Archive for Rebels A Star Wars Roleplaying Community
|
Rive Caedo
|
Clone Wars Movie Discussion (Tag Spoilers Until August 24th)Well I didn't see that one coming.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars will be premiering in theaters. The previously announced television series will follow that and premiere later in 2008 on Cartoon Network and TNT (The TNT airings will occur after the Cartoon Network premieres).
You can read the full announcement here, on the official Star Wars website.
I loved the little Clone Wars shorties between Episode II and III. I hope this lives up to those, if it does - Star Wars is BACK people!
Look at Anakin's shoulder! It's the Star Wars "Legacy Era" logo!
Also of note is a T-Shirt featuring "Captain Rex" - apparently a prominent Clone Trooper in the film/television series.
|
Xander Vos
|
Wow, didn't see that coming.
Though, to be honest, the Clone Wars has been done to death. Now's the time to see more battles from the YV war, or the Civil War between 4-5-6.
|
Lord Vexen
|
Well that should be good for publicity for us...
Also, is the movie animated? I hope not...
A YVW movie would be awesome
|
Rive Caedo
|
Yuuzhan Vong - hm... maybe. It would be interesting to see so many expanded universe characters "come to life."
Personally, I'd like to see something set right after 6. A lot of that era was covered by the X-Wing series of novels, but besides Truce at Bakura and a few other materials, we didn't see much of what Luke and the gang did right after Endor. They'd have a fairly clean slate to work with.
I'm sure Mark Hamill would be willing to voice Luke, since he does so much voice work already anyway. Carrie Fisher - I'm not sure. Harrison Ford probably wouldn't want to "lower" himself to doing voice work. Anthony Daniels already voices C-3PO every chance he gets. Billy Dee Williams as Lando probably wouldn't be too hard. Ah... who does that leave? Frank Oz already agreed to do Yoda for this series, so he'd be willing to make some Force Ghost appearances, I'm sure. I do admit though, getting Alec Guinness to do any voice work would be a bit difficult 
Beyond that, the almost entirely clean slate of the Knights of the Old Republic era would be ideal - but I'm not sure if they feel enough people would watch something not closely tied to the films.
|
Rive Caedo
|
| Lord Vexen wrote: | | Also, is the movie animated? I hope not... |
Yes, it is. It's basically an elaborate "pilot" for the television series. You'll be introduced to the characters, reintroduced to the Clone Wars, etc. etc. I assume.
I actually think it will be fairly impressive to see some of the animation they're doing on the big screen.
Although, this does make you wonder - will they do a theater movie-length premiere pilot for the Live Action Series next year? It'd be an opportunity to FINALLY see Darth Vader - in armor - slaughtering some Jedi! That was, for me, the big missed opportunity in Episode III. It's what I've been waiting to see on the big screen ever since Obi-Wan's remark of "[Vader] helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi Knights." Not unsuited Vader killing some Kids 
|
Lord Vexen
|
Ugh I hate animated movie...I'll watch it on the internet.
|
Ga'nen
|
interestingly enough yesterday i was wondering if they would ever do some sort of movie for the Yuuzhan Vong War, I think (though my feelings for the Yuuzhan Vong are that they're a bit godmoddish) that it would be interesting to see the fall of coruscant, all the battles that involve our favorite characters, as well as giving faces to ones we haven't seen. Like I really wish they would draw a picture of Cal Omas, I don't know why but i do! 
|
Jaden Nightsaber
|
Wow, this looks like it could really be good. I'm looking forward to it.
|
Tom
|
|
Lord Embeion
|
Must see!!!
|
shadowball2021
|
I can't wait for this to come out. Its gonna be awesome! 
|
Rive Caedo
|
Thanks for my new wallpaper, Pectoris
Here's the other impressive image they posted... The "Theater Sized" version of one of the pictures from the announcement.
|
Lord Invictus
|
I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS MOMENT FOR ALMOST A YEAR! OH MY GOSH! MY LIFE IS COMPLETE (once I see this movie)!
DO NOT INSULT ANIMATED MOVIES IF THEY HAVE GOOD GRAPHICS! This looks pretty good, and if I didn't know better I would've sworn Beowulf was filmed (except for the monster freaks) had it not been I already knew it was animated and that Anthony Hopkins was a munchkin.
|
Rive Caedo
|
| Darth Mortalis wrote: | I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS MOMENT FOR ALMOST A YEAR! OH MY GOSH! MY LIFE IS COMPLETE (once I see this movie)!
DO NOT INSULT ANIMATED MOVIES IF THEY HAVE GOOD GRAPHICS! This looks pretty good, and if I didn't know better I would've sworn Beowulf was filmed (except for the monster freaks) had it not been I already knew it was animated and that Anthony Hopkins was a munchkin. |
I've always been impressed by Pixar's work. This is below that (in my opinion). But, obviously, even with Lucasfilm's resources you can't churn out a Pixar quality bit of animation every single week.
Even so, I can't decide if it's ironic or not that it was Lucasfilm that originally launched Pixar and now they seem to be launching a new 3D studio without their help at all.
I *think* I prefer the original 2D Clone Wars cartoons style to this, but - we haven't seen quite enough of this new style for me to make a complete judgment.
|
Scion
|
While I do not like the art style (Looks like 3d anime), this is really good news and will probably get me back into the SW spirit.
|
Xander Vos
|
Wow... Lucas is giving Anakin an Apprentice. Whilst I think this could potentially be excellent, it's kind of treading on the toes of the comments made in ROTS that he isn't ready for those kinds of commitments.
|
Rive Caedo
|
Don't worry, in the special edition they'll just dub over "He isn't ready for those commitments again"
|
shadowball2021
|
| Rive Caedo wrote: | | Don't worry, in the special edition they'll just dub over "He isn't ready for those commitments again" |
LOL, yep, that sounds about right. 
|
Lord Vexen
|
| Rive Caedo wrote: | | Don't worry, in the special edition they'll just dub over "He isn't ready for those commitments again" |
Wouldn't suprise me if they did that. All 6 SW movie dubbed TBR 2020 lol.
|
konobi 42
|
Re: New Star Wars film coming to theaters August 15th, 2008! | Rive Caedo wrote: | Well I didn't see that one coming.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars premiere later in 2008 on Cartoon Network |
Cartoon Network is playing the Permiere where I live TONIGHT  that will be good.
I think a Animated star wars film will not be a bad thing and I am looking forward to it.
|
Lord Vexen
|
Where do you live?
|
Lord Invictus
|
OH MY GOD! They're playing it tonight? If we live in the same area then I'm gonna' bleech my face looking at the TV all year long!
|
Rive Caedo
|
I suspect that Konobi saw an ad for a reairing of the pre-Revenge of the Sith 2D Clone Wars series. The 3D Clone Wars series is still not set to launch until after the movie release in August.
|
konobi 42
|
| Lord Vexen wrote: | | Where do you live? |
New Zealand
|
Cimil
|
The animation in this film looks retarde* (I put the star because I'm not sure if you guys would be offended in any way.)
|
Lord Invictus
|
Wait, they're coming out with a movie then a series? Hello Disney Channel! Meet Mr. Lucas! Umm... is the movie the intro into the series or something?
|
Xander Vos
|
Er, no. Disney Channel could never get a hold of something with as much talent as Star Wars. It's truly pathetic. Besides, Disney doesn't let anything above G be shown. Hello? It's Star Wars.
|
Lord Invictus
|
No, I'm talking about how Disney takes a pretty good movie, then screws it up by making it into a TV series about some kid and their issues with life in order to make and emotional family cable show.
|
Thar Kast
|
wait how would this fit in time wise with the clone wars cartoon he was knighted and then they baseicaly gave the epIII intro
|
Xander Vos
|
Not really. He was a Knight for about a year in the Clone Wars wasn't he?
|
Cimil
|
Thar, are you thinking of anaking being granted the rank of master, well kinda...
|
Lord Vexen
|
ANAKING!!!! MASTER OF ALL ANAS...RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUNN
|
Rive Caedo
|
Some new screenies - likely from the film, but possibly from the following series.
|
Lord Vexen
|
| Rive Caedo wrote: | Some new screenies - likely from the film, but possibly from the following series.
|
...doesn't work for me.
|
Rive Caedo
|
I too prefer the 2D version.
