August 31 2008

source: cartoonnetwork.com
download: The Clone Wars CGI Trailer III





The new trailer that played tonight on Cartoon Network's Ben 10 - Alien X Show looked fantastic - tons of new scenes. We also now have an official premiere date for the series: October 3rd @ 9:00 pm.

[flash width=425 height=344]http://www.youtube.com/v/uwtOs_IEMSI[/flash]

Here's the new trailer, it's in flash format. I use Riva Flash player. If someone can rip it into quicktime or something, that'd be grand.

New Clone Wars Trailer.flv

Weird new planets...
Cackling droid generals...
Fleets of early version OT ships...
Foreboding Sith poses...
Flowing jedi ponchos...
Nuggets of Plo-Koon wisdom...
And no huttlets in sight!

Grievous and Y-Wings in formation. So much better than the Hutt story-arc. Thanks again DoubleSith and Cryostar.

Looks pretty good. I think that maybe The Clone Wars will be a more enjoyable experience in the small format than it was on the big screen.

October can't get here soon enough that's all I'm saying.

Roger. Roger. Roger. Roger. Roger. Roger.

Hi. I'm jedi knight fish sticks I prefer to be buttered when you filet me.

[align=center]AMBUSH Summary[/align]
[spoil]
[align=left]Jedi Master Yoda is on a secret mission to forge a treaty with the King of the strategic system of Toydaria when his ship is ambushed by Count Dooku. Yoda and three clone troopers must face off against Count Dooku's dreaded assassin Ventress and her massive droid army to prove the Jedi are strong enough to protect the king and his people from the forces of the war.[/align][/spoil]
[spoil]
[align=left]Creating panic throughout the galaxy, a devastating Separatist mystery weapon terrorizes the clone Starfleet. Anakin and Ahsoka race to save Jedi Master Plo Koon and his clone troopers in time.[/align][/spoil]
[align=center]RISING MALEVOLENCE Summary[/align]

We're getting two episodes on Oct 3rd. Summaries below:

Sounds like the bulk of the new trailer. I like the ideas.

This is the type of programming that keeps me paying for direct tv.

I work for comcast so I get all the premium channels and everything else for free, including HD, unfortunately cartoon network isn't in HD on Comcast, at least where I live. This and other channels makes me continue to pay for direct tv, I have seen the trailers for this on my TV with comcast and then also on my HD set on Direct tv and I can't even imagine not watching this in HD.

I can understand that somepeople aren't cool with the way some characters are drawn, but the animation overall looks pretty damn good.

This answers one question and raises another.

1) I guess the movie wasn't the first several episodes edited together. In retrospect, it wouldn't have made much sense to do that if they were just going to show it for free on television just a couple months later. Too much money to make off of the dvd.

2) So, does this mean the show itself will be shown in 2.35:1?

Well the theatrical movie is made up of three episodes, thankfully just not the first three. Awesome that the series is going to kick off with the new stuff we seen from the Cartoon Network Series Trailer.


BELOW: theclonewars.cartoonnetwork.com has been updated with wallpapers.



WALLPAPERS

ahsoka.jpg
anakin.jpg
grievous.jpg
jedi.jpg
obiwan.jpg
separtists.jpg
yoda.jpg


ICONS

ahsoka.zip
anakin.zip
grievous.zip
obiwan.zip
yoda.zip






ABOVE: wired.com has some Clone Wars ScreenCaps up including one from Kamino!

Woo. thx DP.

Clone with a mini-gun

Even those screencaps are in 2.35:1! Now I'm really curious.

I don't think that medcenter is on Kamino. The Visual Guide mentions a medcenter in a nebula called Kaliida Shoals. It's the one pictured here, I think.

Here are some pics from the CW Visual Guide.

Holy gorgonzola basket! This looks amazing! A new hope? The Clone Wars could be saved!

Positive review of first two episodes from ENewsI.com:

[spoil][align=left][hr]
ENI REVIEW
Reviewed by Jay on Thu September 4, 2008

I wouldn’t have thought it possible; but after watching two episodes of the upcoming “The Clone Wars” series that will start airing on Cartoon Network, October 3, at 9 p.m. (ET/PT), I have to say I think the television series is actually better than the feature-length movie that hit theaters last month. The two episodes I got to preview are titled “Rising Malevolence” which sees Anakin and Ahsoka embarking on a rescue mission to save Jedi Master Plo Koon who was ambushed by a “special” secret weapon being tested by General Grievous and Count Dooku, and “Ambush” which sees Master Yoda and a small squadron of Clone Troopers facing down a full battalion of battle droids led by Asajj Ventress. I’ll let you guess who wins.

