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REVIEW: Star Wars: Visions

Excited to check this out but yeah, the review kinda makes me disappointed that there isn't quite as much variety as I hoped for (outside of visual style at least).

And yeah, I figured we'd get dubtitles for sure. Even like half of Disney's Ghibli blu-rays had dubtitle scripts (including some films that added extra lines, so you'd occasionally get subs when literally no one was speaking in Japanese).

Tatooine Rhapsody was one of the first pitches Lucasfilm received. Though the far-out concept initially caused some trepidation, that feeling soon changed. “It allowed us to go, ‘You know what. That’s what Visions is going to be about,'” Waugh said. “We’re gonna roll the dice, we’re gonna tell stories that we couldn’t tell anywhere else.”

While all the shorts have original scores, there’s something extra special about the music for The Ninth Jedi. The score was recorded at the Muza Kawasaki Symphony Hall, an acclaimed, modern venue.

I read something saying that almost all these episodes were set during the reign of the Galactic Empire. Between Revenge of the Sith and Return of the Jedi I suppose.

In developing the series, Lucasfilm made the decision to let creators tell the stories they wanted to tell — whether they featured established or original characters — without a need to tie into the larger chronology. “We really wanted to give these creators a wide creative berth to explore all the imaginative potential of the Star Wars galaxy through the unique lens of anime,” James Waugh said. “We realized we wanted these to be as authentic as possible to the studios and creators who are making them, made through their unique process, in a medium they’re such experts at.

I cannot see mainstream outlets are calling it the best Star Wars ever, when you look towards the comments, many people saying it kinda sucks.

I decided not to watch this all in one sitting, so far I’ve only watched 4 of them, and I’m also not watching it in the order that they’re displayed. I decided to start with the ones I was least looking forward to and then go in order of how much they interest me before I finish with The Duel which is the first episode in the collection. Also after each episode, I also went into the extra’s and looked at the filmmaker's focus on each one before moving to the next short.

TO-B1 was the first one I didn’t think I’d like all that much but I actually found it pretty charming. The story was cute and the relationship between him and Mitaka was really well done. The animation was also really inventive and fluid throughout the entire thing. All of the characters were extremely expressive. However, a few parts of this, specifically where he’s searching for the Kyber Crystal and exploring the force for the first time, felt a bit shorter than I would like and I kind of wish this was a full 30-40 minute movie so some those parts could breathe a bit more. However, it did tell a complete story and I was pretty satisfied after watching it.

Lop and Ocho was a real flop for me. I wasn’t that excited about it, because of the main character being a bunny girl, but that actually wasn’t much of a problem. The biggest issue with this one is that it feels really incomplete. None of the characters are well developed and I think Ocho is pretty poorly developed. It also ends pretty abruptly and doesn’t have much of a conclusion. It feels like it got cut off way too soon like this was the beginning of a much longer story. It wasn’t until I watched the behind the scene feature about this one that I fully understood what the studio was going for. I got some of it from watching the short, but that I needed to go look at the behind-the-scenes video for me to feel that is a failure of the short. It’s a real shame because I feel like if we got to fully explore Ocho’s character it could have worked better. I also think if we’re able to get a full movie or another 2-3 episodes to fully explore or conclude the story this would be really strong, but without those, the short just isn't all that good.

Tattooine Rhapsody was probably the most fun of these shorts so far. The idea of making a rock opera in Star Wars was pretty unique and in the wrong hands it could have ended up just feeling embarrassing, but the confidence the staff had in this project really shone through. It’s also the only one that features established characters from the franchise in the plot. It was also interesting to see the main character be a Jedi who turned away from fighting and became the lead singer in a band. All of the band members are well defined and the middle portion of the episode really sells that bond that all of them share with each other. It also doesn’t hurt that the music is really good. Joseph Gordon Levitt plays the main character and it turns out he’s a pretty good singer, Galactic Dreamer is a banger that’ll be playing on loop in my head over the next few days. Anyway, this episode was really enjoyable and I can defiantly see myself coming back to this one.

Akakari was fantastic. It really felt like a samurai movie. It was probably the most stylish one so far, with the absolutely gorgeous animation, and the minimalistic soundtrack. This one actually reminded me quite a bit of Akira Kurosawa which makes sense as in the Filmmaker's Focus feature his films are mentioned as the main inspiration for this piece. It’s also probably one of the darker series in this collection. The tone is pretty bleak throughout. The music has a heavy focus on percussion and the whole piece feels very dreamlike. The ending is pretty dark and the way the color red drowns out all of the other colors was fantastic. This is probably the strongest one so far and it’s the only one where I have no complaints. Also, spoiler[I really want a sequel that focuses on Masago and Tsubaki conquering the galaxy while Misa trains as a Jedi in order to put a stop to them.] This is the one that I most want to see expanded on later down the line, but unlike with Lop and Ocho, it’s because it was so good that I want more. It’s pretty much the perfect short and I don’t know if any of these will be able to top it.