But, I'm going to wait until I see it in motion for full scenes before I cast final judgement.
I also think it has some value in that: Is there ANY other fully 3D animated television show out there? I remember Transformers tried it.
A quick YouTube Search confirms my memory - WAR WAR, STOP IT
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGDOzMTpXpM&feature=related
So that's an accomplishment in itself - even if it ends up looking a bit silly.
I suppose it doesn't matter - as long as they tell a fun story. And I'm really looking for a fun story here. Lasers, over the top bad guys, and cheesy dialog. They can save the serious stuff for the live action series next year.
Not sure if I already showed it, but someone made a 2D version of one of the 3D shots.
|
Lord Vexen
|
Legal link to the trailer for those who haven't seen it
http://movies.yahoo.com/summer-mo...-Wars/1809991325/trailers/133/880
|
Yodafueva me
|
I lol'd. Seriously, enough with the Clone Wars! Why can't we have a film/show during the Empire? We've had so much on the CW. Been there, seen that, and read that.
|
Lord Invictus
|
First time seeing that trailer. I think it looks good, actually. But I don't like Anakin having an apprentice. Movie two and three clearly show he shouldn't and didn't, and in the original clone wars he didn't either.
|
Lord Embeion
|
| Darth Mortalis wrote: | | First time seeing that trailer. I think it looks good, actually. But I don't like Anakin having an apprentice. Movie two and three clearly show he shouldn't and didn't, and in the original clone wars he didn't either. |
|
Rive Caedo
|
| Yodafueva me wrote: | | I lol'd. Seriously, enough with the Clone Wars! Why can't we have a film/show during the Empire? We've had so much on the CW. Been there, seen that, and read that. |
Well the live action series in another two years is going to be set in the Empire era.
|
Rive Caedo
|
Finally seeing it HD quality, I like the quality of the animation a fair bit better (and I didn't hate it before). The eyes looked rather dead to me in the original screencaps (except for one shot of a Obi-Wan I mentioned) and in the first trailer. In HD they look far, far better.
Asaaj Ventress looks to me to be the best looking character. But perhaps that's because she's the only character that we've never seen portrayed by a real actress - she's "supposed" to look like this - animated - in our minds.
But, I'm not sure why I'm even debating the merits of it. Due to a contractual obligation signed in blood, I'm required to see anything with "Star Wars" in the title even if it was followed by "The New Holiday Special".
If nothing else, I shall smile when I hear Jabba the Hutt's voice reverberate through the theater's walls for the first time since the Return of the Jedi special edition in 1997. And that's good enough for me, the rest is gravy 
|
Rive Caedo
|
ENI put up 20 images, most were old - but I think these few are new.
|
shadowball2021
|
Nice find Rive, those look awesome!
|
Dork of Mordork
|
It looks, err...  I hate animated movies. They look so childish and weird.
|
Xander Vos
|
Kinda ironic of you to say that when ROTS was 100% animated.
Animation is a great film type, because it allows such freedom - as I think I've said in other threads, with this film comes the opportunity for films on many of the great book series of the EU.
|
Lord Embeion
|
Actually it was a different type of animation. The new one here has a more cartoonish look and feel. RoTS is made to look more realistic. So.. many people won't call it animated.
|
Dork of Mordork
|
| Xander Vos wrote: | Kinda ironic of you to say that when ROTS was 100% animated.
Animation is a great film type, because it allows such freedom - as I think I've said in other threads, with this film comes the opportunity for films on many of the great book series of the EU. |
I meant the cartoony looking animated...
|
Xander Vos
|
It hardly looks cartoony.
|
Rive Caedo
|
I agree. The old Clone Wars series looked cartoony because... it was a cartoon (and, for the record, was quite awesome).
The new Clone Wars series looks more... puppety. Wood and plastic textures on 3D models. I still don't love it - and I like the old series 2D more, but I'm sure it'll grow on us.
Also:
I have very very very very low hopes for this one. Games based directly on the movies are generally rather weak. Those that go beyond the movies are generally the strongest (Jedi Knight series, KOTOR, X-Wing/TIE fighter, and Rogue Squadron being good examples). The exception perhaps being the Super Star Wars series on Super Nintendo system, but I'm not sure if anyone here is old enough to remember that.
But, who knows? It's a Wii exclusive so perhaps it'll have really really really good lightsaber fighting (compared to Force Unleashed's which is supposed to be fun and accurate, but isn't full control. It's just left, right, up, down, and stab motions which execute predefined animations/attacks). But, I highly doubt it. Definitely one to wait for reviews for or just rent.
|
Dork of Mordork
|
Ugh lol...
I like the old 2D SW cartoons. They are good. These new 3D "wooden puppet" ones look retarded to me. Does that help? God. -.-
|
Tom
|
| Rive Caedo wrote: | The exception perhaps being the Super Star Wars series on Super Nintendo system, but I'm not sure if anyone here is old enough to remember that.
|
ROTJ was an utter pain... could never ever do the last level escaping the death star, no matter how many hours i poured into it, i just couldn't.
|
Xander Vos
|
Are you talking Rogue Squadron? I agree, that level was near impossible.
|
Tom
|
The super intendo star wars games.
|
Rive Caedo
|
Super Return of the Jedi was, by far, the hardest of the trio. But, at least it had a password system!
I can recall beating Super Star Wars once - maybe twice. I then recall about three dozen times reaching the Death Star and having to restart the entire game because Darth Vader's TIE Fighter was a cheating pixelated starship of DEATH!... and there was no password or save system. Back to Tatooine for you, young Skywalker!
BOOM!
LOADING... PLEASE WAIT...
Nooooooooooooooooo!
|
Xander Vos
|
I recall going to a gaming parlour at about 7 or 8, and playing a huge game in there that was Star Wars, and you can chose the episode, and I vaguely remember there being different missions based on how well you did in a certain level; does anyone remember that? That was great.
|
Rive Caedo
|
That was almost certainly this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAcg90tC06A
Rather impressive for 1998. I still see it in movie theaters here pretty often - as recently as last year. The "between levels" duels with Boba Fett and Vader were particularly interesting. Especially since it's the experience that the Duel Mode of the Wii version of The Force Unleashed will probably be rather similar to.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGi-MGHPLpU&feature=related
|
Xander Vos
|
YES THAT'S IT! I loved it and they took it away!  Haven't seen it since.
Looking over it, it's still got fairly decent game play. Sure, enhance graphics, add in TPM, AOTC, and ROTS, but this would be a great Wii game.
|
Dork of Mordork
|
Pssh. Let's stay on topic.
|
Lord Vexen
|
| Quote: | | With this new version coming to theaters, more actors have played the character of Anakin Skywalker than have been James Bond. Counting everyone in and out of Darth Vader's suit, seven actors have played the part, ranging in age from 9 (Jake Lloyd in The Phantom Menace) to 78 (Sebastian Shaw in Return of the Jedi). |
Just thought I'd add this.
|
Rive Caedo
|
Sean Connery
Roger Moore
George Lazenby
Timothy Dalton
Pierce Brosnan
Daniel Craig
Yep. Only 6.
Although you can up it to 7 if you add David Niven from the original Casino Royale - but that was a satirical film.
Jake Lloyd
Hayden Christiansen
James Earl Jones
David Prowse
Sebastian Shaw
(Clone Wars voice)
Who am I missing? I don't think it's really fair to add Bob Anderson, since he was more of a stunt double for David Prowse. Andrew Nelson is the same type of deal. If you include them, it's 8 - but I don't think either of them are fair.
|
Rive Caedo
|
Wow, they've already put out a second trailer? How'd that slip past me?
Although I suppose it only slipped past me for a day and a half
http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809991325/video/8273357
Just like the first trailer revealed that Samuel L. Jackson was reprising Mace Windu, it sounds like the surprise in this trailer is that Christopher Lee is reprising Count Dooku. Or they just got someone much closer to Lee's voice than the guy who did Dooku in the original Clone Wars cartoons.
