(no subject)

[skygiants]

I am way behind on writing up my Voyager watch with innerbrat, and I do intend to tackle the backlog soon -- we're now about halfway through season 3 -- but for the last couple months we've also been pairing our Voyager watch with episodes of Star Wars: Visions, so now we're done I'm going to get that out the way first.

So Visions is an anime anthology series in which a bunch of different Japanese animation studios give their takes on the Star Wars universe -- each episode runs about fifteen to twenty minutes, and presents a set of original characters who from some long-time-ago and some far far away galaxy. The episodes exist explicitly outside the strict constraints of The Star Wars Timeline As Established By Disney, operating strictly on a vibes principle: as long as there are Jedi, an Empire, and/or a bunch of aliens and starships, anything more or less goes.

Conceptually, this is really neat, especially given how liberally George Lucas borrowed from the aesthetics of Japanese cinema and samurai iconography when creating the Jedi in the first place, and the animation on most of the projects is gorgeous. It does mean that more than half of the creators tackling the project seem to have thought, "Great! Time to make a short samurai film with lightsabers in it!" -- all of which were generally lovely, and which is absolutely a fair take on the project brief, but I did hit the point where I'd get really excited any time one of the shorts seemed like it might hypothetically not feature a Jedi protagonist ...

This ended up being none of them, for the record. None of them did not feature a Jedi protagonist. But this, too, is very Star Wars.

1. The Duel

Stoic wanderer and droid friend save village from Sith bandits. Is this the best of the 'wandering Force-sensitive samurai movies' in the batch? Couldn't say, but I did absolutely react to it as if it were, because it was the first one in the set and thus I was coming to it with the freshest eyes fully primed to be like 'hey! it's a fifteen-minute Kurosawa movie with lightsabers and I love that!' Apparently there's a full-length novel version of this now and I might read it.

2. Tatooine Rhapsody

Ex-Jedi who just wants to become a rock star leads his friends on a quest to rescue their band's lead singer, a runaway punk Hutt who's been kidnapped and sentenced to death by Jabba, by leveraging the power of music. I thought this was cute but not great at the time but have grown increasingly fond of it in retrospect for a.) the extremely funny fact that protag's Jedi backstory is literally never relevant b.) containing as far as I can tell the Star Wars universe's only current sympathetic Hutt and c.) chibi Boba Fett.

3. The Twins

AU not!Luke and not!Leia are Force twins raised by the Empire to wield Dark Side power, but not!Leia wants to be Evil and not!Luke just wants to run away. All aesthetics, no substance, mostly just made me very excited for Emily Tesh's Some Desperate Glory to have a pub date.

4. The Village Bride

A young woman marries her childhood sweetheart the night before giving herself up as a hostage for her village to the local bandits; traveling Jedi interfere. Of all the wandering Jedi stories in the collection, this one gives the most time to developing the world and culture and non-Jedi attitudes towards the force of the actual people the Jedi are helping, which I appreciate!

5. The Ninth Jedi

Apparently the studio for this one pitched two stories, one about a gathering of force-users lured by the offer of lightsabers, and another about a blacksmith and his daughter. Disney: what if we gave you the freedom to do both these stories! Director (direct quote): "Sometimes, freedom is a curse." Cursed or not I think the studio did pull this one off -- had a solid meaty plot with some twists I didn't call, but, more importantly, also had an extremely good elderly droid taxi driver who knew his rights to a union-mandated break.

6. TO-B1

The one that poses the question, 'what if Astro Boy wanted to be a Jedi'? Which is a fun take and interestingly different as far as inspirations go, though Debi and I did get very sidetracked positing theories and AUs around the fact that this droid child seems to be named after Obi-Wan Kenobi.

7. The Elder

A Jedi master and his headstrong apprentice land on a planet and accidentally discover a very elderly Sith who wants to fight them so they do. Notable mostly for the fact that the Jedi master's takeaway at the end of the fight is better than the vast majority of the Jedi sayings that lead off Clone Wars episodes, or than the vast majority of the things actual Jedi say in Clone Wars, for that matter.

8. Lop & Ochō

An impoverished rabbit alien is adopted into a family that is subsequently ideologically divided by the Empire's industrialization plans for their planet. On the one hand I got really excited when I thought this one might not have any Jedi in it and then was slightly bummed when the lightsaber came out, but on the other hand I thought the local/family mythology that had been built around this particular lightsaber was a really neat depiction of how that might work outside of Jedi lore, and also I liked the way it played out in this particular adoptive-parenting context, so I came around on it; also I like sister stories.

