Disney and Lucasfilm have given fans a first look at Star Wars: Visions Volume 2 at Star Wars Celebration in London.
A trailer for the new season (above), which gives the Star Wars license to creators from all over the world to produce their own unique stories, shows a ton of different art styles coming to the Visions world. These include CGI, hand drawn, and even what looks to be claymation.
Volume 2 is also set to bring more of a global perspective to Visions when it premieres on Disney+ on May 4, stepping away from the Japanese centric first volume.
"That’s the story with this volume," said executive producer James Waugh. "Star Wars is such a phenomenon that brings so many cultures together, and I think you see that in this volume."
"Star Wars is such a phenomenon that brings so many cultures together, and I think you see that in this volume."
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Some of the artists behind each episode also took to the stage, including Rodrigo Blaas of El Guiri, the studio behind the Sith episode.
"This short has been a great experience," he said. "The premise is very simple: I had this thought of, 'what if we could use the Force not only to fight but to create art?' That was the basic seed of doing this short called Sith. We created Lola, the Sith apprentice who chose to forge her own path."
"We wanted to be respectful to the mythology, lore of Star Wars," he continued. "At the same time, we want to be bold in our choices. Two important things: bold in our choices of filmmaking, but also we talked a lot about colour. What if you could use the palette of red to orange to yellow to convey hope and darkness? And that’s what we tried throughout the different frames of this short. Other thing, we wanted to hide some references in the architecture.
Gabriel Osorio of Punkrobot, who's directing the episode In the Stars, also took to the stage. "Without spoiling the story, it’s about two sisters who lost everything," he said. "Their people, their family, because of an Imperial invasion."
"I wanted them to be aliens because that was inspired by the way I felt moving from Poland to the UK."
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We also learned that Paul Young of Cartoon Saloon is making an Irish ghost story in Screecher's Reach and that Magdalena Osinska of Aardman is making a mother and daughter story to reflect against Star Wars' famous father and son one.
The two main characters are Twi'leks that represent how Osinska felt moving countries. "I wanted them to be aliens because that was inspired by the way I felt moving from Poland to the UK, and also how my mom feels when she visit me here. Like aliens," she said.
Hyeong Geun Park of Studio Mir, who's creating Journey to the Dark Head, explained that his episode is about a prehistoric war between the Jedi and the Sith.
"I think the thing that strikes through all of Star Wars is the juxtaposition between good and evil," he said. "One of the main characters is a great Jedi but fears being a Sith. I wanted to show the thoughts and pondering that this character has at the crossroads of good and evil."
"You get to discover our main character's dancing troop, and also the Stormtroopers. We don’t often see them with their helmets off enjoying a night off."
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Julien Chheng of Studio La Cachette, the studio behind The Spy Dancer episode, explained that their main character is, well, a dancer. "We wanted to pay tribute to the side characters in the Star Wars universe, like the Jedi dancers," they said. "We got our inspiration from the world war in France, where you could find those famous dancers such as Josephine Baker in front of the soldiers.
"I would say it’s a very romantic story, not because it’s French," they continued. "The characters share a very strong and emotional intimate bond. So you get to discover our main character's dancing troop, and also the Stormtroopers. We don’t often see them with their helmets off enjoying a night off."
Milind D. Shinde of 88 Pictures then came on stage to talk about their episode The Bandits of Golak. "To develop this story from the Indian side," he began. "The other parts: food, colours, music, Bollywood, these are some of the pillars of Indian culture. We wanted to take these pillars and put them into our film."
LeAndre Thomas of Lucasfilm and Arthell Isom of D'art Shtajio then took to the stage to talk about The Pit, an episode inspired by protests during the COVID-19 pandemic.
"It was a time of civil unrest and I remember seeing people at protests with signs of Leia’s face on it," said Thomas. "It reminded me that Star Wars is inspirational all over the world, but I think people forget that Star Wars was inspired by the world. Some of us, it just feels like we’re in this pit where we’re pushed deeper and deeper while others ascend."
The Pit will be a "traditional anime with a western twist," he continued. "It’s also meant to feel nostalgic, vintage, older. We didn’t want it to feel too cutting edge, we wanted it to feel like the anime we watched growing up in the 80s and 90s."
Last but not least, Nadia Darries and Daniel Clarke of Triggerfish explained Aau's Song. "It’s about a child who experiences strange things when she used her voices," they said. "Unknowingly, she engages with the force through sound… ultimately, she needs to decide what to make of it."
The studios and directors behind Volume 2 were announced in February but this is the first time we've actually heard what each episode is about. Though the episodes aren't Canon, meaning they don't necessarily take place in the same world as Anakin, Rey, and so on, but that may not be the case forever.
In our 8/10 review of Volume 1, IGN said: "Star Wars: Visions takes the building blocks of the franchise and rearranges them to create a series of compelling new stories bolstered by a breadth of visual styles and masterful animation."
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer and acting UK news editor. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.