Star Wars Is Ripping Off Star Trek’s Short Treks With Visions
Disney has just announced a new animated series, Star Wars: Visions, which sounds quite a bit like Star Trek's Short Treks series.
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Forever shall Star Wars and Star Trek be compared to each other. Two behemoths when it comes to science fiction, feature films, animation, novels, and now shorts. Disney Investors Day continued to be a wealth of surprising information when Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy announced that one of the many, many new Star Wars projects is one titled Star Wars: Visions, which sounds quite a bit like Star Trek’s Short Treks.
According to Kennedy, Star Wars: Visions will deliver a series of 10 animated short films that will celebrate the Star Wars galaxy. Instead of the conventional animation seen previously in other Star Wars animated shows, Star Wars: Visions will be made by noted anime creators. With the news of Star Wars: Visions just being announced, Kennedy did not reveal which “world’s best Japanese anime creators” would be involved with the project. The official Star Wars Twitter account blasted out the announcement shortly after Kennedy’s.
Obviously, Trekkies are going to have a field day with this new Star Wars project, which does sound similar to Star Trek: Short Treks, and they may be on to something. Short Treks is a series of stand-alone short films that feature many of the characters and storylines from Star Trek: Discovery, while also bringing in other elements from the Star Trek universe. So, while in theory, both series may seem similar, the differences between the two seem to be noticeable, even though we have yet to see any footage of Star Wars: Visions yet.
For one, Star Trek: Short Treks have been both live-action and animation. Not together at the same time on screen, but one story may include live-action actors, while another will be completely animated. Star Wars: Visions, on the other hand, will employ all animation as it explores the further reaches of the Star Wars galaxy.
There is no word yet what these short, animated films will entail, nor how long of a running time each episode will be. We do not know if we will see any familiar characters, planets or galaxies, or even spaceships. But Star Wars: Visions isn’t the first time Star Wars has been part of an animated series. Back in 2003, Dexter’s Laboratory and Samurai Jack creator Genndy Tartakovsky created Star Wars: Clone Wars in efforts to bridge the gap between features Star Wars: Attack of the Clones and Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. Further down the line, Star Wars aficionado Dave Filoni would continue to flesh out the Clone Wars with his animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars and then introduce Star Wars: Rebels to fans.
Also on deck for Filoni is the recently announced Star Wars: The Bad Batch. This animated series is scheduled to hit the airwaves in early 2021 and plans to focus on a group of clone troopers (The Bad Batch) who were introduced in the final season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars. With The Bad Batch, A Droid Story, and Star Wars: Visions all coming soon to Disney+, the future of Star Wars seems to have a lot of animation in it.
