The Ringer-Verse - 'Star Wars: Visions' Analysis and Awards

Episode Date: September 25, 2021

Mallory Rubin is joined by Ringer senior editor Ben Lindbergh to dive into the newest 'Star Wars' anthology series, 'Star Wars: Visions'. They talk about some of the creative decisions that went into this mind-bending collection of anime shorts (03:47) as well as share there awards for Favorite Short, Best Duel, Favorite New Droid, and many more (35:43). Host: Mallory Rubin Guest: Ben Lindbergh Producer: Steve Ahlman Social: Jomi Adeniran Additional Production: TD St. Matthew-Daniel and Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Don't do this. If you use that crystal, its power will end up completely engulfing you. Listen to me, Anne. You have to stop this or it will destroy you. Oh, I'll prove you wrong, brother. Don't you worry.

Just watch. I will make death yield to me and go do it with the power of the dark side flowing through my body. And welcome into the ringer verse here on the ringer podcast network. I'm Allie Rubin, co-host of binge mode, head of editorial here at the ringer.

And it is my absolute pleasure to invite you not only back to Tatooine, but also to join us here on the Ringers Nexus podcast feed for all things fandom. Before we begin today, a few programming notes and reminders, as always, the Midnight Boys, Van and Charles, phew, have their instant reaction podcast for what if episode seven up for you on the feed right now. I will not be hitting What If this week, though, of course. I have plenty of thoughts on that fucker Odin, always dipping right into the Odin's sleep. But the Midnight Boys have you covered with a pod as engrossing as any of Thor's parties. So check that out if you happen yet. They will be back with you next Wednesday. I will be back with you next Friday.

We'll be talking about what if and Star Wars visions some more next week. So follow those conversations by following the ring or verse on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. and following us across our social channels as well. Check out our Twitter, our Instagram, our Facebook group, all of it. And of course, bear in mind our friendly neighborhood spoiler warning. Today's podcast will contain spoilers from all of Star Wars visions, all nine new shorts, plus the wider Star Wars canon, all of it. So proceed with more caution than the Sith Acolytes did when infiltrating the Margraves' lair.

joining me today to chat about Star Wars visions now that he's finished telling me that a Jedi and a podcaster must find balance and stillness. It's Ringer Senior Editor and everyone's favorite Khyber Crystal Hunter. Ben Limburg. Hello. Always one of the great joys of any new Star Wars release is getting to discuss it with you. Ben, welcome back into the Ring of Verse, buddy. So great to be here with you.

So excited to talk about Star Wars Visions with you. This podcast's energy will be a beacon of hope for the galaxy. We have so many Khyber crystals to talk about. So many. The number of Khyber crystals in visions was really astounding. And, of course, every time I hear Khyber crystal, I also hear Jason shouting, Gaiba, as nobody's saying, Khyber. Great stuff.

They should have called it Star Wars Kyber Crystal. That would have been wonderful. Maybe that's what season two will be called. We're here, of course, to talk about and celebrate Star Wars visions, the new Star Wars anime anthology series that dropped

on Disney Plus this week, midweek, Wednesday, right? Marvel Day. Mm-hmm. Star Wars Day, too. Yeah, it's the Everything Day, I guess. Yes. All dropped at once.

All of the shorts dropped at once. And there are nine of them. Nine Visions shorts from seven different Japanese anime studios. And the shorts range in length from like 13, 14-ish minutes to 23 minutes. That includes credits. Each short is available in both Japanese and an English dubbed version. And overall, it's sensational. Vibrant, invigorating, inventive.

We have so much to talk about today. So we're going to start with some overall impressions, some big picture discussions about why visions works so well and what it might mean for the future of Star Wars. And then we're going to do some best stuff, hand out some awards for what we liked best in visions. But let's just start with those big picture thoughts and those overall impressions. You know, I like to see something new in Star Wars. I like the old stuff too. I like when they play the hits. but I also like when they push the franchise in different directions.

And in this case, hand off the franchise to other creators and different voices who also have interesting stories to tell. And so I think just the premise of this is exciting. And we can discuss this, but Lucasfilm has not been hands off when it comes to Star Wars in the Disney era. There have been times when they have really exerted pretty close creative control. And that has caused some ruffles and some ripples and some ripples and some disturbances in the force. But here, at least, it seems like they backed off a bit,

and I think the results are great. And as you would expect them to, really, because they're handing off the franchise to people who they knew would do a good job with it, right? I mean, some of these studios may be new to American audiences or non-animay fans, but these are proven creators, right? With long track records, these are among the most qualified people in the world to tell Star Wars stories or to tell any stories. And the fact that they had some affinity for Star Wars and wanted to do their thing in this universe, I think is beneficial for everyone. So in a way, it takes Star Wars back to its roots and the influences that created the franchise, and we'll talk about that. But I think it's also a new, exciting direction for this era of Star Wars.

I agree. I found this to be a delightful viewing experience. Enjoyed it the first time, enjoyed it even more when I returned to it, enjoyed watching it in Japanese. enjoyed washing the English dub. You can really go in any order across the shorts. I went in order, both watching the screeners and then on Disney Plus,

but I'm excited in the future to just say, hey, you know what? I'm in the mood to check out the Village Bride today, and I'm just going to go do that, right? And pop around in any order and see when I'm in the mood for the twins, see when I'm in the mood for a dunk fest

in the elder, etc. But I thought overall, while, you know, of course I liked some of the shorts more than others, the entire vision's anthology just felt so fresh and like energizing. And, you know, we mentioned that seven studios contributed the nine shorts, studio trigger and science Saru both contributed two shorts. And there's such a variance of visual styles and palettes and storytelling choices across each short. And I just thought it was so visually dynamic and stunning. You know, when you think back to what the goal of the project is,

is to tell stories in the galaxy. If we go to the like official release here, right, go back to, last December, 2020, Disney Investor Day announcing all these projects, what was Vision's going to be? You can, you know, pull up the logline on Star Wars.com. It's, quote, through the lens of the world's best anime creators, right? That's one of the keys. And then offering a fresh and diverse cultural perspective to Star Wars. And that was successful. Like, that worked and it really worked. Each studio and thus each short boasts this distinct style, not only from a few,

each other, but I think crucially from the wider Star Wars storytelling tapestry. So it all feels so bright and striking even when some of those story beats recur and repeat. And I think that's maybe one of the only cons that we would point to, which I think is exacerbated by binging when you're going back to back all in a row. The nature of the similar story beats across. the shorts, despite very few existing characters from the Star Wars canon actually appearing. You know, we see Boba Fett, we see Jabba. That's incredibly rare, right? It's almost all new characters.

We move across time and we're introduced to all of these new people, but there are many repeating dynamics, not only inside of these shorts, but across Star Wars. You know, many Empire versus Republic instances, many characters discovering the force, many characters finding a lightsaber. Tons of Khyber Crystal pursuits, as noted. The Sith are heavily present across the shorts, etc. Every single short has a lightsaber, a Jedi, a force sensitive of some sort. So there's not a ton of variety there. I mean, there's some variety in how that's handled, obviously, but that is a very consistent theme. And yeah, I guess it's pluses and minuses. Because if you say to someone, you have 15 to 20 minutes to tell the Star Wars story of your dreams,

you know they're going to bring it, right? Because it's not as if, you know, maybe if you're talking about a Faloni series where you have seven seasons or 22 episodes per season, some episodes are not going to be at the same cadence of others. You know, some will be, if not filler, at least a little slower pace, a transitional episode. Here, it's just all meat. It's all action. It's all highlight. It's just do the best you can with the time that you're given. And that's good, I think, because there's just so much energy in this.

But maybe one of the potential drawbacks of that is that you're probably not going to tell your smaller scale story. You're going to want to come out of the gate swinging here, right? And everyone did. But it just so happens that they did in some similar ways, which I'm very curious if there was a specific prompt. If it was, hey, the universe is your oyster here. Tell whatever story you want. Or, hey, tell a story about a khyber crystal. You can take it from there.

Yeah, I mean, it sounds like from what Lucasfilm has said that they just really wanted to let these studios tell their own stories and that they pitched Lucasfilm on it, which makes you wonder, is it kind of a coincidence that they all ended up being about Jedi and Sith and Force Sensitive to some degree? Or is it just that if you have one shot to tell a Star Wars story, that's kind of where you go, right?

Like, it's easy for me to say, I wish there were a little variety here. I wish we had a Rogue One style story or a bad batch style story where there wasn't a heavy force presence. But if you told me, hey, you have one Star Wars short and you get to tell whatever story and you use your best one and your most exciting one. And you know that to some degree you're competing with these other great studios for eyeballs and attention. Then, of course, you're going to go with the buzziest one, right? And that is inevitably going to be battles and the force and good versus evil. So it's an interesting case where Lucasfilm was a little more hands-off than usual, was not micromanaging the story.

But in a way, there might have been senses in which it could have been better for them to exert some control and maybe more direction and just say, hey, we're good with Jedi and Sith stories. We've got three or four of those. So now we're looking for this style of story and maybe we can change things up a bit. So that's kind of, I think there are pluses and minuses there, and there is a bit of repetitiveness. And as you said, I did kind of binge the first time just because I was writing about it and we're talking about it. But I would recommend watch this at your leisure. I mean, watch it as quickly as you'd like. But I think some of the repetition that we're talking about that would fade if I were watching one a week or one a day.

