I just saw Star Wars Visions. I’m very impressed. I think the 2nd Episode “Tatoonie Rhapsody” would make a fun setting to game.
Some Spoilers ahead
The band with a former jedi padawan and a Hut as leads being sponsored by Jabba the hutt. Going across the galaxy getting into trouble. The question I do have is what species is the drummer?
Also in Episode 1 a Sith vs Sith was a great idea.
The drummer is a Hutt.
As for the first episode, the suggestion of his kyber crystal collection seems to be that he’s a Sith hunter, not necessarily an actual Sith.
For one, his eyes didn’t have that gleam, and he never said “Yes, I’m a SITH! Bwahaha!”
For me, the first episode was the only one I could take seriously. I gave up watching after the fourth as they kept getting worse.
I won’t be too critical (unless you want to hear it), but my suspension of disbelief ran out the hangar doors and shot away like a rocket sled on rails about the time the lady in the first episode lit up her lightsaber umbrella, and it never came back.
I would love to see a full on series for some of the episodes. The Ninth Jedi would make a really cool show.
Damn shame you didn’t enjoy the series, I’m exactly enjoying it for the very reasons you hate it. Seeing Star Wars expressed in a different medium than the usual is a breath of fresh air, and seeing different “visions” of the IP is great for creative thinking and looking at it from a different perspective.
The different medium isn’t a problem for me (outside the chibi Boba Fett)–I even like some of the art styles–my problem lies with the content.
Whether that’s the purely narrative content of the sorts of stories they tell, or the “meat” of the stories (as in the details of the settings and story, the dialogue and worldbuilding, etc.), I haven’t found any that I particularly liked.
I tried episode five, The Ninth Jedi, and it was better than the others, but I still had some issues with it. The biggest being lightsaber crystals not acting like they have before, even in Disney’s canon, and the Ghibli-esque “nonsense” (not using the word critically, but literally) like giant asteroid fishing rods (a style present throughout much of the series).
Flights of fancy are fun and all, but Star Wars is usually more grounded than all that. Yes, it has its own issues like sound in space and the like, everything people usually bring up, but nothing that really jars me out of the story (unlike the weird episode with two ISDs slapped together and twins who could breathe in space and make lightsabers and kyber crystals do ridiculous things).
What I was expecting was a shift in visual style and storytelling, not such a dramatic shift in what I guess you could call “world-building style.” It just doesn’t feel like Star Wars to me, if you get what I mean. It feels like these studios are telling their own stories with a Star Wars veneer. I might even like some of them (like the first one) if I wasn’t watching it going “this doesn’t feel like Star Wars.”
I have more issues with the series than that, but that’s just the more conceptual explanation. Don’t want to rain on your parade. :)
Waiting to finish the last episode so I can add my two credits worth of comments 
Well, when you do, please let me know if there are any you think I should give a try. I want to like it–it’s Star Wars after all–but it has not impressed me so far and the other plot synopses didn’t encourage me to keep going.
#1 The Duel; a classic samurai showdown, the main character is neither Sith nor Jedi, and based on how many kyber crystals he has, he is damn good at staying alive. I learned that his lightsaber is damaged and always turn on, thus the need for a shethe for his weapon.
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#5 The Ninth Jedi; animation and storytelling is top notch, I really want to learn more about the characters and what happens next.
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#7 The Elder; the master - apprentice conversations are some of the best writings on what it is to be a Jedi, and on the nature of power and it’s use.
The other episodes I wouldn’t recommend based on what you already wrote, I don’t think you can “let go” about what Star Was can be beyond what we already know; it’s a valid view point, I just don’t share it. There is a lot of world building and storytelling in these three episodes, and hint of a wider galaxy.
Star Wars is after all a story of Space Wizards with Laser Swords ™, WW2 Combat IN Space! ™, wierd ass starships that make no practical function or engineering sense, thousands of humans with funny make up aliens, and rules on what Hyperspace jumps can and can’t do, based on which ever author or director thinks will “look cool”. I already accept the 
crazyness of the settings as a feature, not a bug, which is why SW Visions for me fits right in with no loss of credibility or suspicion of disbelief. 
That’s actually pretty cool, and a good explanation for the sheath. At first, I thought it was just a nonsensical stylistic choice (like the lightsaber umbrella, which is even worse than Lego’s Darth Maul joke).
Just a note on that: Lego makes the best Star Wars “side content.” It is top-notch satire, and enjoyable for all ages. I just recently rewatched (most) of Droid Tales as a palate cleanser after Visions, and it was as hilarious as I remembered. I actually own several of their shows on DVD.
Yeah, but you can only push me so far. Part of why I love Star Wars so much IS the WWII in Space aspect, because (as you may have guessed from my identity as a sentient P-47) WWII history has always been important to me, and it carries over to Star Wars quite well.
