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Recap / Star Wars: Visions "Screecher's Reach"

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A young girl and a couple of her friends, seeking some relief from the boredom of their work, venture out into a cave. However, the cave the group is going to may be harboring some very dark secrets behind it.

Tropes:

  • Affably Evil: The Sith Mother is clearly evil, but she remains kind to Daal and gives her the choice of potentially staying with her friends.
  • Alas, Poor Villain: The Screecher's true appearance is revealed when Daal pins her beneath a boulder, revealing her to be an old hermit Sith living alone in a cave. Unfortunately, she has gone mad and attacks anyone who comes near. As she struggles for her lightsaber, Daal ends up killing her with it, and is left horrified by the act.
  • Be Careful What You Wish For: Daal wants to leave and find a better life. She gets what she asked for, but as a Sith apprentice and she has to leave her friends.
  • The Chain of Harm: A carving on the Screecher's cave displays a record showing that the Mother was once her apprentice before defeating her. An act Daal will likely be made repeat one day as a Sith.
  • Children Forced to Kill: In the moment, it looks like Daal reacts on instinct to grab the Screecher's lightsaber, acting in self-defense. It's not too long later that we're shown that it was actually part of the Sith initiation offered to her if she wanted to escape her terrible life.
  • The Corruptor: The test Daal is given is to kill the Screecher and become a Sith herself.
  • Cruel Twist Ending: That Jedi artifact that Daal relies on to give her the strength to survive her ordeal... turns out to not be a Jedi artifact at all. A Sith made it, and she used it as a beacon to take Daal away.
  • Darker and Edgier: Seasons 1 and 2 put together, Screecher's Reach is the only short that borders the horror genre. Also literally, as the animation style itself is darker and edgier than most of the other shorts.
  • Disappointed in You: Upon learning what Daal has become, her friends show their sadness and disapproval towards her.
  • Downer Ending: Daal kills the Sith banshee in the mountain and gains a way off the planet, but she has to leave her friends behind, and worse, her means of escape requires her to become a Sith Apprentice.
  • Flower Motifs: The Sith lord's dress looks like white falling petals. And her ship looks like a flower, with a thorn hidden by the petals when viewed from front, but visible from the side. According to the making-of, it symbolizes the Dark Side hiding its destructive nature to seduce new adepts.
  • Foreshadowing:
    • Daal's prayer to the pendant, "give me strength", alludes to its true origin, as a plea for strength isn't very Jedi-like but it echoes the Code of the Sith, particularly "Through Passion I gain Strength. Through Strength I gain Power."
    • During their conversation at the campfire, Baython tells Daal that "there are worse lives" than being stuck at the workhouse. And as the rest of the franchise shows, there are few things worse than being a Sith apprentice.
  • Friend-or-Idol Decision: At the end, Daal must choose whether to stay with her friends but continue toiling at the dismal factory, or to abandon them to join the Sith for what might be a materially better life. She chooses to go with the Sith, because she can't look back now after passing the test — but in the last moment before the ship's portal closes, she looks back, an anguished expression on her face.
  • Gory Discretion Shot: The scene cuts to outside the cave as Daal kills the Screecher, with the only sound being the hiss of the lightsaber.
  • Light Is Not Good: The Sith makes her appearance silhouetted against the rising sun. While there are some standard red motifs to her, the Sith's outfit is predominantly bright white and her ship has a strangely elegant design, but the effect is instead to underscore just how unsettling her presence is.
  • Mythology Gag:
    • The unnamed planet the episode's set on is revealed in the end to have dual suns just like the last Ireland inspired planet in Star Wars.
    • Someone being sent into a cave as part of a test where they battle an apparition of the Dark Side brings to mind the cave on Dagobah from The Empire Strikes Back. The behind-the-scenes extra mention it as an inspiration for the short, describing the cave here as being the Sith version of that test.
  • Mythopoeia: As is usual for the studio there is a lot of Gaelic/Catholic mythology blended into the story. The Screecher is a clear analogue to the Banshee of Irish mythology and the Sith at the end is tall and beautiful but also threateningly inhuman much like the Unseelie. Daal's use of the pendant and whispered prayer is very reminiscent of a practitioner of the Catholic faith.
  • Non-Malicious Monster: In the light, the Screecher is revealed to be a somewhat pitiful-looking old woman surrounded by a few meager possessions. The only reason she attacked the kids was because they went out of their way to intrude into her home.
  • Oh, Crap!: All the kids have this reaction when the Screecher first appears. Daal has another moment when the Screecher ignites her lightsaber, revealing that she isn't an illusion as Daal first assumed.
  • Orphanage of Fear: The main cast are among many children forced to work in a crowded, nightmarish factory.
  • Our Banshees Are Louder: The eponymous Screecher is a dead-ringer for the Irish banshee, with the slight twist that she is/was a Sith gone mad.
  • Rewatch Bonus: Rewatching the short after knowing the twist recontextualizes a lot of the things Daal says and does, such as her conversation with Baython at the campfire; on a rewatch, it becomes clear that Daal is actually talking about the deal she made with the Sith Mother and is surreptitiously trying to get Baython's approval for her bid to escape her present situation.
  • Shout-Out:
    • The composition of the establishing shots of the Nightmarish Factory in which the children labor, could be considered a visual Shout-Out to the factory scene in films such as Metropolis and Modern Times.
    • The creators have cited Stand by Me as an inspiration and Baython's "You wanna see a ghost?" is similar to Vern's "You guys wanna go see a dead body?"
  • Wham Shot:
    • Daal initially assumes that the Screecher is just an illusion and repeats to herself that it's all in her mind as the thing approaches...then the Screecher ignites her lightsaber and slashes Daal's arm, revealing herself to be a very real threat.
    • After killing the Screecher, Daal looks down at her pendant, and it suddenly glows red, revealing that it's a Sith artifact... and the Sith it belongs to is on her way.
  • White and Red and Eerie All Over: The Sith Mother might be Affably Evil, but her motifs is quite eerie and full of red and white.
  • You Shall Not Pass!: As the Sith banshee closes in on them, Daal orders her friends to run while she stays to confront the creature. Then a cave-in blocks her and the Banshee off from the other kids.

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