And I think in very quick succession, because if you watch all of these in a row, It's basically movie length, right? And almost every short has, you know, I got a bad feeling about this, right? Because you've got to get your Star Wars callback in if you're telling one story. But for us, watching nine in a row, it's like, oh, everyone was going to do that same reference there. Yeah, I'm with you. I mean, if someone said, hey, you can tell your own Star Wars story. The, well, the first thing I would do is, you know, figure out how to get Grogo

and BPA in there. But the second thing, and the third thing, and the fourth thing, and the 958 thing would be to design my lightsaber. So, you know, I don't actually hold that against

anyone. I think that's completely natural and surely part of the, like, visceral thrill of getting to tell a Star Wars story. The other thing that actually not only doesn't bother me about it, but that I actually liked about it,

and this is something that I found myself reflecting on more after this, subsequent viewing. It really serves to reinforce the key themes and pillars of Star Wars stories. Now, as you noted, this is...

Yeah, boy, I really wanted to get further into the pod before saying the words, Rise of Skywalker, but here we are. Let's get it out of the way. A lot of this really surfaced, of course, around Rise of Skywalker, you know, in discussing the sort of compulsion

that seems to be present with returning to these certain touchstones of the Star Wars universe. But the themes of choice and destiny and purpose and hope, like all of that feels heavily present and really potent in a way that allows each short to really, like, quickly forge its own sense of self and own identity, right? But also to connect to that wider galaxy. So I, I ultimately found that there was something soothing, actually, about those recurring notes. Right. It sort of distills Star Wars down to its essence. It's like if you have 15 minutes, what is a Star Wars story?

How are you going to pack that in there? It's a tough assignment because there's not a lot of time to do world building or to do character building. If you have 15 to 20 minutes and each one is a new original creation in a different setting, you can't really, it's not a slow build, you know, And so you put those signifiers of Star Wars in there. It's a Star Destroyer. It's a Jedi. It's Sith. It's lightsaber.

Okay, we know where we are. We're in Star Wars now. Whereas, you know, I might have my ideas for, I've got a gritty story about a moisture farmer who, you know, can he mine enough moisture from the atmosphere to make it through the season. Or, you know, I'm going to tell a story about a Nerf herder. And I'm not going to have any lightsabers or anything. Like, that's great if you have the time to do that. But if you got 15 minutes. And it's then it's got to be no filler and we have to recognize what we're doing here.

So it's a tough assignment also because we're not relying on established characters here, which is another thing that I wonder whether that was a directive or whether that was purely a choice. This is one of the things I wanted to ask you. It seems like, look, I don't know. But it seems, let's say somewhere from unlikely to impossible, that none of the studios would have chosen to feature, I don't know, just to throw out one name, Darth Vader. Sure. There are a lot of, like, dark armor wearing helmet-clad, red-bladed, lightsaber-wielding characters in here.

You would think that one of those studios might have said, hey, can we use Darth Vader? And so maybe the answer to that was no. And this is not canon, which we'll talk about, right, and the significance of that. But I can see why you'd want to put your own stamp on Star Wars and say, hey, we're striking off in a new direction. We should tell new stories with new characters. But that's another thing that I think makes it difficult for the audience. You're not situated within, okay, here's the era that we're in because we recognize this character and we know when that character was. And so you have to do more labor as a storyteller to sort of set the scene, which works better in some cases than others, I think.

Yeah. Let's chat for a minute before we look ahead into what this might foretell for the future of Star Wars and what possibilities seem like they're right there on the horizon for us as fans and consumers, as well as for the creators. But let's talk for a minute about the past, Star Wars past, because visions, as you noted earlier, connects to the roots of Star Wars, Japanese cinema and storing things. telling was foundational to

George Lucas creating Star Wars in the first place. Akira Kurosawa, the hidden fortress, Seven Samurai. These are elemental

to the influential text that gave us what we've now called New Hope, right? And you wrote

about this a little bit in your piece, but I'm curious to hear your perspective on that because that was one of the things that I found just so neat, you know, this sense of past and forming present and forming future,

informing present, and forming past, the circle, the cycle. Yeah, and I should note that Daniel Chin is writing a fuller piece on this specifically for the ringer.com. What a great website early next week, so take a look out for that. But Star Wars, I think, has always kind of been this postmodern mix of many influences and different cultural threads. But Japanese stories, storytelling and directing that has always been one of the prominent ones. I think it would be easier probably to list the aspects of Star Wars that are not influenced by Kurosawa and Japanese storytelling than the ones that are.

It was very clearly an homage, or I guess if you want to be less charitable, a ripoff to some degree. You could definitely tell what movies George was watching when he was thinking about a new hope. I mean, so many of the characters and the story beats and the settings and just the themes are really directly related. I mean, the name Jedi derives seemingly from the Japanese term for period dramas and samurai and Jedi. I mean, they're so clearly linked and the lightsaber itself and the katana. I mean, there are so many links.

And so I think it's appropriate that they're kind of handing this back to. the original roots and saying, hey, here's what we made of that. Now let's pass the ball back and you can show us what you make of what we came up with here. So it's kind of a give and take. It's like a little cultural exchange program where hopefully each side is benefiting from the other. This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business. Fast, reliable internet means everything for your business. And even this podcast, that's why I trust. Spectrum business. They keep companies of all sizes connected with internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, mobile

services, plus 24-7 U.S.-based support. Millions of business owners already trust Spectrum business. So visit Spectrum.com slash business to learn more. Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas. I think that that segues nicely into discussing canon for a moment here, because that is very important context for diving into the plot and the substance of each short itself. This is, of course, Disney IP, Lucasfilm IP.

This is airing on Disney Plus. That's how we're all watching it, right? And Star Wars fans have spent years now talking about Disney Star Wars Canon, right? And how that changed, how the Disney acquisition changed Star Wars Canon. Obviously, this was a big moment in your life. You're a big legend said. I'm not totally over it, yes. I know you're not.

I know you're not, buddy. Because of all of that, it is natural to assume heading into your visions viewing, oh, this is Star Wars canon. But it is not. It is not official canon, correct? It is not. And we were talking as we were watching it on our first run through, like, hey, is this canon? because, wow, if it is, they're really changing some things.

And it's not. They have said pretty definitively that, you know, they wanted to free the studios to not be bound by the Star Wars timeline, which is, I guess, also a way of saying we didn't want to mess with our own timeline and our larger plans. And, you know, maybe you could say that, hey, they should have really just taken all of the controls off and said, you can do what you want in this sandbox and not. kind of cordoned them off into this separate little sliver of the universe that is sort of separate, but I think it does come with some advantages in that you're not bound by anything that came before

that could possibly come after. And clearly these studios are taking some liberties with Star Wars tradition. But I think that's part of the fun of it, right, just to see the spins that these creators are putting on Star Wars. And it's definitely a different viewing experience, especially, I think, for us, maybe just because we're covering things in a way that people who are watching these things for fun, maybe are not in some cases. You know, when I'm watching Mando and I'm recapping Mando, I've got 50 Wikipedia tabs open and I'm, you know, I've got my cork board and I'm making connections and everything. And here it was, it felt freeing really to realize, hey, this planet might not have a name and that's okay. Or if it does have a name,

name, maybe it doesn't matter what the name is because it hasn't. In the interest of full disclosure, we still got on this Zoom to record and said, did that planet have a name? We wanted to get our facts straight. We're still committed to accuracy here. But you can watch this without necessarily needing to know anything, which is a little bit different. Last time I was on, we were talking about Bad Batch and What If and just the barrier for entry there and just how much lore you have to know or don't have to know to really get into those stories. And he's, here next to nothing. I mean, if you've seen the original trilogy, I mean, if you have some sense of, I guess, the themes of Star Wars or just the basic good versus evil dynamic, you're good to go here

because you don't need to know all that much else. And I guess some might see this as more, I don't know, disposable in some way just because it's not connected. There aren't the same ramifications if something happens in one of these shorts. It won't necessarily reverberate to everything else that we've ever seen or might see. But I think it's nice to have that change of pace and just say, hey, we're having fun here. And maybe it's okay if not everything is tied very tightly to every other little bit of Star Wars that has come before. Back in July at late September right now. It's still September, I believe. Yes. Goodness. No sense of time or place anymore. which I guess is fitting because there were moments watching these shorts.