(Worth noting that Jedi and the Force have always been the least interesting part of Star Wars for me.)
Star Wars has a certain quirky nature to it, and I love that about it. It isn’t so much “Visions has a quirky nature” that turns me off, but that Visions’ quirky nature breaks from Star Wars. That’s what I don’t like. The inconsistency more than the actual nature. The Ghibli-esque nonsensicalisms could be fine on their own, I just can’t like them in Star Wars.
My favorite part about Star Wars is about the Force and it’s many interpretation and use by all manner of living beings, cultures, and force traddions; my least favorite part is the WW2 in Space! ™ combat and its obvious limitations in orbital and deep space encounters.
With such widely divergent viewpoints on what we like about SW, I think we are going to have many interesting conversations over the years. ;)
So, watched Visions last Saturday. I admit, I was hopefull but overall I was left dissapointed.
The only Episodes I liked were The Duel (1), The Ninth Jedi (5) and The Elder (7).
All other episodes were barely watchable to me due to the childish manga style and bad storylines.
I liked the main theme of The Village Bride though.
I really hope season two will have another approach but I fear that it won´t.
Also I would have liked some other storylines than Jedi ones, it´s a bit boring and limiting seeing the various possibilities in the Star Wars Universe.
To be honest that was not worse than the propelling lightsabers of the inquisitors in Rebells.
I really enjoyed #1, #5, #7, and (despite the main character being a furry), #8.
That’s my couple seconds of input.
Agreed. I’d love to hear your opinions. Ive disliked every episode so far.
And why did you? Some more input?
As most episodes differed extremely in style and storytelling it would be interessting to know why you disliked each and every one.
Well, @Dreenan, you’re about to get a full dose, so hang onto your hat.
Okay, here goes. And warning, it does get a bit ranty at times:
It was okay, but I think it was trying far too hard to be artistic.
The art style wasn’t my forte, but it was okay. The story was unoriginal, but not terrible.
My main issues were the always-lit lightsaber, the umbrella lightsaber, and the prevalence of “Sith.”
The lightsaber that always stays lit and must be sheathed in Phrik or Cortosis or something is a cool idea, but it doesn’t make much practical sense. The problem is clearly not in the crystal, but in the mechanism of the saber itself, which should be fairly easily replaced or repaired as it is likely a fault in a single component. Additionally, always staying on means that it’s constantly draining its power cell. If the character is unable to acquire replacement parts, then a jury-rigged fix would be to simply modify the lightsaber such that the power cell is disconnected until he wants to use the saber. Otherwise, there will be times when his saber simply shuts off because it doesn’t have any power. Add to that, a lightsaber that is always on is a threat to everyone and everything. Unlike a sword, it doesn’t take much force to do a lot of damage.
As for the prevalence of Sith, I can remember when there was a rule of two and Sidious ordered Ventress eliminated since she was too much like Dooku’s apprentice. I let them get away with the Inquisitors. After all, it makes sense for the Empire to use fallen Jedi to hunt down Jedi, eliminating any surviving Inquisitors once their usefulness has waned. But the constant addition of new red-saber-wielding Force users bothers me, especially with the hint at the end of the story that he’s killed about a dozen.
I have the same problem with Jedi surviving the purge. I can remember back when it was Yoda, Obi-Wan, and a couple people who soon died, or turned to the dark side and then died. The purge is starting to seem like a really ineffective genocide, and I bet you we have more Jedi confirmed as surviving the purge than we do Jedi confirmed to have been killed in it.
Turning a crystal red is, in canon, a fairly arduous process and requires a decent amount of knowledge. That’s really cool. But their prevalence does not make much sense with that explanation, which frustrates me.
Meh, until we get to the end.
I couldn’t stand the animation style, and chibi Boba Fett made my oil congeal, but it wasn’t so bad. Credit to them that they didn’t have someone escape Fett, considering that it happens far too often for him to be the “best bounty hunter in the galaxy.” I think he is or at least should be, but they will often show “this character is cool!” by having them escape him, which bothers me. Han Solo didn’t even escape him!
(So this one handled that okay.)
The end is whence my exasperation arises.
The “be yourself” song is trite, unoriginal, and unimpressive. I struggle to believe that it would not only electrify every person on Mos Espa (surely they would at least have differing tastes?), but Boba Fett and Jabba the Hutt himself as well! If I were in his place, I’d have hung ALL of them!
The singer has an unpleasant voice, and the content of the song is ludicrous. “Be yourself” is such a terrible message in so many ways, but they miss the sheer irony that this is directed at JABBA THE HUTT whose “self” is not exactly something you want to encourage. “Yes, let’s sing to an intergalactic gangster and mass murderer that he should be himself. That’s a great idea!”
