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Star Wars: Visions: Season 3: Episode 2: The Song of Four Wings

What is it ? : A young woman rides a speeder bike across the surface of a planet, the speeder bike has a side car with a droid in it, that she plugs in an audio tape to listen to music. She receives a briefing from a Mon Calamari, revealing that she works for the rebellion, is a princess and is on a scouting mission, the Mon Cal criticises her droid as being old, but she has had it since she was young and it's the only droid which can play her music.
She finds a village and her droid detects something within so they explore, discovering it is still burning from a recent Imperial attack. She finds an origami bird with four wings, and discovers a young Gigoran child hiding in a basement surrounded by origami birds, she bonds with the child, Woopas, over the origami birds which are modelled on a Gigoran legend, and tells him that her name is Crane, and her droid is called Tor-Tu.
They try to return to their speeder bike, but find it's been discovered by Snowtroopers, which she begins firing at, but it's not until Woopas joins in the fight with his sling that she manages to defeat them while they're distracted.
She is unsure why the Empire would attack this village, but as they head out into the wilderness on her speeder bike, they detect a MIning Crawler and Tor-Tu scans beneath discovering they are on top of a supply of hyperfuel, Coaxium.
They are detected by some AT-AT's which erupt from the snow, and while Woopas takes a thermal detonator from Tor-Tu and manages to use his sling to land it in an unarmoured spot on the AT-AT's neck, destroying it. The other AT-AT transforms, opening up to reveal numerous sonic charge launchers.
They weave through the massive blasts, but are thrown from their bike, and Crane calls on Tor-Tu, which transforms into an X-Wing like armoured suit for Crane. She flies towards the remaining AT-AT with it's launchers, but her weapons won't fire, until Woopas uses the Force to reconnect a plus inside Tor-Tu, and they destroy the mining crawler and the explosion takes out the remaining AT-AT as well.
Later aboard her YT-2400, Crane briefs the Mon Calamari officer, and realises that Woopas is force sensitive as they blast off into hyperspace.

High Points : While it's very anime and very transformers, I really like the modified AT-AT, where it's rear compartment has been modified to contain multiple projectile launchers. And while I was watching, I wondered why the Empire had attacked the village as there seemed to be no tactical advantage, but the story explained that, so made sense to me.

Low Points : But this episode really feels like a Star Wars remix, there's a Rebel Princess, Coaxium, a Sand Crawler, AT-AT's, Snowtroopers, etc, all thrown in together, and while it means we feel familiar quickly, it makes everything feel derivative without any splash of ingenuity or creativity.
I also laughed out loud when the AT-AT's burst out of the snow, rather than the snow cracking, and these massive mechanical vehicles rising out of the snow to put fear into the heroes hearts as they face them. Instead the AT-AT's almost leap into the air, hovering there for a moment in a very anime way, and Crane is surprised when the blasters on her speeder bike are ineffective against the AT-AT armour.
Oh, and I know that this is an Anime, but a Japanese animation studio, but it with transforming vehicles and droids that bolt onto a character to become a super suit of armour with lasers and jet engines, it just feels like there's too much anime in my Star Wars.

So what do you really think ? : It was fine, with it's redeeming feature being that it's short. The story didn't have anything which would have carried my attention for long, but at around 15 minutes, it had enough going on to pass the time.
I also found it very odd that the main characters look like typical Anime characters, while the Stormtroopers, AT-AT's, etc, all look like they're from Star Wars. The Snowtroopers look realistic in their movements, as if they're rotoscoped or the like, making the heroes look like they've accidentally stumbled into the Star Wars universe from an Anime.

Final Words : I don't know if I'm just not in the mood for these episodes at the moment, but I feel like I'm being very down on them, where I pretty much enjoyed the first couple of seasons, this time I'm just disappointed so far.
I am watching them one a day for review purposes, but have read online that people think this episode was the best in the season, which as you've just read, I wasn't impressed with. And I find myself looking forward to getting back to The Young Jedi Adventures, as that has the excuse that it's for little kids, so I don't expect too much, whereas these are supposed to be the products of famed animation studios allowed to express their creativity in the Star Wars universe as they wish, and sadly I'm just not seeing that.

Score : 8/10

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