Will there be a third trailer in July revealing Ewan reprising Obi-Wan or Hayden reprising Anakin? Time will tell, I suppose. It'd make the whole event much more compelling and feel more ingrained into canon, in my opinion.
|
Lord Vexen
|
lol, the first few seconds sounded like sound from Troy and 300.
|
shadowball2021
|
| Rive Caedo wrote: | Wow, they've already put out a second trailer? How'd that slip past me?
Although I suppose it only slipped past me for a day and a half
http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809991325/video/8273357
Just like the first trailer revealed that Samuel L. Jackson was reprising Mace Windu, it sounds like the surprise in this trailer is that Christopher Lee is reprising Count Dooku. Or they just got someone much closer to Lee's voice than the guy who did Dooku in the original Clone Wars cartoons.
Will there be a third trailer in July revealing Ewan reprising Obi-Wan or Hayden reprising Anakin? Time will tell, I suppose. It'd make the whole event much more compelling and feel more ingrained into canon, in my opinion. |
That was enough better than the last one. yep, this is gonna be good!
|
Rive Caedo
|
Confirmed by an administrator on the official Christopher Lee forum
| Quote: | Mr. Lee has recorded the voice of Count Dooku for this movie a couple of months ago.
It was however, the first time he had to lip synch to a character because they had produced the animation before recording his voice. |
And apparently there's now a debate as to whether Ewan McGregor is already revealed as reprising Obi-Wan in this trailer. There's a brief line at the 56 second marker from Obi-Wan that I missed the first time watching.
It DOES sound a lot like Ewan, but the guy that voiced him in the original Clone Wars cartoons also sounded a lot like Ewan anyway... So I can't personally judge based on one three second line.
|
Xander Vos
|
Saw the trailer in cinemas for the first time today while watching Get Smart with friends, and was hoping for it and when that logo flashed across the screen, I jumped up in my seat.
It looks extremely awesome on the big screen.
|
Lord Vexen
|
Yeah, I saw it a while back before the Hulk movie. Unfourtunatly, only 1 other person wants to see it with me.
|
Ga'nen
|
I have not seen the trailer at all at any movie i've seen this movie.
|
Xander Vos
|
| Lord Vexen wrote: | | Yeah, I saw it a while back before the Hulk movie. Unfourtunatly, only 1 other person wants to see it with me. |
Meh, I'm sure I'll see it with my girlfriend.
|
Rive Caedo
|
Recent news:
Australia is apparently getting the movie a day prior (the 14th instead of the 15th) to the US/UK. With time zone differences this only works out to 13 hours ahead of the UK, but Xander can still give us an early review if he convinces his girlfriend to go to a midnight showing
The Clone Wars TV series is starting only a month and a half after the movie - on October 3rd. Neat! This was the main news I was waiting for. I was betting it would be a longer delay.
22 Episodes in Season 1.
Since they've been saying "over 100 episodes" for awhile now, we can extrapolate that that there will probably be a minimum of 5 seasons. Guaranteed Star Wars on the air until 2013? Shiny.
The DVD for the film will be out a month and a half after that on November 18th. That's also when the Wii and Nintendo DS Clone Wars video games will be released.
The gal voicing Padme is the same girl that voiced Mission Vao in the original Knights of the Old Republic. Hopefully she does a better job than the girl who voiced Padme in the 2D Clone Wars series; I didn't care for her.
|
Xander Vos
|
Haha that's awesome. SUCKAZ!
Nah I probably won't see it for a bit, and it might be an effort even convincing her, but one of my other friends really wants to see it for some reason so I might end up going with her.
|
shadowball2021
|
Here are two videos from comic-con, one is of a new clip from the film that was shown and the other is of the fan-turned-director: Dave Filioni. The clip looks awesome and shows Obi and Ani in action with a ton of clone troopers. Filioni then talks about what he wanted to do with many of the clones and other secondary Jedi characters. Enjoy!
http://io9.com/5029457/star-wars-...debuts-new-alien-friends-and-foes
|
Rive Caedo
|
The videos in that link aren't working for me - it's easy enough to find the battle clip on YouTube though (here's a link, though I'm not sure how long this specific upload will stay up). Thanks for the heads up.
I'm actually getting a bit more excited about this now that it's less than 3 weeks away. Any excuse to hear the Star Wars opening theme over theater speakers
I wonder if they'll attach a teaser for the live-action Star Wars series? That's only 1.5-2.5 years away now if they keep to their production schedule. It's not really the same demographic though... so probably not
|
Lord Invictus
|
| Rive Caedo wrote: | Confirmed by an administrator on the official Christopher Lee forum
| Quote: | Mr. Lee has recorded the voice of Count Dooku for this movie a couple of months ago.
It was however, the first time he had to lip synch to a character because they had produced the animation before recording his voice. |
|
CHRISTOPHER LEE! BEST ACTOR EVA!
Of course, I am sure you all remember the first 30 seconds when I joined the site, when I wanted to go Jedi. My original name was Bedan Kecle, and guess who was my avi? COUNT DOOKU!
Muhahah! I dug my old intro here:
http://rebels.myfreeforum.org/about5464.html
Anyway.... sooo.... go Dooku! Plus, he looks cooler than any other clay figures.... especially the "good guys."
|
Darth Samuel
|
i would go to the midnight showing in spearfish.
|
Rive Caedo
|
Despite not actually being linked on there - the ComicCon Battle of Christophsis footage in High Definition has been located by the nice folks on MilleniumFalcon.com
(Right click and "Save as")
http://playlist.yahoo.com/makepla...id=68864508&sdm=web&pt=rd
Also: Here's the complete transcript of the ComicCon panel.
| Quote: | Steve Sansweet, Head of Fan Relations: This has been an incredibly ambitious three to four years. Setting up a new animation division in two countries, staffing it with incredibly talented people, and then producing something that is of such high qualities. There so were many stories to tell and areas to explore in this period that we call Clone Wars. The best way to do that was to use classic Star Wars storytelling in a new medium for us.
It’s my extreme pleasure to introduce you to four people who have been putting everything they have into the Clone Wars series and movie. Please give a warm welcome to Supervising Director Dave Filoni, Producer Catherine Winder, Story Editor and Writer Henry Gilroy, and Editor Jason Tucker.
Our panelists have worked directly with George Lucas to develop The Clone Wars. How did they turn one of the world’s most recognizable franchises into the world of animation? That’s what we’re going to try to find out today.
Catherine, you actually started about four years ago. It was your job to hire the team and set up the running of The Clone Wars operation. How did you go about doing something like that with a property which has such high expectations like Star Wars?
Catherine Winder, Producer: There are a lot of things to juggle for a project like this. I felt such responsibility. To start I needed to get into George’s head and understand what exactly it was he wanted us to produce. That was kind of tough in the beginning because I didn’t have much access to him. He was really busy finishing off Revenge of the Sith, but I got bits and pieces of information. The bottom line was George said he wanted us to produce something that would blow everybody away, something that nobody had ever seen before on the television screen, and ultimately what we turned into animation for the movie screen. Something that was really unique. And that’s no easy task. The first thing to do was to find the creative team that could pull that off. I spent a lot of time searching for the right people, and was really fortunate to come up with Dave and Henry and Jason. Once we all started working together, I really felt like we were going to do something special.
Sansweet: I promised Dave that I would never mention again that he actually hand-crafted a Plo Koon costume and dressed up for the opening of Episode III. So, I won’t.
Dave Filoni, Director: Too late. Wake up, Steve!
Sansweet: You’ve been a Star Wars fan for a while, and so are a lot of people working on Clone Wars. What’s the biggest difference between being a fan and being an integral part of creating the next chapter of the Star Wars saga?
Filoni: There’s really not much difference, to be very honest with you. There’s a sense of immense responsibility coming from sitting in the audience to sitting up here. I felt it was really important that the whole crew who was going to work on Clone Wars felt the same way I did, which is we grew up on Star Wars and we really believed in it. It was something that inspired me creatively, and it’s something that inspired many generations. I think that’s important. I respect everybody out there and their opinions. Everybody comes up to me to talk about Star Wars, and I listen because I want to make sure when we do this, that we do it right and this will be the Star Wars that we all love.
Sansweet: Are you implying that fans have different opinions about Star Wars?