It's like, wait, where are we in the timeline? And then you look for those familiar moorings and anchors. Okay, right? Empire, Republic. If we're hearing something about twins being bred and created and we're getting flashes of cloning chambers on eggs ago, then we can place things in time, right? But, and I think to your,

your point, too, about, like, with a barrier to entry and how much you need or don't need to know, I think you could look at that a couple different ways because, like, to circle back to something you said earlier about how little time there is and how there's almost this, like, comfortable reliance on the fact that viewers are presumably coming to each short with just that familiarity with the Star Wars canon and with the general kind of, and flow of events across the timeline, right? So if you see certain indicators, you see certain ships, certain tech, you can probably get a feel for roughly where you are, right? So maybe you do need that, but also maybe it's okay if you don't have that because you can sort of choose the level

of care and detail. Like, do you want to go to just stick with the twins' shots that we get of their creation and growth, like you can go freeze frame, right, frame by frame to try to glean any clue about how that might connect, which I have no doubt we both did many times. We don't have to do that, right? The thematic resonance of these siblings, one of whom thinks this purpose is binding and sacred and cannot be ignored. And one of whom says, we can make our own choices and do whatever the fuck we want with our lives. Like, that's a gripping thing to watch no matter why, right? Plus, it looks amazing. But I mentioned months and calendars because in July, at the Anime Expo Light, James Waugh, EP on Visions, said, quote,

we realized we wanted these to be as authentic as possible to the studios and creators who are making them, made through their unique process in a medium they're such experts at. So the idea was, this is their vision riffing off all the elements of the Star Wars Galaxy, that inspired them, hopefully to make a really incredible anthology series unlike anything we've seen before in the Star Wars Galaxy. So has everybody who's sitting down to watch Visions

read that quote? Of course not. Again, as you mentioned, we were slacking each other as we were watching them, saying, wait, what's canon, what isn't, and still trying to wrap our minds around that. Ultimately, in terms of how that clarity impacts

the viewing experience, I think I'm in the same place as you. I was like initially searching for my bearings and unmoored, you know, what does it mean these, these canon shattering reveals and instances? What would it mean if there were all of these other Paduan or Jedi or force users at this particular moment in the canon? What does it mean if chyber crystal lore changes in this way, on and on the list goes?

And then I got over that, right? And it was actually, like, as you're noting, quite pleasant to, just watch a fun, inventive tale and to think about these new characters and their lives and their existence without necessarily having to worry about all of the ripples on the characters and stories who we spent so much time talking about already over the years.

And I think that that, you know, gets to the future, right? And what the lessons from visions are. And what Lucasfilm and Disney and Star Wars, hopefully will take in, think about, and then apply moving forward. Whether it's with Vision Season 2, which is not confirmed, but hopefully we will get, whether it's with other Star Wars tales from any of these anime studios, whether it's with a spinoff, like a full version of one of these shorts. that's one of the categories we have coming later today in awards,

or whether it's with any number of other projects that could fit under the umbrella of reimagining the galaxy from a new perspective. There's so much that can be applied here. As I was watching visions and trying to unlearn what I've learned about watching shows in this era, where we're just trying to make connections at all times and wonder, what is this character? You have a real knack for a seamless incorporation of the Star Wars reference. I try. Let me make another one then because this reminded me of the exchange in Phantom Menace where Quiguan and Obi-Wan are walking down a hallway and Quiguan tells him to keep your

concentration here and now. And Obi-Wan says, but Master Yoda said, I should be mindful of the future. And Quigin says, but not at the expense of the moment. Well, Yoda never misled anyone. So it should be fine. Yeah. And he's famously good at telling what was going to happen in the future. as well. But this is what I was thinking as I was watching it, reminding myself just to stay in

the here now. But you have brought it to the future, and we always must. And so I think it is interesting to speculate about what this might mean. One thing that stands out to me is that so many of these shorts are not self-contained, are not resolved, which leads me to believe that there must be some expectation that these stories will continue in some way. And some of the shorts, and we'll go one by one and we'll probably touch on this. But some of them end in a pretty dark place or a pretty intriguing place, a place where I want to see what happens next. You know, if this is the only look I ever get at these characters, I'd be a little disappointed to be left like this, which makes me think, again, you know, I wonder what the prompt was. Was it, hey, you know, come up with the best premise here for a possible series if we go that way?

or is it just tell the best short self-contained story you can? There's a bit of both. There's a little mix here, but most of these shorts could potentially support some sort of longer series or sequel or spin-off of its own. So that leads me to believe that there's a good chance that we will be seeing more visions and possibly these same threads picked up in that vision's sequel, season two, whatever it is, much like what if, I suppose, where there are some... I was just going to say that. Yes.

That's what you're describing. No, we're very much in sync right now. I love it. Connected by the force, the force of content. What resonates, you know, how much more ground to cover is there? And maybe you keep telling some original stories, but you also come back to some established ones that you left the audience hanging

and wondering what was going to happen next. So I think there's a lot of ground here. And frankly, I'd, like to see some of these studios, one of these studios given a series order or a season order, just to say, you know, make more of this. And we'll talk about our favorite candidates for that choice potentially. But it seems like from what I saw here, great in 15 to 20 minutes, but I would want to see more. So I hope that that that'll be part of this. And I hope that this at least establishes that this can happen, that maybe they can let a little control away, that they can

actually just hand this off to other trusted creators and whether that pertains to future movies and perhaps not replacing directors in midstream or doing reshoots or whatever it is. Hard to say without being in the room in those situations, whether that was justified or not. But hopefully if this resonates with audiences as it did with us and as it seems to judging by the critical response, then there will be more of that in the future where it's, hey, we can kind of play with the form and the format here, and we can let other people put their spin on Star Wars, and we don't have to have iron control of every aspect of the franchise. I'm with you, man. I really hope we get season two of visions.

James Waddy, P. told screen rants Grant Hermanns that Lucasfilm is delighted with the project so far, but in essence that the audience responsible determine whether we get a season two. The quote is, let's see what the audience says. If the demand is there, people want to see more of this, those conversations would pick up very quickly, internally, and we'll see.

You know, I mean, anything's possible. So hopefully we get Visions season two. I mean, it does, it is, it is, like, listed as season one on Disney Plus, which is a small thing,

but just, I don't know, they didn't have to list it as season one. Like those, I always, I always think things like that, are little red crumbs and little clues. And I also would love to see,

one or more of these studios return to Star Wars for either a continuation of one of these tales, a film, a full-length series, more shorts, whatever the case may be. And just broadly, I really, I hope the takeaway here is to do more things like this,

to try more things like this, to open up Star Wars to more creators because it really is invigorating. Yeah. And different looks and aesthetic approaches to Star Wars. is something that I'd like to see more of, and something we've seen more and more of in the MCU, at least with the tonal shifts and different genres being incorporated.

And Star Wars has always had that to some extent. Well, you know who loves to talk about the importance of genre variants across installments within one IP machine, Kevin Feigey, who is now making Star Wars movies. So I will not be it remotely surprised if we start to see more of that. Right. And that's something we've appreciated in, you know, The Last Jedi, for instance, where you saw some shots that you thought, oh, wow, this is a Star Wars movie. A Star Wars movie can look like this. That's cool. And there is a visual language to Star Wars, obviously, here, but it's being filtered

through various different creators. And I think just from a kind of mechanical producing content on the never-ending assembly line standpoint, this is probably a helpful thing for Lucasfilm to have in its back pocket, just because if you're spreading out the load here, if you're saying, hey, you do one short and you do one short and you do one short, you can probably turn. that around a lot more quickly than you can if you have a single creator or creative team that is doing an entire season at once. And so potentially you could sort of slot in visions, you know, whenever you don't have some huge live action series that took years and millions of dollars to produce, whenever there's a little lull in the calendar, as there is now, between

Bad Batch and Bukuboba, then you say, hey, we've got visions ready to go because we've had all these different studios working independently and coming up with this collective product. Great point. Always thinking about scheduling. That's how I always approach these things. Always stick to your word count and your podcast length. This episode is brought to by WeatherTech. Everyone knows winter is the MVP and make it a mess. You don't need WeatherTech floor liners in the summer unless you hit the beach or go camping. Then you'd want a cargo liner or a road trip goes sideways, ketchup goes rogue, ice cream drips.

Yeah, you'd be pretty happy. about those weather tech seat protectors. So just to be clear as the mud, you're inevitably going to step into the summer. You don't need weather tech unless you plan on doing summer. Visit weathertech.com today. Transport your senses with Soltejanado's limited edition perfume mist collection. At Sephora, spritz on lush notes of rainforest orchid and crisp sea breeze with

have fresco paraizo. Embrace a floral and fruity scent inspired by Rio's nude beach with cheekie beki or caps your sun-kissed bliss with limonada jolada, where zesty Brazilian lemonade accord meets coconut milk and golden brown sugar. Don't miss Sol de Janeiro's limited edition perfume mist collection only at Sephora. Well, speaking of podcast lengths, it is time to celebrate our visions awards. Ben, we have 12 categories today. And small spoiler, I believe.

maybe there will be a surprise along the way. I believe this is the lone category in which we have the same pick. Yes. What is the favorite short? I saw your pick and I wanted to bring some variety to this podcast, but I could not, in good conscience, pick a different short. We both went with the village bride. I have a bad feeling about this.

You think I'm being reckless? What do you think would happen if they were thwarted? I don't know, but it would put my village at risk. If I go, I'll be able to protect them all. And I won't be alone. Short number four by Kinema Citrus. And we just love this one. We loved, I think, the way it looked, the way it sounded, the themes, the setting.

This was beautiful. I think this was my favorite viewing experience. This is the episode, kind of parallel storylines, where you have a young, couple who are getting married. And you also have seemingly a former Padawan who is on this same planet and observing this couple. And they come together toward the end of the episode in a fight because there's a village. And as is a theme in some of these shorts, you have some remnant of a former conflict that is, you know, raiders or bandits that are menacing a town, sort of your seven samurai style situation.

