A few thoughts and analysis based on the new trailer for Disney’s upcoming TV Show entitled Star Wars Resistance. I have my doubts if I’ll like it and here I’ll tell you why!
(If you can’t watch the video, your AdBlocker may be blocking it.
Please, consider white-listing VULKK.com to help and support the site. Thank you!)
I held it off as long as I could. I’ve now seen the new Star Wars: Resistance trailer about 12 times. It’s flashy, it’s fast paced and it’s colourful! Why isn’t that enough? Because I’m not a 6 to 12 years old kid? Most likely. Or perhaps because its only relation to Star Wars are the ships and a couple of characters? Don’t jump to conclusions just yet. It’s not all bad. Join me for the duration of this blog post, take a look at the short video too and share your own thoughts in the comments below after that.
Most of all, remember, that this blog post is based on the information and footage released BEFORE the official premiere of the show. A lot can change after 7th of October. I hope in a positive way!
First, a few intro words. Star Wars: Resistance is an anime-inspired animated TV show premiering on 7th of October 2018 on the Disney Channel. This is the latest product of Dave Filoni and his crew and is the third different Star Wars Animated TV Series in the last ~10 years. The show introduces a few new to the Star Wars universe characters among which is our main “hero-wannabe” Kazuda Xiono (a young pilot recruited by the Resistance) and also a bunch of other supporting characters such as Yeager, Tam, Neeku and the droid Bucket. Oscar Isaac and Gwendoline Christie voice over their own characters – Poe Dameron and Captain Phasma. it seems that they both will also be playing a supporting role, allowing the main cast of new “heroes” to shine. Or so I think based on the trailer and the info we’ve got so far.
Now, let’s think about the presentation and the trailer.
In one minute we got a ton of new information about characters, events, time-table and even some nice action scenes. The background music, especially with the tic-tac-ing clock sound effect suggest that the whole show will be fast-paced with lots of action.
The style of animation is completely different from what Star Wars: Clone Wars and Star Wars: Rebels used. Here we see an anime-inspired 3D animation. It is much brighter and colorful than what we remember from Dave Filoni’s previous projects. It’s also at the same time simple and yet very detailed. You can really notice the smallest elements on the clothing of the characters. Their faces and expressions are so vastly different from the “traditional” Star Wars 3D animation. It will certainly take me some time to get used to that. Most likely because I don’t watch a lot of Anime and this is new to me. Actually, when I first saw the teaser a couple of months back, the animation and style reminded me of the second Dead Space movie.
To be honest with you, I prefer this style before the Clone Wars and Rebels one. Let’s talk about that for a bit. As the official information says – the Star Wars Resistance is inspired by anime, but it’s not an anime show. The sharp movements and big eyes may fool some viewers, but make no mistake, this is western animation.
Due to my lack of experience with anime, I reached out to a friend for an advice and opinion. He’s a giant anime fan and I trust his opinion. What he told me, kind of shocked me at first. “Thats not anime, the quality is too low.Even the cheap anime studios nowadays have better quality than that” – he said. We’ll all have to wait a bit, see at least a few episodes and then start judging the quality of the animation. I really liked the shadow effects. It’s something that the old 3D animated style for Rebels and Clone Wars was lacking a bit in my opinion.
Check out the images I’ve used from the trailer for this post. All faces seem more detailed than any character’s face from Rebels or Clone Wars. Another reason I think this may be a change in the right direction.
My little nephew is just starting to enjoy the Kids TV Shows and recently I happened to check out a few of the newer Disney animations and was able to compare them to some of the old classic movies. I was shocked how much Disney’s style has changed. And I’m not talking just about the drawing and animations – those are fine, actually. But the way characters look, behave and speak… Wow! Nothing of the sweet and innocent classics is present in today’s Disney Princesses. They are clumsy, funny, loud and feisty. See where I’m getting with this? The characters from the Resistance trailer behave exactly in the same manner. Kaz is a silly teenager with jerky and схарп movements. He speaks loud and seems to be excited a lot… if not all the time. He also seems to have a habit of spawning chaos often. Of course, I know, it’s not right to judge based on a trailer, but the amount of silly jokes and stupid childish dialogues we heard in the span of less than a minute (the duration of the trailer), is ridiculous.
Please, don’t get me wrong. Fun is fun! It’s just that Star Wars is not all about the fun. There’s drama, real feelings and most of all THE CONFLICT! In the trailer it seemed like nobody took things seriously, except maybe Yeager. Even Poe seemed to be willing to play along with Kaz’s casualness.
Let’s move on to the plot hints and what Disney shared in terms of info about the first episode. No major spoilers, nothing to be worried about, really. You can keep reading.
In the one-hour premiere “The Recruit,” Poe and BB-8 assign Kaz to the Colossus, where he meets a cast of colorful new aliens, droids and creatures. While undercover to spy on the growing threat of the First Order, Kaz works as a mechanic and lives with Poe’s old friend Yeager — a veteran pilot who operates a starship repair shop run by his crew: Tam, Neeku and a battered old astromech called Bucket.
Here’s what I made out of this. Kaz is a new-to-this-job clueless teenager, who desperately wants to be an ace pilot, because of… reasons. Despite his immature behavior in front of Poe, he somehow gets the assignment to join the Colossus, find the “good guys” and do some good in the name of the Resistance. I, kind of, had the feeling that it’s all a joke to everybody involved, except for Yeager… maybe… right… OK,I said that already.
Star Wars is not a joke, Disney!
It’s fine when silly (and very funny) LEGO animated TV Series get produced, but when you call something a Canon Star Wars Story, some rules have to auto-apply. Some dared to call the original Star Wars was to be more targeted at growing up individuals, rather than adults. However, when Episodes 4 and 5 were released, things got serious. Critics then called it a Space Drama, Space Opera… you name it. The Star Wars Saga was and I want it to continue to be something more dramatic and epic than funny and silly comedy.
In the end, let me finish off by saying that I never truly enjoyed neither the Clone Wars, nor the Rebels TV Shows. I did, however, love the original Clone Wars shorts on Cartoon Network. I have been stuck in the middle of Clone Wars Season 3 for years. Only recently I finally got myself to continue watching and am happy so many of my friends as well as tons of viewers, readers and fans urged me to. “Clone Wars grew up with each season, man, you have to finish it” – they used to tell me. Boy were they right! With Rebels I saw no such thing. Things started to get serious in Season 3, but then everything was washed away with some boring filler episodes in the middle. The ending was good enough, but still nothing to make me scream “I want more, damn you, Disney!”.
The new Star Wars: Resistance seems to be taking things backwards. I don’t know if Disney now wants to target new audiences with this completely new style of animation and character names. I don’t mind any of that, of course. What I have a big grudge against is the lack of Epic-ness in this trailer. I saw no plot, no drama elements, no serious talk. Just jokes, waving of hands and big round eyes of silly looking characters.
How many times did I use “silly” in this blog post? Do you think I overdid it? I don’t. It’s six, by the way :)
All of this seems negative. I know. When it comes to Star Wars, I usually stay positive. I knew I’m going to like the Solo Movie and I did. I never cared how many of my friends criticized it and for what reasons. It was a good Star Wars movie. Weak in several spots (including story), but I still liked it. I am desperately hoping I can tell the same about Resistance once I see a few of its episodes.
Your turn! What do you think? Do you have high hopes for the new Star Wars TV Show and why?
