SW Visions The Elder Television 

Three Thoughts on Star Wars: Visions‘ “The Elder”

By | September 30th, 2021
Posted in Television | % Comments

Welcome to the seventh of our nine days of covering Star Wars: Visions! Some notes up front: we’re not going to be talking much about the studios that created these short films, both because of my general ignorance of the various producers involved, and also because I want to attempt to take these stories at as close to face value as possible. The prequel era is what is revisited in “The Elder,” and so use your lightsaber to cut off your padawan rat tail, and let’s dive in!

1. A very…laconic…Jedi

I honestly thought, not necessarily due to the voice’s actual timbre, that perhaps Lucasfilm tricked Harrison Ford into doing the voice acting for the Jedi master, Tajin Crosser, as his delivery was quite slow and gravely. I thought, “wow, this is Harrison Ford really Return of the Jedi-ing it up right here” during the initial space sequence. But no, instead it is everyone’s second favorite Hellboy, David Harbour, voicing Tajin. It was also clear that this wasn’t a lazy voice reading, but an incredibly considered one. Every bit of this character is patient, allowing the audience to feel every decision slowly, to allow the story to unfold at a less rushed pace, and forcing everyone to take a little breather.

In some ways, Tajin was reminiscent of Qui-Gon Jinn, who takes time between strikes at Darth Maul to stop and meditate on the Force. There’s nothing impulsive or unorthodox about Tajin, unlike Qui-Gon, but the presentation of an older, human Jedi is very familiar here due to Mr. Jinn.

2. Rejection

For so long, Star Wars has tried to make everything neat. There were Sith and Jedi. Dark and light. Evil and good. But over time, that concept has somewhat eroded into shades of grey, where so much more interesting stuff can and does happen. The titular Elder in this episode is of the Dark Side of the Force, but isn’t a Sith per se, allowing a little bit of nuance to fall on the character. He’s not going after the Jedi in the hunter/prey sense, he just wants to kill something because the dude is evil. It’s a simple answer to the question of ‘who is this guy?,’ and removes the need to make everything too overly explained or give too much thought to the Elder’s actions. He’s not there as part of the Rule of 2 or to take back the galaxy. He was out, living his evil life, and just so happened to run across some Jedi. Cool.

3. What is this, a David Lynch film?

There are very few ‘gross out’ moments in Star Wars. The tauntaun’s gross insides is maybe the worst in any of the films, but “The Elder” adds a new one, when the old man is struck down, and his body basically does a time lapse of a fox decomposing, but instead becomes burnt out charcoal or something of the like. It’s not a visceral ‘eww’ moment, but it is disturbing and a little shocking to see it happen. Still, it was quite unexpected.


//TAGS | Star Wars Visions

Brian Salvatore

Brian Salvatore is an editor, podcaster, reviewer, writer at large, and general task master at Multiversity. When not writing, he can be found playing music, hanging out with his kids, or playing music with his kids. He also has a dog named Lola, a rowboat, and once met Jimmy Carter. Feel free to email him about good beer, the New York Mets, or the best way to make Chicken Parmagiana (add a thin slice of prosciutto under the cheese).

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