Ranking All 9 Shorts From Star Wars: Visions Season 3

It’s almost a joke how much Star Wars fans like to rank things. If it exists, we’ll rank it. Cogito Ergo Rank. It’s a tendency I’ve tried to move away from, to enjoy and celebrate each work on its own merits, but I can’t get enough of reading people’s takes on Star Wars: Visions. The animated shorts offer unique Star Wars stories, capable of huge shifts in tone and style and storytelling, away from any potential confines of canon, so it is pure subjectivity deciding rankings. My list below will be wildly different to that of other fans, and it’s fascinating to see what works for some people but not others. It’s more proof that three seasons in, the Visions experiment is going strong and is a welcome fresh addition to the franchise.

But the third season is a little different. After expanding focus to worldwide animation studios in the second season, the third hands control back to Japanese anime studios, including some who worked on the first season. The result being that there are still standalone shorts that work as their own contained 15-minute slice of Star Wars but also that we now have three sequels to shorts from season 1. It works decently well, with two success stories and one I’m more unsure of. This is the maximum amount of sequels I’d want per season, however: I hope any future seasons keep the spirit of new and varied storytelling. Because while there are sequels this season, there are also the most original and abstract shorts yet.

9) The Bird of Paradise

With some tweaks to the script this short could go from my least favourite to one of the best of the season. It’s my kind of story: a personal, ambiguous odyssey through the mystical elements of the Force, an arrogant Jedi blinded and humbled in defeat and having to truly discover the light after being dropped into darkness. It’s a spiritual journey, metaphors abound using the art style to show internal thoughts and struggles. Describing it now, I’m shocked it’s ranked at number 9.

The issue is that I wish the episode would trust those great visuals to tell the story and trust the audience to understand it without so blatantly saying everything aloud. 90% of the dialogue needed to be cut. The character is clearly physically blinded by a lightsaber wound and dropped into the jungle and says “I have no idea where I am and I can’t see anything.” She picks up a lightsaber that is clearly broken, fiddles with it, presses the button a few times, and then says “huh, it’s broken.” Yeah, I know! She sees a vision of herself dead and says “the corpse, it’s me!” and then “it was all in my head!” The character may be blind but the viewer isn’t. For an episode seeking to be somewhat abstract and open to interpretation, it holds the viewer’s hand far too much. It takes an intriguing concept and visuals and makes it a frustrating watch.

8) The Song of Four Wings

The core story of The Song of Four Wings feels very familiar, which isn’t what I’m looking for in the playground Visions offers. A princess in the rebellion on a snow planet who has lost everything finds a cute young baby Force user. It’s basically an alternate reality Leia and Grogu. And it’s not done poorly but it is quite trite. We’ve had a lot of this kind of relationship recently in Star Wars. But at least the short lets the princess deal with her trauma onscreen more than the films ever let Leia, who got over the destruction of her home planet very quickly.

Yet there are some highlights when the short does sufficiently remix ideas rather than regurgitate them. The new elements are good fun. The action is solid and the music a welcome new style for the franchise. An old astromech with a tape deck that transforms into a mech suit is the kind of anime nonsence that’s fun to watch, as is a group of AT-ATs bursting from the ice, throwing multiple seismic charges. They are the coolest-sounding weapon in Star Wars and this short explodes more than the rest of the franchise put together.

7) The Ninth Jedi: Child of Hope

I was very disappointed with Child of Hope. That’s not to say it’s bad but compared to that first incredible short I thought this follow-up was massively lacking. There’s an art style change, now with a weird mix of 2D and 3D animation, and just a lessening of what made the first short so interesting. Where’s the lightsaber lore? A droid picks up a lightsaber and it’s no different to when Kara holds it. This is a galaxy ruled by Sith with no Jedi yet the villains are bounty hunters who hunt Jedi. The Jedi have only just returned so who have they been hunting? It just doesn’t gel with the galaxy The Ninth Jedi laid out.

But, like the first episode, this sequel does get the philosophy right. By far the best scene is the discussion halfway through between Kira and the droid about lost masters and how acknowledging weakness is a strength. It’s a weaker sequel but there’s still a strong core of Star Wars tenets. Out of the many directions this sequel could have gone, it just seems it picks the blandest option: focusing on the generic part of the story of Kara searching for her father. My only hope is that this sequel is keeping the powder dry for the full Ninth Jedi series coming later this year, that this is a little interlude and the true continuation will be that show. But I do struggle with Child of Hope being within this season of shorts because its not really a short film. There’s no beginning or end of a story here, it doesn’t work as a standalone piece.

6) The Bounty Hunters

The Bounty Hunters has a plot we’ve seen a million times before. A bounty hunter on the run takes a job, it turns out the targets are the good guys, and switches sides to take out the evil employer and free some slaves. I don’t mean to dismiss it because the episode hits all the beats well. The action is fun and it moves fast; it’s an entertaining yet familiar watch.

