The Duel

"Star Wars: Visions" offers something different than we've seen before in this universe. A series of (presumably) unconnected animated adventures, that are free to deviate from any established canon as they see fit. As with all anthology series, the overall quality might prove to be mixed, but certainly this first episode is an excellent opener.

An enigmatic warrior (Brian Tee) arrives at an isolated village with his droid. The community soon comes under attack from a troop of bandits, but they have a plan and have hired a group of mercenaries to fight back. All goes well until the bandit's leader, a Sith warrior (Lucy Liu), joins the fight and the resistance is thwarted. The Ronin warrior then enters the fray, challenging the Sith and defending the village.

Have to start with the fact that this episode looks lovely. The main footage is in black and white, with only the flash of light sabres or laser beams allowed to be in colour. Kamikaze Douga and director Takanobu Mizuno chose a style that mimics hand drawn animation and shading that is beautiful. Then, as the episode is inspired by the Kurosawa films and other features of Japanese cinema's golden period, the animation has a grainy film effect applied. It's really nice to look at even still images from the episode.

The Kurosawa inspiration runs on into the bandits, whose stormtrooper outfits, loosely worn like shogun Karuta, are but one inspiration lifted from something like "Yojimbo", along with much of the actual plot. Unlike how we've seen with some episodes of "Marvel's What If..." this episode manages to tell it's tale and hint at back story and potential future without leaving you unsatisfied at the resolution.

If they're all as good as this, then we're in for quite a series.