Not since Andy fell into the pit have televisions pits been this relevant. However, this one's less goofy and more emotional. The protagonist does a pretty good job of inspiring the voiceless masses of background characters to do something about their fate. They also do a lot with not many settings. Most of the episode takes place in the pit. I like the use of the pangolin inspired creature to actually impact the plot in a creative way. This one also continues the trend in this season of being pretty dark given the direction of the plot and even the premise itself. My only complaint would be that there is little to no specific character development. It's entirely focused on a group of nameless people getting inspired to better their situation.
5 Reviews
Carried too much by the premise
sevskirita7 May 2023
Warning: Spoilers
This episode had a fantastic premise, and a lot of emotional weight can be just derived from that. The story of an underclass finding escape by telling the higher classes that they've been lied to about who built their economy, and the symbolism of the kybers, lights, and the guy searching for the light in others and successfully finding it because of his hope is a good one.
However, what I just said is the extent of how much this is fleshed out. Even little things they could've done like have the protagonist protect the shrew from a mean prisoner (thereby showing how reminding people of their inner light can help brighten and save people) are entirely absent from the story. There's also a few odd things, like no lip service being given to enlighten the audience of how the food and water situation is for the prisoners, which somehow seems pretty relevant given how the prisoners act like they can stay indefinitely in a barren pit with no access to external resources except what they came in with.
I rate it a 7/10 because the execution, while simplistic, is enough to help an above average premise have a good impact. The music and animation works well too.
However, what I just said is the extent of how much this is fleshed out. Even little things they could've done like have the protagonist protect the shrew from a mean prisoner (thereby showing how reminding people of their inner light can help brighten and save people) are entirely absent from the story. There's also a few odd things, like no lip service being given to enlighten the audience of how the food and water situation is for the prisoners, which somehow seems pretty relevant given how the prisoners act like they can stay indefinitely in a barren pit with no access to external resources except what they came in with.
I rate it a 7/10 because the execution, while simplistic, is enough to help an above average premise have a good impact. The music and animation works well too.
Boba Fett would never
Trey_Trebuchet22 May 2023
Warning: Spoilers
Ah pits!
Yeah this was alright! I think it's fairly well written and pretty inspiring, but it just didn't quite grip me or speak to me like some of the episodes before it. That's not to say it's totally bad though.
The whole "look for the light" plot was pretty okay, and I especially loved the young girl at the end using the force to make the kyber crystal turn a different shade. It's almost like an origin story for her, even though she isn't the MAIN character I guess.
It's a fairly emotional episode with an ending that does feel pretty rewarding. Maybe I was just a little underwhelmed by how good everything up to this point was. This was still good. I'm sure some will like it a lot. Animation and directing as great!
Yeah this was alright! I think it's fairly well written and pretty inspiring, but it just didn't quite grip me or speak to me like some of the episodes before it. That's not to say it's totally bad though.
The whole "look for the light" plot was pretty okay, and I especially loved the young girl at the end using the force to make the kyber crystal turn a different shade. It's almost like an origin story for her, even though she isn't the MAIN character I guess.
It's a fairly emotional episode with an ending that does feel pretty rewarding. Maybe I was just a little underwhelmed by how good everything up to this point was. This was still good. I'm sure some will like it a lot. Animation and directing as great!
Grand Admiral Thra-ldom
southdavid28 August 2023
The penultimate episode of the second season of "Star Wars Visions" has a Japan based production house for the first time. D'Art Shtajio have an extensive range of credits in both Japan and America and their work on various anime series have been well received. Regular Lucasarts collaborator LeAndre Thomas writes this one which takes a slavery story and put it through the Star Wars slant.
A group of Imperial prisoners are taken to the desert and ordered to dig a giant pit. Eventually they start to turn up Kyber Crystals and as the years pass, a prosperous city develops nearby. When the pit is tapped out the Imperials abandon the slaves at the bottom. Crux (Daveed Diggs) takes it upon himself to scale the shear cliff face. He completes the perilous journey but finds that the city isn't even aware of their presence.
