![]() So for Visions, an entirely animated show, the art of every episode is just as important as the story it's telling. The blue and green lightsabers are for the good guys, the red for the bad guys you get the picture. Star Wars is chock-full of these important little design choices. A tilted camera angle and a character bathed in a flashing red light, for example, can signal to us a sense of urgency. These design choices help bolster what the story is trying to convey. Let's Talk About DesignĮverything you see in a piece of animation is specifically crafted: every character’s face, every sweeping landscape, every spaceship is designed for a purpose, and it’s important to keep that in mind while watching Visions. While some of the episodes didn’t take my breath away, they are all exceptional examples of design in animation. As a graphic designer and illustrator here at IGN, design in animation is one of my favorite topics of conversation and Star Wars: Visions delivered over and over again in that area. In a franchise that’s seen an explosion of new content in recent years, it was a delight to watch something that felt substantially unique, bolstered mostly by the breadth of visual styles. ![]() ![]() In this format, the episodes are allowed to shine for what they are and not get lost among the rest, suffering by comparison. Not unlike Disney’s Fantasia movies, the best viewing experience of Visions is not a marathon but one at a time, with breathing room in between. The good news is that there’s an easy solution: just don’t watch them all in a row, despite the fact that Disney+ is dropping them all at once. The world of Star Wars is vast and after some of these episodes, I was left wanting to see more stories geared toward regular people living in the universe and fewer epic battles between good and evil, Jedi and Sith. ![]() Don’t get me wrong, I love an incredibly choreographed sword fight as much as the next person, but after a while, there were few instances in the show where I found myself enjoying the repetitive duels. While each is perfectly enjoyable on their own, the overwhelming amount of similarities - like lightsaber duels fought by brave heroes - did start to wear me out. My one major critique of the series is that after nine episodes, most of the stories started to blend together. The collection of nine episodes - each featuring an independent story and design style from six different anime studios - is the Star Wars we all know and love, but one that grants a refreshing new experience to viewers like myself, who are looking for something different. Visions uses many of the same building blocks, simply rearranged in a new order. Every Star Wars property is made of the same basic ingredients: a touch of Western flair, a bit of influence from Japanese history, and all the complex mechanics that build a sci-fi world. ![]()
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