– Spoiler Review –
Begun, the second volume of Star Wars: Visions, has! It all begins with “Sith,” by El Guiri Studios, a short bursting with a mesmerizing focus on colors and a woman trying to distance herself from her past. But when her past catches up to her, will she embrace who she is…or who she was? Find out in our review!
As far as starts go, I’d place “Sith” right alongside “The Duel” from Vol. 1, as both employ a unique animation dripping with flair and specific use of colors. But whereas color was sparring in “The Duel,” “Sith” is absolutely bursting with it and the unique way the team at El Guiri Studios plays with it left me dazzled, as the color schemes queue us in on Lola’s story and internal conflict. It was a little hard in the opening, as the background was a mostly formless white as Lola’s droid, E2, rolls over to wake her up from a nightmare, but as I grew to understand the point of how it was all being presented, I was hooked to see how the team would use it for the rest of Lola’s journey. Trying to embrace a new life, Lola’s expressing herself with art, drawing a mural of a frighteningly masked person in her past, but as much color as she puts into it, darkness slowly takes over anyways. It follows her footsteps through the largely white installation and takes over the colorful water drops she manipulates through the Force, both hints about how she’s still not quite over whatever life she’s been trying to leave behind nor ready to accept it as part of herself yet. When she goes out to fix a broken warning beacon, which she finds is sabotaged and the mysterious figure from her past appears to try and kill her, I loved the bright, easy colors of the beautiful moon she’s hiding out on, as well as the celestial objects in the sky, but even better yet was how a shadow casted over the land once the Sith Master character made themselves known. There’s her reality, the blank canvas she can create on, but then there’s the reality hiding underneath and it’s unavoidable once the Sith Master shows up.
How color plays into the resulting battle is where the concept truly shines, giving viewers a dazzling way to see a character’s internal journey come to life on screen. In a way it felt like a comic book come to life, mixing the way art teams in comics show internal character conflicts with the motion of animation and film. When Lola first makes a stand against the Sith Master, her yellow blade, similar to a rapier, shows her attempts to focus solely on her new path, while the background colors as they clash show who is taking charge in the fight. Injured by the Sith Master, Lola finds herself in her reality and slowly understands the darkness, which took over her paintings in an almost annoying way, is part of her and she can use both it and the colorful world to embrace who she wants to be. She ignites a second blade then, a red one, making her lightsaber a double-bladed one, and is able to best her old Master. Embracing both parts of herself, taking her past and owning up to it and using it to move forward instead of trying to do so without it makes her so much more powerful, and this is all conveyed in the color scheme and I absolutely loved it. The rest of the short remains in the colors of reality, showing us she doesn’t have to rely on her own made up one anymore, but can live in the present since she’s embrace herself to be who she wants. It’s such a lovely, memorable way to showcase it in this painted, abstract style.
Here are a few other things:
- Just like with Vol. 1, in the extra’s section on Disney+, you’ll find behind-the-scenes videos for each short, letting us hear from the studios behind each short and their choices in what they made and how they made it. It was very fascinating to hear Rodrigo Blaas, the writer-director, talk about Lola’s journey and neat to see some of the process in how they made the colorful design of the world of Lola’s reality using actual paint and dropping it in water.
- Music from the shorts is also available on Spotify! There are 5 tracks from composer Dan Levy to enjoy!
- I loved watching it in Spanish, as both Úrsula Corberó, who plays Lola, and Luis Tosar, who voices the Sith Master, are native speakers. They do a great job with the English Dub, but there’s something in their delivery in Spanish, like the Sith Master seems more menacing, you shouldn’t miss out on it, watching with English subtitles.
- E2’s crab/dome design and personality were delightful, to say the least, and I’d love to see it brought into canon somehow.
“Sith” by El Guiri Studios is a mesmerizing and colorful short that makes the abstract tangible in ways which tell us so much about the story and its characters. It’s an excellent way to start Star Wars: Visions Vol. 2!
+ Playing with colors to show Lola’s internal conflict…
+ Finding the light inside her darkness
+ Pacing was excellent
– …was a little off-putting at first
Ryan is Mynock Manor’s Head Butler. You can follow him on Twitter @BrushYourTeeth. You can follow the website on Twitter @MynockManor and Instagram @mynockmanor.
STAR WARS VISIONS REVIEWS
Vol. 1: “The Duel” | “Tatooine Rhapsody” | “The Twins” | “The Village Bride” | “The Ninth Jedi” | “TO-B1” | “The Elder” | “Lop & Ochō” | “Akakiri”
Related Material: Art of Star Wars: Visions Vol. 1 (book) | Star Wars: Visions #1 (comic) | Ronin: A Visions Novel (novel)