FUTURE VISIONS

STAR WARS' MOST AUDACIOUS ANIMATED SERIES VISIONS RETURNS AND THIS TIME, AARDMAN, CARTOON SALOON AND MORE ARE INVOLVED

- JACK SHEPHERD

STAR WARS: VISIONS STARTED as an experiment: a series of nine animated anthology short stories set in a galaxy far, far away, but with no relation to the main Skywalker Saga. When they were released on Disney+, the reception was rapturous; thunderous applause followed. And that’s when executive producer James Waugh – who also oversees the “Franchise Story” team at Lucasfilm – started asking: how far can Visions push Star Wars storytelling?

“We always saw Visions as a framework and a platform to tell unique Star Wars stories with really interesting creators,” Waugh tells SFX. The first season, he explains, was mainly anime because the team at Lucasfilm loved the artform. Therefore, the emphasis was on animation studios from Japan telling uniquely Japanese stories informed by their culture. “That unlocked for us the reality that different cultural perspectives on Star Wars could really influence what these stories could potentially be,” he adds.

GLOBAL VISIONS

Visions now returns with nine more short stories, but this time the outlook is global. Studios from Spain (El Guiri), Chile (Punkrobot), South Korea (Studio Mir), South Africa (Triggerfish), France (Studio La Cachette), India (88 Pictures) and once again Japan (D’Art Shtajio) have produced episodes. Closer to SFX’s home, Ireland’s Cartoon Saloon has made a short titled “Screecher’s Reach”, as has the UK’s most famous animators, Aardman, with a short titled “I Am Your Mother”.