I have to admit, I wasn't anticipating the ending of the short to go as it does. I'd have assumed that the rich city folk would not only know about the pit but be complicit in what's happening there. Fortunately, it's more hopeful than that but not before perhaps the most mentally scarring off screen murder in "Star Wars" since Uncle Lars and Aunt Beru. There are elements of the story that don't particularly make sense to me, such as what the prisoners are eating in the pit or why the imperials wouldn't just move them to another source, presuming there is one.
Visually it's pretty good, it's animation reminiscent of the style I grew up on, which I'd imagine was cheaper then, rather than 'retro' as it feels now. Daveed Diggs voices another character similar to his one on "Snowpiercer" but the performance, and indeed all the performances are good.
Not sure there's much more I'd want to see from this story , but it solid whilst it lasts.
A group of Imperial prisoners are taken to the desert and ordered to dig a giant pit. Eventually they start to turn up Kyber Crystals and as the years pass, a prosperous city develops nearby. When the pit is tapped out the Imperials abandon the slaves at the bottom. Crux (Daveed Diggs) takes it upon himself to scale the shear cliff face. He completes the perilous journey but finds that the city isn't even aware of their presence.
I have to admit, I wasn't anticipating the ending of the short to go as it does. I'd have assumed that the rich city folk would not only know about the pit but be complicit in what's happening there. Fortunately, it's more hopeful than that but not before perhaps the most mentally scarring off screen murder in "Star Wars" since Uncle Lars and Aunt Beru. There are elements of the story that don't particularly make sense to me, such as what the prisoners are eating in the pit or why the imperials wouldn't just move them to another source, presuming there is one.
Visually it's pretty good, it's animation reminiscent of the style I grew up on, which I'd imagine was cheaper then, rather than 'retro' as it feels now. Daveed Diggs voices another character similar to his one on "Snowpiercer" but the performance, and indeed all the performances are good.
Not sure there's much more I'd want to see from this story , but it solid whilst it lasts.
It just doesn't make any sense
Darsel6 June 2023
Warning: Spoilers
I saw all the episodes of the second season today, and while some are better than others, this is the only one that really sticks out because of all the problems it has:
First, this is made by an American studio that's trying to imitate Japanese anime, but it just feels like a bad, low-quality fake (the faces of the prisoners at the beginning, or the really unnecessary and badly done camera motion showing a reptile going down the pit walls, it all sucks). By the way, there is a different episode animated by a Korean studio that also uses anime style, but that one looks way better than this mess (although the story was also pretty "meh").
Now for the story, I just couldn't get my head around it. They just went with the typical "The Empire is very bad" premise, and ran with it. We have the Empire bringing prisoners (including kids, you know, for more dramatic effect) to dig a pit to gather materials to build a city. So far so good. They do show that the pit has some sort of ramp to allow new prisoners to go in (and one would guess, to easily transport food or instruments, as the digging and construction last for quite some time). Then they decide to make a time-lapse, showing how the pit gets bigger and bigger, and how apparently the prisoners keep somehow making the pit wider as they are making it deeper (which implies that the prisoners still had access to the upper sections of the pit, or else they wouldn't be able to make it wider in the way it's depicted).
Eventually the prisoners end up removing the access ramps (why would anyone do that?), so I suppose that the food and instruments were being either thrown down, or transported by jet-pack or small ships. It is not explained. Then, the storm-trooper in charge pulls out some sort of binoculars, and sees that one of the prisoners has reached a hard rock. Those must be some really good binoculars, as the storm-trooper is shown to apparently have a clear horizontal line of sight with the bottom of the pit, which is shown later to be super deep. But let's ignore that goof for now. The leader then just says that the digging is over (I guess the binoculars also told him that there was nothing beneath the hard rock, and that it was covering the whole pit even if only one prisoner had found it...) They just forget about the prisoners in the pit and leave in their space ships. No reasons given. Just because they are super evil. Forget about the expensive equipment and any other resources that may be down there (or taking the prisoners to a different location to keep exploiting them), just leave everything because you are really, really bad/stupid people!
