did so from the perspective of those people.

Image: D’Art Shatjio/Lucasfilm Ltd.

These real inspirations in visions Season 2 brings a sense of urgency to the show that the franchise has felt bereft of, with perhaps exception Andor. This sense of variance at the core of the series is reminiscent of what made the franchise so exciting, when George Lucas seemed able to leap between fantasy genres and hard-hitting sci-fi, all in one scene. visions‘ Many different appearances feel simultaneously traditional and forward-thinking in terms of how they continue to develop the franchise’s iconography and thematic interests while preserving what makes this universe so compelling.

All of these angles can leave fans wanting more – almost any one of these episodes could make a compelling feature film on its own. But maybe that’s why visions is so exciting. This series creates stories of ephemeral beauty, stories that neither remain welcome nor diminish their (sometimes incredibly haunting) impact. Without having to continue these stories, the creators can come to an excitingly sombre conclusion, leaving room for the next Star Wars snapshot.

Where the show goes from here, who knows. (Waugh doesn’t rule out reconsidering Season 1’s approach: “Not to say we won’t be doing anime anymore — we love anime.”) That ability, really taking war of stars for every medium, for every interpretation from every country, is what makes visions‘expansive approach feels so special. It’s like the franchise is finally capable of anything.