And this all comes to a head. But really, it's just a beautiful story, beautifully rendered story and told story and an emotional one on a planet that I think has some resonant themes about the force and about the past and how we're going to head into the future. So we just both felt this one very deeply. Exactly. I did consider a few different shorts. You know, I thought about picking the duel, the elder, the twins, Akakiri, but the village bride just surpassed the rest, you know, 18 minutes of just stunning wonder in terms of the visuals, the pacing, the themes, the emotional resonance. It really hit every note and it was just exquisite, like set after the Jedi Purge on this planet that is. is still despite the way that it has been plundered and exploited by these evil, nefarious forces,

is still full of splendor and lushness, whether it is in the landscape of the forest and the hills, or in the way that the people who live there banned together to decide to live their lives a certain way amid the horrors around them. You know, first, the separatists. It's just unbelievable. And then the Raiders who reprogrammed those B-1s into their army, I, you know, was waiting for a little Roger, Roger. Yeah, we did get that at some point in the series. And the Raiders are taking the bride in place of the village chief, her grandfather, as collateral. And the short is full of dynamics like that, where family members, friends, partners,

have to decide how to try to protect somebody else they love while also doing the thing that they believe is right. Like, it was quite nuanced and rich in terms of all of the different character dynamics and interplay, considering, of course, the fact that it's so brief. And, you know, if we kind of divide the characters into two sets, like the visitors and the locals, right? So the main characters are explorer named Valco and the former Jedi named F.

And both of them were fascinating. Like I really like Valco. He doesn't want to cease exploring the planet because as he puts it, it's too interesting. And that's this like quick, simple little moment that I just loved and thought captured and embodied so much of what made this short so memorable. There is this zest. even amid fear and hardship for exploration, for life, for understanding,

or for the pursuit of understanding, at least, throughout the entire episode. It just really, like, struck me and stuck with me. There's this sense of harmony and calm on the planet, even though the people who live there have suffered so much. And then F is, you know, aligned with it, paired with the explorer, but they have vastly different outlooks in many respects, right, at least initially.

F wears a mask to hide scar, but also her identity, right? She's in hiding. She, you know, and he says, don't worry, the empire's eyes won't reach you here. And I think that connects to what we were talking about earlier. Like, this is a very familiar storytelling choice inside of Star Wars. The idea that a force user is on the lamb, on the run, seeking to avoid. pursuit and then grappling at some point with what it means to not be using the force and using the power of the Jedi to help others because doing so would mean showing everyone who you are,

right? But it felt distinct and emblematic of these characters and this particular sliver of the universe so quickly. And I also love like when Valco says, that's all war is, nothing but loss. And we start to get the flashes, you know? Right. Flashbacks, and that happens that first instance

in response to that quote, but it happens across the short to what we can glean is F's master's death, but also her own injury, her own fall into eventual hiding. But then when she sees

the villagers in need, she reflects and there's that great moment that's just stunning, when she's looking out like over the fog, rolling gorgeously across the valley and then cuts off her

padouin braid that she still had. removes her mask and takes that next step not only to not leave behind life as a Jedi, but to decide to embrace it to become a knight on her terms and her way. And we see, you know, we're going to talk a lot about various lightsabers, and there are so many amazing ones across visions. Hers is yellow like rays. And others too, of course, you know, yellow is a very rare color in the canon. We have seen it a few times now, like just a couple other examples other than rays,

are gal ventrists after her turn toward the light. And, you know, for the Clone Wars heads out there as well, the Jedi Temple Guards, of course. Yellow is associated with Jedi Sentinel. So that's like those little moments, again, that shorthand where you say, okay, I can understand something deeper even in this limited time because that's a signal to me about something.

And F is fierce. You know, when the Raiders leader, who we see has a, I think of like a Corellian ship, right? That was another fun one. tries to shoot Saku, who is the bride's sister, the bolt freezes. And that, like, makes you think of Kylo, freezing pose blaster shot in the Force Awakens. And just is, again, like, shorthand a signal of the extent of her power. And it looks initially like Valco has a lightsaber, too, but then it kind of detaches and it turns out,

no, this is just like a little tricorder or something, one of his little instruments. So he has maybe converted the weapon into. to a more peaceful implement. But I think a theme of a lot of the shorts in this series seems to be, right, as you said, that aftermath of war. And that's something that we've seen in Mando, in Bad Batch, you know, what happens when the dust settles and there is just lawlessness or there are scars or physical or psychological from that conflict.

And how do you get over that? And you can see that in the village bride with, you know, you see the remnants of the battle and the conflict just kind of dotting this beautiful natural landscape, which is, I think, a source of conflict. You know, we've seen it elsewhere in visions like in Lappanocho, the penultimate short, where you have, you know, sort of the conflict between nature and resources and then mechanization and development. And that keeps coming up here. So I think that's great. I think also the seemingly local understanding of the force, the Magina, as they call it. I loved this.

That's something. Yeah, there's some precedent for that, you know, elsewhere in the canon or in legends where you'll have people who will kind of develop their own local insular understanding of the force, not the dominant Jedi philosophy of the force, but you come up with your own name for it. And it's significance in your life and in that planet's culture. And here, it's just so inextricably linked with the way that the inhabitants of this planet go about their lives.

And it's kind of the collective memory of the planet. that seemingly they can all access and whether they're all force sensitive to some degree or whether they have some other way to interface with this. It just seems like it's a place that's strong in the force, maybe because it's just so verdant and green and there's so much life. And so to have that incorporated into everyone's experience, not just the small minority of people who have enough midi-chlorians to do cool stuff with the force, I think that's always been an interesting idea.

There's also a almost like meta quality to that. You know, there's a comp to how visions itself is functioning inside of Star Wars, where there is this clear connection to something we understand, right? We can feel that they are talking about the force, even though they are using different vernacular, different language, right? But there is this unique spin, something that feels totally authentic to that place in that group of people.

And, you know, the inhabitants, those people who live on the planet, we spend the most time with the bride and groom, Haro and Asu, and they are, I thought in a, again, shockingly short span of time. I don't need to keep describing that these are shorts, but in this particular case, I was really, like, odd by it.

They were just so inspiring and motivating. They're one with the planet now, they say, of their lost family members. And as they're having this exchange, they're passing by the relics of war, you know, the husks of like a probe droid and the like. And, you know, you wrote it in your piece on the ringer.com a bit about the music, but, like, I was really struck by the ethereal nature of the score in this sequence as they're scaling the mountain because it's like pairing their grief with that. peace and purpose that they've found in each other. And similarly, like, when they're watching

the sunset and they're speaking of how it predated them and we'll go on beyond them, they just have perspective, right? And their ritual near the summit in which they can access the planet's memories, I mean, that was very touching and very sad, but also just so cool. Like, that was just amazing to watch. And that mix of despair with the perspective, like Saku, who is bride's sister, she wants to fight. She wants to challenge the Raiders. And one of the things she says is, what kind of wedding is full of mourning? Like, that's a powerful idea and question and moment. And they, through that poignancy and introspection, are able to help F reach her new clarity. Like no one in the short gets there on their own, which is another thing I really liked

about it. They need each other. You know, and F says to them, you can't change the river's flow by casting a stone, and that's a reference to what she saw when they unlocked their own memories and the planet's memories. But live in harmony with nature and you'll change together. The people of this world know that well. You know that the breath of life becomes wind and will always respond. Magina, may you rise and may the force be with you. I just... Just thought that was lovely. It was, yeah. And I know there's a tradition in Japanese culture of mountains being seen as sacred places.

And so to have them sort of scale this physical peak while also overcoming these other things in their lives that they're dealing with are about to deal with, I think it all just chilled well. I did have some questions about this village chief and his decision to let his granddaughter go on his. Go for it. Thank you. On her wedding day, yeah, please serve as a hostage. I am far too important to be captured here and held as collateral. But granddaughter, you go. I'd like to know a little bit more about his motivations and how important he actually is to this community.

But beyond that, I thought it was great. Well, if you're interested in learning more about him, then you're welcome to pick the Village Bride again for our next category, which is the vision short that we would most like to see as a series. What's your pick here? I'm going with the Ninth Jedi, which is by Production IG. And this is, I believe, the longest short. It is not that short. And it's probably the most lore-filled chapter in visions. There has just clearly been a lot of thought given to where we are in the timeline and the galaxy here.

And this is taking place in the far future by Star Wars standards. This is clearly way beyond the sequel trilogy. This is further than we have pushed in the Disney canon, possibly further than we pushed in the Legends canon. This is like the legacy comics, which we're taking place a century or more later. This seems to be in that span of time or perhaps even beyond that because there's talk about, you know, it's been generations since there have been Jedi and lightsabers have been lost. No one knows how to construct them. and you have this local official commander, ruler named Margrave Juro, who seems to be motivated to restore the Jedi. And so he puts out this call to other aspiring Jedi, hey, come meet with me.