Filoni: People like different movies. Episodes I through VI, each one is very unique and different, and you can almost tell a lot about a person by which movie they like.
Sansweet: Do you actually talk about Star Wars at work? (laughter) You know what I mean.
Filoni: Steve, we work on Star Wars. We tend to talk about it at work.
Sansweet: I mean about the deeper philosophical meanings, and this species versus that, and the planets…
Filoni: Yes, that comes up. The most recently the big argument was can a lightsaber cut Superman? That goes on for month. That’s never been resolved. At Lucasfilm we’ve given a tremendous amount of thought. (laughter) The answer revolves around whether the lightsaber has a kryptonite crystal in it. Or whether or not Superman is close to a yellow sun or not. Steward Lee can fill you in on that.
Sansweet: That gives you some idea of the depth of fandom that we have working on Star Wars. So Star Wars really is in good hands. Henry, you have a background of writing Star Wars before. Tell a little of what you’ve done and how that relates to what you’re doing now.
Henry Gilroy, Story Editor/Writer: I worked on the adapatations for Episode I and Episode II. I worked on several Star Wars Tales stories, adventures, a couple of one-shots featuring Obi-Wan Kenobi. I think that living in the Star Wars world, or at least writing in it, really gives you a sense of it. If you’re in that world all the time, it starts to feel like home, and it’s’ really easy to write about home when you’re familiar with the world and the universe.
Sansweet: Now you were hired before ever meeting George Lucas. So what was it like at your first ever in-person meeting with George when you and Dave and Catherine began hashing out what the series would be.
Gilroy: I was really nervous, obviously. I was ecstatic, because I was given the opportunity to contribute to the Star Wars saga, but by the same token — as Dave was saying — we really took on this great responsibility. I think my nervousness was partially about meeting George, but I also wanted to collaborate with George and Dave and Catherine and make something that would stand up to what had come before. The bar had been set so high.
As far as us collaborating, Dave and I used meet at this little broken down diner –
Filoni: Right, across from a Toys-R-Us, so we would come up with plot points and ideas for Star Wars to pitch to George Lucas, then would walk across to Toys-R-Us to go “research” what was hot or not in the Star Wars universe that week, or if anything special had come out. Then we’d go back to work at the little restaurant.
Gilroy: We used to be a race into store, because there might be only one figure that we’d both want. Luckily, I was a little faster than the director.
Sansweet: Jason, you’re stepping in as editor. It’s no secret that George’s favorite thing in making a movie, he has said time and time again, he has said, “yeah, the writing has to be done and we have to capture all this footage, but what really makes the movie and what I really love to do the most is editing.” So what’s it like to edit a move with and for George Lucas?
Jason Tucker, Editor: First I was very nervous because of that, but it was a blend of excitement, just like Henry was saying. Basically when I first met George, he said he had a lot of respect for editors, and that put me at ease. He said that he had a lot of respect for editorial as a craft and an artform. It really shows in the way that he works, becuase there is a purposefulness in the way that he approaches editing. Almost like a tradition that dates back all the way to the birth of film. There’s a part of him that’s really genuinely open to new ideas and it’s really genuinely open to new ideas, and it’s pretty amazing to watch and be a part of. At the end of the day, what I’ve learned the most from him is clarity. To make it clear. To make the story as clear as possible.
Sansweet: George is famous for a couple of words in directing a film with live actors, and that’s “faster, more intense.” How do you carry that out in animation?
Tucker: George will say, “I want to speed that 200 percent, which is 48 frames per second,” and I’ll find that it works much better –
Filoni: We have presets in the Avid. He says blow it up 20 percent, reframe it here, center it here; George has a lot of same tendencies, so Jason just made a bank of “George Notes” that we can just dump it on shots every week.
Tucker: I pre-empt it now. I have several buttons that say 20 percent, 30 percent, 40 percent…
Sansweet: Catherine, initially when you were hired, what was the expectations for George’s direct participation in Clone Wars, and how and why did that change?
Winder: Intially, I was told no one was quite clear how involved George was going to be. We might see him once a year, once a month, we’d find out as we went along. As we started developing the project and he started seeing the material, he became more and more excited by what we were doing and started coming around a lot, because he was having lots and lots of fun with us. One of the eureka moment was that we did a short little test where we lit Yoda with our new painterly style, and he just walked across this one spot, and George looked it and he went crazy. He was so excited to see what we were doing, it was beginning to achieve that unique look that he was hoping for us to come up with.
Gilroy: Do you remember what he said?
Winder: Yes. You say it though.
Gilroy: It’s a really atmospheric shot, where Yoda is walking across the Chancellor Palpatine’s office from the shadows into light. And [George] stopped the frame and said, “We’re not making television, we’re making cinema.” That kind of pushed to make to really make something beyond your typical animated show and really stay true to Star Wars.
Tucker: It’s really a mini-feature every week.
Winder: Absolutely. We really are making these mini-events. We refine it, we change it, we improve it. We spend hours and hours with Dave and George and Jason in editorial making it way more exciting and as cinematic as possible.
Sansweet: I’m still trying to get my head around that. We’re going to be seeing basically a mini-Star Wars movie every week. For the first season, 22 episodes. That’s pretty darn exciting.
Winder: It really is. I plan on breaking out the popcorn with my family every Friday and watch each one of these, because they are like special family movie
Sansweet: Dave, you get to work for the man. The creator. Little be it for me to use Star Wars cliche, but it sort of is like the Padawan-Master relationship. What is it like to work under George? What do you get from that?
Filoni: It’s really intense. It’s really difficult. I answer to George Lucas. He’s the guy that works on the cut that I have to present every week with my guys. He made THX and American Graffiti. It’s not a board of people who aren’t familiar with what cinema is. He’s made some of the most famous films in history. It’s a privilege to be able to present him with footage, and it’s also nerve-wracking every week. We don’t know how its going to go, and what mood he’s in. He has different moods like everybody. He’s been a really good mentor, and we’re really fortunate that he’s now done with the six movies, and I think he was ready to take a group of people and teach them what he likes about filmmaking and how he likes to do it. I think he’s at that point now where he’s ready to pass on what he has learned much like the philosophy he talks about in his movies. We see that going on in our animation studios.
One of the first projects he made at USC was an animated film. His love of animation goes way back, and now he’s finally fulfilling a dream by having an animation studio. My hope is that this project will be the first of many coming out of Lucasfilm Animation not just from this group but future groups of talented people as well.
Sansweet: It’s nice to talk about this stuff, but we’re in the visual arts business, so how about we take a little break and show something to illustrate all your words. For the first time anywhere, we’ve got a clip to show you from Star Wars: The Clone Wars the movie. I’m going to ask Dave if he can set this up, what we’re going to see.
Filoni: Which one are we showing? (laughter)
Sansweet: …. crystal planet…
Filoni: Oh, on Christophsis. Yeah, okay. Yeah, this is a big battle in the beginning of The Clone Wars with Obi-Wan and Anakin stranded in the Outer Rim. I know you guys want to see this footage, so I’ll just stop talking.
Sansweet: Let’s take a look.
(Clip: Obi-Wan and Anakin lead their clone forces against Separatist droids on the crystal planet Christophsis; See the clip here.)
Sansweet: How and why was the decision made to go from a weekly TV series and kick it off as a full-fledged animated feature, which would then be followed by the weekly series.
Winder: That’s a good question. When we got material back early on from our studios and started reviewing it with George, we put it up on the big screen, so we could get a real sense of what we were dealing with. George got so excited about what he was seeing. He said to Dave and I, you guys need to figure how to put together a plan and produce a movie so we can kick off a series. He wanted you guys, the fans, to see it this way on the big screen.
Sansweet: So Dave, how did you go about doing that? You didn’t just take a couple of episodes and sew them together. What went into putting a few episodes into a movie?
Filoni: Well, it took a lot of effort. We didn’t want to present it as a bunch of broken pieces. We wanted to have an overall complete story. Luckily the first arc we were working on worked out well to be turned into a movie. Luckily, having Ahsoka as a new character was going to work well as a plot of the movie to introduce her. A lot of fans were surprised that Anakin had a Padawan, and we had to find out a way to introduce her and bring her into the story and show their relationship, and the film does that rather well.
