Star Wars: Visions is the franchise’s most inventive collection, and season 3 continues to impress. When considered compared to Star Wars‘ other TV shows, Visions is singular. It’s a fully non-canon collection that collects completely different animation studios from the world over to convey their particular person, distinctive takes on a galaxy far, distant.
For the canon heads, this typically sees Visions ranked among the worst Star Wars TV shows, as it’s onerous to spend money on one thing with no hyperlink to the broader franchise. Nevertheless, I’ve all the time seen benefit within the present, because it purely rewards creativity and completely different takes on Star Wars than anything within the franchise.
Whereas I agree that Andor is Star Wars‘ best show, I’ve lengthy thought the franchise’s animated efforts are missed. Visions isn’t any completely different, regardless of the present offering the proper solution to take pleasure in smaller, significant, strikingly creative tales within the galaxy all of us love. Fortunately, Star Wars: Visions season 3 continues that mandate and stays as spectacular as ever.
Star Wars: Visions Season 3 Has No Dangerous Episodes & A Few Stellar Standouts
As has been the case with earlier seasons, no season 3 episode was unhealthy. Sure, there have been a number of that didn’t fairly land, however all episodes maintain their very own deserves, with a number of clear standouts.
The season’s opener, “The Duel: Playback,” continues the story of season 1’s “The Duel” protagonist, a former Sith searching different Sith warriors. This episode was wonderful, superbly animated by Kamikaze Douga and Anima, with its iconic black-and-grey tones which are offset by gorgeous lightsaber colours. The Japanese influences had been clear right here, in each combat choreography and areas.
Episode 3, “The Ninth Jedi: Youngster of Hope,” is the very best of the bunch, nevertheless. This was no shock, provided that its predecessor, season 1’s “The Ninth Jedi,” was the very best from that batch of episodes. This episode continues the journey of Kara, who’s stranded on a derelict ship and left to combat off her pursuers.
As each a continuation of season 1’s story and a backdoor pilot for Star Wars’ Ninth Jedi show, this episode was incredible. It had nice voice performing, participating motion sequences, an extremely lovable aspect character named Teto, all whereas it continued to discover this sect of Star Wars in intriguing methods.
Past these two nice installments, there have been a number of good episodes sprinkled all through. WIT Studios’ “The Bounty Hunter” was enjoyable and instructed a easy story with plausible motivations. What this did with a sure split-personality droid was nice, too, and really confirmed the distinctive nature of Visions whereas hiding behind a typical Star Wars archetype.
Episode 2, Manufacturing I.G’s “The Music of 4 Wings,” did the identical with its astromech droid, permitting for a very cool motion sequence by no means seen earlier than in Star Wars. I am additionally a sucker for lone wolf and cub tales, and the immensely cute Woopas stole my coronary heart right here.
Episodes 5 and 6 had been my least favourite installments of Visions season 3, however neither was outright unhealthy. The previous was merely a cute, family-friendly story that did not grip me, whereas the latter felt the most common Star Wars. This does not imply it did not work, however contemplating Visions‘ traditional aptitude for creativity, in contrast to anything within the franchise, it was disappointing.
Episode 7 was, once more, simply one other enjoyable story about a person rise up in opposition to the Empire with some good motion sequences and funky inventive moments. The ultimate two episodes featured two of essentially the most visually putting of your complete season, though they fell quick within the storytelling division, no matter how a lot they pushed franchise boundaries.
Star Wars: Visions Season 3’s Visuals Are (Largely) All the time Wonderful
Episode 8, “The Fowl of Paradise,” and episode 9, “Black,” had been undoubtedly the visible standouts of Star Wars: Visions season 3. The previous’s 3D animation, by Polygon Photos, had one downside in that its human characters felt wood and unemotive. Nevertheless, the areas and visible journey by the Power had been gorgeous.
Episode 9 is essentially the most wacky, insane, weird story Star Wars has ever instructed, if it will possibly even be referred to as a narrative. This 13-minute episode is a psychedelic journey by the thoughts of a stormtrooper earlier than his dying, that includes among the handiest animation within the franchise’s historical past by David Manufacturing.
It’s extremely troublesome to discover what precisely this episode was, however I believe I find it irresistible exactly due to that. I would like Star Wars to push boundaries with what it incorporates, and this episode definitely did that, on a wildly visible degree.
Past that, each different episode regarded nice. The basic Star Wars visuals had been all there, and all the things new and distinctive was animated to perfection. Solely episode 6, which I discovered to be the most common of the bunch story-wise, appeared uninspired from an animation perspective. It wasn’t unhealthy, it simply wasn’t as distinctive because the others.
Star Wars: Visions Season 3 Has A Sturdy Voice Forged
I like Visions for the way it reveals me, visually, a special kind of Star Wars. Which means that the voice performing can generally be inconsequential. The present has a variety of stars in its English dub, however the animation is what I tune in for.
That mentioned, the voice solid of Star Wars: Visions season 3 continues to be robust. Huge stars like Stephanie Hsu, Simu Liu, Emma Meyers, Anna Sawai, Mark Sturdy, The Acolyte‘s Jodie Turner-Smith, Ryan Potter, Karen Fukuhara, Freddie Highmore, and Tanner Buchanan are sprinkled all through.
All give good performances as their respective characters, with Highmore being the standout. Teto, the aforementioned droid from “The Ninth Jedi: Youngster of Hope,” genuinely introduced tears to my eyes, primarily pushed by Highmore’s lovable voice performing.
General, Star Wars: Visions season 3 was onerous to get improper. Lucasfilm has been giving completely different animation studios free rein to inform intriguing, enjoyable, inventive tales with no canon limitations. Until that modified, season 3 was all the time going to work. Fortunately, Lucasfilm continued to consider in what made Star Wars: Visions so compelling, providing up one other batch of superbly animated tales.
