– Spoiler Review –
Star Wars: Visions Vol. 3 saved the series’ strangest and most unique short for last with David Production’s “BLACK,” which makes the final moments of a dying stormtrooper into a visual journey unlike anything else, and while your mileage may vary, it’s well-worth experiencing.
To talk about David Production’s “BLACK,” I need to talk about jazz. This isn’t solely because “Two of Me,” the song which plays over the visuals of “BLACK” is a sonic roller coaster of a jazzy tune ride by Sakura Fujiawara, with Alisa, but more about how jazz is the best way I can discuss my feelings on the visuals and story of “BLACK,” because director, character designer, and key animator Shinya Ohira made them a mesmerizing visual roller coaster of a jazzy tune ride as well. And to help clarify why I enjoyed the short overall, we have to go over my musical journey with jazz, which might help you, dear reader, come around or end up enjoying it too, even if you didn’t the first time.
Born in 1989, I grew up in a house of 60-90’s music, with a heavy emphasis on everything from Creedance Clearwater Revival, Soundgarden, The Eagles, and even Cheech & Chong, but nothing jazz related made the cut. Beyond the usual Disney soundtracks and later Star Wars soundtracks, my first favorite band was of course The Beatles, something I heard a lot as a kid as well. But when I started getting older, the first bands I got into all on my own were The Offspring, Lacuna Coil (my favorite to this day) and “Weird Al” Yankovic, the latter being my first concert. If it wasn’t rock-related, I wasn’t very much into it for most of my younger years, so when I heard rap, jazz, country, and even pop on the radio, there was either disgust or annoyance before turning the station. To me, this music wasn’t bad, per se, I just didn’t think it was good (sorry, I was a kid!). It also didn’t seem ‘for me,’ yet I didn’t quite realize it’s simply because I didn’t understand most of it. At the time, the experiences rappers, pop stars, or even the wailing blasts of jazz lamented about in their music didn’t match my own or I couldn’t find commonality with it, yet somehow the rock I listened to ‘got me,’ as it were. I was a teenaged heterosexual white male, so this shouldn’t be surprising and it isn’t to me now when I look back at that period of my life. In high school and my later teens, I went to music festivals where I heard and listened to different music due to friends or romantic interests, made more friends who enjoyed different music than my core group from grade school (who I’m still the best of friends with to this day), went to parties where people blasted the music they loved, and even went through short-lived relationships and listen to what they wanted to. Through all this, I could start seeing how the music I disliked meant different things to different people. We all go through this journey with art, be it music or movies or books or video games, and it’s up to us how accepting and open we are to the wide variety of interests certain genres and artforms can hold not only for ourselves, but for others.
Along the way, I found myself no longer turning away from most of the music I wasn’t a fan of, though I wasn’t going out of my way to listen to it. Yet of all the genres, it was jazz I’d embrace more often, mainly when I was in college and needed something on in the background during homework or studying for the next final, especially since it helped drown out the sound of the dorms. Yet, and I’m not embarrassed to say this, it wasn’t until watching La La Land that I finally understood jazz, as best as I good, thanks to an early scene where Ryan Gosling’s character Seb counters Emma Stone’s Mia’s jokingly dismissive comments about jazz, something I think most people who’ve watched it will know, as he says this line:
“It’s not cocktail music — it’s a high-wire act. These guys are performing and composing and rearranging all at once.”
It’s one of the best ways I can think of describing “BLACK,” as Ohira-san and team make the sporadic designs and mind-meltingly weird images flash by as if the whole thing is being performed, drawn, composed, and rearranged all at once. I know rewatching it will yield the same video, the same short, yet it has the feeling like it could be different, be it the way the song “Two of Me” interacts with the visuals or future rewatches will find me catching different details and different images. Thinking of “BLACK” like it’s jazz really helped me appreciate it, as the randomness and rearranging of it goes a long way in creating a unique take on those final moments before someone passes, their life flashing before their eyes. Yet “BLACK” feels like it drags out its premise, much like how I feel a song can too, be it jazz as bandmembers seem to go off on tangents or from bands I like when they go for a long instrumental riff. It could’ve benefitted from being a few minutes shorter, as its intent was, despite the lovely haphazard visuals, clear pretty quickly in. “BLACK” certainly won’t be for everyone, yet if you can appreciate the way jazz shifts and forms before your very ears, I think fans can find an appreciation, even if they don’t outright like it, for this short, whose own shifting visuals feel like they form before your very eyes out of nowhere, the music only egging the feeling on.
I love how they released a side-by-side comparison video, which goes to show the talent behind the scenes to make something so wild and coherent and engaging appear on screen. Here it is below:
Here are a few other things:
- Given the premise, how we’re seeing the final thoughts of a dying stormtrooper, and unique musical accompaniment, I immediately thought about the French short film, which was included in season five of The Twilight Zone (1959): An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. The revelation the escape we see is just a flash before a dying man’s eyes matches with how “BLACK” ends with us seeing the stormtroopers death after all the intense imagery before it, while it was a jazz drummer who provided the French short’s music, and the David Production went for a jazz song for their short.
- While I’ve matured in my music tastes, I’m sorry, I just can’t get into country, but I do enjoy some Johnny Cash!
- I’m also not ashamed to say, I didn’t know who John Legend was until I saw La La Land, but I still live under a weird rock where I regularly don’t know people most would, much to the surprise of my wife and friends.
- In the interview with new directors for Vol. 3, Ohira-san discusses the importance of all the frenetic visuals and how he was hoping to make people wonder about the cost of war. In the Episode Guide, you can see a bunch of concept art. And in the Filmmaker Focus video contains even more BTS content to enjoy. And don’t forget, you can listen to “Two of Me” via Spotify.
Star Wars: Visions Vol. 3 ends on “BLACK” by David Production, an intriguingly weird and memorable piece of work, something that feels like animation if it was a jazz song.
+ Jazz come to animated life, accompanied by jazz itself
+ Induces thoughts about futility of war
– Could’ve been shorter, would’ve still had the same impact
Ryan is Mynock Manor’s Head Butler. You can follow him and the website on on Bluesky and Instagram @mynockmanor.
STAR WARS VISIONS REVIEWS
Vol. 3: “The Duel: Payback” | “The Song of Four Wings” | “The Ninth Jedi: Child of Hope” | “The Bounty Hunters” | “Yuko’s Treasure” | “The Lost Ones” | “The Smuggler” | “The Bird of Paradise”
Vol. 2: “Sith” | “Screecher’s Reach” | “In the Stars” | “I Am Your Mother” | “Journey to the Dark Head” | “The Spy Dancer” | “The Bandits of Golak” | “The Pit” | “Aau’s Song”
Vol. 1: “The Duel” | “Tatooine Rhapsody” | “The Twins” | “The Village Bride” | “The Ninth Jedi” | “TO-B1” | “The Elder” | “Lop & Ochō” | “Akakiri”
Related Material: Takashi Okazaki (one-shot) | Peach Momoko (one-shot) | Art of Star Wars: Visions Vol. 1 (book) | Star Wars: Visions #1 (comic) | Ronin: A Visions Novel (novel)