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Star Wars: Visions: Season 3: Episode 7: The Smuggler

What is it ? : We receive an update on a planet, Zenarita, where the royal family stood against the Empire, so were all arrested except for son, a Prince named Arluu who is now hunted by the Empire.
A smuggler, Chita, bursts into a cantina, demanding to know why his ship is disabled, a man tells him that it's only disabled until he pays his bill. Chita says he already paid it, but the man says that the price doubled, and if he doesn't pay it he may inform the Empire on Chita.
As he leaves the Cantina, Chita is approached by a Cerean Woman, Gleenu, who tells him she will pay off his debt if he helps smuggle someone off world, something he agrees with.
He heads to the docking bay, only to discover the Empire is there, with Stormtroopers guarding access. He spots his co-pilot, a Rodian, who decides that the heat is too much, so leaves.
Gleenu arrives with a young man, and asks what's wrong, to which Chita tells her, and she suggests using the young man as a co-pilot as he is qualified to pilot Republic Cruisers. The young man then suggests getting access to a nearby hangar and using ducts to move between the two, a method he himself has used to avoid detection when practicing piloting.
They pass a nearby road, where the Empire has arrested a young man, and a man in the crowd advises them to hide, as the Empire is arresting any young men the same age as Prince Arluu. The young man with Gleenu identifies himself as Arluu, and attacks the arresting Stormtrooper, and Chita helps taking out another trooper.
The crowd recognises Arluu, and goes down on their knees to him, but they quickly move on, but encounter a bounty hunter at the gate to the other hangar, Gleenu unsheaths her lightsaber from a holder within a cybernetic arm and fights the bounty hunter, causing him to flee. And they make their way to Chita's ship.
They are pursued by the bounty hunter is his ship, but think they can easily escape into hyperspace, only to discover a Star Destroyer is blocking their path, their efforts to evade it are hampered by Tie Fighters launched from the destroyer.
The head back down to the planet surface pursued by Tie Fighters and the Bounty Hunter, who fires missiles at them, but Chita manages to manoeuvre the Tie Fighters into the path of the missiles, destroying both.
The Star Destroyer attempts to block their path once more, but Chita engages the hyperdrive and they streak past it's bow. The later arrive at Yavin IV, and Chita and Gleenu speak, where Gleenu says she couldn't defend her fellow Jedi, but instead pledged to help the Royal family of Zenarita, so she isn't really a Jedi any more, and would appreciate Chita not telling anyone.
Arluu approaches, and asks Chita to work for him, in freeing the youth of Zenarita to come fight for the Rebellion, something Chita agrees to, and they all fly off together in his starship. . . .

High Points : A well done episode, with a decent amount of action, combined with a simple but effective plot, but to me the standout of the episode was Gleenu. Her quiet confidence really sold the character to me, and I wanted to see more. While Chita and Arluu are pretty much kids, she's the bodyguard and Jedi who ensures they're safe, leading without being bossy. I also loved that she has a cybernetic arm, and keeps her lightsaber inside a container built into it's forearm, which looks cool, and makes a lot of sense to keep a device inside another device where it won't be detected.

Low Points : As with most of these Visions episodes, there's not a lot of plot here, but with only 20 minutes, it's very limited what you can tell in that time. But The Smuggler seems particularly light, with the majority of it being them getting into a single hangar and evading pursuit when they launch.
Oh, and while it was just in the background, it did annoy me that we saw Dr Evazan and Ponda Baba in a booth in the Cantina at the start of the episode. I know it's just enough to be there for the fans, but they seem to have become tourists to events in the Star Wars universe, being on Tatooine for the beginning of Luke's journey, on Jedha just before it is devastated by the Death Star, and now here for the rescue of a prince and his joining the Rebellion.

So what do you really think ? : A fairly solid episode, but it really doesn't have any massive spark of originality to make it stand out from the rest of the episodes. No real stylistic choices, or ideas that will make me talk about this one, or want to watch it again. It's absolutely fine, and an entertaining watch for 20 minutes.

Final Words : Almost a Low Point, but I did wonder how Chita, Arluu and Gleenu knew where Yavin IV was? We saw in Andor that it's a super secret base, and even members of the Rebellion didn't know where it was. But these three random characters, knew where it was. And Gleenu is yet another Jedi to survive Order 66, adding to the crowd of Jedi left around..

Score : 8/10

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