9. Akakiri

A Jedi returns to a planet to help the Leia-esque princess he loves recover her kingdom from an evil Sith aunt; it goes poorly. Notable for more Kurosawa references, interestingly stylized animation, and an Anakin Skywalker speedrun that does about as much in two minutes as the entire back half of Revenge of the Sith.

Comments

TO-B1

[flamebyrd]

Toby/Tobio is also the name of the human child Astro Boy was created to replace, so that's a nice piece of synchronicity!

I haven't watched this but it sounds fun! Even though it's All Jedi, All The Time I like the idea of showing what the Jedi do when they're just out there living their lives.

Re: TO-B1

[starlady]

Canonically killed in a self-driving car accident! Who says Tezuka wasn't ahead of his time.

Re: TO-B1

[skygiants]

It is! And probably way, way more relevant to the episode than any coincidental audio echo of Obi-Wan Kenobi tbh, there truly is very little thematic resonance except the one that we made up in our heads.

It is really fun though, and it's cool to see the kinds of stories that can be told when creators get an explicit brief to take some themes and some symbolism and run with it, rather than having to be pinned down to a specific Established Place And Time in someone else's world.

[starlady]

I really disliked "Akakiri" and I wish it hadn't been last because the rest of them were some combination of fun, awesome, and interesting, with some really great animation.

[skygiants]

I didn't hate it, but I agree that it was a really weird note to end on -- some kind of message definitely being sent with the curation there, if it was intentional. I think I personally would've picked Ninth Jedi for a closer, or maybe The Elder ...

[sovay]

but on the other hand I thought the local/family mythology that had been built around this particular lightsaber was a really neat depiction of how that might work outside of Jedi lore

May I ask for details?

[skygiants]

So the backstory of that one is that the adoptive father is a leader of a local clan, who befriended a Jedi a long time ago, and was given the lightsaber by the Jedi -- and then kept it as a family heirloom, passed down from parent to child, with the ability to wield it signifying worthiness to lead the clan, like an Excalibur kind of deal. So a.) it becomes very significant that the dad eventually passes it to Lop, the adopted daughter, rather than the biodaughter, but b.) it's such an interesting twist to have a lightsaber divorced of context become a hereditary family weapon when so much of the Jedi stuff is about leaving family entirely behind in favor of the absolute neutrality of the Order.

[sovay]

b.) it's such an interesting twist to have a lightsaber divorced of context become a hereditary family weapon when so much of the Jedi stuff is about leaving family entirely behind in favor of the absolute neutrality of the Order.

That is really neat!

[copperfyre]

This sounds rather fun! I’ll have to see if I can track them down. Just based on your reviews the ex-Jedi rockstar with the punk Hutt sounds amazing, solely for those two characters and also the Jedi’s Jedi backstory never being important.

[skygiants]

Like, is the song that they sing triumphantly to prove their commitment to music ... good? Absolutely not. Is it very funny to see this story being told in Star Wars universe with Jabba rocking to the beat? ABSOLUTELY yes.

[ceitfianna]

Good summaries, I watched these all quickly and at the end mainly the aesthetics stood out. Lop and Ocho was probably my favorite because I liked the family. Also the Ninth Jedi, those two seemed like they had a little more space in them. This was an interesting idea, I hope they do more and poke at other Star Wars things.

[skygiants]

Yeah, those are the two that seemed like they could most interestingly lead onto other things if a studio ever wanted (& was able) to pick them up! Debi and I were both disappointed to see that no one had requested Lop & Ocho fic for Yuletide, although a couple of the other shorts appeared in the tagset. I also hope they do some more outside-established-canon stuff with Star Wars, it's neat to see how much fun people can have with it when given free reign!

[ceitfianna]

I think I thought about requesting Lop and Ocho, but it wasn't nominated. I remember that there were questions about Visions during the nominating period and I think that limited which ones went through.

[chestnut_pod]

Droid! Union!!!!!

Do you know, I had not been considering watching this series (or really most of the new SW TV offerings), but some of these actually sound really compelling! And I miss 2D animation so much. Perhaps this will be a nice way to spend an evening or two.

Droid… union…