Lucasfilm’s animated Star Wars: Visions Disney+ TV show has an unusual relationship with the franchise’s canon. Star Wars has always been a transmedia franchise – the first tie-in novel, Alan Dean Foster’s Splinter of the Mind’s Eye, released before The Empire Strikes Back. That naturally means questions of canonicity are particularly important to Star Wars, especially after Disney acquired Lucasfilm in 2012. Disney promised a new approach to canon, where everything was equal regardless of the medium.
Star Wars: Visions, however, is Disney’s first large-scale Disney+ TV show deliberately designed not to fit into the canon. Each season of Star Wars: Visions features episodes by different art houses around the world; season 1 focused on Manga, while season 2 went global. This allows season 1 to creatively reinterpret the Skywalker saga, with creative teams reinterpreting George Lucas’ beloved story. Star Wars: Visions season 2 has taken a different approach, however, raising the possibility these stories really could be viewed canon.
Why Lucasfilm Chose To Make Star Wars: Visions Non-Canon
Star Wars may have always been concerned about questions of canon, but in truth the franchise has long displayed a remarkable amount of flexibility. The old Star Wars Expanded Universe – now branded Legends – featured stories that were declared “Infinities,” meaning they didn’t count toward canon. Lucasfilm has actually continued that tradition post-Disney, with George Mann writing several anthologies of short stories viewed as in-universe legends that may or may not be true. Star Wars: Visions season 1 is simply the logical next step in this, allowing creative teams the freedom to tell whatever story they wish. This led to the creation of tremendous new characters such as Star Wars‘ Sith Ronin, popular enough to appear in novels and comic books set during that timeline.
Star Wars: Visions Season 2 Tells Stories That May Well Be Canon
There does seem to have been a subtle change in direction for Star Wars: Visions season 2, however. Where season 1 tended to reinterpret George Lucas’ saga, season 2 attempts to weave new patterns with the classic lore. Several episodes explore themes of rebellion and colonialism using the Empire; 88 Pictures’ “The Bandits of Golak,” for example, places Indian culture and architecture on the familiar Star Wars galaxy, while Studio La Cachette’s “The Spy Dancer” uses concepts from the French Resistance during World War II. The most intriguing is El Guiri’s “Sith.” Speaking at Star Wars Celebration 2023, director Rodrigo Blaas explicitly stated he imagined it to be set 3,000 years before the Skywalker saga, during the first war between the Jedi and the Sith.
There’s a sense in which this approach gives Lucasfilm an even greater degree of creative freedom. Should viewers respond well to the characters or concepts introduced in Star Wars: Visions season 2, individual episodes can be folded into the canon with ease. That means new characters like Lola (from “Sith”) can return, and the beautiful worlds introduced in episodes like “The Bandits of Golak” and “Aau’s Song” can potentially be revisited. Star Wars: Visions season 2 can truly profit from this ambiguity.
