Finally got around to doing this.
Star Wars Visions thoughts
The duel:
A wandering (laser)swordsman comes to a village beset by bandits. When the village tries to resist, their efforts fail when the bandits turn out to be led by a sith, and the stranger steps in to face her down.
This episode is light on plot, primarily devoted to its action. The action is a bit mixed, personally, with the initial fight being a little awkward (participants often standing still too long), but once it gets to it’s namesake duel, it is very good, with a nice setpiece and conclusion. Aside from this action, the main topic is the art style. Cheifly black and white, with occasional bright colors thrown in for different energy and electronics, this is definitely its selling point.
Pros : Art style
Main duel
Nice set piece for action
Cons: Some awkward pacing in action
Umbrella-lightsaber-thing
Lacking in story/characterization
Tatooine Rhapsody
A struggling, rag-tag band finds themselves in trouble when bounty hunters come after their founding member.
Something unexpected, but a fun little ‘band’ story. A short action piece, a short bonding moment, and a song are what you get. It’s not much, but it’s fun little thing if you like the music.
Pros:Light hearted
Cons:Not much there, really . . .
YMMV: The music
The Twins
A pair of Force-powered twins raised by the Empire are trained to be the ultimate weapons, but on the eve of battle, one of them is questioning their chosen path.
Oh look, Studio Trigger. Did you know they have a reputation for being utterly ridiculous? Well, they didn’t really hold back here. This episode is basically a rushed plot to get to a long action piece, but it does manage to cram a fair bit of plot into the short amount of time they give it. The action itself is full spectacle, very much a ‘don’t question this, just enjoy the show’. The voice actors go full ham, lots of explosions, a ridiculously over the top finish, the whole deal.
Pros:Spectacle up to eleven
Cons:Rushed plot
A lot of questionable things
YMMV: Over the top fight scenes
The Village Bride
A runaway Jedi finds a reclusive, nature loving community to hide in, but soon discovers they are beset by bandits who will soon be taking the chief’s daughter as payment. The Jedi struggles with her desire to no longer fight, as others in the village wish to take up arms.
Where do I even start with this one? Though certainly no comparison, the opening of the episode reminds me of Ghibli movies with a slow opening emphasizing nature, and having a gorgeous song over the views. It takes it’s time setting up the conflict and doesn’t spell out everything, but still makes it clear what our Jedi’s dilemma is. The set-up is simple and understandable, though nothing special. The action scene is lackluster at best, even silly, but it works by emphasizing the action less than the decision to fight.
Pros:Art style and character designs
Music
Cons:Action sequence is poor
YMMV:Simple story
The Ninth Jedi
A mysterious benefactor has gathered Jedi in hiding across the galaxy, promising them newly forged lightsabers. The Jedi gather, but not all is as it seems.
A bit more to the story here than all the others, enough to pull off a respectable twist. There’s a decent bit of characterization, though not much to go on. There manages to be a pair of decent action scenes and some of the little humor I can actually remember here as well. This episode, more than the others, feels like a pilot.
Pros:Decent plot
Some good character designs
A twist I can actually respect
Decent action
Cons:Short, lacking in set-up
TO-B1
A lonely robot boy dreams of being a Jedi.
This one is quite simple, this little robot loves the stories of the Jedi and wants to be one, it’s a fairly standard, kid-friendly story, but with that in mind I can’t really complain about it. It’s also looks like Astro Boy, but I don’t know enough about it to really effect me.
YMMV:Pretty much the whole thing is predictable and straightforward. I have nothing to directly complain about or praise.
The Elder
A Jedi Master and Aprentice investigate a disturbance in the outer rim, finding a strange old man.
A slow one, giving us a bit of the relationship between the master and apprentice before we get into the actual plot, which is itself pretty simple. We get some nice moments between the two leads before the antagonist is encountered, and a couple of short, but well-done, fight scenes.
Pros:Master-apprentice relationship is nice for the short time we have
Fight scenes are nice
YMMV:Short, simple plot
Old sith is slightly creepy or just plain off-putting
Lop and Ocho
A family is torn between the Empire and their home.
Here’s an oddball. In this the Empire is portrayed as a force of industrialization, to set up a conflict of new vs old. The father would fight the Empire to preserve tradition, the daughter would join them to build the future, and the adoptive daughter (our lead Lop) is caught between them. There’s an interesting conflict there, but the reasons are given little actual focus in favor of how Lop feels about it, then rushing to the actual fight. What’s here is rather well done, however, and still manages to build up a decent story. (unlike some of the others, this one, I think, would have been better as an actual film)
Pros:A solid, and rare, idea for a plot
Good art style and animation
Cons:Feels rushed (final fight scene in particular seems to arrive too abruptly)
YMMV:Fight scene
Akakiri
A Jedi travels to help an old friend take back her home after a coup, but he is plagued by nightmares.
This one is difficult for me . . . the story starts simple enough. The Jedi travels with a princess to help her reclaim a throne taken by a traitor, but her is secretly in love with her and is having nightmares about losing her. Eventually they face the traitor (who is Sith), and the princess and others the Jedi travels with are captured as he fights the Sith alone . . . and then I honestly kind of lose track of what is supposed to be happening. The Jedi starts losing, then has nightmares again(?), the Sith knows what the nightmares are(??), and offers to save the princess if becomes her apprentice, then suddenly the princess is there again(???), dead somehow, and the Jedi accepts. Princess gets revived, and Jedi (now sith I guess) leaves with the traitor.
