Summary
Even at its weakest, Star Wars: Visions is a striking visual achievement. At its best, though, it’s some of the most daring and compelling content in the franchise’s recent history.
This review of the Disney+ series Star Wars: Visions Season 2 does not contain spoilers.
Star Wars is one of the biggest multimedia franchises in the world, and it’s shepherded by a company synonymous with safe family entertainment. There’s little wonder, then, that even a galaxy far, far away can sometimes feel a little small, hemmed in by its obligations to its own wider continuity and the delicate sensibilities of an all-ages audience that has a tendency to go almost criminally ballistic at the slightest perceived provocation.
This is why the first season of Star Wars: Visions felt interesting and vital, and why the second volume feels much the same way. It being slightly adjacent to the official canon gives its various animation studios the freedom to experiment with visuals and ideas that wouldn’t be allowed anywhere else. The stakes are comparatively low, but the creativity is at a premium.
Star Wars: Visions Season 2 review and plot summary
Whereas the first volume was comprised almost exclusively of anime, the second boasts shorts developed by animation studios from all over the world, in a variety of styles. It manages to feel both very much like Star Wars and not remotely like Star Wars at all.
And this is a good thing. It means that Visions, like all anthologies, is a little uneven. But it also means that it’s consistently good in interesting ways that often feel new. There’s an Aardman short that feels as much like The Phantom Menace as it does Wallace & Gromit, and a French episode that resists Imperial occupation with 30s-style cabaret.
Is Star Wars: Visions Volume 2 good or bad?
And the studios haven’t been afraid to really let their culture inform the art and storytelling. “Screecher’s Reach”, which is the equivalent of a children’s scary story told around a campfire, is full of thick Irish lilts. “The Bandits of Golak” is a very Indian take on Star Wars ephemera, and the final short, “Aau’s Song”, from the South African studio Triggerfish, feels both thematically and artistically textured.
There are weaker links, of course. Often even the better shorts feel as if they end just as they’re starting to get going, and the tired “Hero’s Journey” trope is wheeled out three different times, with young girls being forced to part with their loved ones to seek purpose elsewhere.
Is Star Wars: Visions Volume 2 worth watching?
And yet it’s hard to quibble since even the most narratively weak – or at least less adventurous – outings have striking, distinct visuals, which is largely the point in an anthology disconnected from the main continuity (and titled Visions). “Sith”, the premiere, has perhaps my favorite style; a moving watercolor painting brought to vivid life.
There are enough of these flourishes and details to recommend Star Wars: Visions Volume 2 to both Star Wars fans and animation enthusiasts in general, and under Disney, the collection remains the most original and daring output in the franchise.
What did you think of Star Wars: Visions Season 2? Comment below.
You can watch this series with a subscription to Disney+.
