Star Wars Visions: Why Aardman flipped iconic line

Dexerto caught up with the director of the Aardman episode of Star Wars Visions Season 2 to find out why the iconic stop-motion studio decided to flip the franchise’s most iconic line. 

May 4, aka Star Wars day, is just around the corner. And to celebrate, Season 2 of Lucasfilm’s anthology series Visions is dropping on Disney+ tomorrow, with nine new shorts crafted by creative minds from across the globe. 

Star Wars Visions is a unique concept within the franchise’s universe. Unlike spinoff series’ such as The Mandalorian, Andor, and The Acolyte, the show is created outside the constraints of traditional canon, allowing for far more creative freedom in terms of characters and motifs. 

When the slate for Season 2 was announced, fans were excited, not least because one of the entries is made by none other than Aardman, the animation house behind the likes of Wallace and Gromit and Chicken Run. Alongside numerous Easter eggs throughout, the studio’s short has a rather familiar title. 

Why Aardman messed with iconic line in Star Wars Visions episode

Aardman’s Star Wars Visions episode is titled ‘I Am Your Mother,’ a play on the iconic line once uttered by Darth Vader to Luke Skywalker: “I am your father.”

In an exclusive interview with Dexerto, Aardman creator and director of the short, Magdalena Osinska, elaborated on why the team decided to do the ol’ switcheroo on arguably the most classic quote in Star Wars history. 

“Lucasfilms came to Aardman and asked us to pitch on ‘Star Wars meets Aardman’,” she explains. “And when I heard about this opportunity, I literally couldn’t sleep because I started imagining the incredible, never-ending universe of Star Wars in stop motion.”

Osinska continues: “When I was writing the original pitch outline, I started thinking, ‘What do I love about Star Wars the most?’ What draws me in are the relationships. And because I am a mother myself now, I thought, ‘Okay, there is this really iconic, famous line, I’m your father, but I’m a mother now. How about we tell a story about a mother-daughter relationship?’

“So this is how it all started, it was literally the first thing that came to my head: I’m your father, I’m your mother.”

It’s a simple concept, but one that works incredibly well, giving plenty of nods to the source material while also delivering a touching standalone story.

Star Wars Visions Season 2 will be available to stream on Disney+ from May 4, 2023. You can check out our other Star Wars coverage here.