Sansweet: How does a continuing weekly series differ from a movie?
Filoni: In the series we’re able to tackle a whole bunch of different issues and scenarios. That’s really exciting. The movie is one big complete idea: introducing a new character. In the series, we had a real opportunity to do really unique things with Star Wars. We can deal with just the ground troops on the front line with the clones. We can take obscure characters out the backgrounds of scenes, like Kit Fisto or Luminara or Plo Koon, and say what were they like? What did they sound like? How did they interact with the troops?
We tell a broad spectrum of stories. What’s Padme doing in the Senate and dealing with Palpatine all the time? There’s a whole bunch of areas that Henry can elaborate more on.
Gilroy: Besides telling war stories, George made it clear he wanted to use Clone Wars as a forum to tell various kinds of stories. So we tell mysteries and romances and horror and there’s a comedy or two in there too.
Sansweet: Jason, putting together the movie, how similar is it to a live action Star Wars movie?
Tucker: It indeed follows the same style. There’s the signature Star Wars wipes that we’re all familiar and the intercutting between different storylines is definitely there, and of course the “faster and more intense” that you mentioned earlier.
Sansweet: Henry, I’m interested in these story sessions that you and Dave engaged in in the beginning. How far out did you go in conceptualizing ideas? Did you feel any restraints in the beginning? What kind of things did you come up in terms of general storylines?
Gilroy: I always try to be inspired by the same things that inspire George. I think of Star Wars as this great big stew of awesome cinema. The genesis comes from the Flash Gordon serials of the ’30s, but he also threw in the westerns of the ’40s along with the Warner Bros. cartoons of the ’40s, and then there are samurai films of the ’50s there, along with the war epics of the ’60s. So you put all that together with a fairy tale theme that anyone can relate to, and that’s a recipe of how you might tell a Star Wars story.
Filoni: George used to give us a movie to watch every week. He would give us the Battle of the Bulge and go watch this, and up on the screen we would see that Ken Annakin directed it. We’d think, Anakin? And then in the middle of the movie, a character says, “I have a bad feeling about this.” Each week he’d give us something, and it’d have a little bit of it. And it must have been movies that he watched and grew up liking or was inspired by. Then we’d ask, George, is Anakin named after Ken Annakin? “No, no, no. That has nothing to do with it.” But when Bronson says “I have a bad feeling about this…” “No that’s a complete coincidence.” (laughter). It was really interesting and a good education. That’s another thing I learned about Star Wars. It’s really rooted in a lot of cinema that George has seen growing up and things he liked.
Like all of you, when you make your stories and are inspired, you draw from what you know. But ask yourself this, because Henry and I struggled at first. Okay, you’re going to do a Star Wars story. What are you going to do it about? Not only that, but you’re going to start telling the story of the Clone Wars. What’s the first story you’re going to tell? By the way, you’re going to show that story to George Lucas, and hope he says that’s a good idea, and worth investing in telling the story. It was really challenging. It’s really hard to come up with those ideas. After a while, we got used to it, but man, Henry and I used to argue about just what were going to bring to him to show.
Gilroy: Very rarely would George just shoot us down. Most of the time, he’d encourage us to make it bigger, or more ambitious in scope. “That’s story too small. I want to go to five planets and not three.”
Winder: That would give me a big headache.
Filoni: Because she controlled the budget.
Gilroy: George would say “don’t listen to Catherine. Don’t listen to Catherine. Ignore her!”
Winder: I was just trying to get it done!
Sansweet: So you guys are pretty familiar with the comics and the novels. What happens when you present an expanded universe character who’s never really had much of a role in Star Wars? How did you come up with the idea of using Asajj Ventress as a major villain?
Gilroy: George is a fan of the comics. He would look through the comics and say, “wow, this is a really interesting character, visually. Let’s see that character.” There’s a few that I think the fans of the comics are going to love to watch the series. You’re going to see some of your favorite characters.
Filoni: We have to bring some of it in front of him too. We would work with a certain idea, and go onto Wookieepedia and print out all the pages and say, are you aware of all this material out there, and See what he wasn’t aware of and wasn’t aware of, and take what we wanted to do and try to do a version of something to keep it all together, because Star Wars has expanded so far. Every now and then you run into a Boba Fett scenario, where we didn’t know he was a clone, and the Jaster Mereel, and now he’s not, and now he’s a clone. And then we call Leland Chee and it’s his problem.
Gilroy: Leland Chee is a continuity editor who is a great big help from Lucasfilm.
Filoni: A continuity expert. The Holocron.
Sansweet: Henry, how does your background in writing for animation in the past combined with your experience in writing Star Wars comics, how did that help you or hinder you?
Gilroy: I think that the experiences I had in animation, it all led up to this. I think every writing job I’ve ever had. I had worked on action shows like Batman and Justice League, and I worked on Bionicle for Miramax, which is kind of like epic fantasy. I worked on Lilo and Stitch which is character development and comedy. Star Wars has all of those elements. Every tool I had picked up in the past, I had was able to bring to Star Wars.
Sansweet: I think it’s time to take another little break. You guys have been talking for a while. You might get a little hoarse. How about we show a scene from the series? (Audience cheer) You want to set it up for us? How far into the series is this?
Filoni: This is kind of in the first quarter of the episodes. I thought it’d be neat to break out for you guys something totally different. I know you’ve seen a lot of things on the movie. The fact is we have a lot of new characters. This is the entire act one of an episode that involves Luminara and I thought it’d be cool for you guys to check out.
Sansweet: And it’s called “Cloak of Darkness”. Let’s take a look.
(Clip from television episode, featuring Luminara Unduli and Ahsoka Tano handing over a captive Nute Gunray to Captain Argyus and his Senate Commandos. The Jedi cruiser they are on is suddenly attacked by Separatist vessels, including Separatist boarding craft that bring Asajj Ventress aboard).
Sansweet: I guess I’m finally going to have to break down and buy a big screen HD TV. What has been your biggest satisfaction in the last three years working on the Clone Wars?
Tucker: Collaboration. This has been the biggest satisfaction. Watching Dave work and collaborating with him has been fantastic over the last three years.
Gilroy: Yeah, same thing. Teaming up with Dave and Jason and George. Working with Catherine. I think we’ve produced something that is really extraordinary. And just… it’s Star Wars. Adding to the Star Wars saga has been a dream and pleasure. The whole crew really loves Star Wars, and it shows. You can see from what’s on the screen, they really bust their tails to get there.
Winder: Having had the opportunity to take this important, incredible franchise into animation and see what this passionate team at Lucasfilm has done. Everybody has worked so hard, and to see it from basically a blank piece of paper to what you guys are going to see on the screen makes me really proud and honored to have been a part of this.
Filoni: I think it’s just keeping Star Wars alive. I think after Revenge of the Sith, I didn’t know what the future of Star Wars was. After watching Revenge of the Sith I didnt know what the future of Star Wars was. I knew I would always like it and watch the movies over and over again, but to be part of something where we’re actually forwarding Star Wars, and you’re going to have episodes like that every week coming out. That’s pretty exciting, and pretty proud of that and the crew that makes of it. George is talking about the live action series that he wants to do, and that, from what I’ve heard, looks and sounds awesome, so you guys are going to get that in the future. The overall message is that beyond what people thought in 2005, Star Wars is alive and well. Because of the dedication of the fans you see here at Comic-Con every year, it’s the number one thing every time. It’s really humbling. I appreciate that. I’m glad we can all give something back.
Sansweet: And I can’t think of Star Wars being in better hands than the crew you see here, the animation people here, and in Singapore and at Big Rock Ranch in Marin County. Let’s give a big hand for our panelists Dave Filoni, Catherine Winder, Henry Gilroy and Jason Tucker. And we will see all of you in line on August 15th. And then on television, every week in the Fall as the Clone Wars comes to Cartoon Network and TNT. We want to thank you all for all of your support over all of these years. Enjoy Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Thank you very much. |
|
Darth Samuel
|
related to the tv series: There will be a whole episode on Kit Fisto(my favorite character!!!!!!!!!!!!1) WOOHOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That is so awesome.
|
Rive Caedo
|
Two new posters I hadn't seen before. One featuring the new Prequel Y-Wing.
|
Darth Samuel
|
i can't wait to see it
|
Yodafueva me
|
I'm sorry, but I lo'd at the first trailer I saw. Seriously, what the hell is up with Shaak Ti?
|
Rive Caedo
|
Stop being so speciesist, Yoda! Thinking all Togruntas look alike!