And as it turns out, some Sith got in the group. They intercepted this message too. Mostly Sith. The guest lists for this meeting. Lots of Sith crashing this party here. and Juro finds out about that. And so he recognizes that some of the Jedi he invited were actually they had their place taken by Sith. And so he infiltrates this meeting in the guise of a droid so that he can suss out the Sith from the Jedi.

And then eventually he reveals himself. But then there is also this separate parallel storyline about the Saber Smith, who has actually recovered the knowledge of how to build a lightsaber, which is an interesting spin on things. we're seeing lots of differences in what khyber crystals mean and how you build lightsabers in vision. I'll be coming back to this in a future category. Yes. So in this case, instead of having the Jedi build their own lightsabers, you have this saber smith who's just cranking them out. And you have the saber smith's daughter who also has some connection to the force. And by the end of it, you really have a setup here for that seemingly could be quite a full-fledged series, right?

because the sabersmith has been captured, and so you can travel and find out where he is. And then you don't know about the Margrave and what his deal is. And just how he came to, is he self-taught? I'll talk a little bit more about him later too. But there was more world building and just more mythology and lore in this one than most of the other shorts had time for or interest in. And so it seemed like, hey, they put in the work here to come up with enough that, It seems like there's much more material here and more potential to tell stories about reviving the Jedi or what happened to get to this point in the first place. It's somewhat refreshingly, it seems as if maybe, I don't know if this is just the outer rim or what, but it doesn't seem as if there is a republic or an empire or any dominant force.

So that's kind of an interesting idea. So I'd love to know how we got here, you know, what happened to Ray and restoring the order and all of that. I know this is not canon, but it makes you a wonder. So I'd like to know more. That's a great pick. That's a really good one. Sign me up. However, that is not my pick.

My pick is the duel. You don't look like one of the villagers who dares face me. Just a simple wonder. Episode one, the opener from Kamikaze Duga. And clearly, I am not alone in wanting more here. because we're getting a Ronan novel. Star Wars Ronan, a Vision's novel, is coming out next month in October.

James Waugh said the following to Star Wars.com. Quote, out of all the shorts, the duel felt most rife for an ongoing story in a novel. Another one of Ronan's adventures. One of the things I always loved about the short was that it was clear there was a larger history at play, that this wasn't the first adventure, this warrior had been through, and it certainly won't be their last. What are those stories?

That was my question, too, and my thought too. And I was interested, I'd say, equally in the past and the future. And I'm really, really, really excited to return in the novel to this story. And I have a couple questions because we know we're getting the novel about what that might mean. Like, I think so this is all Lucas Film IP, but this shifts now out of the studio's specific hands, right, from crafting the short. And then what about the canon factor? The short's not canon, but will the novel be? Does that then make the short canon if the novel is canon? Good questions.

I mean, I don't know the answer to those questions, and maybe there's an obvious one, but I found myself thinking about that because that has the potential to set some interesting precedent, I think. And, you know, if you look at how the dole is like officially described with the logline for the short is on Star Wars.com, It's an alternate history pulled from Japanese lore. That alternate history idea is really fascinating, too, because that's where you get into kind of what-if territory. And one of the things that you've talked about before and written about is that that's not really a thing Star Wars does.

But could this potentially be a pathway to things like that where something becomes canon, much like what if is Marvel is MCU canon? but it is canon as either a part of a multiverse or an alternate, you know, an alternate history or an alternate timeline. I think there are some fascinating implications here. And then, of course, do we get a series? Do we get a series after we get the novel?

Yeah. And how did this character get to this point? There are a lot of questions raised by his cloak full of khyber crystals and his red blade. And you have this sort of yojimbo style wandering Ronin samurai. Jedi, and he is not aligned with either tradition closely, which I think is an idea that's always appealed to us, kind of that gray Jedi idea, you know, only Sith deal in absolutes, but often Disney deals in absolutes too, right? You're either light side or dark side, you're good,

you're bad. And I think we like the Jedi that are, or at least force sensitives who are sort of in the middle somewhere and don't want to hue closely to either of those traditions. So is he a Former Sith who rejected that, is he a former Jedi who rejected that and incorporated? So here's the official synopsis of the novel, okay? Far on the edge of the outer rim, one former Sith wanders accompanied only by a faithful droid, great droid, one of many great droids and visions. Love the hat. And the ghost of a less civilized age.

He carries a lightsaber of a claims lineage to no Jedi clan and pledges allegiance to no Lord. Little is known about him, including his name, for he never speaks of his past, nor his regrets. His history is as guarded as the red blade of destruction he carries sheathed at his side. Absolutely. My response to that is absolutely. Cannot wait for the novel, and I'm banking already on a future Disney Plus series. Can't wait. Yeah, I'm in.

Third. Award. This is the canon conundrum here for a second, okay? And then we'll get back to the celebratory stuff. The vision's event that would mess with Star Wars canon the most for you, if it were, in fact, canon. What's your pick here? A lot of choices. Ah, so many to choose from. But I'm going to go with a droid Jedi. Do not worry you are prepared for this fight. Toby, my young Parowan. I think that would mix some things up.

So in Toby, my dude, Toby. Yeah, T-O-B-1, I guess that's sort of an Obi-1 reference as well. I legitimately was hearing Obi-1 at first. Yeah. So this droid is dreaming of being a Jedi, and unbeknownst to Toby is actually created by a Jedi, seemingly. And then at the end of the short, is able to become a Jedi. Sure is. Definitely changes some things.

I know there's some... Some big fuck you to the midichlorian heads out there. Yeah. What does this say about midichlorians? I don't know that any of us would be sorry to see them go necessarily, but it would definitely change some things if inanimate creation or is Toby somehow transcending the origins as a droid and becoming human or... living in some way? I don't know, but that would change things, I think, pretty significantly

if a droid could become a Jedi. I mean, just generally, and you're going to talk about one aspect of this, but I think the sheer quantity of Jedi who are in visions, especially during time periods when we're accustomed to thinking that we can kind of count the number of survivors on one or two hands, right? And here they seem to be a bit more plentiful, which would definitely change things if there were this many Jedi running around. But I think also one thing that stands out to me is that we have Jedi envisions named Dan and Ethan. Don't forget Jay. And if, oh, and Jay, I don't know if these are short for something or whether we're just going with generic Jedi names. But if this were canon, if we could just have Jedi named Ethan and Dan.

I mean, to be fair, this is a great point, but if I may quibble, it did all start with our guy, Luke. It did. And, you know, his surname made up for it, though. And I guess we don't know what Dan and Ethan's last names are. So maybe their surnames sound like Star Wars. But all we have is Dan and Ethan and Jay to go with it. It just doesn't scream Star Wars, but I appreciate it. Ethan introducing himself as Ethan is genuinely funny.

That's a good moment. Yes. To be fair, he is an aspiring Jedi. That's right. That's right. Maybe this is a reflection of the fact that he has to earn it. They've got to rebuild, you know? Yeah.

Okay, my pick. And I think in real time I'm going to like talk myself out of and into this. You can work through it with me. Lightsaber's changing colors as they pass from Jedi to Jedi. how lightsabers are forged by a saber smith, generally everything about the way Kyber crystals and lightsabers function in the Ninth Jedi, which you already talked about.

Now, to be clear, just as like a viewer, when I'm not thinking about these questions and these hypothetical, what would it mean for canon conundrums, I thought this was visually arresting and just tremendous. Like when Kara is holding the blade and the size of it is changing and the car. colors changing as she discovers and strengthens her connection to the force. That was amazing to watch.

I loved that. But of course, I'm not fully capable of turning off the part of my brain that asks, well, wait, what about X, Y, and Z? So based on what we know, and if from the primary canon, whether it's Clone Wars episodes, like The Gathering, you know, when the younglings go to Illam to find their crystals, or the novel, Asoka. You know, there are any number of examples you can point to here

that helped flesh out our understanding of how the force attuned Khyber crystals call out to one Jedi, right? There's like a bit of a, the wand chooses the wizard comp at play in all of this. In the crystal cave, the younglings, they hear the crystals like singing to them, right? if you read Asoka, when she discovers the crystals that ultimately she will purify and turn into her white blades, like there's a lot of really amazing language about how she can, like, hear and feel them calling to her, right? Now, in a way, the crystals for sensitivity and, like, basically, the chibercrystals' sentience translates very logically, I think, to what we see here.

Like, it's easy enough to make the case. they can read their wielder in essence, right? They have a connection and an understanding. They do evolve, even in an existing canon, to take on a color to match their eventual user and wielder. So again, like all of that actually, I think maps pretty easily. We have even seen Blades change color in the canon. It's more about the relative fixedness of the,

it in the canon versus the total fluidity and speed of it here that shocked me. I was like, what am I watching? What does it mean? When you first message me about this, just because old habits diehard, I immediately tried to retcon it. I was like, well, this is a different source of chiber crystals, right? So we're not on Ilem, the planet where traditionally the Jedi have harvested their crystals. We're on a different planet. It's a different source. Maybe these chiber crystals work differently. And maybe the saber smith constructs his sabers in a way that this is how they work. So I was doing my best to try to justify it and make it make sense with what we know.

