TV Review: A Teddy Bear Droid Protects His Ward In "Star Wars: Visions" Volume 3, Episode 5 - "Yuko's Treasure"

Today saw the release of Volume 3 of Lucasfilm’s animated anthology series Star Wars: Visions, and below are my thoughts on the fifth installment from this third batch of short films, entitled “Yuko’s Treasure” from Kinema Citrus.

“Yuko’s Treasure” is immediately the most cartoonish and aimed-at-a-younger-audience episode in Visions Volume 3, but that doesn’t make it any less entertaining. This entry is the story of another young orphan (more repeated themes) named Yuko (voiced by Liam Karlsson in the English dub) who is looked over by two droids– one of which is a bumbling little triangle, and the other of which called BILY (Harvey Guillen) looks like a big teddy bear– in their home on Tatooine. According to the credits, BILY stands for “Baby I Love You” which makes more and more sense as we learn about Yuko’s short history. We also meet another Tatooine native child named Sola (Julian Paz Fedorov) who has been hired by the villainous Fox-Ear (Steve Buscemi) to track down Yuko’s family, believing them to have hidden away a stash of treasure somewhere on the desert planet before they died.

Sola leads Fox-Ear to Yuko’s hideout, but once he realizes that he’s put the makeshift family in danger he races there to warn them. But he’s a bit too late– Fox-Ear takes BILY to help him break into Yuko’s parents’ vault. Some hijinks and one trip through underground caverns later, and everyone– including Fox-Ear’s henchpeople Gura (Anne Yatco) and Riku (Maximillian Reid) all find themselves confronting each other, though Fox-Ear has now reprogrammed BILY against Yuko, making our hero’s task all the more difficult. Unfortunately for the antagonists, once they are able to break into the vault they find it empty– except for a single Batuuan Spira (love to see a Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge reference in animation) left behind-- so they simply abandon their quest, leaving Yuko to knock some sense into BILY and reveal the true nature of the treasure. This is a warm, charming installment of Visions, helped along by pleasingly hyperkinetic action, lovable characters, and a compelling villain. While “Yuko’s Treasure” might appeal to kids more than some of the other episodes, as an adult I was delighted as well.

Star Wars: Visions Volume 3 is now streaming in its entirety, exclusively via Disney+.