I wanted to get on here and talk about the upcoming season of Star Wars Vision. A second season for the “anime” style cartoon shorts was announced a few month back and the announcement also included a list of studios as well as episode titles. I thought it might be fun idea to watch some of the materials made by these studios to better understand what this season of Visions might be like.
If you haven’t seen it, watch the trailer here.
Star Wars Visions is the kind of project in Star Wars I’ve been waiting for and the first season did not disappoint me. It is the kind of project like “From a Certain Point of View” series of collected short stories told “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” style of highlighting the “off-screen” moments. It reminds me specifically of the cartoon short “Animatix” in the Matrix Universe.
The first volume of Visions were all released at the same time on September 22, 2021. The shorts were released on Disney+. All the shorts were between 14 and 24 minutes in length and each was a stand alone episode written and produced outside the “canon” timelines and materials. They were not intended to tie into the larger story directly, they were more like an artistic re-interpretation of the Star Wars themes using alternative imagery and story techniques. All of the original 9 studios selected for Visions Volume 1 were Japanese studios who make various kinds of “anime”. The animators in Volume 1 were Kamikaze Douga, Studio Colorido, Studio Trigger, Kinema Citrus, Production I.G, Science Saru and Geno Studio.
For Volume 2, the selection of animation studios was expanded and includes El Guiri, Cartoon Saloon, Punkrobot, Aardman, Studio Mir, Studio La Cachette, 88 Pictures, D’Art Shtaijo with Lucasfilm and Triggerfish. So now I will walk through what we know about each of these studios and the episode of Visions they are producing.
El Guiri Studios (pronounced El Ghee-Ree) – “Sith”
El Guiri Studios is located in Madrid, Spain and they produced the episode of Visions Volume 2 entitled “Sith”, clip from the trailer is below. The episode is reported to be about a former Sith apprentice is confronted by the past when her old master tracks her down.
El Guiri studios was founded in 2021 by Rodrigo Blaas and Cecile Hokes. Rodrigo has the writer and director credit for this short. He worked on animated films such as Ice Age and Pixar´s Finding Nemo, Ratatouille and The Incredibles. He also was the show runner on the Guillermo del Toro series Trollhunters. Studio El Guiri describes itself as a place to focus on pre-production and “front end” production.
From the clips that we can see from the trailer, there is a duel between two lightsaber users, presumably the former master and the apprentic. The animation style is pretty interesting. It has an almost comic book quality to it with the static around the Sith’s lightsaber blade. The design of the unnamed Sith is also interesting. He has a face-mask and some red coloring on the top of his head. He is not immediately recognizable to me as any specific species. The actor portraying the Sith is Luis Tosar.
The female, presumably human, with the yellow light saber is first seen in the trailer as hiding from him on what looks like a ship. Her name is Lola and is portrayed by Ursula Corbero. She ignites her lightsaber and it is yellow and the blade is curved like a samurai sword or a scimitar. The woman character appears to be human. Later in the trailer we see the two lock blades in combat.
I love the setup for this episode, a wayward apprentice is confronted and attacked they their mentor. Sounds exciting.
Cartoon Saloon – “Screecher’s Run”
The second episode in volume two is “Screecher’s Run” by the studio Cartoon Saloon. Cartoon Saloon has previously released several cartoon features including My Father’s Dragon, WolfWalkers, The Secret of Kells, Song of the Sea, and The Breadwinner. You can see trailers for these different pieces online. They have an interesting and consistent art style that seems to mimic the illustrations you would see in a children’s book. Dark, wide, outlines around characters, white eyes with black pupils, simple and reductive but not in a bad way.
The provided plot summary for the episode is “a young girl, seeking reprieve from her days in a rural workhouse, discovers a legendary haunted cave with her friends. The cave’s dark pull will change the trajectory of her life forever.” In the trailer, we meet Daal, a young human girl, played by Eva Whittaker.
The cast of characters in this show include Baython, Quinn, Keena, a “Sith Mother” and a Ghost. In the trailer, we catch a quick shot of Daal holding what appears to be a red lightsaber.
The materials from the trailer is not clear as to what is happening. We don’t have any information about her relationship to the other characters but Star Wars has a long history with people going into caves and being confronted with a new reality. I am curious if she hallucinates the lightsaber or if it is the Sith Mother’s lightsaber.
This image from the trailer is probably the ghost appearing to Daal in the cave.
Nice group shot of the characters, really show casing this animation style. This type of story is familiar to Star Wars, coming of age, hero’s journey, I sort of wish one of these was an alien though, she needs her Chewbacca for this quest. The description of this short has me excited to see what they do here. There’s a lot of aspects of the force we have not examined but ghosts are a thing, so far only really for light side users. I am extremely curious about this one.
Punkrobot – “In the Stars”
Two sisters, the last of their kind who live in hiding on their ravaged land, squabble about how to survive with the Empire encroaching. On a water run, the sisters must fight back when they are discovered. This short was written by Gabriel Osorio who has won an Oscar in 2016 for her cartoon feature “Bear Story” Bear Story is a great short film that really showcases the animation style of Punkrobot and the writing of Gabriel Osorio.
The short feature “Bear Story” is about a Bear who makes a clockwork show about a bear who is kidnapped to perform in the circus, escapes, returns home to his wife and child. That’s the story the clockwork device is telling but the bear that makes the story is alone, missing his wife and child. He writes his own best ending to his story, even though he is alone. It is a wonderful short, I highly recommend it.
The style of the Visions short looks like a stop motion or a claymation sort of style, but obviously it is CG. We get a few seconds of footage of these sisters. They have some face-painting, one of the girls appears to be trying to defy a TIE fighter with the force. The TIE itself has some interesting details including a sort of search light on the bottom.
We see in another shot that she is wearing a mask when she is standing outside their dwelling.
The smaller girl is Tichnia and is played by Julia Oviedo. The older girl is named is Koten and is played by Valentina Muhr.
Stylistically, this looks very interesting and I’m excited to see it. We don’t have enough details about the plot to understand why these girls are hiding but I’m excited to learn more.
Aardman – “I Am Your Mother”
Young pilot Anni, who is embarrassed by her sweet, but clingy mum, must team with her for a madcap family race at the academy. Along the way, their relationship is tested by the elements, their old ship, other racers…and each other! The title “I Am Your Mother” is likely a reference to the line in Empire Strikes Back where Vader says to Luke,
Vader: If you only knew the power of the Dark Side. Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father.
Skywalker: He told me enough! He told me you killed him!
Vader: No. I am your father.
Or it is a reference to the Meghan Trainor song.
Aardman is probably best known for their claymation style and their shows Wallace & Gromit, Shaun the Sheep, Chicken Run and Morph.
It is partially the animation style, the limited dialogue we get in the trailer, and the history of this company but it is hard for me to think of this as anything other than a comedy. The human girl with a black hair slinging the insults at the “porta potty” is named Julan Van Reeple and her mother is Dorota Van Reeple (she reminds me a lot of Christine Jane Baranski but is played by Daisy Haggard). The Twi’lek girl is named Annisoukaline Kalfus and goes by “Anni.” Her mother is Kalina Kalfus. I don’t know anything about the plot but the set up in the trailer is arrogant and privileged mother/daughter team is bested by plucky intuitive mother/daughter Twi’lek racing team. Bad News Bears story.
As far as animation is concerned, this studio is probably relatively well known but if you don’t know about them, good Wallace and Gromit and enjoy some dry British humor in the style of claymation.
I think I’ll stop there for now. Trying to find time for all the Star Wars stuff I love and want to talk about. I’ll keep going on Visions this week as I await the release.