But you're right. It is a pretty significant change. I think that the part I was hung up on most was the red lightsaber blades because of what we know about bleeding and purifying crystals, like in the ritual. I think that the act of bleeding a crystal is pretty key. You have to make that choice. Like the crystals don't want to be used by the dark side, right? That's our understanding inside of the canon. And so Sith have to bend the crystals using the force.

It's not quite, I don't want to get carried away here. It's not quite akin to making a whore crooks, but it is a violation. It is a real conscious choice and act. Similarly, not similarly, but the inverse is that a bled crystal can be purified and healed as Assoca's, again, white blades were when she took the crystals

from the Sixth Brothers. So there's this act of intentionality, which is pretty different from if you're having a bad day and you're thinking some thoughts and you pick up your saber and suddenly it's red and everyone around you thinks you're a fun. Like that's a tough one.

Just got a little carried away. Yeah, the poor guy with his purple saber. That was brutal for that guy. It's just right out there for everyone to see the darkness in his heart. He really blamed it on everyone else, though, you know? Yeah, he's a dark pass. He's just like, oh, sorry. I lost it a little there for a minute.

Amazing stuff. Okay, we're on the subject of chirocrustles and lightsabers, and we have a couple awards coming up here that are lightsaber adjacent or specific. Next up for us, coolest duel or battle. So many contenders here. What's your pick? Yeah, this was a tough one just because every short has lightsabers in it. Almost every short has a duel in it.

So there's a lot to choose from here. I went with Lop and Ocho. I'm sorry, Papa. This isn't how I wanted this to happen. I had to. You left me no choice. And I'll do what I must to protect our home. Even if that means I have to hurt you, Papa. It's not one of the most protracted duels. It's over fairly quickly. It's really about the emotions at play here more so than the actual... This one was a bummer. This was a downer. This is one where I want a sequel because I don't want it to end here for this family, which has been torn apart because you have, oh, Ocho, who wants to support the empire and modernizing and developing.

And then you have her father, who I think has the right instincts about the empire and its true motivations here. And so they're pitted against each other. And that's kind of a heartrending thing to watch because Ocho's like, I didn't want it to end this way. And her father's like, you're the little girl. I remember looking at when I first saw you. And here they are dueling. And Ocho puts his eye out. and then he's on the ground.

So then Lop takes over and she is using a lightsaber, which we will discuss in a moment. But that's kind of meaningful too because there's all these themes about, you know, what does it mean to be in a family and to find your family and to adopt someone? And Ocho's, you know, very hurtfully saying this is not your real daughter and not my real sister and just rejecting her, even though she had been the one to welcome him, welcome her in initially. And so it's just a complete betrayal. and for them actually to match blades here, that's tough. And you also see Lop kind of embrace her power, right? Because she's pulling a sword toward her with the force, it seems, and sort of coming into her own.

And then she manages to wound Ocho. And then she just sort of pieces out on a craft that was conveniently hovering nearby. And that's the end of that short. So wonder what happens next. with these two. I'd love to know, but that's one of those ones where the duel itself was kind of cool, but I think just the history underlying the duel made it much more significant. That's a really good pick.

That was a devastating installment. Yeah. I'm going with another family drama here. I'm versus Kare in The Twins. Regardless, I wasn't about to just let you die. And so that's why I. You think I fear death? No, don't.

Now, admittedly, found some of this confusing, like how they were both breathing in the vacuum of space after their help. Speaking of changing canon. Speaking of changing how human bodies function, forget cannons. Yes. They were using the force, presumably. Let's just leave it at that. Despite that, I just thought this looked so sensational.

Lidesabers are red, and then there are these, like, energy snakes pouring out of her. Tentacles. Yes. A little, like a little knot, doc, doc, you know? Carre's eventual lightseber is reminded me of, like, a rocket pop, you know, from the ice cream truck with the different colors across the progression. It's like purple into blue, and it expands, changes in size and structure. That was really neat. The conjoined Star Destroyer, Gemini class, X-Wing, R-Duo, another great droid.

That was just all so, so cool to look at. And I really liked the, Ben, it'll shock you to hear that I liked the thematic implications of their choice versus destiny argument. This is really my shit right here. You know, they were bred for a mission, but does that mean they have no agency? Should they allow that to be true? they see it two different ways. You know, she says, did you forget, Carrey?

We are twins born from the dark side of the force. We were made to bring back order with this power that transcends even death itself. Must I remind you of the purpose of your birth? That was really intense. And she also says things like, I will make death yield to me, which is just some vintage Anakin Palpi stuff right there, you know? Yeah. There's a little of that later on, which we will discuss.

There sure is. And Kare says, don't live for someone else. As long as you're alive, then you are free. And you're free to choose your own destiny. He reminds us of some other characters, too, because he says there is no try-only do.

Well, Yodaism right there, some wisdom. And he says, the galactic umpire of the Republic. I couldn't care less about either of them, he says, as he flies his X-wing and on his Star Destroyer. But, yeah, there were born into this destiny who created them. or for exactly what purpose, I guess we don't exactly know, but they are rejecting that destiny.

Overt, exigal, palpy, cloning energy in those flashes. That's just... Yes. Felt it as strongly as many of these characters feel the force. There were also a lot of,

like in addition to that, a lot of other allusions to other Star Wars tales in this. I mean, obviously even just the twins fact makes you think of Luke and Leia, right? Though they're mercifully not opposed in this fashion.

but things like the forced tug of war for this chiber crystal reminded me a lot of Kylo and Ray forced tug of warring over the Skywalker lightsaber until it's split just as the Kyber crystal splits here. I don't know about you, Ben, but I got some strong Holdo maneuver energy. Oh, yeah. Yeah, he holdo maneuvers through his sister essentially. At the end, he's like, I'm sure she's out there. She's okay.

Iconic stuff. Now, you contributed one of the great works of Star Wars scholarship years ago by looking into whether or not the Holden maneuver was consistent with canon or canon shattering. Everyone can find that in Ben's ringer archives. But I just, I mean, I love that moment in The Last Jedi in terms of how stunning it is visually. And so to have that little nod here was really wonderful. And then even something like this, I mean, the crystal here is not akin to the one I'm about to reference, but the idea of a very large, very powerful chybro crystal that will be used for. ill and weaponry made me think of that unfinished. Crystal Crisis, Clone Wars arc, which is a fun one to check out.

There's just so much in here. Yeah. And I like the double-barreled Star Destroyer. I guess they call it a Gemini class with a hyper cannon, which is, you know, very imperial. I'm so glad somebody inside of a Star Wars story finally thought of a ship that could blow upon it. There were not enough options, really. This one actually was really cool, though. I immediately was like, I hope we get visions.

merch and I can build this, this Lego set. Like, honestly, it looked amazing. Lego, get on it. All right, duels are fought with lightsabers, Ben. Which was your favorite lightsaber in All of Visions? You could pick a dozen here. They were all, honestly, astounding. They were so cool, but you're only allowed to pick one.

What are you going with? That's one of the coolest things about this series, I think, is that you just know everyone has, like, in the back of their head what their lightsaber would look like if they could build one, and clearly all of these studios had some ideas. So I'm going to go with, I guess, the first one we see in the duel, which is the Sith umbrella attachment to the red blade that seemingly converts the single red blade into many, a multi-pronged blade, that she can use as a sort of umbrella to glide down from the rooftop somehow, but also spin it almost grievous style into just this impregnable, yeah, just like blur of lightsabers.

It also made me think of the Inquisitors in Rebels, in Star Wars Rebels and the double-bladed spinning lightsaber like helicopter contraptions that they have. Yeah. So I like the idea of just an attachment to your lightsaber that you can use to make it into different shapes. And she chooses to take it off for the duel with Ronan, which is interesting. It's almost like, I can use this against, you know, these guards or these bounty hunter. or whatever they are.

But if I'm going one-on-one with another possible former Sith, then we've got to take it old school here, just back to the single blade. But visually, that was really cool. And I think that's one of the hallmarks of that studio is kind of a combination of hand-drawn animation and more modern computer-generated. And so you had kind of that film-graim look,

but you also had these red blades standing out amid the largely black-and-white style. So... That was so cool. Other pops of color, too, like the lights on the droid and in the village. That was so neat. And I wanted to, it's not a blade, but I wanted to shout out Ronan's scabbard for his lightsaber. So he sheathes his saber somehow, which makes you wonder what that's made of is a Bescar

scabbard for his lightsaber that it's not burning through. Yeah. Yeah. But that's interesting because he's kind of undercover, right? And so if you have that lightsaber clip to your belt, everyone knows that you have a lightsaber unless it's in your cloak or something. So by putting it in the scabbard, he just looks like any other sword until he chooses to whip it out. So that was a clever little attachment. Haven't seen that before. Agreed. That was really, that was really neat. I mean,

who knows? Maybe he just has a very quick finger for turning it on and off, but it didn't see, it didn't look like it. It seemed like he was pulling it when as he was extracting it, it was already activated and it was still on as he was putting it away. That was, but yeah, that was really neat. All right, My pick is something that you were just talking about for your favorite duel. My pick is the family lightsaber that the father passes down to Lop in Lop and Ocho. And visually, really awesome, a green blade, but we see that the blade is complete with markings. Markings on the blade. That was amazing.

