Aardman's Star Wars: Visions Season 2 Short Focuses On Mothers And Daughters (For A Change)

The animated anthology series "Star Wars: Visions," which debuted in 2021, may be the best way to explore the franchise's vast and complicated mythology, better even than legacy shows like "The Book of Boba Fett" and "Obi-Wan Kenobi." Every one of the "Star Wars" movies has featured a lot of background detail, often depicting space aliens of all walks of life casually going about their business, oblivious to the adventures that our heroes may be going through at any given moment. In presenting out-of-timeline animated shorts, "Visions" has the leeway to look into the cracks and explore what life is like in the "Star Wars" universe outside the tiresome saga of the Skywalkers. It has only been through expanded universe fiction, and shows like "Visions," that Starwoids have been able to see what non-soldiers are doing in wartime. 

The first seasons of "Visions" featured shorts exclusively from Japanese animation studios, including Studio Trigger ("Little Witch Academia"), Production I.G ("Ghost in the Shell," "Psycho-Pass"), and Kinema Citrus (".hack//Quantum"). As was announced at this year's Star Wars Celebration — a massive annual "Star Wars"-related press event — a new season of "Visions" will be arriving on Disney+ on May 4, 2023 (a.k.a. "May the fourth be with you"). The new season will feature an international cadre of animation studios, including the Irish studio Cartoon Saloon ("The Secret of Kells"), the South Korean Studio Mir ("Voltron: Legendary Defender"), the South African studio Triggerfish ("Kiya and the Kimoja Heroes"), and the English Aardman (Wallace & Gromit). 

The Aardman short, directed by Magdalena Osinska, will be called "I Am Your Mother," a matriarchal reference to the most famous line in "Star Wars" history. When asked about her inspiration for the short at the Celebration, Osinska noted that motherhood has gone largely unexplored in "Star Wars."

It doesn't take a very deep analysis to see that many of the "Star Wars" movies are about fatherhood and the influence one generation of men can have on their sons. Darth Vader, of course, announced at the end of "The Empire Strikes Back" that he was Luke Skywalker's father, a surprising plot point that was repeated in "Return of the Jedi" (Leia was also a child of Vader), and again in "The Rise of Skywalker" (not only was Kylo Ren already Darth Vader's grandson, but Rey was revealed to be Emperor Palpatine's granddaughter). "Star Wars" is lousy with bad dads and absentee fathers. 

When thinking about that, Osinska found that moms and daughters are not often talked about within the Darth Vader dynamic. She said: 

"When I sat down to write the original outline, I questioned myself, what do I love about 'Star Wars' the most?And I love these incredible words and creatures and fascinating politics. But what really draws me in are the relationships. And of course, the relationship between father and son had been explored in 'Star Wars' — and of course, we all know the iconic line "I am your father." – and because I'm a mother myself [of a] six-year-old, I analyze myself constantly as a mom, whether I'm good enough."

When compared to fathers, Osinska felt that mothers should, perhaps, fare better, saying: 

"I wanted to make a film about mother-daughter relationships and motherhood in general. But I wanted to have a bit more positive spin on the original inspiration of Darth Vader and Luke. I think when we are young people, we often don't appreciate our parents and the sacrifices that they made. We don't think that our greatness and talents and skills possibly come from them."

Osinska, born in Poland, also wanted "I Am Your Mother" to reflect an immigration experience, hence why she chose to make a short about an alien species rather than the "human" characters in "Star Wars." She explained:

"I really wanted this film to be like a love letter to all the mothers because I think quite often they are overlooked in films and I think they are the real superheroes. [...] They are aliens — Twi'leks — and I deliberately wanted them to be aliens because that was inspired by the way I felt moving from Poland to the UK, and also the way how my mom did when she visits here, like aliens. And so we had lots of fun designing the kind of perfect balance between Aardman and 'Star Wars' and my style. And then quite quickly we moved into puppet-making."

Osinska was also keen to realize "Star Wars" in stop-motion animation. Aardman works largely in the stop-motion medium, and "Star Wars," thanks to the work of special effects guru Phil Tippett, has long been associated with the form. For Osinska, an Aardman short was, in a way, bringing the franchise full circle. The filmmaker elaborated:

"When I heard about this opportunity to direct a 'Star Wars' film, I literally could not sleep, just imagining making a 'Star Wars' film in stop motion. In the original films, there are stop-motion elements — AT-ATs, Tauntauns, the chase sequence — and it feels really tangible and real and this is basically what we are doing in Aardman, but in miniature. So I love the fact that after so many years, we are doing a stop-motion film again [...] It was like a perfect marriage."

All nine new episodes of "Star Wars: Visions" will be on Disney+ on May 4, 2023.