I love rock and metal (it’s pretty much the only music suited for a warplane of my caliber, after all), and this was an affront to all I enjoy. After all, rock at its best can be extremely meaningful and philosophically stimulating. This was the antithesis.
Anyway, moving on…
*Exasperated screaming*
Opening shot: *Exasperated screaming* WHY DID YOU JUST SLAP TWO STAR DESTROYERS TOGETHER AND SAY SuPeR WeApOn? That’s not how this works!
Move to starboard bridge, where we witness a classic example of exposition, as the droid proceeds to detail to the girl stuff she obviously already knows, just to clue the idiot viewers into the fact that ThE DoUbLe sTaR DeStRoYeR Is a sUpEr wEaPoN. Yes, we gathered that. Yet another planet destroyer, much wow.
THAT’S NOT HOW KYBER CRYSTALS WORK. They aren’t “sources of immense power,” they can channel, lens, and focus power! And they do it well! But they aren’t sources of power themselves! BWAAGH!
LIGHTSABERS DON’T WORK LIKE THAT!!!
AND YOU CAN’T BREATHE IN SPACE.*
AND WHY DOES HE HAVE AN X-WING? AND WHY DOES IT WORK LIKE THAT? YOU CLEARLY DON’T UNDERSTAND HYPERSPACE!!!
As you can probably tell, I liked literally nothing about it. The whole thing was a disaster of epic proportions, and nothing made sense. The dialogue was clunky and rather absurd, and the situations were absurdist. This is basically everything wrong with Visions crammed into a single episode and cranked up to 10.
*Yes, I know for some of the time they would’ve been within the Star Destroyer’s shield bubble, but I don’t think it works like that, at least not according to what we’ve seen before. Additionally, there were parts where he was totally exposed to vacuum and definitely not within the DISD’s shield bubble.
What kind of a man uses his granddaughter as a hostage in his stead? That was not only implausible, but completely sickening. Any man who would agree to that deserves in no way to be the chief of the village or tribe or whatever it was.
To quote Don Corleone, “What’s the matter with you? You can act like a man!”
That alone would make me dislike the episode, but all the new-agey “one with nature” hippy Forcey stuff was weird and I just couldn’t get on board with it.
Aside from all that, it was pretty meh. The art was pretty good, though.
This one was okay. I mostly liked it, except for a few things:
The Ghibli-esque absurdism, as I have already discussed, is not something I feel should have a place in Star Wars. Mainly just the asteroid fishing rods.
Does the Force require no practice anymore? She jumps up on the back of her speeder bike and effortlessly parries blaster bolts while also not crashing into anything. Anakin Skywalker? Sure. A girl who has admittedly no training? No, absolutely not. I miss the old days when, like Luke, you had to work to get good (absent the guiding hand of the Force for the DS-1 shot).
This episode also messed up Kyber crystals: They don’t immediately turn color to match the wielder’s Force proclivities, especially not red. To turn red, kyber crystals must “be made to bleed.”
As for the other colors, my understanding of it is that each crystal has its OWN color, and certain crystals (let’s call them “veins”) certain veins of crystal call to certain sorts of Force users. Guardians etc. get blue, typically, while Consulars tend to get green.
“That’s just the style, it doesn’t affect Canon.”
Sure, but I wish they’d be consistent with Star Wars, particularly because the canonicity of this series is of undetermined degree.
Lastly, Jedi surviving the purge. I mentioned this before, so I’ll only recount it briefly. It happens far too frequently, and turns “nearly every Jedi in the galaxy was wiped out in the purge” to “almost all of the 10,000 Jedi were wiped out in the purge, except for the 9,900 that survived.”
That’s all I have watched so far. I intend to watch The Elder, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet.
I do agree that some of the stuff is like:
“What? Make it so it makes no sense? OK!”
But it is legends after all. Just take a look into a legends comic or two and you’ll find the same sort of thing. I agree that it seems that “most” of the Jedi survived in the purge when in reality it was extremely rare that they did. In fact I hate having an entire party be force weilders because I feel like they’re more rare then that.
And lets be honest, I don’t think any true Star Wars fan liked chibi Boba Fett.
Oh yeah. There’s a whole lot I don’t like about Legends, especially the stuff that takes place past ~10 ABY.
However, within the period of ~60 BBY to ~10 ABY, it’s usually pretty sane. At least from what I’ve seen, read, and heard about.
I echo your summary of those episodes. Feels to me like the creators of the episodes really struggle to make logical and believable stories that could be seen to fit into the SW universe. Each of the first 4 episodes grated on me terribly.
I just assumed ships have sound replicators in order to give pilots an idea of what’s going on around them.
I enjoyed all of these! Even cute little chibi Boba. 
I would watch sequels to a few. May have to pick up the Ronin novel.
If they do another series, it would be really cool to see a whole new animation style highlighted.