This is Shaak Ti. We'll probably see a 3D version of her based on this design, but I'm fairly sure we haven't just yet.
This is the new character you've been seeing, Ahsoka Tano. Same species. Different skin color (orange, as opposed to more red), different age (14, as opposed to uh... older than 14), different rank (padawan, as opposed to Jedi Council member), different personality ("spunky", as opposed to "I'm a Jedi extra with no lines!").
|
Lord Vexen
|
Theres an action sequence video on Yahoo for this. Action is good...but I think the dialogue is corny.
|
Lord Invictus
|
| Lord Vexen wrote: | | ...but I think the dialogue is corny. |
The dialogue in episode 1 and two (except for Obi-Wan, Mace Windu, and Qui Gon) is all corny... of course, the same with Luke in the originals. But the villains always have cool lines... COUNT DOOKU!
|
Lord Invictus
|
| Rive Caedo wrote: | Despite not actually being linked on there - the ComicCon Battle of Christophsis footage in High Definition has been located by the nice folks on MilleniumFalcon.com
(Right click and "Save as")
http://playlist.yahoo.com/makepla...id=68864508&sdm=web&pt=rd
Also: Here's the complete transcript of the ComicCon panel.
| Quote: | Steve Sansweet, Head of Fan Relations: This has been an incredibly ambitious three to four years. Setting up a new animation division in two countries, staffing it with incredibly talented people, and then producing something that is of such high qualities. There so were many stories to tell and areas to explore in this period that we call Clone Wars. The best way to do that was to use classic Star Wars storytelling in a new medium for us.
It’s my extreme pleasure to introduce you to four people who have been putting everything they have into the Clone Wars series and movie. Please give a warm welcome to Supervising Director Dave Filoni, Producer Catherine Winder, Story Editor and Writer Henry Gilroy, and Editor Jason Tucker.
Our panelists have worked directly with George Lucas to develop The Clone Wars. How did they turn one of the world’s most recognizable franchises into the world of animation? That’s what we’re going to try to find out today.
Catherine, you actually started about four years ago. It was your job to hire the team and set up the running of The Clone Wars operation. How did you go about doing something like that with a property which has such high expectations like Star Wars?
Catherine Winder, Producer: There are a lot of things to juggle for a project like this. I felt such responsibility. To start I needed to get into George’s head and understand what exactly it was he wanted us to produce. That was kind of tough in the beginning because I didn’t have much access to him. He was really busy finishing off Revenge of the Sith, but I got bits and pieces of information. The bottom line was George said he wanted us to produce something that would blow everybody away, something that nobody had ever seen before on the television screen, and ultimately what we turned into animation for the movie screen. Something that was really unique. And that’s no easy task. The first thing to do was to find the creative team that could pull that off. I spent a lot of time searching for the right people, and was really fortunate to come up with Dave and Henry and Jason. Once we all started working together, I really felt like we were going to do something special.
Sansweet: I promised Dave that I would never mention again that he actually hand-crafted a Plo Koon costume and dressed up for the opening of Episode III. So, I won’t.
Dave Filoni, Director: Too late. Wake up, Steve!
Sansweet: You’ve been a Star Wars fan for a while, and so are a lot of people working on Clone Wars. What’s the biggest difference between being a fan and being an integral part of creating the next chapter of the Star Wars saga?
Filoni: There’s really not much difference, to be very honest with you. There’s a sense of immense responsibility coming from sitting in the audience to sitting up here. I felt it was really important that the whole crew who was going to work on Clone Wars felt the same way I did, which is we grew up on Star Wars and we really believed in it. It was something that inspired me creatively, and it’s something that inspired many generations. I think that’s important. I respect everybody out there and their opinions. Everybody comes up to me to talk about Star Wars, and I listen because I want to make sure when we do this, that we do it right and this will be the Star Wars that we all love.
Sansweet: Are you implying that fans have different opinions about Star Wars?
Filoni: People like different movies. Episodes I through VI, each one is very unique and different, and you can almost tell a lot about a person by which movie they like.
Sansweet: Do you actually talk about Star Wars at work? (laughter) You know what I mean.
Filoni: Steve, we work on Star Wars. We tend to talk about it at work.
Sansweet: I mean about the deeper philosophical meanings, and this species versus that, and the planets…
Filoni: Yes, that comes up. The most recently the big argument was can a lightsaber cut Superman? That goes on for month. That’s never been resolved. At Lucasfilm we’ve given a tremendous amount of thought. (laughter) The answer revolves around whether the lightsaber has a kryptonite crystal in it. Or whether or not Superman is close to a yellow sun or not. Steward Lee can fill you in on that.
Sansweet: That gives you some idea of the depth of fandom that we have working on Star Wars. So Star Wars really is in good hands. Henry, you have a background of writing Star Wars before. Tell a little of what you’ve done and how that relates to what you’re doing now.
Henry Gilroy, Story Editor/Writer: I worked on the adapatations for Episode I and Episode II. I worked on several Star Wars Tales stories, adventures, a couple of one-shots featuring Obi-Wan Kenobi. I think that living in the Star Wars world, or at least writing in it, really gives you a sense of it. If you’re in that world all the time, it starts to feel like home, and it’s’ really easy to write about home when you’re familiar with the world and the universe.
Sansweet: Now you were hired before ever meeting George Lucas. So what was it like at your first ever in-person meeting with George when you and Dave and Catherine began hashing out what the series would be.
Gilroy: I was really nervous, obviously. I was ecstatic, because I was given the opportunity to contribute to the Star Wars saga, but by the same token — as Dave was saying — we really took on this great responsibility. I think my nervousness was partially about meeting George, but I also wanted to collaborate with George and Dave and Catherine and make something that would stand up to what had come before. The bar had been set so high.
As far as us collaborating, Dave and I used meet at this little broken down diner –
Filoni: Right, across from a Toys-R-Us, so we would come up with plot points and ideas for Star Wars to pitch to George Lucas, then would walk across to Toys-R-Us to go “research” what was hot or not in the Star Wars universe that week, or if anything special had come out. Then we’d go back to work at the little restaurant.
Gilroy: We used to be a race into store, because there might be only one figure that we’d both want. Luckily, I was a little faster than the director.
Sansweet: Jason, you’re stepping in as editor. It’s no secret that George’s favorite thing in making a movie, he has said time and time again, he has said, “yeah, the writing has to be done and we have to capture all this footage, but what really makes the movie and what I really love to do the most is editing.” So what’s it like to edit a move with and for George Lucas?
Jason Tucker, Editor: First I was very nervous because of that, but it was a blend of excitement, just like Henry was saying. Basically when I first met George, he said he had a lot of respect for editors, and that put me at ease. He said that he had a lot of respect for editorial as a craft and an artform. It really shows in the way that he works, becuase there is a purposefulness in the way that he approaches editing. Almost like a tradition that dates back all the way to the birth of film. There’s a part of him that’s really genuinely open to new ideas and it’s really genuinely open to new ideas, and it’s pretty amazing to watch and be a part of. At the end of the day, what I’ve learned the most from him is clarity. To make it clear. To make the story as clear as possible.
Sansweet: George is famous for a couple of words in directing a film with live actors, and that’s “faster, more intense.” How do you carry that out in animation?
Tucker: George will say, “I want to speed that 200 percent, which is 48 frames per second,” and I’ll find that it works much better –
Filoni: We have presets in the Avid. He says blow it up 20 percent, reframe it here, center it here; George has a lot of same tendencies, so Jason just made a bank of “George Notes” that we can just dump it on shots every week.
Tucker: I pre-empt it now. I have several buttons that say 20 percent, 30 percent, 40 percent…
Sansweet: Catherine, initially when you were hired, what was the expectations for George’s direct participation in Clone Wars, and how and why did that change?
