Star Wars: Visions Episodes 1-3 Review
Credit to: Disney and LucasfilmIt’s Kinda like What IF?.. But Star Wars
Welcome back, y’all! This time around, we’re taking a look at the brand new Star Wars series, Star Wars: Visions season 1. We’re going to do separate reviews, since it would be a MASSIVE article for you all to read. Plus, you all seem to really enjoy the Star Wars articles, so the more the better! Now, these reviews are going to be nice and short, so that way we can fit all three episodes in here without it being too spoilery. Now, without any further ado, let’s just jump right into it.
Episode 1: The Duel
Let me start off by saying that this first episode was absolutely gorgeous. This was the most perfect episode to start this series off with, and I’m so happy that I get to talk about it. It feels very reminiscent to that of a Kurasawa film, while also paying homage to the original Star Wars trilogy, while also adding in its own little bit of flavor. Really love this one. Alright, so with this episode, we start off with an overhead view that pans down to reveal a big village, with a silent man only known as the Ronin, and his droid looking down on it from on top of the nearby mountain. The two head down into the village, where they meet an old Sullustan man, who pours the Ronin some tea as his droid companion stands near. Suddenly, a large transport full of remnant stormtroopers drives by, and passes through the town. They stop in the middle of the village, only to open up and antagonize the peaceful villagers. They gather up as many as they can, and demand that they pay their “taxes” while asking for the village elder. A small but stern boy stands up, revealing that he is the elder, much to the enjoyment of the bandits. As they poke fun at the child, the child suddenly raise his hand in the air, which confuses the bandits. Suddenly, a flurry of blaster fire rains down on the bandits, forcing them to scatter and take cover, or fall as they’re hit by the lasers. The guards of village reveal themselves to be a badass droid, a three-eyed mask wearing killer, a deadly Trandoshan, a Tusken sniper, and a Dug who pilots a probe droid and uses its countless arms to wield multiple swords. They engage in battle with the bandits and seem to get the upper hand, until a mysterious woman exits from the transport, and reveals her power. She wields an odd looking staff, which she eventually reveals to be an umbrella with multiple lightsabers attachments on it, and uses it to block that heavy fire from the droid guard. One of the blaster shots hits the home of the old Sullustan man, damaging the Ronin’s droid. Ronin takes a pot of tea and places it over a stove fire, and asks the Sullustan to make sure the droid is operational by the time the tea pot is boiling. The mysterious woman makes quick work of the guards, using her umbrella weapon to impale the Trandoshan and destroy the droid. More troops exit the transport and engage the remaining guards, who retreat while returning fire. The Ronin walks through the crossfire unscathed, and finally meets the woman. The woman lunges at him and attempts to cut him down, but Ronin stops the blade with the Force. She thinks he’s a Jedi, only until he unsheathes his blade, revealing the blade’s color to be red. The two engage in a long, hard-fought battle, and the Dug and Tusken guard are killed, while the three-eyed warrior is forced to surrender. As they fight, the pot in the Sullustan’s home is finally boiled, and the droid finally activates. As Ronin engages the Sith warrior, he secretly sends the droid a signal. The droid proceeds to fly through town, using its secret rocket compartment to shoot down almost all of the bandits, while the three-eyed guard kills the remainder. At the end of the fight between the Ronin and the Sith warrior, Ronin cleverly deceives her by placing his ignited lightsaber in the hand of a statue behind a waterfall, making her believe that it’s him standing there. She foolishly lunges through the waterfall, slashing through the statue, but is met with a blade through the back by Ronin. Before the episode ends, we see Ronin destroy the warrior’s lightsaber, and almost takes her kyber crystal. Instead, he places it in the hands of the young elder, and tells him it’s for protection. He walks away with his droid companion, and the episode ends.
I reeeeally like this episode. Like, this episode was the perfect way to kick us off. I loved the black and white, I loved the grainy effect, and I really love the character designs. The characters themselves were also very fascinating, especially Ronin of course. This is the first time we’ve gotten a story about a Sith, who sticks by his morally wrong ideals while actually being a hero in his own right. As a Sith, we know he values power and control, but he’s actually quite passive and respectful. It’s an interesting outlook that I wish was explored just a little bit. It really would’ve been cool to see Ronin explain his religion, but that didn’t take away from the episode too much. I really do hope we see the surviving characters again.
4.5 out of 5.