But it wasn't just that it looked neat. Much like you, when you picked this for your duel. I found myself gravitating toward this one, not only because it was interesting to look at, but because of the story behind it. You know, there are so many just awe-inspiring lightsaber visuals across visions, and many of them connect to something really powerful in the story.

What this one represented really, really stuck with me, found family, you know, belief, connection, love. That's just one of my favorite things in stories, and I really loved it here. the father choosing to give the blade not to Ocho, but to Lop, and telling her, you know, apologizing as he's doing so, for not opening up as fully to her over the years. And then in the process of doing so here, sharing this history about the family ritual across the generation saying, you know, hundreds of years ago, this great Jedi warrior came to the planet and died there. but he, you know, he says, he quote, entrusted this treasured sword to our ancestors who have then passed it down along with the teachings generation to generation. And he says to Lop, this ancient weapon represents the bond between parent and child in our family. And it is bestowed upon you. As it is bestowed upon you, remember that even though we are not bound by blood, you and I share a strong connection. I am your father and that bond cannot be broken. Like, that's just a beautiful moment. And, when she activates it for the first time,

it is not because she wants to use it to do harm, quite the opposite. She is trying so desperately to stop Ocho, but also to bring her back, to heal and repair their family. She does not want to give up. But Ocho, who she's going against, has lost exactly what

father and Lop have gained, which is this understanding of what a bond can, mean and how it can transform your life. And, you know, when she screams, I'm the successor, her father says,

I passed it unto Lop, and Herentance has nothing to do with blood. There's so much that matters more. Written you out of the will. And, you know, as you mentioned, there's a very, very sad ending, really, like, hammered home, the despair when the, the droid, TD,

who was damaged, was cut in the fight, displays their first family photo. And we hear young Ocho say with a little time, we're going to become a proper family as they are just shattered and breaking apart across the galaxy. But that's why I loved that lightsaber so much because it represents the possibility of hope and connection across time and searching for repair even amid that pain.

I really loved that one. Me too. Do you have, for our next category, a favorite, not lightsaber, but Khyber crystal deployment? This can be in the forging of a lightsaber or it can be in any other way that the crystals manifest across the stories. What's your pick here? I'm just going to go with the biggest Khyber Crystal that is in visions the mega Khyber Crystal, the agro-crag of Khyber crystals. Wow. Great pull.

in the twins where a khyber crystal is not just powering a lightsaber, but powering a super weapon that is capable of destroying planets or systems. This hyper cannon is using the chiber crystal. It becomes the focus of the duel between the twins, as we discussed, and then also is used in combination with the X-wing hyperdrive somehow to power this holdo maneuver and turn into energy beam. I mean... Our duo's idea. They just, they went for it in this one in some ways that worked for me in some ways that didn't always.

But this is just, I mean, this was the most chiber crystal in any of the vision shorts. So I'm just going to give it to them. It's reasonable. I'm going with the most chiber crystals for mine as well, but in a different way. Not the size of one crystal, but the number of crystals. I guess this isn't necessarily the most. There were probably more total in the ninth Jedi. But anyway, I'm picking Ronin collecting and then gifting.

crystal in the duel. You know, we spoke about Ronan in the duel at length of above so we don't need to repeat all of that here. And I also already talked about changes to our understanding of how hyper crystals functioned inside of Star Wars in the

9th Jedi. Some of that came into play here too. Like I found myself wondering why he wasn't purifying the crystals, right? Why he was keeping them and carrying them bled. So I'm intrigued by that. But still, it was just so cool, in such a great moment when he opens his robe

and he's going to put the crystal that he has taken from the bandit Sith's shattered blade and he's going to add it to his collection so we see how many he has. It's like ammo inside of his robe.

Yeah, it's like he's selling used watches or knockoffs. It's like, want to buy some desk sticks I have got some Khyber crystals for you instead. But he doesn't actually ultimately keep that one because he gives it to one of the children in the village, the one who initially stood up to challenge the bandits

and pretend that he was in charge. And he says to the child, take care of this at wards off evil. And I really liked that. I liked the idea that the crystals can be reclaimed, not just through the purification rituals that we already know, but through like intention like that.

I thought that was really cool. Yeah. We've seen a lot of characters who just collect blades of enemies that they've done. defeated. In this case, he breaks the plate. He keeps the crystal. So that's an interesting spin on it. Hands him out as gifts. Lovely. Would love to be his secret Santa one year. I wonder who's crystal I would get. Maybe your pick to the next award is Ronan, who can say, favorite new character. Ronan's up there. But I'm going to go with Margrave Truro, who we discussed already. I just have a lot of questions about is he self-taught? Clearly, he has some

skills and he is interested in Jedi lore and restoring the Jedi. He seems to be a local ruler. Does he have ambitions for something larger? How did he get invested in this Jedi tradition? He seems to have an element of the trickster about him, right? Because he is posing as this droid and secretly he's there the whole time. But he also has relationships with people. He seems to be some sort of recluse possibly. He is not out and about. So there's some mystery to him. And I'm just generally interested in his history and his motivations and his larger ambitions here. So for all the reasons we've discussed already, definitely want to know a bit more about Mark Grape Juro.

That's a good pick. I am going with somebody we haven't talked about much yet today, actually. Subaki from the final short in Visions, Akakiri, which was another absolutely like soul-shreading, devastating short. What a note to end visions on. I got, as I'm sure many others did, heavy Anakin vibes here in terms of Anakin and Padmay and a doomed love

and the pull of the dark side when you were trying to save somebody you love and not being willing to accept that death is a part of life, especially in, again, this devastating case, the direct hand that he had in that. But I also got strong. And these are my favorite vibes to get OB-1 Duchess Sotene vibes here in terms of a love,

forbidden love, that lingers over the years after a long ago Jedi mission and these people who want to be together and just don't find their way to that happiness because of these strictures around them or the context of the moment and how really tragic that is. And, his decision to go to the dark side in order to save Mesa when he had dedicated his life to fighting and trying to do good things in the world, but also to honestly assessing what he would be able to do, I thought was really poignant. You know, as he tells Mesa,

I thought about it too, it being what she had said five years prior about seeking to bring stability and peace to the world. And he said, and what I can do also about what I can't. Like, he seemed to be a very introspective character. And then you have Massago, this, like, fearsome Sith who lures him, tempts him.

You know, they might as well have been at Palpi's opera here in the story of Darth Plague is the wise with this one. You know, she says, she says, we can protect your precious Mesa as well. And he says, protect her. She's dead. And this is after he strikes. chart down, this is the manifestation and culmination of the vision that he has been seeing across the short. And the response is, are you sure? Why don't we try to save Mesa together? And this was another

one, a character and a short that taps into that choice destiny equation that I'm always so interested in because the vision that he's having does come to pass. And so as much as he wants to rebel against it, when Massago says, there's nothing that has not been faded, he and we can't help but wonder what the rules of this story and universe are. And, you know, when, when, when Misa wakes and immediately asks, what did you do? It's so gut-wrenching because his response is I did what had to be done. And his new master calls him my apprentice as they walk away and he pulls up his hood again, Anakin style. And she's just watching in horror. You know, she's alive. He saved her. But they can't be together anymore. I just, yeah.

the end. That's the end of the short. That's the end of visions. Thanks for watching. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that trope of you have some vision or presentiment of something terrible that's going to happen. And in seeking to avoid it, you fulfill it. Yes. I call this the Circee Lanister. Yeah. Love that. Love that. Always poignant. Yes. And at least Massago holds up her end of the bargain here. Right. I mean, Darth Plagis style, the un-nesty. The un- natural ability of bringing Misa back to life. Like, at least she delivers, right? You know, like, if you're going to sign your soul over to the dark side, like, at least get what you were promised. So kudos to Saga for holding. Yeah. I mean, really, like, usually it's like you become the apprentice and then you read the small

print and the terms and conditions. And it's like, oh, you can't actually resurrect my true love. But here it happens. So there are worse reasons. to fall to the dark side. Maybe they studied at the Grogu force healing, the school of follow-through. Okay, we got to go rapid fire.

We only have a couple of minutes left the rest of the way here. Our next award. I mean, this is what we could devote an entire podcast to. You know what my passion for droids? Best new droid. What are you going with here? Lots of great droids in the Disney Star Wars canon. I'm going to go with a somewhat obscure pick, I think, here.

Kurti, K-U-R-T-I, who is the guitarist, in Star Waver. Come on, get up and help, Jay. You know how to fix things, too. Yeah, but gee. There's nothing we could have done. Perhaps we were just lucky and our luck ran out.

You have a passion for live music. I do. I like music. I like the double-neck guitar here. But I also like that Kurti is just like following its passion. You know? I mean, most droids in Star Wars are sidekicks or, you know, kind of like they're subservient in some way, they're following orders, their means of

destruction, their battle droids. Kurti just wants to shred some riffs seemingly. Like, I wonder, is Kurti like built to be a guitarist droid? Or was Kurti designed for some other purpose and just followed the muse? I don't know. But I love that Kurti is just allowed to do that and not have to. I will say quickly because I would not. be able to move on with my day if we went the entire episode without talking about the old

droid from the ninth Jedi that the old droid is the runner up here drinking so good steamed oil as tea really just wanting to enjoy a moment of leisure i'm on my break find another pilot so good and it's just a very amusing conversationalist throughout the short you know car says thank you old droid don't mention it you know and then watching the battle among the at the accolades and seeing her blade finally glowing green nice moves. I really enjoyed old droid. Yes, I did too. Toby is my pick.