Winder: Intially, I was told no one was quite clear how involved George was going to be. We might see him once a year, once a month, we’d find out as we went along. As we started developing the project and he started seeing the material, he became more and more excited by what we were doing and started coming around a lot, because he was having lots and lots of fun with us. One of the eureka moment was that we did a short little test where we lit Yoda with our new painterly style, and he just walked across this one spot, and George looked it and he went crazy. He was so excited to see what we were doing, it was beginning to achieve that unique look that he was hoping for us to come up with.
Gilroy: Do you remember what he said?
Winder: Yes. You say it though.
Gilroy: It’s a really atmospheric shot, where Yoda is walking across the Chancellor Palpatine’s office from the shadows into light. And [George] stopped the frame and said, “We’re not making television, we’re making cinema.” That kind of pushed to make to really make something beyond your typical animated show and really stay true to Star Wars.
Tucker: It’s really a mini-feature every week.
Winder: Absolutely. We really are making these mini-events. We refine it, we change it, we improve it. We spend hours and hours with Dave and George and Jason in editorial making it way more exciting and as cinematic as possible.
Sansweet: I’m still trying to get my head around that. We’re going to be seeing basically a mini-Star Wars movie every week. For the first season, 22 episodes. That’s pretty darn exciting.
Winder: It really is. I plan on breaking out the popcorn with my family every Friday and watch each one of these, because they are like special family movie
Sansweet: Dave, you get to work for the man. The creator. Little be it for me to use Star Wars cliche, but it sort of is like the Padawan-Master relationship. What is it like to work under George? What do you get from that?
Filoni: It’s really intense. It’s really difficult. I answer to George Lucas. He’s the guy that works on the cut that I have to present every week with my guys. He made THX and American Graffiti. It’s not a board of people who aren’t familiar with what cinema is. He’s made some of the most famous films in history. It’s a privilege to be able to present him with footage, and it’s also nerve-wracking every week. We don’t know how its going to go, and what mood he’s in. He has different moods like everybody. He’s been a really good mentor, and we’re really fortunate that he’s now done with the six movies, and I think he was ready to take a group of people and teach them what he likes about filmmaking and how he likes to do it. I think he’s at that point now where he’s ready to pass on what he has learned much like the philosophy he talks about in his movies. We see that going on in our animation studios.
One of the first projects he made at USC was an animated film. His love of animation goes way back, and now he’s finally fulfilling a dream by having an animation studio. My hope is that this project will be the first of many coming out of Lucasfilm Animation not just from this group but future groups of talented people as well.
Sansweet: It’s nice to talk about this stuff, but we’re in the visual arts business, so how about we take a little break and show something to illustrate all your words. For the first time anywhere, we’ve got a clip to show you from Star Wars: The Clone Wars the movie. I’m going to ask Dave if he can set this up, what we’re going to see.
Filoni: Which one are we showing? (laughter)
Sansweet: …. crystal planet…
Filoni: Oh, on Christophsis. Yeah, okay. Yeah, this is a big battle in the beginning of The Clone Wars with Obi-Wan and Anakin stranded in the Outer Rim. I know you guys want to see this footage, so I’ll just stop talking.
Sansweet: Let’s take a look.
(Clip: Obi-Wan and Anakin lead their clone forces against Separatist droids on the crystal planet Christophsis; See the clip here.)
Sansweet: How and why was the decision made to go from a weekly TV series and kick it off as a full-fledged animated feature, which would then be followed by the weekly series.
Winder: That’s a good question. When we got material back early on from our studios and started reviewing it with George, we put it up on the big screen, so we could get a real sense of what we were dealing with. George got so excited about what he was seeing. He said to Dave and I, you guys need to figure how to put together a plan and produce a movie so we can kick off a series. He wanted you guys, the fans, to see it this way on the big screen.
Sansweet: So Dave, how did you go about doing that? You didn’t just take a couple of episodes and sew them together. What went into putting a few episodes into a movie?
Filoni: Well, it took a lot of effort. We didn’t want to present it as a bunch of broken pieces. We wanted to have an overall complete story. Luckily the first arc we were working on worked out well to be turned into a movie. Luckily, having Ahsoka as a new character was going to work well as a plot of the movie to introduce her. A lot of fans were surprised that Anakin had a Padawan, and we had to find out a way to introduce her and bring her into the story and show their relationship, and the film does that rather well.
Sansweet: How does a continuing weekly series differ from a movie?
Filoni: In the series we’re able to tackle a whole bunch of different issues and scenarios. That’s really exciting. The movie is one big complete idea: introducing a new character. In the series, we had a real opportunity to do really unique things with Star Wars. We can deal with just the ground troops on the front line with the clones. We can take obscure characters out the backgrounds of scenes, like Kit Fisto or Luminara or Plo Koon, and say what were they like? What did they sound like? How did they interact with the troops?
We tell a broad spectrum of stories. What’s Padme doing in the Senate and dealing with Palpatine all the time? There’s a whole bunch of areas that Henry can elaborate more on.
Gilroy: Besides telling war stories, George made it clear he wanted to use Clone Wars as a forum to tell various kinds of stories. So we tell mysteries and romances and horror and there’s a comedy or two in there too.
Sansweet: Jason, putting together the movie, how similar is it to a live action Star Wars movie?
Tucker: It indeed follows the same style. There’s the signature Star Wars wipes that we’re all familiar and the intercutting between different storylines is definitely there, and of course the “faster and more intense” that you mentioned earlier.
Sansweet: Henry, I’m interested in these story sessions that you and Dave engaged in in the beginning. How far out did you go in conceptualizing ideas? Did you feel any restraints in the beginning? What kind of things did you come up in terms of general storylines?
Gilroy: I always try to be inspired by the same things that inspire George. I think of Star Wars as this great big stew of awesome cinema. The genesis comes from the Flash Gordon serials of the ’30s, but he also threw in the westerns of the ’40s along with the Warner Bros. cartoons of the ’40s, and then there are samurai films of the ’50s there, along with the war epics of the ’60s. So you put all that together with a fairy tale theme that anyone can relate to, and that’s a recipe of how you might tell a Star Wars story.
Filoni: George used to give us a movie to watch every week. He would give us the Battle of the Bulge and go watch this, and up on the screen we would see that Ken Annakin directed it. We’d think, Anakin? And then in the middle of the movie, a character says, “I have a bad feeling about this.” Each week he’d give us something, and it’d have a little bit of it. And it must have been movies that he watched and grew up liking or was inspired by. Then we’d ask, George, is Anakin named after Ken Annakin? “No, no, no. That has nothing to do with it.” But when Bronson says “I have a bad feeling about this…” “No that’s a complete coincidence.” (laughter). It was really interesting and a good education. That’s another thing I learned about Star Wars. It’s really rooted in a lot of cinema that George has seen growing up and things he liked.
Like all of you, when you make your stories and are inspired, you draw from what you know. But ask yourself this, because Henry and I struggled at first. Okay, you’re going to do a Star Wars story. What are you going to do it about? Not only that, but you’re going to start telling the story of the Clone Wars. What’s the first story you’re going to tell? By the way, you’re going to show that story to George Lucas, and hope he says that’s a good idea, and worth investing in telling the story. It was really challenging. It’s really hard to come up with those ideas. After a while, we got used to it, but man, Henry and I used to argue about just what were going to bring to him to show.
Gilroy: Very rarely would George just shoot us down. Most of the time, he’d encourage us to make it bigger, or more ambitious in scope. “That’s story too small. I want to go to five planets and not three.”
Winder: That would give me a big headache.
Filoni: Because she controlled the budget.
Gilroy: George would say “don’t listen to Catherine. Don’t listen to Catherine. Ignore her!”
Winder: I was just trying to get it done!
Sansweet: So you guys are pretty familiar with the comics and the novels. What happens when you present an expanded universe character who’s never really had much of a role in Star Wars? How did you come up with the idea of using Asajj Ventress as a major villain?
Gilroy: George is a fan of the comics. He would look through the comics and say, “wow, this is a really interesting character, visually. Let’s see that character.” There’s a few that I think the fans of the comics are going to love to watch the series. You’re going to see some of your favorite characters.
