Star Wars: Visions delivered on its promise of bringing a galaxy far, far away into the world of anime. Season two is on the way in 2023 with a focus on global animation studios, but one fan has got ahead of the curve and imagined everyone’s favorite original trilogy characters (plus George Lucas!) in anime form.
The images come courtesy of Redditor ideal-typical (aka @SneakyGecko), who previously dazzled us with a collection of prequel-era animefied characters. Check out the new set:
Visions aims to tell stories that wouldn’t necessarily work in live-action, though after this we’d be eager to see some more canonical stories set during A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi featuring these iconic characters. Heck, why not bring in luminaries like Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford to provide some voice work?
These images apparently begin with an AI art prompt, though the images are then reworked in Photoshop to create the final product.
Beyond Visions, there are rumors of a Lucasfilm/Production I.G. collaboration for a future anime project, as Kathleen Kennedy and Dave Filoni visited the studio a few months ago. If they’re looking for some inspiration for how to rework these familiar faces into animated form, then look no further.
In the meantime, we should begin looking forward to the next batch of Visions. Executive Produce James Waugh has teased a wider range of styles in season two, saying (in an interview with Deadline) that:
“The first anthology is anime because we all loved the style of it, but personally my intention for Visions was to always let it be a more broad palette, because there’s so much great animation work going on in the world. There’s so many interesting voices in all sorts of other mediums that are really focused on animation right now.”
We don’t have a release date yet, though it’s penciled in for Spring 2023. Watch this space.