Episode 2: Tatooine Rhapsody
This is my absolute favorite episode in the entire first season of this series. It may or may not be because Boba Fett is in it. Anyways, let’s start. With this episode, we start off with a shot of fallen clone troopers and battle droids. We cut to a young Jedi running away from something or someone (sure hope it wasn’t Vader trying to hunt down more younglings), who loses his footing and crashes through the roof of a small ship. Inside, he finds that his lightsaber was damaged, but he also sees a whole set of instruments on the wall as the lights suddenly power on. A Hutt male with glasses reaches out to the youngling with his hand, asking who he is. Before we get that answer, we cut to the “present” time, where we see the boy providing vocals in a performance alongside his band called Star Waver. On the bass is the same Hutt who’s named Gee, on the drums is an alien with three torsos and their own respective arms and heads, who all share one set of legs, and they’re named Lan. On the guitar is a female droid named Kurti, and a cute little droid who loves to dance named V-5. Before the young vocalist can introduce himself, the speakers get a bunch of feedback, as none other than the big bad Boba Fett and some of Jabba’s goons walk through the crowd, with Boba pointing his gun at Geezer the Hutt. The vocalist tries to tell them that they’re just trying to perform, but Boba shoots the mic. He approaches Gee, telling him that Jabba’s been looking for him. Before he can take Gee, Gee surprises Boba when his bass begins to shoot out flames like a flamethrower. Boba starts to crowd-surf against his will, while his lackeys try to take on the band. They’re all knocked off the stage, but Boba gets back on his feet and begins shooting at the band. Suddenly, the ceiling of the venue starts to electrify and fall down, but Boba starts to fly with his jetpack before the band can escape, but is caught in the electric ceiling. The stage closes off, and separates from the venue as it’s revealed that it’s actually a part of the band’s ship. It flies off, and Boba rises with his jetpack to watch it fly away. He types in some commands on his gauntlet, and we cut to the next scene. The band starts to sulk when they reveal that this is the third time they’re unable to complete a performance. The sulking comes to a sudden stop when the good old Slave I places a shot on the ship. Kurti tries to outmaneuver the legendary ship, but it’s no good. They’re shot down, and crash down in the rocks on the rainy planet. Boba Fett walks up to the ship and opens up the side door with a shot to the side panel, and slowly approaches Gee, who’s lying down weakly. He tries to reach for his bass weapon, but Boba shoots it away. He and Gee talk, but it only delays the inevitable. Boba aims at the unconscious Lan, forcing Gee to accept his capture. As they walk towards the Slave I, the vocalist (named Jay) tries to stop Boba. He holds his lightsaber hilt in a fighting position, and Boba asks him if he really wants to do this. When Jay tries to activate the saber, it shorts out, and Boba just walks away, knowing he’s no threat. Jumping ahead a few scenes, we see the band trying to comfort Jay, but it’s no use. Jay explains how important Gee is to him, as he saved him when he was still a padawan. We see Jay suddenly get an idea, and we cut to the very familiar Tatooine. We get a shot of a very familiar place on the planet, which is the same place where the young Anakin participated in the podracing event in The Phantom Menace. We see Gee being escorted by some Gamorrean guards, but they stop when Jay and the band call out to Gee. They explain that Jabba has agreed to let them play one last song before Gee is executed, which has Gee smile. They head out to the open stage, where they see a massive crowd ready for them to play. Above the crowd is Jabba the Hutt himself, Bib Fortuna, and Boba Fett. The band finally starts to play, and the crowd absolutely loves it. During the performance, we see Jabba tapping his tail to the beat. When the song finally ends, Jay boldly demands that Jabba sponsors the band so that Gee can live. Surprisingly, Jabba accepts when he hears the crowd chanting in favor of the band. The band gets pumped, and plays an encore for the audience, and we see Jabba and Bib enjoying the music. What’s hilarious is that we even see Boba holding a drink (it’s totally boba tea), nodding his head to the music. That’s just amazing. End of episode.
Man, this episode was great. It was fun, it was sad, it was adventurous, it was badass, it was just a wonderful time. I mean, how can you not fall in love with a Star Wars project that has chibi Boba Fett? I find it both hilarious and awesome that this chibi Boba Fett is voiced by Temuera Morrison, the live action Boba Fett actor. With a voice as dark and scary as his, it’s pretty funny to hear that kind of voice be paired up with such an adorable art style for Boba. Other than Boba, I really enjoyed the band characters, I enjoyed the fact that we see Jay during (I assume) Order 66, and I really enjoyed seeing Jabba and Boba end the episode in such a lighthearted way. This was really great to watch.
