Disney hit with plagiarism claim over Star Wars Visions episode
A filmmaker and stunt performer is accusing Disney and animation studio 88 Pictures of plagiarizing a scene from his fan-made Star Wars film and using it in an episode of Star Wars: Visions.
In a post on Instagram, Lorenz Hideyoshi posted a video titled “When Disney blatantly steals your action design” and showcased side-by-side scenes from a fight in his 2019 fan film Dark Jedi: A Star Wars Story and a fight from the season 2 episode “The Bandits of Golak.” Both battles appear to play out nearly identically, including camera angle choices, in a video edited to highlight the similarities.
“Above is from my #starwars fan film ‘Dark Jedi’ (2019). Below is from ‘Star Wars Visions’ – S2, EP7 (2023),” Hideyoshi said on Instagram. “I mean they already had a different weapons setup, but still managed to brute force (push) my choreo onto that action. Didn’t even change the camera angles.”
Although Dark Jedi is live-action and the episode in question is animated, the fight choreography and cinematography appear nearly one-to-one.
“Why Disney?” Hideyoshi continued. “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? Maybe either a) pay your animators more or b) hire an action designer.”
The Star Wars Visions season 2 episode “The Bandits of Golak” was released in 2023 and directed by Ishan Shukla, who is slated to direct the upcoming film Baahubali: The Eternal War – Part 1 in 2027. Meanwhile, Indian animation studio 88 Pictures is known for films like Spirited: Untamed and most recently Netflix’s The Bad Guys: Breaking In.
Polygon has reached out to Lucasfilm and Disney representatives for comment, and to see if the companies intend to investigate the matter. We’ll update this story when Lucasfilm and Disney respond.