The animation voices and music are exactly the same quality as we saw in the movie. For those who have not seen the movie, the animation is spectacular; the music isn’t quite as good as the live-action movie soundtracks but is close enough, and the voices do a decent job of replicating those of their live-action counterparts. Unlike the movie, Samuel L. Jackson and Chistopher Lee did not reprise their roles for the TV series. Corey Burton, who voiced Dooku in the first “Clone Wars” animated series, reprises his role for this one.

Where I think this series seems to surpass the movie is with the character development, and not just with the main characters. In “Ambush”, we actually get to know the clone troopers. No longer are they just mindless carbon copies of Jango Fett, but we see they actually have individual personalities, which is cool and sad at the same time being as we all know how things finally end up.

If these two episodes are any indication, I think Star Wars fans have a really intriguing series ahead of them that not only will have a lot of action and adventure but also allow us to get a more in-depth look at characters, races and places in the Star Wars Universe that we were only able to glimpse in the movies.

[hr][/align][/spoil]

New Clone Wars ScreenCaps from ENewsI.com:

Genre Online: Review of Episode 1 & 2 “Rising Malevolence” & “Ambush”

[spoil]
[align=left]Title: Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Series Premiere Episodes: “Rising Malevolence” & “Ambush”

TV Rating: TV-PG V

Reviewer: Mark A. Rivera

Over three years in the making, Lucasfilm Animation’s first weekly television series, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, reunites Star Wars fans with classic heroes from the prequel trilogy such as Anakin Skywalker (voiced by Matt Lanter), Obi-Wan Kenobi (James Arnold Taylor) and Yoda with the villains of The Clone Wars such as Count Dooku AKA Darth Tyranus (Corey Burton) and his apprentice Asajj Ventress (Nika Futterman), who was introduced in the previous award winning animated microseries Star Wars: Clone Wars. We also get to know new characters like Anakin’s Padawan Ahsoka Tano (Ashley Eckstein) and the series does much to humanize characters we only saw fleeting glimpses of such as the various Clone Troopers themselves, who are all voiced by Dee Bradley Baker. Anthony Daniels is back again to reliably supply the voice of C3PO and Matthew Wood reprises his role as the voice of General Grievous, but neither Christopher Lee nor Samuel L. Jackson return to provide the voices for their animated counterparts, which they did do for the feature film that opened this past August. Fortunately the talent behind their voices for the TV series do a very good job at making the characters their own and the series moves so quickly at times that I doubt anyone will notice outside of hardcore fans.

While the animation style remains unchanged between the feature film and television series, the TV series somehow looks more polished and the serialized storylines are more interesting and entertaining than what was seen in the feature film, but what the series does that the animated movie never really had a chance to focus on was to bring Lucas’ heart into the story. The reason why Star Wars resonates generation after generation is because of the humanity of the characters and the non-denominational spirituality inherent throughout the two trilogies. While not everyone is force sensitive enough to be a Jedi Knight, that does not hinder our ability to better ourselves through it with the Jedi serving as inspiration for the Clones in both episodes. Quite honestly I think in some ways the new TV series comes closest to carrying the same spirit the classic trilogy had and it also makes the events most of us are familiar with from Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith all the more poignant because now not only are we becoming more aware about some of the background Jedi characters from the films, but I have to state I see the tragedy of it all even hitting the Clone Troopers, who will lose what humanity they gain from the experience once Order 66 is given.

In short, the TV series in my opinion is among the best Star Wars I have seen outside of the feature films and it is much better than the animated feature. In fact there should be no worries for anyone who missed the feature film because in my opinion one does not necessarily have to be all that familiar with Star Wars in general to enjoy the show, which is suitable for adults too. I guess the only thing I cannot shake from my mind is a direct comparison between this and Paul Verhoeven’s 1990s CGI television series Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles though The Clone Wars offers storytelling potential the animated Starship Troopers TV series could not in that since the opposing sides are anthropomorphic in one way or another, it is easier to portray the opposing point of view in episodes and give viewers more backstory into the characters of Asajj Ventress, Count Dooku, General Grievous and even the battle droids. If we are going to get episodes that show the plight of the Clone Troopers, why not do an episode from the point of view of an ordinary Battle Droid? In Star Wars sometimes the droids are more human than the humans so perhaps this is not entirely out of the realm of possibility. So whether or not a character is human, alien, or mechanical or a bit of everything, it is a lot easier to relate to the Star Wars villains than it is the bugs of Starship Troopers.

