Sparky Reviews Versa

Copyright - Disney Enterprises, Inc. This official poster of Vesa is from the Walt Disney Animation Studios official Facebook page.

Trigger warning: Grief and loss of pregnancy

Hello fellow readers. I hope you’re doing well.  I wanted to give a little trigger warning regarding Disney’s newest short film, Versa.  This review will be reviewing Versa.  Within this film, there are topics of grief and loss of pregnancy.

If these topics are triggering for you, feel free to save this review and come back to it when you feel more comfortable.  If you don’t want to continue reading, that’s okay too.  These topics can be incredibly traumatic and can bring up very raw emotions.  Please know that you’re valid and you’re loved. 

This is why I wanted to put this trigger warning before this review.  Thank you for reading this little note and onto the review. 

Disney is No Stranger to Animated Short Films

Within The Walt Disney Animation Company, animated short films go hand in hand.  Ever since the early days of The Walt Disney Company, there have been animated short films including Mickey Mouse and various characters.  These films were played before the film or during a double feature film.  

As the years have passed, Disney in addition to Pixar have an animated short film before the feature presentation.  More often than not, some of these animated films get nominated for various awards like the Annie Awards and The Academy Awards. 

As streaming services have become more accessible, Disney continues to create animated short films as Disney+ exclusives.  Which is good news for the animated short films creators that want to have their content streamed to Disney+.   All of them follow a format of show not telling, music that follows the film, and heart tugging storytelling.  Recently, there was a new film brought into the lineup of Disney animated short films.  This new film is titled Versa. 

At first look, Versa looks like an incredibly beautiful film.  What makes Versa different from the other animated short films? Will it stand out from the others? Let’s find out together.  In this episode of Sparky Reviews, we’re going to be thoroughly analyzing Disney’s newest animated short film, Versa. 

Grab Some Tissues Because Versa Tugs At Your Heartstrings

So, what is Versa about? Versa follows two stars in a galaxy as they struggle with the loss of their child.  At first, the film follows a red and blue star.  The red star is incredibly excited because blue star is pregnant with their baby. 

One of the interesting factors that Versa does is the physical indicator of the characters which are stars.  When they’re happy, their stars are bright and vice versa when they’re upset. After they lose their baby, it’s visually clear each of the characters grief types. Red star is trying to be avoidant of what happened while Blue star is still holding onto what happened. They show this pain through the animation.

Not to worry, the animation will be discussed in the next section.  The animation in Versa is so diverse and is one of the defining moments in this film that it needs to be its own section. 

It’s only when they come together do they feel their pain together and go through the grief together.  Versa is such a beautiful film for anyone who has dealt with grief and/or who’s lost a child.  The fact that Versa doesn’t need to tell its story through words shows how powerful this animated short film is.  One of the driving points of Versa’s story is the animation. 

Versa Uses Ice Skating Techniques to Signal Emotion and Push the Story Forward

With Versa being an animated short film, the animation is one of the most defining points.  Especially since animated short films don’t use words to create their films. The animation and music are the diving points to push the film along.  This is done perfectly in Versa. 

One of the unique things about Versa that I noticed was the use of ice-skating mechanics instead of walking.  At first, I just figured they were using the clouds to walk but then, the audience can see particular movements that is done in ice figure skating. This is even more apparent when the characters use it as a way to convey emotion.

Ice skating is an incredibly emotional sport.  Good ice-skating routines usually tell a story through their skating and the body language. This is shown significantly throughout Versa.  When the two stars are happy in the beginning of their torn dance of pretending everything is fine. 

Even when everything is not fine, the audience can see the struggle that each of the stars are going through this difficult loss. Personally, I feel that Versa use of this animation technique is what makes this film so powerful. The change from balance to lack of balance in their dance shows how their lives are affected by this loss.

Which in real life is how grief is.  Everyone grieves differently. It’s only when you open up and let yourself grieve that you fully come to terms with what happened.  Which is what Versa does such a beautiful job at doing.  Versa is a masterpiece of two people’s journey in grief and how to work through it together. 

Discussion About Versa

So, what did you think of Versa? If you've watched it, feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments. I'd love to hear your thoughts on Versa.

If you have yet to watch Versa, watch in only on Disney+. If you'd like to stay up to date on anything coming out, follow The Walt Disney Animation Studios on any of their social media platforms.

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