Star Wars: Visions: Season 2: Episode 6: The Spy Dancer
What is it ? : A couple of Stormtroopers board a MTV and travel through an occupied city to a cabaret, removing their helmets they join the crowds of other Imperial personnel entering the building and one of the hostesses flirts with them and escorts them to their table. The people of this world are human like, but with short horns and heterochromia, where one eye is a different colour to the other.
The show begins, and the star performs acrobatic tumbles while trailing veils behind her, that she uses to suspend herself above the stage. She dips down into the crowd, mesmerising them with her grace, while planting small tracker beacons on them.
Towards the end of her show, she spots a shadowed figure in one of the booths high above the stage, she is surprised and shocked and tumbles to the ground needing rescued by one of her colleagues, as she falls she flashes back to seeing a figure like this before, an Imperial officer who came to her town years ago and stole her infant son.
She orders the rest of the staff to evacuate via pre-prepared tunnels, while she arms herself with a bracer that stabs out a blade. She puts on another show, making her way up towards the booth, but when she is ready to strike, she freezes as it is not the person she thought it was, this one has an eye patch and is much younger, and her hesitation allows his K-series bodyguard to act throwing her back down to the stage.
The officer leaps down and order her put to death as the stormtroopers grab for their weapons and put their helmets back on. She attacks, her tumbles and spins becoming deadly as she takes out numerous Stormtroopers before grabbing the officer and carrying him up to the roof.
She tells him of last seeing someone dressed like him, someone who stole her son who would be the same age as the officer. She wonders what is beneath his cap and eyepatch. As walkers arrive and a ship swoops down to rescue the officer, she gives him a small holo of her son.
Once the officer is out of the way, the walkers begin bombarding the cabaret, and her staff swoop in to rescue her, fleeing into space in a ship.
Meanwhile aboard an Imperial vessel in orbit, the officer watches the holo, before removing his cap revealing scars where horns were removed. . .
High Points : I really liked this one, as it was very reminiscent of the real world occupation of France, with the resistance taking advantage of Nazi officers during their off time, especially with cabarets and shows in Paris.
So the comparisons between Nazi's and the Empire are obvious, so this situation feels very right and I'm surprised we've not seen it before.
The plot is equally excellent, with the realisation that the officer is her son, the eyepatch covering his heterochromia (or required due to an eye being removed to get rid of the alien deformity), and his cap hiding the scars where his horns were cut off. It's an episode that I really want to see the continuing story of.
Low Points : Again, there's not a lot that I dislike about this one. Perhaps the extremely chonky Stormtrooper at the very beginning which I found kind of silly. But these aren't front like troops, and are an occupying force, so aren't seeing action as much as other troopers.
So what do you really think ? : For a story from France I really liked they were tying their national story and connecting it to Star Wars. And I was really happy to see them using MTV's early in the episode, these were part of the Mini-Rig line of toys made by Kenner (Palitoy in the UK) for the original Star Wars line of figures they released back in the 1970's-80's. It was like seeing an old friend again and brought a smile to my face.
Final Words : This is where Visions excels, in giving a cultural interpretation to Star Wars, and really made it an interesting as well as an enjoyable watch.
Only a few to go, I wonder if they'll keep the standard as high as the last few episodes have set it.
Score : 9/10
Comments made about this Article!
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11/May/2023 13:54:43
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Posted by josejay00@gmail.com
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I didn't make the connection between this episode and the Nazi occupation of France until you mentioned it.
I also agree that this could serve as a primer for another Star Wars animation series.
Maybe I'm spoiled by the anime, but I think the animation could have been better in this episode.
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12/May/2023 07:50:15
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Posted by Freddy
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I'm not the biggest fan of the animation in this one, but to a degree that's the charm of Visions that you get to see a wide variety of styles, some great, some not so great.
I watched this one with my eldest son, and he got really annoyed at how quickly I picked up on the Occupied France connection. But I'm of that age where there was a lot of WW2 drama around when I was young, and french spies behind occupied Nazi lines was all to common and embedded into my brain that it just seemed familiar.
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