It's only dangerous because the Jedi are needed. This is T. Obi-Wan is one of two Sinai and you were saying earlier, like, is Toby actually like becoming a person? I got very intense Pinocchio energy from all of this. You know, Toby wants to be a real boy. And, you know, at first, like, as you discussed earlier in the canon area, the inquisitor voices it inside of the short.

You know, a droid can become a Jedi, and I was thinking about that too. But I was just so quickly won over by Toby's dreams, his vision, his charm. And, you know, of course, as is often the case in the Star Wars tale, his mentor, guardian maker, in this case, Professor Mataka, kept a lot from Toby. but in that fateful moment, gave up the pieces of his lightsaber rather than using them to protect himself. And as Toby worked to battle, the Inquisitor, and he visits the professor in a vision. It reminded me of in, you know, in rebels, like the scenes in the Jedi temples. The professor knights him and also names him.

You know, that shift from letters and numbers to saying Toby is just so great. And this is also a little bit of a cheat because I really get to pick two droids here, because CO3, Toby's trusty companion actually is also awesome and affixes to Toby's back, like a little jet pack to help him in battle. I thought that was all wonderful. And I don't just love Toby because he's a Jedi. He learns and he evolves and he grows. You know, he decides after first emerging and finding that the professor had perished to continue his work to try to restore life on the planet and he does it, clouds, rain, plant life. He sheds tears of pride. And then similarly, after emerging victorious against the Inquisitor decides to go help repair other planets to continue the professor's legacy

and says that's what Jedi do. I just thought this was wonderful. My only quibble with this pick is that Toby gets everyone killed in this episode. We all make mistakes. He did, yes, he got very excited about the ship that he discovered in the basement. He was explicitly told not to go into it and then sent a signal. That was not great. Broadcasts.

That's not great. I'll concede. Yeah. So between that, getting the master killed, getting all of the other droids destroyed. There's a lot of rebuilding and amends are made and I guess all is forgiven. But that was a tough choice there. So that's my only reservation. We make mistakes and we learn. Ever heard of a story arc, Ben? One of the things that Toby does is, as mentioned, repair the planet and that gets us to our next award here. It's always fun to see a new spot in the galaxy, right? Where do you want to hang?

Most appealing planet. We've already discussed it, but the planet in the village bride, which as far as I know is unnamed, but just has this great almost Miyazaki-style connection between nature and the people, and it's beautiful, and there's a mystical element to it. And we've discussed it enough. I think people know our feelings about this short and this setting. But even though it had no name, it was probably just the best defined. and most memorable and meaningful to me.

So easy choice for me. That's probably my pick, too, but for the sake of variance, I'm going to go with another one here. I'm going to go with Habo from the Elder, which was another really neat setting, beautiful, serene. You know, this was key. No visitors, really, right?

Yeah. Quiet, peaceful. It's like the quiet car, you know? You can focus on what you need to achieve that day. I love that. Tranqual energy. That's what we all need. That's certainly what I need.

And also, you know, love an animal, love wildlife, the VAMGA. You know, we didn't get to see them active, only cut down by the elder, which was rough. But they seem great, eager to learn more about the VAMGA. So that's my pick. Yeah, that's a good one. And I also enjoyed, we didn't mention it during our dual segment, but love the image of rain falling off a lightsaber and having steam come off. That was not one of the longer or more involved tools, but just the imagery there was really great. That was really, really, really, really cool.

Speaking of things that look cool. Yes. You're famous for your fashion, you know. Fit King Limburg over here. And I need to know, what was the best fit in Star Wars visions? I'm going back to the Hidden Fortress-style Akakuri short here for Massago, who we discussed a little bit. But what I appreciated... Starting to get concerned about your defection for Misago.

I have a lot of respect for someone who lives up to their word. But also, a dark lord who does not dress in dark colors because we've seen so much of that, really. And it's kind of a cliche, you know, you're the Sith Lord. You have to have the dark armor or the dark cloak or whatever it is. And Masago is bright as the sun. Misago is just wearing golden armor, really reflecting and shiny. and I appreciated that choice. I think just visions in general,

a lot of looks for the Sith here that looked great. I mean, even in the duel, the first short, you have the Sith rolling up to this fight in high heels, Sith Stilettos, which is really an interesting choice for a duel, for destroying a village. It doesn't seem like the best footwear for that situation. And maybe that was ultimately her undoing.

You know, if you're jumping from log to log in the, river, it just seems like... But in the Village Bride, F has those, like, rocket propulsion pumps. True. True. Those were awesome. It's like, where I was dropping on sneakers? Master Mutaka's wearing, like, moon shoes. He's, like, bouncing around. So lots of great footwear in Visions. Well, I feel like based on what you just said about, you know, a little burst of color and not just the same kind of aesthetic. We've seen that you're sort of subtly dunking on my pick, which is the twins dark armor from the twins powered by the massive Kaibir Crystal Kaiba pretty dangerous

their droid advisor says that he's concerned about the armor's effect on their bodies and she's like I was prepared to sacrifice everything for the dark side I'm good but it does look cool and it's a part of the story because it's there it's present and it gives you that instant association and then the way that it kind of melts

away over the course of the story, it tells you a lot of what you need to know. But again, think you're dunking on my pick. And that gets us nicely to our next category, which is best dunk in Star Wars Visions. There are some zingers. And most of them are in the elder, which is just the sassiest short in visions. Just everyone shots flying left and right. So I guess, I mean, I know you have one from the elder. I also have one from the elder. I also have one from the elder, I guess my pick will be one from our man Dan who just really brutal, just savages his master, who seems like a considerate and helpful teacher, just dispensing wisdom about the outer rim. And Dan says, I'm so lucky to be your Padawan.

Seemingly, sincerely, the master says, thank you. He's touched. And then Dan says, I was being sarcastic. Where did that come from, Dan? That was uncalled for. A little bit of an attitude in the early going there from Dan, which is part of why I picked a dunk from the elder as well, the elder dunking on Dan when he says, this is so funny, how incredibly boring you are.

This is just iconic and like a heat check on a heat check because Dan had been thirsting for the action, you know, oh, lightsaber's out, right? And then got, you know, and this was sad, of course, but just annihilated. annihilated by the elder, not only with blades, but with barbs, because he also says, I sense someone strong in the force,

but it's not you. Must be the other. Brutal. Devastating. That was my second pick, too. I could not go on. That ended the fight right there. Yeah, I'm not even sure Dan was actually wounded.

I think he just went down to this. He couldn't handle any more embarrassment. The spirit was crushed. Yeah. Well, speaking of memorable lines, our final award of the day is the, I've got a bad feeling about this favorite slogan incorporation or nod. What's your pick here? Well, it is not. I've got a bad feeling about this. Maybe once, five times no.

But I'm going to go with Master Mutaka shortly before he was killed because of your favorite droid Toby. He uttered the Guardians mantra. I am one with the Force. The Force is with me. That got me. I've always enjoyed that line going back to the Guardians of the Wills and Shura, Imwe in a Rogue One. And also you hear Asoka say it, right, in the last season of the Clone Wars, I believe it comes up. So this seems to be spreading across the Star Wars universe, and I love it.

It's, I think, my favorite force invocation more so than all the other ones we've heard. We saw some sort of allusions to Obi-Wan lines and Yoda lines in here, but this one was the most memorable for me. Ben, that is beautiful and gentle and sweet and serene. My pick is none of those things. I am going with the nod to no disintegrations, which we got in Tattooine Rhapsody when our dude Boba says, if you resist, we'll disintegrate your friends.

Of course, we are meant to immediately think of the moment when Vader tells Boba in Empire, no disintegrations. And I love that little nod because it wasn't overdone. You know, it didn't feel forced, but it still gave me that nice little jolt of, which I already have, but a little extra jolt of,

oh, man, Book of Boba Fett hype that's just around the corner and I cannot wait. So much more Star Wars ahead. for us to talk about together, buddy. What's the over under on disintegrations in Book of Boba? Hopefully they don't go too overboard on it. Yeah. But if that's the next time we talk about Star Wars here together, I look forward to it.

It'll be fun. Me too, pal. Me too. But now here, the Inquisitors have found us. So it's time to wrap today's episode. Before we do, thank you, as always to our Sabersmith, Steve Allman, for producing. not only our lightsabers, but today's episode. Thank you to professors,

Arjuna Ramgapal and TD St. Matthew Daniel for their additional production work on this episode. And thank you to our Padawan, Lord of the memes, Jomea Denneron, for his work on the social media for this episode. And of course, thank you to everyone's favorite Jedi Knight, Ben Lindberg, for joining me today.

Remember to follow the Ring ofverse on Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts, follow the Ringervverse across our social feeds and head back into the Ringerverse next Wednesday, and Friday for our ongoing discussions of Star Wars visions and anime. And what if? And more. Until then, remember, there's a little time.

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