‘Visions’ Volume 2 Creators Discuss Cultural Influences Behind Animated Shorts
Following the success of Star Wars: Visions – Volume 2 the creators behind the many shorts have talked with various media outlets to discuss what it was like working on the anthology series and about some of their influences for their short films. Most of the discussion centered around the creative freedom allowed by Lucasfilm and the cultural influences that went into the stories of Visions – Volume 2.
For Star Wars: Visions – Volume 2, Lucasfilm decided to open up the series to creators and animated studios from all across the globe. This gave nations that don’t normally get a chance to create stories for Star Wars a chance to show what they can do. Nations like France, India, Spain, and Chile were represented in Volume 2, offering great diversity to the franchise. In our review of Volume 2, we called it a “towering achievement for Lucasfilm and animation.”
Most — if not all — of the creators shared how Lucasfilm allowed them to create and design whatever story they wanted. When speaking with Cartoon Brew, Julien Chheng from Studio La Cachette (the studio behind the episode “The Spy Dancer”) talked about the creative freedom that was allowed and how the studio from France wanted their aesthetic to still come through within the episode.
We were very free to go any art direction we wanted for this short, so it was very challenging and satisfying to explore new ideas, far from the Force and the lightsaber fights in our case, and design the characters, props, and locations with our style.
The individuals interviewed also discussed how they used their cultural backgrounds and national history as inspiration for their stories. In his interview with Indie Wire, Paul Young of Cartoon Saloon from Ireland explained how the studio’s story, “Screecher’s Reach” was inspired partly by The Empire Strikes Back and partly by Irish folklore.
The frightening, hallucinatory experience was inspired by the famous scene in The Empire Strikes Back where Luke confronts the vision of Darth Vader in the cave on Dagobah … And we used the Banshee sort of story of Ireland, like a screaming ghost [symbolic of] an important death in the family, and then it was interesting to bring in Irish actors [including Anjelica Huston] and Irish voices and Irish history.
The episode, “In the Stars,” created by Punkrobot from Chile was inspired by the history of Patagonia. When speaking with Cartoon Brew, Gabriel Osorio of Punkrobot noted the connection of Star Wars‘ themes of colonialism to the real-world history of Argentina and Chile.
Many of the themes explored in Star Wars, such as imperialism and colonialism, are common in the history of all Latin American countries, and obviously, Chile is no exception. For the same reason, we wanted to inspire the narrative in the tragedy that occurred in Patagonia, in the south of Chile and Argentina. It is a way of honoring the original nations and at the same time making visible the horrors that the Chilean and Argentine states allowed at the beginning of the century.
Finally, Rodrigo Blaas also expressed in an interview published on StarWars.com how he and his team, El Guiri Studios from Spain, were inspired by the museums of Madrid for the episode “Sith.”
Here in Madrid, there is a very inspiring trip you can take, an art walk between museums that are very close to each other, from the Museo Nacional del Prado to the Museo Reina Sofia. These are two museums where you can see a history of painting, from Velásques and Goya to Picasso and Dalí, and many more … We were very inspired by that, and we wanted to discover if we could use the medium of CG to make it an integral part of the story.
The animation studio Aardman has also previously talked about their collaboration with Lucasfilm, which can be read about here. It has also been reported that multiple sources believe a third volume of Star Wars: Visions is already in development. Both Volumes 1 and 2 are streaming now on Disney Plus.
Born and raised in Hawaii, Jay Goodearl runs the YouTube Gaming channel “Good Games, Dude” His channel aims to open up video games to beginners and immediate players and help them understand what makes games the art form that it is.