Cons:‘Twist’ sad ending
YMMV:Art style
Currently listening to: Sand Dream
Currently working on RPGMaker
Star Wars Visions thoughts
The duel:
A wandering (laser)swordsman comes to a village beset by bandits. When the village tries to resist, their efforts fail when the bandits turn out to be led by a sith, and the stranger steps in to face her down.
This episode is light on plot, primarily devoted to its action. The action is a bit mixed, personally, with the initial fight being a little awkward (participants often standing still too long), but once it gets to it’s namesake duel, it is very good, with a nice setpiece and conclusion. Aside from this action, the main topic is the art style. Cheifly black and white, with occasional bright colors thrown in for different energy and electronics, this is definitely its selling point.
Pros : Art style
Main duel
Nice set piece for action
Cons: Some awkward pacing in action
Umbrella-lightsaber-thing
Lacking in story/characterization
Tatooine Rhapsody
A struggling, rag-tag band finds themselves in trouble when bounty hunters come after their founding member.
Something unexpected, but a fun little ‘band’ story. A short action piece, a short bonding moment, and a song are what you get. It’s not much, but it’s fun little thing if you like the music.
Pros:Light hearted
Cons:Not much there, really . . .
YMMV: The music
The Twins
A pair of Force-powered twins raised by the Empire are trained to be the ultimate weapons, but on the eve of battle, one of them is questioning their chosen path.
Oh look, Studio Trigger. Did you know they have a reputation for being utterly ridiculous? Well, they didn’t really hold back here. This episode is basically a rushed plot to get to a long action piece, but it does manage to cram a fair bit of plot into the short amount of time they give it. The action itself is full spectacle, very much a ‘don’t question this, just enjoy the show’. The voice actors go full ham, lots of explosions, a ridiculously over the top finish, the whole deal.
Pros:Spectacle up to eleven
Cons:Rushed plot
A lot of questionable things
YMMV: Over the top fight scenes
The Village Bride
A runaway Jedi finds a reclusive, nature loving community to hide in, but soon discovers they are beset by bandits who will soon be taking the chief’s daughter as payment. The Jedi struggles with her desire to no longer fight, as others in the village wish to take up arms.
Where do I even start with this one? Though certainly no comparison, the opening of the episode reminds me of Ghibli movies with a slow opening emphasizing nature, and having a gorgeous song over the views. It takes it’s time setting up the conflict and doesn’t spell out everything, but still makes it clear what our Jedi’s dilemma is. The set-up is simple and understandable, though nothing special. The action scene is lackluster at best, even silly, but it works by emphasizing the action less than the decision to fight.
Pros:Art style and character designs
Music
Cons:Action sequence is poor
YMMV:Simple story
The Ninth Jedi
A mysterious benefactor has gathered Jedi in hiding across the galaxy, promising them newly forged lightsabers. The Jedi gather, but not all is as it seems.
A bit more to the story here than all the others, enough to pull off a respectable twist. There’s a decent bit of characterization, though not much to go on. There manages to be a pair of decent action scenes and some of the little humor I can actually remember here as well. This episode, more than the others, feels like a pilot.
Pros:Decent plot
Some good character designs
A twist I can actually respect
Decent action
Cons:Short, lacking in set-up
TO-B1
A lonely robot boy dreams of being a Jedi.
This one is quite simple, this little robot loves the stories of the Jedi and wants to be one, it’s a fairly standard, kid-friendly story, but with that in mind I can’t really complain about it. It’s also looks like Astro Boy, but I don’t know enough about it to really effect me.
YMMV:Pretty much the whole thing is predictable and straightforward. I have nothing to directly complain about or praise.
The Elder
A Jedi Master and Aprentice investigate a disturbance in the outer rim, finding a strange old man.
A slow one, giving us a bit of the relationship between the master and apprentice before we get into the actual plot, which is itself pretty simple. We get some nice moments between the two leads before the antagonist is encountered, and a couple of short, but well-done, fight scenes.
Pros:Master-apprentice relationship is nice for the short time we have
Fight scenes are nice
YMMV:Short, simple plot
Old sith is slightly creepy or just plain off-putting
Lop and Ocho
A family is torn between the Empire and their home.
Here’s an oddball. In this the Empire is portrayed as a force of industrialization, to set up a conflict of new vs old. The father would fight the Empire to preserve tradition, the daughter would join them to build the future, and the adoptive daughter (our lead Lop) is caught between them. There’s an interesting conflict there, but the reasons are given little actual focus in favor of how Lop feels about it, then rushing to the actual fight. What’s here is rather well done, however, and still manages to build up a decent story. (unlike some of the others, this one, I think, would have been better as an actual film)
Pros:A solid, and rare, idea for a plot
Good art style and animation
Cons:Feels rushed (final fight scene in particular seems to arrive too abruptly)
YMMV:Fight scene
Akakiri
A Jedi travels to help an old friend take back her home after a coup, but he is plagued by nightmares.
This one is difficult for me . . . the story starts simple enough. The Jedi travels with a princess to help her reclaim a throne taken by a traitor, but her is secretly in love with her and is having nightmares about losing her. Eventually they face the traitor (who is Sith), and the princess and others the Jedi travels with are captured as he fights the Sith alone . . . and then I honestly kind of lose track of what is supposed to be happening. The Jedi starts losing, then has nightmares again(?), the Sith knows what the nightmares are(??), and offers to save the princess if becomes her apprentice, then suddenly the princess is there again(???), dead somehow, and the Jedi accepts. Princess gets revived, and Jedi (now sith I guess) leaves with the traitor.
Cons:‘Twist’ sad ending
YMMV:Art style
Currently listening to: Sand Dream
Currently working on RPGMaker