With the introduction of Star Wars: Visions in 2021, Star Wars fans got a taste of what their favorite franchise could look like through the lens of Japanese storytellers. Now with Star Wars: Visions Volume 2, Lucasfilm has brought in animators from around the world to craft short films which casts an even broader net around what a galaxy far, far away could look like infused with the vibrant—and sometimes tragic—cultural components in a very authentic way.

Ahead of the premiere of Volume 2, Collider had the opportunity to chat with the anthology's executive producers, James Waugh, Jacqui Lopez, and Josh Rimes, about the shorts, whether they could inspire a novelization like Volume 1's "Ronin," why "Journey to Dark Head" was the only short told in the animators' native language, and what animation styles they would love to see utilized in a potential Volume 3.

COLLIDER: So this may have been a special situation with Visions Volume 1, but with one of the shorts it inspired Ronan, and so I'm curious to know if that's something that could potentially happen with Volume 2. I know I personally had a short that I was like, “This is my favorite. I would love to see more of this universe told.”

JAMES WAUGH: Okay, now I need to know which short.

JACQUI LOPEZ: Yeah, which one?

It's “Sith,” and I also had in mind who I would love to see tell that story, as well.

WAUGH: Alright, well, I'm curious about that, too, but I think all of them, is the truth. All of them have the potential of doing that, I think, and I've said this a few times actually, I think it's a testament to the filmmaking. It's a testament to each one of these creators who had something to say, had a real character story that they needed to tell, and I think we're all deeply invested in those characters.

So, is there something that's being planned at the moment? There is not something that's gonna be out within the launch time, but it's Star Wars, so we love the ability to expand these stories, and tell stories that cross medium. So it's something we're definitely considering heavily. It's always hard to assess which one because I wanna see what Daal’s story is; I want to see what happens to her. You kind of wanna see Kalina go off and become an amazing X-Wing pilot, and do all sorts of amazing things. We'll see what the future holds, but we always have an appetite to push out [stories].

I know all three of you have said in the past how much you love animation and how much it means to you, and I'm curious if your relationship with the medium has changed, working on Visions. When you sit down to watch an animated project, do you find yourself passively watching it or really thinking about the mechanics of how things are made?

WAUGH: Oh, gosh.

LOPEZ: I'm, unfortunately, from production and visual effects, so for me, it's hard for me to take that hat off sometimes, but it happens. It happens if it's a good story. I get swept up and I forget everything, like I forget, “Oh, my God! That scene must have been so difficult,” you know. But no, I think the beauty of animation is that it's storytelling, and it's a beautiful medium for storytelling, and it can just sweep you away so quickly because you're able to suspend your belief and get into that whole new world so easily.

WAUGH: I'm sure you'll say the same thing; we work in the story trade all day long. We love building stories, deconstructing them, and finding like, why does the story work? Why doesn't it? How does the story reflect the character change, or say something? And so, it's hard not to not be dissecting narrative stories. It's what we do, it's what we love.

But, a good story will take that away for a moment, even when you do it all day long. And so, I don't know if I would say working on Visions has made that change, but it's opened the doors to new ways to see stories, and new potentialities to see Star Wars.

Going off of that, I love animation as well. I think it's one of the most forward-looking mediums out there because there's so much potential. What I loved about Volume 2 was that there were a lot of different styles of animation, more so than Volume 1, and I'm curious, is there any format that hasn't been explored yet that any of you would love to see in a potential Volume 3?

WAUGH: Oh, that's really good question.

JOSH RIMES: Oh, I know. Puppetry, like puppets.

WAUGH: I’m not kidding. Muppets.

That's exactly what I was thinking!

WAUGH: Yeah, I mean, this is a platform, this is a canvas that can really explore all those different things. There's really great stuff going on in the world right now. I've joked with them both, but I mean it, I've sent them some of the work of this DJ, kid Koala, who puts on a puppet show, its’ really incredible. So, could Visions sustain something like that? Maybe. I think it's all open at this point, so I don't know. That's the one that's in my head.

RIMES: Star Wars is kind of puppetry to begin with.

WAUGH: It is!

LOPEZ: But we are big puppet fans, so hopefully one day we can get there.

I am speaking to my people then. Something I really appreciated at the heart of Visions Volume 2, each of the shorts seemed to be about that struggle between light and dark rather really blatantly, or even in subtle ways like, “I Am Your Mother.” Peer pressure is kind of the dark side, in essence for that short. Is that something you intentionally sought out, or is that just something that naturally happened because that's the crux of the struggle in Star Wars?

RIMES: I think it naturally happens because that's the crux of the struggle. We always, when we talk to any writer, filmmaker, [say], “Tell a story. Take the Star Wars out of it, and what happens?” And I think so much of what George [Lucas] created with Luke looking at those twin suns. These are really stories of young people entering a new world, leaving the confines of home, and making those choices. And it's like, am I gonna make a bad choice or a good choice today? It's that balance of selflessness and selfishness that either leads toward the dark with too many bad decisions or leads toward self-enlightenment by making the right ones. So there's just such a universal language to that idea and those kinds of stories across cultures that really resonated.

“Journey to the Dark Head,” I noticed, was the only one presented in a language other than English. I was wondering, were there ever any conversations with the other studios about presenting their stories in their own language, or how did that conversation kind of go down?

LOPEZ: Well, in Volume 1 they were all in Japanese, and so we made a big effort to stay true to the artistic intent and dub it in English with a really great cast. So all the filmmakers that we reached out to were comfortable working in English, and so we thought it'd be nice for their story to be authentically told, for them to tell it in English, so we are not dubbing it.

But, what's great is some of the actors that they used did it in both languages. So you'll have some of the same actors, not always, but for example, in “Sith,” those actors could perform in English and Spanish. So that was really, really nice, which is something we couldn't do in Volume 1.

WAUGH: Yeah, I think we were open. If someone felt that their story had to be told primarily in Spanish then, yeah, absolutely. But they were all very, very much happy and wanted to kind of tell an English story, or a story using English. But Studio Mir really wanted to do theirs in Korean first, which we support that, and we thought it was gonna be great to have that be the primary expression.

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I really loved looking for Easter eggs in each of the shorts and seeing the creative ways they incorporate things that we recognize from Star Wars into their stories in really natural ways. Is there any one Easter egg in one short that really stood out to you that you're like, “Wow, I can't believe they worked it in so seamlessly?”

RIMES: Oh, well, “I Am Your Mother” is like an Easter egg fest.

LOPEZ: Egg hunt!

RIMES: I think in Anni's bedroom there's a poster of her and some other Ace pilots, and maybe even a band poster from Star Waver, from the band from Visions Volume 1. Those are some of my favorites.

LOPEZ: Yeah, they threw in so many Easter eggs!

WAUGH: There's not really Easter eggs, though, with a lot of them. Or there are, but it's more of just like the cave in Cartoon Saloon’s short, “Screecher’s Reach,” is so inspired by the cave in The Empire Strikes Back. So I wouldn't call that an Easter egg, but it's the influence of that [which] you see kind of exuding through all these shorts.