Then the story just keeps getting sillier, with some guy climbing out of the pit with the help of a small reptile, and instead of figuring out a good plan to get help, just goes around like a crazy person screaming in public, which obviously gets him killed by the evil Empire.
Now the prisoners are going to just scream to get people to notice them (great plan!), which magically works (I guess because of The Force, somehow?). You get a bunch of people getting closer to the pit, and some storm-troopers trying to stop them because... well, because they are super evil! Except, once they have threatened the people a bunch of times, the bad storm-trooper has a change of heart, and suddenly just let's the people go through. Again, no reason given whatsoever. Evil suddenly goes dumb, just to make the story work.
You can imagine how it ends, including the cliche scene of "We are saved! Oh, no!, Wait! They are going to leave us!" as all of the citizens walk away from the pit at the same time (talk about an organized mob!), but then coming back with ships to get everyone out.
At the end, we also get a hint that maybe one of the prisoners is force sensitive, which is the only thing that makes this an episode of Star Wars (that and the mention of kyber crystals). We could easily replace the Empire with any other evil organization, and the story wouldn't change a bit!
They could have made a good story. The bases were right there, but they decided to just cut some corners, and the final result is a pretty stupid episode. Don't waste your time!
Now for the story, I just couldn't get my head around it. They just went with the typical "The Empire is very bad" premise, and ran with it. We have the Empire bringing prisoners (including kids, you know, for more dramatic effect) to dig a pit to gather materials to build a city. So far so good. They do show that the pit has some sort of ramp to allow new prisoners to go in (and one would guess, to easily transport food or instruments, as the digging and construction last for quite some time). Then they decide to make a time-lapse, showing how the pit gets bigger and bigger, and how apparently the prisoners keep somehow making the pit wider as they are making it deeper (which implies that the prisoners still had access to the upper sections of the pit, or else they wouldn't be able to make it wider in the way it's depicted).
Eventually the prisoners end up removing the access ramps (why would anyone do that?), so I suppose that the food and instruments were being either thrown down, or transported by jet-pack or small ships. It is not explained. Then, the storm-trooper in charge pulls out some sort of binoculars, and sees that one of the prisoners has reached a hard rock. Those must be some really good binoculars, as the storm-trooper is shown to apparently have a clear horizontal line of sight with the bottom of the pit, which is shown later to be super deep. But let's ignore that goof for now. The leader then just says that the digging is over (I guess the binoculars also told him that there was nothing beneath the hard rock, and that it was covering the whole pit even if only one prisoner had found it...) They just forget about the prisoners in the pit and leave in their space ships. No reasons given. Just because they are super evil. Forget about the expensive equipment and any other resources that may be down there (or taking the prisoners to a different location to keep exploiting them), just leave everything because you are really, really bad/stupid people!
Then the story just keeps getting sillier, with some guy climbing out of the pit with the help of a small reptile, and instead of figuring out a good plan to get help, just goes around like a crazy person screaming in public, which obviously gets him killed by the evil Empire.
Now the prisoners are going to just scream to get people to notice them (great plan!), which magically works (I guess because of The Force, somehow?). You get a bunch of people getting closer to the pit, and some storm-troopers trying to stop them because... well, because they are super evil! Except, once they have threatened the people a bunch of times, the bad storm-trooper has a change of heart, and suddenly just let's the people go through. Again, no reason given whatsoever. Evil suddenly goes dumb, just to make the story work.
You can imagine how it ends, including the cliche scene of "We are saved! Oh, no!, Wait! They are going to leave us!" as all of the citizens walk away from the pit at the same time (talk about an organized mob!), but then coming back with ships to get everyone out.
At the end, we also get a hint that maybe one of the prisoners is force sensitive, which is the only thing that makes this an episode of Star Wars (that and the mention of kyber crystals). We could easily replace the Empire with any other evil organization, and the story wouldn't change a bit!
They could have made a good story. The bases were right there, but they decided to just cut some corners, and the final result is a pretty stupid episode. Don't waste your time!
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