There's a lot more to stormtroopers than meets the eye. Sure, they can be bumbling idiots with terrible aim, mere cannon fodder easily dispatched by Jedi heroes. But they can also be heroes themselves, as Finn proved after he deserted The First Order in The Force Awakens.
Yet, as Andor reminded us just recently, the faceless helmets that stormtroopers wear can also conceal something much darker, a willingness to partake anonymously in evil atrocities such as the Ghorman Massacre. A new short in the third season of Star Wars: Visions season 3 dares to dive deeper still, pulling us directly into the mind of a stormtrooper who's just moments away from death. And not just any stormtrooper, but one working aboard the Death Star as it explodes towards the end of Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope.
Eye of the storm
Writer/director Shinya Ohira is an animation veteran who's worked on some of the most groundbreaking anime films of all time, including Akira and Spirited Away. In Black, he breaks new ground again, confidently blending hallucinatory visuals with minimal dialogue set to Sakura Fujiawara’s vocals and a seemingly incongruous jazz score by Hiroyuki Sawano that wouldn't sound out of place in Mos Eisley Cantina.
On the brink between life and death, a 'green' stormtrooper and a 'red' stormtrooper battle through time and space, fighting aboard the Death Star one minute and an icy planet the next. Kaleidoscopic colours assault the senses as a flurry of floating eyes watch overhead before we switch to row upon row of soldiers who fold in on themselves as the horizon beckons.
Amidst the carnage, Black briefly slows down for a tender moment with the 'green' stormtrooper as he lies in the grass, peacefully gazing up at the sky above where he'll eventually meet his end. But then the horrors continue as the Death Star collapses in on itself, and all we can do is watch as the two stormtroopers put their conflict aside in a desperate attempt to save themselves and each other.
There's no clear throughline or easy narrative to decipher as these unnamed soldiers descend into a psychedelic hellscape of their own imagining, one that also happens to blend with a major canonical Star Wars event.
In fact, it's near-impossible to describe Black and fully do it justice. No one meaning can be drawn from what takes place. Instead, impressions are what stay with you longest after the credits roll.
It's not who these men are or what they're fighting for that matters as much as the fact they're fighting in the first place, trapped in an endless cycle perpetuated by conflict in a galaxy far, far away (much like our own). War changes who we are as people, devastating preconceived notions of identity with a macabre fluidity that's embodied by Black's endlessly shifting visuals.
New horizons
What Ohira and David Production have crafted here is recognisable enough to evoke Star Wars yet abstract enough to touch on broader conceits, as erratic and experimental as it is awe-inspiring. It would have still been effective had it avoided the Star Wars connection entirely. But tying Black into a traditional battle between good and evil, and during the most iconic conflict in said battle, opens the story up to much deeper meaning.
Star Wars: Visions has long prided itself on telling stories far removed from the Skywalker narrative usually prioritised on screen, yet it's in this short, which hews closest to the original trilogy, where the franchise is truly at its boldest.
By using familiar stormtrooper iconography to deconstruct notions of good and evil, Black forces us to consider the broader cost of conflict and the inherent sacrifice that comes with it. While Andor has notably broached such concerns as well, the world of Star Wars has never seen anything like this. Not by any stretch. As Ohira himself said in an early preview at Anime NYC, "It's really kind of something nobody's ever seen before."
Who knew that something so special could come from characters so easily recognisable who are nonetheless faceless and devoid of personality? Therein lies the appeal of Visions, a show that isn't beholden to canon, is free to expand the notion of what Star Wars can be, and in doing so, unlocks the franchise's wider potential.
Star Wars: Visions volume 3 is currently streaming on Disney Plus. For more, check out our list of upcoming Star Wars movies and shows.
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