I actually did enjoy it last time... until my husband Pointed Things Out.
Wow. I mean, i don't know if that's necessarily grounds for divorce, but at least counseling. Why the heck is your husband such a drag?
Star Wars: Visions - Anime Anthology Series
- Thread starter JD
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Wow. I mean, i don't know if that's necessarily grounds for divorce, but at least counseling. Why the heck is your husband such a drag?
How dare he!!!!!!!!!!?
Oh, wait, that's how my wife and I are
Oh, wait, that's how my wife and I are
He's just a bit too practical sometimes.
Caught the last 3 tonight. The Elder was nicely creepy. Lop and Ocho broke my heart. Akakiri went DARK! Good stuff.
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Had high hopes. Enjoyed the first one. Then saw seven mindboggingly boring repetitions of same. 
It's not the fault of the Makers if the plots are nonexistent and repetitive here: that part is inherent in choosing the samurai genre. But what's the point of letting everybody choose that same genre? The rest of SW isn't quite that hardwired to it.
What the antology also loses there is visual impact, as there's only a handful of styles of visualization available for samurai anime, really (although the first did it the absolute best, with the grainy and scratchy pseudo-Kurosawa thing, and the Miyazaki tip-of-rice-hat was cute, too).
If there's gonna be a second batch, perhaps a few rules? Such as, "no lightsabers whatsoever"?
Timo Saloniemi
It's not the fault of the Makers if the plots are nonexistent and repetitive here: that part is inherent in choosing the samurai genre. But what's the point of letting everybody choose that same genre? The rest of SW isn't quite that hardwired to it.
What the antology also loses there is visual impact, as there's only a handful of styles of visualization available for samurai anime, really (although the first did it the absolute best, with the grainy and scratchy pseudo-Kurosawa thing, and the Miyazaki tip-of-rice-hat was cute, too).
If there's gonna be a second batch, perhaps a few rules? Such as, "no lightsabers whatsoever"?
Timo Saloniemi
Had high hopes. Enjoyed the first one. Then saw seven mindboggingly boring repetitions of same.
It's not the fault of the Makers if the plots are nonexistent and repetitive here: that part is inherent in choosing the samurai genre. But what's the point of letting everybody choose that same genre? The rest of SW isn't quite that hardwired to it.
What the antology also loses there is visual impact, as there's only a handful of styles of visualization available for samurai anime, really (although the first did it the absolute best, with the grainy and scratchy pseudo-Kurosawa thing, and the Miyazaki tip-of-rice-hat was cute, too).
If there's gonna be a second batch, perhaps a few rules? Such as, "no lightsabers whatsoever"?
Timo Saloniemi
Yeah a no lightsabers rule works for me. Season 1 felt incredibly repetitive and one-note, but you give anime studios free reign to tell a Star Wars story, of course they're going to go Jedi/Samurai.
1, 2 and 3 at least felt a bit different, but after that it becomes more of the same, and pretty shallow with it too.
Interesting. I found all of them quite different in tone and style. I *was* trying to figure out how many of them had someone say "I have a bad feeling about this." But I gave up. 
The Duel - I liked it, visually stunning and a real fun lightsaber fight.
Tatooine Rhapsody - Not really into the animation style, but did appreciate the absudity of Jabba and Boba getting down to the music. And nice seeing the podrace arena again.
The Twins - Didn't really like it. Felt like it tried to do far too much and I didn't get into the story at all. I appreciate how crazy it was, I guess.
The Village Bride - Liked it; real good world-building in a short runtime.
The Ninth Jedi - My favourite of them all, felt like a complete mini movie. I'd watch a full series following it up. The old droid was cool.
TO-B1 - It was cute.
The Elder - Found it pretty damn dull, with it mostly being two Jedi having not very interesting conversations in front of static backgrounds.
Lop & Ochō - I liked it, but it felt imcomplete. Just ended pretty abruptly.
Akakiri - I was totally burned out on the Jedi/Sith stuff by this point. I hope if there's a season two the various studios talk to each other and don't end up all doing Jedi/Sith duels in most of the stories.
Tatooine Rhapsody - Not really into the animation style, but did appreciate the absudity of Jabba and Boba getting down to the music. And nice seeing the podrace arena again.
