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Star Wars: Visions Early Buzz: What Critics Are Saying About The New Anime Series

Star Wars: Visions Lucasfilm
By Jeremy Mathai

So far, everything we've seen from "Star Wars: Visions" has indicated a unique and refreshing spin on the beloved franchise, featuring an entirely different stylistic approach that many fans of the movies have never seen before. Despite one's feelings on the recently-concluded and surprisingly divisive Sequel Trilogy, it's hard to argue with the notion that some sort of revitalization was sorely needed to help shake things up a bit.

Recently, Lucasfilm started revealing intriguing character details for both the heroes and villains of the anthology series in the hopes of drumming up even more excitement for "Star Wars: Visions" and, now that we're a week away from the premiere, the embargo has finally lifted on social media reactions. Keep reading to see what the critics are saying about "Star Wars: Visions."

Star Wars: Visions Early Buzz

Star Wars: Visions Lucasfilm

Great news, "Star Wars" fans! The first wave of opinions on "Star Wars: Visions" is almost uniformly positive, heaping praise on the gorgeous animation, the fun adventures, and the variety of storytelling styles spread across all nine episodes.

/Film's own Anya Stanley reports that of all the anime shorts, "The Duel" impressed her the most, thanks in no small part to the Kurosawa-inspired plot and especially Lucy Liu's voice acting.

Journalist, filmmaker, and "Star Wars" author (and regular /Film contributor!) Bryan Young refers to "Star Wars: Visions" as "nothing short of fantastic," complimenting the assortment of stories on display and echoing the idea that "Star Wars" could use more of this injection of creative energy.

The rest of the critical responses to "Star Wars: Visions" cover a whole range of glowing praise, crowning the series as a "triumph" and "the future of Star Wars," exploring the mythos of the universe in a way the movies simply never could.

Many of the responses to "Star Wars: Visions" go out of their way to point out that there's something here for every kind of fan, which is precisely what I hoped for from a wide-ranging anthology series that's set in a universe as sprawling as this one. A chief complaint I've had with recent "Star Wars" media is the tendency to be overly-reverential to the Original Trilogy, almost entirely at the expense of telling new and exciting stories that could push the universe forward ("The Last Jedi" was a notable exception to this rule but, well, we saw how that went over on the internet). This seems like an even bigger step in that direction, boldly blazing a new trail that brings the mythology of the series back to the roots of what inspired George Lucas in the first place.

"Star Wars: Visions" premieres on Disney+ on September 22, 2021, and we couldn't be more excited.

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