Star Wars: Visions has impressed fans in our galaxy not so far away with great animation, bold stories, and killer action, all of which helped it become the most highly-rated Star Wars series on Rotten Tomatoes. Now, however, the creator of a Star Wars fan film has accused Disney of plagiarizing his work in a 2023 Visions episode.
He posted a side-by-side comparison of his fan film to the official episode, and the proof left fans wondering why one of the wealthiest and most powerful companies in the entire world would allegedly steal from one fan’s passion project.
The Disney Empire Strikes Back
Back in 2019, stunt coordinator and filmmaker Lorenz Hideyoshi created a fan film titled Dark Jedi: A Star Wars Story. Recently, he wrote a post on Instagram provocatively titled “When Disney blatantly steals your action design.” In the post, he included a video comparing the fight choreography between his fan film and a battle in the Season 2 Star Wars: Visions episode “The Bandits of Golak.”
While Disney has yet to officially respond to Hideyoshi’s accusations, the video comparison he provided looks very, very damning. The characters aren’t just repeating the same fight moves; even the camera angle is exactly the same. Hideyoshi noted this with a cheeky embedded caption on his video that read “could have changed camera angles at least.”
Like a Digital Thief In the Night
He repeated that claim in the body of the post and had some other, much harsher words for the House of Mouse. After rhetorically asking why Disney would do this, Lorenz Hideyoshi asked follow-up questions: “Is it because we made a non-profit tribute fan film of one of your IPs and now you feel justified in stealing from this pool of creative output?” He ended the angry post by suggesting that Disney could “pay…animators more” or simply “hire an action designer” rather than steal his ideas.
“The Bandits of Golak” in Star Wars: Visions
Watching the video comparison side by side, it’s not hard to see why Hideyoshi is so angry. If his allegations are true (and he seems to have a really good case here), then it means that the highest-rated Star Wars show got caught red-handed stealing from a fan film. This starts begging the inevitable question: if Disney felt comfortable just blatantly plagiarizing a fan film, what else have they been stealing that we just haven’t noticed yet?
The End of Star Wars Is Finally Here
If the allegations prove true, this incident would serve as proof that Disney is running out of ideas when it comes to Star Wars. The Sequel Trilogy was already a hodge-podge remix of the Original Trilogy, as evidenced by everything from The Force Awakens being A New Hope 2.0 to The Rise of Skywalker having the same big climaxes as Return of the Jedi. Meanwhile, hit Star Wars TV shows like Obi-Wan Kenobi and Ahsoka succeed largely because they are revivals that bring back beloved actors and characters from older movies and shows.
Star Wars desperately needs a hit movie or show to wash away the stench of failures like The Acolyte and the Sequel Trilogy, and for a time, it looked like Star Wars: Visions was what everyone had been waiting for. Now, though, it seems like the most highly rated Star Wars show has built at least some of its success on stealing from the creativity of others. The franchise has been in a death spiral for years, and maybe this is how it dies altogether: not with thunderous applause but with the most blatant plagiarism the galaxy has ever seen.
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