Star Wars: Visions (TV Series) Aau's Song (2023) User Reviews

Aau!

[Trey_Trebuchet · 8/10 · 22 May 2023]

I thought this was a pretty good episode, and a fine finale.

The animation is ADORABLE and really beautiful as well. The pacing and voice work was all pretty decent too. Aau was a pretty likable character.

But this was also just a refreshing take on the force, and how it finds people, as opposed to people just finding the force. The whole music angle just felt very original and honestly pretty believable for a Star Wars piece. The ending was really, really satisfying too. I honestly would not mind seeing more of these characters and this animation style.

This might be one of the better episodes of Season 2! I didn't think any of them were inherently bad, some better than others. It was very enjoyable and I hope this show moves forward with an third season.

Do I like this?

[FloppingSeal · 7/10 · 4 May 2023]

I'm honestly conflicted on this one. Every other episode in this season, I have a pretty confident, strong opinion about whether I like it or not. This one, I'm pretty torn. For example, the animation style. I adore the backdrops, but am not sure I like the characters. I enjoy Studio Ghibli and I feel like this may have been somewhat inspired by that type of thing. The characters aren't necessarily designed badly either. It's more the disconcerting way they move with the animation style. Then there's the plot; not much is really going on here, but it is somewhat interesting and unique (up until the end where pretty much the same thing happens as most of these episodes). I like that a jedi manifested in a way other than some combat situation. After some thought, decided I like this one more than I disliked it and can't really pinpoint any specific flaws besides preferential problems. It's a pretty good end to the season, but definitely not the season's highlight.

Kratu Barada Nikto

[southdavid · 6/10 · 7 October 2023]

Slightly odd music-based episode to close out the second season of "Star Wars: Visions".

Aau (Mpilo Jantjie/Dineo Du Toit) tries to help her father Abat (Tumisho Masha) and his people purify Kyber Crystals after the end of the Empire and the defeat of the Sith. She finds a large deposit of crystals as they seem to react to her when she sings, but the instability of the cave structure threatens the whole community.

Again, this episode has the season theme of a matriarchal figure being required for a young, gifted person. This time it's in the form of a Jedi Kratu (Cynthia Erivo) who spots Aau's true power and again, the young Jedi having to leave their family is a plot point. The storyline for this episode is a bit strange, as it's never made clear to us exactly what is causing the threat. Is it Aau's singing, or her father's reaction to it.

Visually though, this one is really strong. South African Animation Studio TriggerFish have a decent pedigree of both short films and features, and their work with Magic Light Pictures have been staples of the UK Christmas schedules for the last few years. This is perhaps the most traditional 3D computer animation in this run and, though it's probably the standard model at the moment, I really appreciated it. There's almost an "Animal Crossing" type look to the characters, with a tactile feeling to the build of the world.

Any series like this is going to have it's good and bad editions and I'm not sure whether through coincidence or design but this season seemed to have themes running through it whereas I remembered the first as being more random. It's a great concept though and I hope it runs to a third season.

The cutest and most innovative animation till now

[gabrieloliver · 10/10 · 17 May 2023]

I wasn't really looking foward to watching this episode, as the previous visions season 2 episodes were lacking A LOT on the animation departament.

But oh my, oh my, the animation and soundtrack on this episode ARE PERFECT. I've never seem this kinda of animation, all characters are fluffly like a stuffed animal, and the setting they are on it's really interesting, like a village on really high mountains.

The story it's nothing to write home about, as most star wars visions episodes, it follows the same pattern of "someone discovering the force", but still, the animation was so surprisenly good that I think it deserves a 10.

I wasn't looking forward to this one... how wrong I was

[sevskirita · 10/10 · 7 May 2023]

At first I didn't really like the character design and wasn't looking forward to this short, but damn.

The story is at its core about the power of our passions. Aau's passions are super potent, but Abat's fear of the effects it'll have on her and him cause him to discourage it and spread his fear to her. It isn't until they both accept it and let go of their fear that her passion takes them to wonderful places.

I can't say it's the most original or in depth idea, but something about the execution hit really hard for me. I can't say for certain what that is, but it's hard to find a place where the execution didn't excel. The pacing was amazing and this felt like a full movie but still not too long, the animation was absolutely stunning and constantly beautiful, the writing was good, and the music hit really well. Little moments like Aau hugging Abat on the back of the motorcycle also really touched me, and I loved the animals and the character designs.

Maybe I'm giving it too much, maybe this should be a 9/10, but I'm saying 10/10. You can really tell they cared for and loved this story and all its aspects, I sincerely hope to see more of this.

Strong Ending for A Good Second Season

[jegablu · 10/10 · 9 November 2023]

From all the shorts seen in this second season; this one seems one of the most "complete" stories so far.

Produced by the South African studio TriggerFish, what they have achieved here were stunning visuals, backgrounds, textures, even with very cute characters and a story simple enough to fit in a 10 to 15 minutes story, which felt like the first episode of an entire season. This short feels a lot like just an introduction of a much larger narrative.

For being a short film, they managed to have these slow moments where you only enjoy the enviroment or the main character reacting to the place where she lives, but then in the action moments, they really pulled off some very dynamic camera angles that really drives you in, and the animation slaps.

Having these little packed stories is a hurricane of fresh air outside the well known Skywalker arc, and very welcome into the Star Wars universe.

Looking forward with great expectation whatever comes next if there's a third season.

Bad end to a bad season

[agentmaxsmart · 3/10 · 24 May 2023]

Okay, let's start with the good. Aau's Song looks great as far as design. The story is okay. Nothing special.

Okay, now that we got the good out of the way. Throughout the second season of Visions, the animation has been terrible. Whether it was CGI, stop-motion or CGI disguised as stop-motion, the animation has been choppy to say the least. It's like Disney tried to save money by taking out half the frames or by doing without in-between animators. And Aau's Song has maybe the worst animation from the whole season. I don't know if it's because of the animation in the Spider-Verse movie or what, but it seems this new style of animation is here to stay. And it's horrible. I don't know if it's the use of computers to animate, rather than than traditional cel animation. I don't know if it's cheaper. Don't know if people actually like this style or what. But for me, it's terrible, just terrible.

Bottom line; except for 2 or 3 episodes, this season was almost unwatchable due to this bad animation. Take also into account that most of the episodes were terrible story-wise too. Very disappointed, considering season 1 was fantastic.