Putting it above other conventional stories like The Song of Four Wings are a couple of fresh ideas at play. I really like that it focuses on the impact of a Jedi’s actions on someone who isn’t a Jedi rather than another short focusing on the Jedi themselves. It’s about a Jedi inspiring someone else, whether they like it or not. I also enjoy that The Bounty Hunters is clearly inspired by newer Star Wars, such as The Mandalorian, rather than yet more references to the original trilogy. And having droid with a split personality, half medical droid and half assassin droid, is genius. It can beat you up and then diagnose the injuries.

5) The Smuggler

What The Smuggler absolutely nails is the dynamic between the three lead characters. They may be gender-flipped versions of characters from A New Hope (the smuggler, rebel prince, and Jedi), and the plot familiar, but it’s the interactions between them that feels most like classic Star Wars. While I wish there was maybe another kink to the story, I would happily watch the three of them on any adventure. It’s hard not to fall in love with Chica, the lightsaber reveal within the prosthetic hand is a fun visual twist to counteract the obvious plot reveal, and I love the Mediterranean feel of the world. Just because it’s a Japanese studio doesn’t mean every world needs to look like Japan. I’d happily watch a sequel to this short in a future season: the characters and vibe are great, the plot just fine.

4) Yuko’s Treasure

It’s always the darker episodes of Visions that get highlighted, and probably appeal to adult anime fans, but I love that the show commits to having some lighter, child-friendly stories, too. If the series is to embrace all aspects of Star Wars, that’s a core one, whether some fans who want everything to be Andor like it or not. To that end, I thought Yuko’s Treasure was a lovely little respite midway through the season.

It’s hard not to be charmed by the heartwarming and cute adventure. I thought the design work was great; grounding a bunch of unique new alien and droid designs in the familiar world of Tatooine was a good choice. The sneaky Krayt dragon is probably the season’s funniest moment and despite being made for kids, the ending didn’t hold back on the emotion. And, come on, who doesn’t want to see Steve Buscemi play a pirate in Star Wars?

3) The Lost Ones

What I love so much about The Village Bride and now its sequel The Lost Ones is how effortlessly Kinema Citrus worldbuild. The original showcased a culture on an alive, thriving world with connections to the Force, and the sequel begins with a dead world. Yet immediately I felt connected to the place, the design and the people, and what a fantastic idea to have a carbonite mining disaster turning the world to stone. The entire short could be about this but it’s ultimately only the backdrop to a different story. There’s so much creativity on display I’d love a full series focused on F like The Ninth Jedi is getting, and what makes this a better second instalment than Child of Hope is that is still works as a standalone adventure.

In just two shorts F has become one of my favourite Jedi. She’s a Jedi ideal outside of the order, like Ahsoka. I find her so endearing and connected to her struggle. She battles propaganda, tries to teach lessons to children, but is now an active fighter, too. Her master is back from the dead with no explanation (classic Star Wars) and the confrontation between them is great, both the dialogue (rarely a strong point in Visions) and the visuals, like the rose garden in space. The brutal ending is great. F bests her former master, refuses corruption, but is severely hurt. She loses the same limbs as Anakin yet keeps her Jedi spirit. A scarred hero is a welcome change to the burnt and limbless villains of the franchise.

2) The Duel: Payback

Everyone loves The Duel from the first season but it never spoke to me. I like it but it’s hardly a favourite, so I watched the sequel with some trepidation. I loved The Duel: Payback. The way I feel about this short is the way other people feel about the first. I think this sequel is doing more, saying more, without losing anything from the enigmatic original. The Duel sometimes felt it was trying a little too hard to be cool and badass. Payback is still those things but willing to open up the tone, have a little more fun, and I think the addition of the Ewoks and Anzellan is a wise choice.

As with the original, the visuals are fantastic and the fights engaging. The AT-AT gambling den is imaginative. But I connected to this story more, felt there was more meat on the bone. The Sith hunter becomes the hunted, now with a chain of revenge as a Jedi ‘Crusader’ seeks vengeance on the protagonist. This added layer gives the short the thematic and philosophical angle lacking from the original, making us question both Jedi and Sith. This fallen Jedi can’t see how the dark side has corrupted him. There’s an incredible moment when his vision becomes black and white and he can’t tell whether the blue lightsaber or red lightsaber is his. It’s a perfect way to make the mostly black and white art style vital to the ideas at play.

1) BLACK

There’s a fine line between this season’s weakest episode and its strongest. BLACK works for me where Bird of Paradise falters in that it commits to being pure abstract art. There’s no dialogue, no explanation. It is an incredible visual experience I think different viewers will have different thoughts about. For me, we may experience images of famous Star Wars battles but what we’re truly seeing is purely a representation of an internal battle. A death dream of a stormtrooper, a battle for his soul, where he’s not fighting rebels but another version of himself. We get the classic green vs red imagery of Star Wars but in a brand new way.

BLACK is surreal and disturbing and fully commits. I love it. It’s a devastatingly effective anti-war message that comes through however you interpret specific visuals. The one thing I maybe question is the music, which the subtitles call “whimsical jazz,” for maybe being a little too light compared to the imagery, but it matches the visual chaos. The way the ‘camera’ moves is electric. I think it’s outstanding that Visions can offer a place for creatives to produce such a short, which after 49 years is something new and totally unique in the franchise.