The Twins - Didn't really like it. Felt like it tried to do far too much and I didn't get into the story at all. I appreciate how crazy it was, I guess.
The Village Bride - Liked it; real good world-building in a short runtime.
The Ninth Jedi - My favourite of them all, felt like a complete mini movie. I'd watch a full series following it up. The old droid was cool.
TO-B1 - It was cute.
The Elder - Found it pretty damn dull, with it mostly being two Jedi having not very interesting conversations in front of static backgrounds.
Lop & Ochō - I liked it, but it felt imcomplete. Just ended pretty abruptly.
Akakiri - I was totally burned out on the Jedi/Sith stuff by this point. I hope if there's a season two the various studios talk to each other and don't end up all doing Jedi/Sith duels in most of the stories.
Interesting. I found all of them quite different in tone and style. I *was* trying to figure out how many of them had someone say "I have a bad feeling about this." But I gave up.
They were! Unless you're being pedantic and calling them all "the same" simply for having lightsabers/Jedi in them. What the hell did you expect?
How dare he!!!!!!!!!!?
Oh, wait, that's how my wife and I are
I'm shocked.....
Dunno - no lightsabers or Jedi, say?
Even Clone Wars managed to have adventures without those elements. In a variety of landscapes to boot. And Mando is currently exploring a different genre altogether. How the hell does an anthology free of all creative constraints by the virtue of its medium get stuck with these conceptual ones? Was that always gonna be the point?
I mean, yeah, anime. But a fraction of anime is samurai. How about a detective story? A treasure hunt? Smuggling? Bar fights? Religious nutcases and fascist fanatics vs. meek farmers and shrewd traders? That is, an adventure or two built out of those elements, without a tedious mandatory lightsaber fight at the end?
"Visions", my ass. Although I may yet turn out un-disappointed, if this becomes a series, with a different vision for each season/batch.
Timo Saloniemi
Variety?
How about a high stakes game of Sabacc? A night in the Mos Eisley cantina? A imperial academy training exercise? A spacebattle? An evening on a Trask fishing boat? Rebel alliance flight school?
I enjoyed Visions but come on, the same theme or setpiece was repeated over and over. Studios would definitely need to talk to each other more if a season 2 happened.
I get where some of you are coming from, and I would've liked a bit more variety (@lightspeedbear had some great suggestions!) but I think what we got had a lot to do with how much Star Wars was originally influenced by Japanese samurai movies.
And that is a great thing to celebrate.
...And the pseudo-Kurosawa piece had me all warm and fuzzy inside. But I guess I'm spoiled by the imagination in things like Love Death + Robots. Two samurai stories would already have been plenty.
But a season of those isn't too bad, either, assuming we get another on another such subject to be celebrated! It's just that Mando has already taken care of the Western roots of the franchise, and what's left is basically WWII and high seas / pirate adventures. And I think something cool could be done with both.
Timo Saloniemi
But a season of those isn't too bad, either, assuming we get another on another such subject to be celebrated! It's just that Mando has already taken care of the Western roots of the franchise, and what's left is basically WWII and high seas / pirate adventures. And I think something cool could be done with both.
Timo Saloniemi
If they could take the Western elements of the Mandalorian but avoiding a lot of the downsides of the show I would like another Visions output celebrating Western influences.
I might regret this but what are the downsides?
Largely inconsistent main character. An anthology could explore more variety.
9 out of 11 Star Wars movies are focused on Jedi, Force-wielders and feature a lightsaber duel as a prominent setpiece (if not the climax of every movie.)
You got 9 different people and said, "Go make some Star Wars", you shouldn't be surprised that all 9 came back with variations on what Star Wars is actually about.
You don't have to like it. But to say that "The Duel" is too similar to "The Twins" which is too similar to "The Ninth Jedi" then "Lop and Ocho" just because they all have lightsabers is just, well, unbelievably small-minded and wrong. They were wildly different in terms of tone, dramatics, aesthetics, etc.
Again, you don't have to like it. But these criticisms are extremely unsophisticated and meaningless.
It's a deeply mediocre show with simplistic storytelling and wildly underdeveloped characters.
Did you even watch the show?
