Disney and Lucasfilm have given fans a first look at Star Wars: Visions Volume 2 at Star Wars Celebration in London.
A brief trailer for the new season, 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, stepping away from the Japanese centric first volume.
Just released at #StarWarsCelebration: Watch the new trailer for #StarWarsVisions Volume 2, featuring nine new shorts from nine celebrated animation studios from across the globe.
Streaming May 4 on @DisneyPlus. pic.twitter.com/OO1BdO0vtB
— Star Wars (@starwars) April 10, 2023
“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.”
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.”
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.”
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.”
Developing…
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer and acting UK news editor. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.
For all the latest Gaming News Click Here
For the latest news and updates, follow us on Google News.