Filoni: We have to bring some of it in front of him too. We would work with a certain idea, and go onto Wookieepedia and print out all the pages and say, are you aware of all this material out there, and See what he wasn’t aware of and wasn’t aware of, and take what we wanted to do and try to do a version of something to keep it all together, because Star Wars has expanded so far. Every now and then you run into a Boba Fett scenario, where we didn’t know he was a clone, and the Jaster Mereel, and now he’s not, and now he’s a clone. And then we call Leland Chee and it’s his problem.
Gilroy: Leland Chee is a continuity editor who is a great big help from Lucasfilm.
Filoni: A continuity expert. The Holocron.
Sansweet: Henry, how does your background in writing for animation in the past combined with your experience in writing Star Wars comics, how did that help you or hinder you?
Gilroy: I think that the experiences I had in animation, it all led up to this. I think every writing job I’ve ever had. I had worked on action shows like Batman and Justice League, and I worked on Bionicle for Miramax, which is kind of like epic fantasy. I worked on Lilo and Stitch which is character development and comedy. Star Wars has all of those elements. Every tool I had picked up in the past, I had was able to bring to Star Wars.
Sansweet: I think it’s time to take another little break. You guys have been talking for a while. You might get a little hoarse. How about we show a scene from the series? (Audience cheer) You want to set it up for us? How far into the series is this?
Filoni: This is kind of in the first quarter of the episodes. I thought it’d be neat to break out for you guys something totally different. I know you’ve seen a lot of things on the movie. The fact is we have a lot of new characters. This is the entire act one of an episode that involves Luminara and I thought it’d be cool for you guys to check out.
Sansweet: And it’s called “Cloak of Darkness”. Let’s take a look.
(Clip from television episode, featuring Luminara Unduli and Ahsoka Tano handing over a captive Nute Gunray to Captain Argyus and his Senate Commandos. The Jedi cruiser they are on is suddenly attacked by Separatist vessels, including Separatist boarding craft that bring Asajj Ventress aboard).
Sansweet: I guess I’m finally going to have to break down and buy a big screen HD TV. What has been your biggest satisfaction in the last three years working on the Clone Wars?
Tucker: Collaboration. This has been the biggest satisfaction. Watching Dave work and collaborating with him has been fantastic over the last three years.
Gilroy: Yeah, same thing. Teaming up with Dave and Jason and George. Working with Catherine. I think we’ve produced something that is really extraordinary. And just… it’s Star Wars. Adding to the Star Wars saga has been a dream and pleasure. The whole crew really loves Star Wars, and it shows. You can see from what’s on the screen, they really bust their tails to get there.
Winder: Having had the opportunity to take this important, incredible franchise into animation and see what this passionate team at Lucasfilm has done. Everybody has worked so hard, and to see it from basically a blank piece of paper to what you guys are going to see on the screen makes me really proud and honored to have been a part of this.
Filoni: I think it’s just keeping Star Wars alive. I think after Revenge of the Sith, I didn’t know what the future of Star Wars was. After watching Revenge of the Sith I didnt know what the future of Star Wars was. I knew I would always like it and watch the movies over and over again, but to be part of something where we’re actually forwarding Star Wars, and you’re going to have episodes like that every week coming out. That’s pretty exciting, and pretty proud of that and the crew that makes of it. George is talking about the live action series that he wants to do, and that, from what I’ve heard, looks and sounds awesome, so you guys are going to get that in the future. The overall message is that beyond what people thought in 2005, Star Wars is alive and well. Because of the dedication of the fans you see here at Comic-Con every year, it’s the number one thing every time. It’s really humbling. I appreciate that. I’m glad we can all give something back.
Sansweet: And I can’t think of Star Wars being in better hands than the crew you see here, the animation people here, and in Singapore and at Big Rock Ranch in Marin County. Let’s give a big hand for our panelists Dave Filoni, Catherine Winder, Henry Gilroy and Jason Tucker. And we will see all of you in line on August 15th. And then on television, every week in the Fall as the Clone Wars comes to Cartoon Network and TNT. We want to thank you all for all of your support over all of these years. Enjoy Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Thank you very much. |
|
TOO MANY WORDS! Summarize? Dang... I'm sounding more and more like Lanik these days....
(sorry Lanik....)
|
Rive Caedo
|
Well it's a transcript of an entire presentation
Uh... George Lucas is still obsessed with "faster, more intense"
Lucas likes to thumb through the Star Wars expanded universe comics and say "ooo! That guy looks neat! Use that guy in an episode!"
There was a girl trying to limit the budget and shrink the scripts they were writing. Lucas said the opposite "Don't listen to her! In fact, go to five planets, not three!"
The TV series (starting two months after the movie) will be airing every week on Cartoon Network AND TNT.
The live-action TV series is still planning to be produced.
|
Ga'nen
|
The live action series worries me because it is going to have minor characters. I will have to see something before i am convinced it will be super good. Similar to BSG's Caprica spinoff, I wasn't entirely convinced until I saw the actual trailer.
|
Lord Invictus
|
| Rive Caedo wrote: | Two new posters I hadn't seen before. One featuring the new Prequel Y-Wing.
|
Cool posters. The computer animation looks nice here, actually.
|
Darth Samuel
|
this movie is gonna be sooooooooooooooo sweet.
|
Lord Invictus
|
Oh, and about the animated models:
"ANIMATED CLONE TROOPER HEADS ARE SWEETNESS!"
"Obi-wan looks very cool."
"Anakin.... ugh... rather have live action Ani in the movies..."
"MORE CLONE TROOPER HEADS AND BODIES LOOK AWESOME!"
.... Clone troopers rule....
|
Darth Samuel
|
So Anakin has a padawan? weird.new plot twist! YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
|
Rive Caedo
|
Well, the first review is in. It's basically spoiler free. One thing that you could have guessed from the trailer and one two-second scene described - that's it.
It's favorable (4 out of 5 stars), which is good, but I tend to distrust first reviews, since the reviewers tend to want to keep getting the first look at movies. But, I took a glance at SFX's other recent reviews (Wall*E, Wanted, Hancock, The Happening, and Batman) and they're right in line with what I thought of those movies - so hm... maybe it's legit?
The key phrase for me: "The characters may be heavily stylised CG caricatures of the saga’s heroes and villains, but the essence of George Lucas’s creation remains in a movie that bests at least two of the prequels."
http://www.sfx.co.uk/page/sfx?entry=film_review_star_wars_the
|
Grand Vizier Tarna
|
I saw a commercial on TV which I wasn't expecting and it was quite good. It wasn't any trailer that I had seen online.
|
Lord Vexen
|
No opening crawl...aww that sucks. And I have doubts on it beating TPM...AOTC on the other hand...
|
Darth Samuel
|
I liked AOTC. well, the jedi battles at the end. And TPM was awesome. saw it when i was five, was amazing.
|
Lord Vexen
|
| Samuel wrote: | | I liked AOTC. well, the jedi battles at the end. And TPM was awesome. saw it when i was five, was amazing. |
I saw it when I was 6. Great movie...and I thought it was the first one cause I hadn't seen 4,5, or6
|
Darth Samuel
|
i had seen 4,5, and,6, but that one was special.
|
Yodafueva me
|
I saw a trailer for this and I have to say, it looks awful. Looks like it was made for 5-10 year olds and what is up with Shaak Ti? "My jedi training didn't prepare me for this," Lol.
|
shadowball2021
|
| Yodafueva me wrote: | | I saw a trailer for this and I have to say, it looks awful. Looks like it was made for 5-10 year olds and what is up with Shaak Ti? "My jedi training didn't prepare me for this," Lol. |
that wasn't Shaak Ti.  It was Ahsoka Tano, Anakin's Padawan.
*Look here: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Ahsoka_Tano
|
Yodafueva me
|
I can't believe Anakin has a padawan!
|
Rive Caedo
|
You can listen to previews of the entire soundtrack online now:
http://www.starwarsthemusic.com/music
It's all rather Star Warsy, but you can tell it's not Williams. It has a lot more percussion than Williams tracks tend to.
That said, it's above the quality of most/all television soundtracks, so if they keep up that level of quality for the entire television series it should be a nice infusion of dozens of actiony Star Wars tracks.
|
shadowball2021
|
I'm going to the midnight showing at 12:01am...anybody else going to a midnight showing?
|
|
|
|