#visual spectacle

Continuing the Visions responses. I love them for releasing all the episodes at once, but my poor weary fingers. I think I’ll only do about three of these for now and the rest later, though stay tuned in case I change my mind. For now, however:

Episode 3: The Twins Developed By: Trigger DIrected By: Hiroyuki Imaishi Whereas the previous two shorts were written to fit stories within the narrative of Star Wars, this one is very clearly more of a love letter to the franchise. Most of the most spectacular tropes we know and love are here. Loved ones separated by light and dark. Twins. Planet cracking superweapons. Giant space carriers - two of them (sort of). Swordfights. Amusing droids. Twin suns, and heroic resolve.

But this short doesn’t just use those - it amps them up. You want a lightsaber duel for the fate of the galaxy? Well, how about a duel in the vacuum of space where one side is using power armor and wielding eight lightsabers that double as whips against a massive big friggin’ beam saber POWERED BY THE HYPERDRIVE OF A SPACESHIP!?

It’s not exactly concerned with subtlety, is what I’m saying. It’s absolutely intended to be a visual celebration of all the epic aspects of Star Wars. Things are exaggerated to the maximum to make everything that much more spectacular, that much more huge. As a result, it feels like the kind of thing you might expect when you hear the words “Star Wars anime.” Something wild, explosive with characters that push past the boundaries of power with animation to match. This is Star Wars shounen, people. It gets pretty crazy. The plot concerns two twins in an indeterminate era after the Original Trilogy. They were both born to be agents of the dark side, but one made the choice to rebel - for reasons, unlike the previous review, I won’t spoil. Last time, what I had to say about the episode was wrapped up in how it chose to end itself, but not so much this time. One twin forces a confrontation, and the both undertake a massive duel that takes up the majority of the short film, which gets increasingly destructive as they reach levels of force destruction not seen since The Force Unleashed, taking apart the ship they’re fighting on as each pulls out bigger and bigger weapons. The visual of this one are thus, unsurprisingly, stellar. The thematic focus on twos is very strong touch that recurs throughout the short (the hero’s droid is even named R-DUO): there’s sequence towards the beginning following the antagonist where everything is symmetrical, from the ships to the hallways to the people within them, in a way that only changes once we are introduced to our second character - that is, our protagonist, who is both literally and thematically breaking out of that symmetry.

As I noted before, this short is something of a Star Wars kitchen sink. It’s got Vader outfits, R2 and C-3PO likenesses, an dashing hero dressed like Han with an X-Wing like Luke’s, and the whole battle takes place over a Khyber crystal. The dialogue is playfully and intentionally referential. It tries to pay homage to everything it can, and doesn’t have same hang-up that The Force Awakens had in trying to be a whole story reference while also trying to be something new within the universe: The Twins can commit wholeheartedly to its bombastic throwback intentions, and it shows. They do not hold back in this short. Watch the previous two for the narrative, watch this one for the purely epic display.