5 out of 5.
Episode 3: The Twins
Man, what? Here’s the episode that I just couldn’t watch without cringing. I really didn’t like this episode whatsoever. It just made no sense to me at all. I’ll explain myself after I review it. Warning, this is going to be short, because there’s not much to go over. So, we start off getting introduced to this really weird looking ship that’s basically two Star Destroyers that are side by side and held together by some sort of cannon. We see a character wearing some sort of black armor that resembles the armor that Darth Vader wears, combined with scout trooper armor. He’s greeted by stormtroopers, who all closely resemble Imperial stormtroopers, but seem to have a different type of helmet, and have orange stripes on their armor and weapons. The dark character makes his way to what I would assume to be the reactor room, and it’s here where we see a large kyber crystal reveal itself. We cut to the other side of the Star Destroyer, where we see another character who’s wearing armor similar to the other character, but the helmet and armor have slight differences. Anyways, this character is named Am, and the other character was her brother Karre. It’s revealed that they wear special armor that feeds off of kyber energy to… make them more powerful I guess, but the kyber crystal also powers the central cannon, which has the power to destroy a planet. Very original indeed. Anyways, Am’s protocol droid, B-2ON, is notified by an officer that the cannon can’t be charged, as the power source was stolen. B-2ON notices that Karre isn’t even at his bridge anymore. We cut to Karre, who’s followed by his little droid companion, R-DUO. The walk with the kyber crystal in Karre’s hand, but he is stopped by a platoon of troopers. They ask him to return the crystal, and when they try to stun him, he freezes them and the blaster shots, and sends them crashing into the wall, knocking them unconscious. Karre and R-DUO make it to the hangar, but they’re stopped by Am, a bunch of troopers, and two AT-ST’s. The siblings get into a corny argument about right or wrong without even explaining why Karre had a change of heart even though both him and Am were bred into being strong with the dark side of the Force, but it’s fine. R-DUO is busy taking command of an X-wing in the hangar, so when Am attempts to attack Karre, R-DUO begins to fire at her, and she deflects the shots with a Force bubble that happens to ricochet the lasers into the AT-ST’s with no problem, and it crashes on her troops. Karre jumps into the ship with the crystal and tries to fly away, but is caught by the Force when Am stops him. She pulls the kyber crystal through the X-wing, and we get a whole bunch of corny arguing and plot. I know I should be going over this, but it’s such a mess. Alright, so to sum it up, the two fight over the kyber crystal, the crystal splits with both twins taking one piece. One uses it (Am) to power up her armor so she can have four more arms like she was General Grievous but with more limbs, and the other (Karre) uses it to power on his lightsaber with a blue blade. The two get into a fight, and for some reason, Karre jumps on top of the ship, and both he and R-DUO devise a plan to activate the hyperdrive and “use my lightsaber” to stop his sister Am. Sorry, what? Anyways, R-DUO flies the ship at full speed at Am, Karre’s lightsaber gets SUPER long, like half as long as the Star Destroyer, cuts the ship in half, and cuts Am’s kyber crystal because R-DUO activated hyperspace. Um. Wow. Am floats off into space unconscious but is saved by her protocol droid, and Karre and R-DUO crash land unscathed onto what I would assume to be Tatooine. Karre is sure his sister is alive or whatever, and the episode is over.
I’m sorry, what? Like… what? What even was this? This feels like the sequel trilogy all over again. Honestly, it feels like this episode wasn’t even written by people who’ve watched Star Wars. They used all kinds of terms for the hell of it, and created a boring plot with boring characters who are supposed to be a play on Luke and Leia. This was garbage. This was straight garbage.
1 out of 5.
Final Thoughts
Alright, y’all, we’re off to a pretty good start… except episode three, because yuck. We’re starting off VERY strong, so let's see how the future holds! Honestly, based on how well this series has been going, I can really say I can’t wait for more. I loved these characters (not all), I loved these stories (not episode three), and I loved watching more Star Wars (not episode three again). I genuinely had a wonderful time. But what about you guys? Let me know on my Instagram and Twitter, and make sure you’re following us there so you can get the latest news and reviews on all of your favorite entertainment topics! That’s it from me, this has been The Wolf Den!
