Star Wars: Visions 2
When Star Wars: Visions premiered two years ago it proved to stellar effect that as long as creators held to the iconography and thematic heart of Star Wars, the medium by which we experience that distant realm doesn’t really matter. Visions 1 made its mission clear from the very beginning. Give some of the best Japanese animation studios the chance to tell Star Wars stories and those studios delivered wonderfully. With Visions 2 that mission has become solidified by allowing studios from around the globe to take a crack at a galaxy far, far away.
Much of Star Wars is steeped in Japanese culture, initially stemming from Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress. With that much influence it made sense for Visions to begin with the country that started it all. Now though we get to see artists from South Korea, Great Britain, Ireland, India, Chile, South Africa and France all get a chance to broaden the Star Wars palette and take a more expansive look at the people and creatures that live there. The wider influence is apparent immediate with broader themes being explored across the nine short films than in season 1. After taking in all of season 2 the true power of such a global effort became clear. These films represent a radical and invigorating interrogation of what we know to be Star Wars. These films mutate and evolve that understanding through their varying art forms, styles, and modes of animation. On a purely visual level Visions 2 is a sumptuous treat for the eyes.
The broad influence is really what makes Visions 2 dazzle just as brightly as its preceding anthology. The first volume proved that both Star Wars’ iconography and its themes could withstand being poked and prodded at, tweaked and interpreted through lenses that proudly defied Star Wars’ established canon to transpose those themes and visuals across everything from jidaigeki films to pop-rock musicals. Visions’ 2 dares to take another key understanding of the galaxy far, far away to its heart: that it is a galaxy, and it is filled to bursting with big, myriad opportunities.
From 3D CG to 2D art, from stop-motion puppetry to traditionally drawn animation, to shorts that mix and match multiple forms to tell their tales, Visions 2 is an incredible visual treat, and uses this vast canvas of styles to cover a whole spectrum of tonal ideas, from tense action to playful comedy, from folk horror to wartime spy thrillers. Even further beyond this variety of form is how this allows each of these shorts to celebrate the flexibility of Star Wars’ most enduring imagery, and broaden it artistically to incorporate cultural histories and identities from our own world. Star Wars has always borrowed from real-life cultures from across the planet, but rarely has it in turn been placed in the hands of creatives from those cultures, for them to play with sandbox of its galaxy in the ways Star Wars has played with their own cultural tableau.
Narratively, they go beyond the Visions 1’s stories in that they aren’t just simply about Jedi vs Sith—and when they are, they are about exploring different facets of the Force than simply good, evil, and laser swords. Here the Force is shown as an energy of creation, of familial bonds, of strength in the face of environmental and societal persecution. And when these shorts go beyond that mystical dichotomy, they explore spies and soldiers, laborers and pilots, the upper echelons of the galaxy to its lowest rungs, reminding us that Star Wars is not always about its fantastical mythos, but about people in general, and the things that connect them beyond a magical energy field.
If Visions 1 was Star Wars through the lens of its Japanese roots, Visions 2 is our own world played back to us through the lens of what Star Wars can be. It is a reminder of just how at its strongest creatively and visually, Star Wars does not have to be beholden to a strict set of narrative and visual rules to still “be” Star Wars. If we allow it to be, if we expand our own minds in turn, a lightsaber can be a blade of plasma or a paintbrush, a promise of freedom or the gateway to a spiritual identity. A starship can be a tool of violent oppression, or the home of a family, or a pathway to the stars. The heroes of a galaxy far, far away can be divinely powered warrior monks, brothers and sisters, young and old, dancers and artists. Star Wars can be anything and is for everyone. Visions’ second outing doesn’t just understand this, but casts its arms open widely and warmly to embrace it in its joyful, soul-stirring totality.
All episodes of Visions 1 and 2 are streaming on Disney +
