March 14 2008

SOURCES: (collider.com, comingsoon.net, ew.com, empireonline.com)






PRODUCTION

• THE CLONE WARS EPISODIC

Lucas: "It's not that episodic. This is a movie but we started doing the episodes and some of the episodes are stand-alone and some are two, some are three, some are four, and there's no cliffhangers. It's not like the current vogue of "24" and "The Wire" and stuff where you actually have to watch the entire series in order to understand what's going on. This is an old-fashioned episodic show."

"We finished the first year of Clone Wars, we're in the middle of working on the second year. I'm finishing the scripts for the third year. And now I'm working on the scripts for the first year of the live-action show. So it's a lot of scripts."

"Well, no, but the show starts in October... October 1st... no, in the fall. They haven't decided yet. We just made our deal. Yeah, well I'm going to do a hundred shows. I'm going to do it no matter what they do, so obviously, I want it to stay on the air a long time."

• THE CLONE WARS THEATRICAL MOVIE • FIRST THREE EPISODES

Lucas: "We looked at it on the big screen and it looked so beautiful and great that we said, "Gee, we can make a feature just like this." So we did and got all the people, got all the stuff and said, "Let's make a feature."


CHARACTERS

• RETURN OF BOBA FETT IN THE CLONE WARS

Lucas said that all the major characters from the prequel trilogy will be present: The Emperor to Mace Windu, and Boba Fett. Among the new characters: Anakin's young apprentice, a female Jedi by the name of Ahsoki. (source: eonline.com)

• VOICE ACTORS

Lucas: "Animation has its own demands, especially as we're also doing a TV series – and this started out as a TV series."

"No, no. I mean, because it's a TV show, it's something that goes on and on and on and on, so it's not really designed to have a lot of the old actors back. Yeah, it's impossible, 'cause TV, it's very hard. You have to basically be on-call every day."


CANON

Lucas: "There's three worlds: There's my world that I made up, there's the licensing world that's the books, the comics, all that kind of stuff, the games, which is their world, and then there's the fans' world, which is also very rich in imagination, but they don't always mesh.

All I'm in charge of is my world. I can't be in charge of those other people's world, because I can't keep up with it." (source: cs.net)

In other words, "I'm paying for these myself, and I'll be damned if I pay a cent above Guild minimum for the voice talent."

Aye that was how I took it as well.."animation costs enough, soundalikes are cost effective!" I'd appreciate it more if he just said that instead of trying to make it some sort of editorial policy.

My arse still clenches at the recycled "Anakin, Anakin Nooooooo" dialogue from E2. Christ the Clone Wars Qui Gon was a better match for that Nooooo than the shite they gave us..and dont even get me started on the non-conversation with Qui Gon in EP3. It's more annoying knowing he wanted it in there and didnt pursue it than it woulda been hearing a slightly dodgy voice-over.

I wouldn't be surprised if he's got skywalker ranch working on a way to analyze Hayden's speech from II and III, allowing him to have a computer synthesized voice that's actually hayden, but can say anything he wants him to say with George's money, it's really do-able.

I thought that had more to do with Liam Neeson's reluctance to to do it.

Yup. I guess they didn't use a sound alike for the ROTS scene because they wanted to avoid pissing him off further. According to John Knoll's book, Neeson's decision was last minute and took them all by surprise.

One more reason to find him in a dark alley.

What book would that be? I'd love to read it.

It's called Creating the Worlds of Star Wars 365 Days. It details every single set for each of the SW films and comes with a CD Rom with a bunch of those 360 degree Knollvisions that were on Hyperspace. It is a very nice book. I'd recommend it. It's one of my favorite behind the scenes books.

I know this isn't the thread for this, but I need somebody to explain this Neeson story to me.

What exactly happened that made him not want to do that scene in Episode III?

He went into the wild to live with bears and hasn't been seen for the last 3 years...or something close to that. Also Neeson's agent said that Lucas was only willing to offer him £8.27 to reprise his (tiny) role.

Then Lucas should have used that guy from the cartoon. His voice sounded just like Liam's.

Not having that complete scene in the movie bothers me. It works well in the novelization.

The first poster is my favourite, especially yoda's expression.

THE CLONE WARS JABBA THE HUTT REVEALED





starwars.com: /theclonewars/

Lucas was interviewed by Starwars.com which features a new still from The Clone Wars showing Kashyyyk Ornithopters in the background:



Lucas: "We added a new character. We needed to change the dynamic between Obi-Wan the mentor and Anakin the Padawan, which is where we left them. That's how they entered the Clone Wars. We wanted to make that relationship become more dynamic... sort of like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. They're now equal. They're now partners. They're now working together."

"But we really wanted to have that Padawan-mentor relationship, so we gave the most unlikely person a Padawan, which is Anakin, and we made the Padawan a girl. She's very feisty. She's very outgoing and independent-minded, which gives Anakin a real challenge, because he's sort of like that too. He's trying to clean up his act by teaching her to settle down and think and not be so aggressive."


Lucas & CartoonNetwork Upfront Presentation @ USAToday.com, ENewsI.com, BroadcastingCable.com


Lucas appeared at Cartoon Network's Upfront event recently and revealed that show is primarily targeted to 12 year olds and that the new character of Ahsoka is 11-years old.

Lucas: "We wanted something more in the realm of anime, design-wise, than was currently on TV or movies outside Japan," "We wanted to give the look and feel of something that was past," Lucas says, adding that Gerry Anderson's 1960s British Thunderbirds series, featuring talking marionettes, "was an inspiration. We didn't want it to look like Beowulf or The Incredibles."

Lucas says that while the show can appeal to viewers ages 8 to 80, it's primarily targeted at 12-year-olds. As a result, he's added a new 11-year-old girl, Ahsoka, as a "padawan learner" for Anakin Skywalker to mentor, now that he and Obi-Wan Kenobi are "equal partners."