originally posted at https://canmom.tumblr.com/post/724302...
Remember Star Wars: Visions? We covered it back on Animation Night 73, now almost two years ago. If you don’t, no worries: basically the Animatrix by way of Star Wars. The Mouse threw a bunch of money at some top-class anime studios to make films for their IP, giving the studios pretty free rein to play that however they pleased.
The results were pretty strong! Trigger did ’Promare with Sith’ under Imaishi and a strong realist jedi-as-samurai piece, Geno Studio did an impressive digital facsimile of the 90s cel style, Kinema Citrus told a cool atmospheric scifi mystery with Emi Evans on the soundtrack, and Science Saru did a fun tribute to Astro Boy and a slickly stylised samurai one that, now I’ve seen Inu-oh, definitely has a little of its DNA. A lot of them boiled down to ‘a Jedi fights a Sith’, but delivered with a ton of panache.
Absolutely it was the best thing to come out of the zombie Star Wars memeplex in a long time, although I’d far rather these kinds of short film compilation projects could happen without having to be tied to the Brand. But, if wishes were horses, or y'know whatever these are…
Two years later, we’re back with another round! This time, instead of going to anime studios, the Mouse has turned to various medium-sized animation studios from around the world - many beloved for their unique styles. Expect to see names like Cartoon Saloon (AN14), Aardman (AN50), Mir (The Legend of Korra) and La Cachette (Primal, c.f fufuro). There is strictly speaking one anime studio in there, namely D'Art Shtajio; there’s also the South African studio Triggerfish, who I’ll talk about in more detail when the time comes to do Kizazi Moto. Plus a couple of studios that I’m less familiar with, such as El Guiri in Spain and PunkRobot in Chile.
All in all a very impressive lineup, sure to bring some unique takes on the material.
Is it great that all these studios, known for their brilliant original work, are all here working for the Mouse, making yet more Star Wars? Hahaha. Well. No, but I’m still curious to see what they’ve come up with.
Work is crazy at the moment so I don’t have time to do a big writeup. If you want to read summaries of the films, Wikipedia’s got you covered. I’m of a mind to take them as they come, though!
Animation Night 166 will be starting at 10pm UK time, about 30 minutes from now, at twitch.tv/canmom!
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