Rising Malevolence details a devastating Separatist mystery weapon terrorizing the Republic Starfleet. An obvious pre-cursor to the super laser on The Death Star, the super weapon leaves a fleet of Jedi cruisers helpless and then to be certain there are no survivors, Hunters are sent out to kill any life forms in escape pods helplessly floating the debris field. Can Anakin and Ahsoka race to save Jedi Master Plo Koon and his Clone Troopers in time?

In the episode entitled, Ambush, Jedi Master Yoda is on a secret mission to forge a treaty with the King of the strategic system of Toydaria when his ship is ambushed by Count Dooku. Yoda and three clone troopers must face off against Count Dooku’s dreaded assassin Ventress and her massive droid army to prove the Jedi are strong enough to protect the king and his people from the forces of the war.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars, from Lucasfilm Animation, debuts on Cartoon Network Friday, October. 3, 2008 at 9 p.m. (ET/PT) with a special one-hour presentation that anchors the Network’s all-new night of fantasy, action and adventure. New series The Secret Saturdays and the current hit Ben 10: Alien Force join Star Wars: The Clone Wars for a night of non-stop adventure, exciting storytelling and innovative animation. Then the schedule that follows will feature an encore presentation of the previous episode along with a new installment that follows. The schedule at the time of this writing, beginning October 10, 2008, is detailed below.

Fridays Beginning October 10

8:00 p.m. The Secret Saturdays
8:30 p.m. Star Wars: The Clone Wars
9:00 p.m. Star Wars: The Clone Wars
9:30 p.m. Ben 10: Alien Force

Star Wars: The Clone Wars is one of the most highly anticipated new series of the 2008-2009 television season and is well worth checking out.
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download: sw_clonewars_tv_092408_flvhighwide.flv

[flash width=433 height=360]http://videomedia.ign.com/ev/ev.swf?object_ID=826173&downloadURL=http://tvmovies.ign.com/tv/video/article/912/912886/sw_clonewars_tv_092408_flvlowwide.flv[/flash]

IGN.com has just posted an exclusive clip from the first episode, "Rising Malevolence," premiering Oct. 3rd!

Begun the kick-assery has.

Super skill! Thanks.

Tis looking line CW will he half decent, give or take some Muppet battledroids (actually that's a bit of a disservice to Muppets) and I'm sure some Hutt knubbins or something else equally hard for the brain to come to terms with.

The battledroid being sucked down into the tank was hilarious.

I seriously can't wait for this.

Yeah! "I... just... got... promoted!". Hee, hee. Those battledroids eh? They're so fucking useless that you just gotta love em.

Okay TV-Spot. I'll give it a try for sure.

Sometimes the On Demand shows are in HD even though the HD channel is not available. For example, I don't get FX in HD, but I can watch certain FX shows in HD through ON Demand.

I'm hoping this will be the case for TCW.

New pics from Starwars.com, accompanying articles about the first two episodes: Ambush and Rising Malevolence

[spoil]
[align=left][hr]
In “Ambush,” the premiere of Lucasfilm Animation’s STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS, episode director David Bullock (“Justice League: The New Frontier”) and writer Steve Melching (“The Batman”) recall the Yoda of The Empire Strikes Back. This first episode of the brand-new, CG-animated series airs at 9 p.m. ET/PT Friday, Oct. 3 on Cartoon Network.

In the episode, Jedi Master Yoda and three clone troopers must face off against Count Dooku’s dreaded assassin Asajj Ventress and her massive droid army to prove the Jedi are strong enough to protect a strategic planet and forge a treaty for the Republic.

“I wanted to bring back some of the impish fun of Yoda from Episode V (The Empire Strikes Back) and instill it into the Clone Wars era as he is leading these three clones in a desperate situation,” Melching says. “Yoda became a very serious character in Episodes I, II and III, and I thought this was a great opportunity to show his clever, fun side as well as his inspirational and warrior side.”

While Melching crafted the words, Bullock and supervising director Dave Filoni focused on elevating Yoda’s action – and ensuring that his diminutive scale alongside the other characters didn’t interfere with his intense battle scenes. Bullock offered kudos to fellow director Rob Coleman, who offered tips on keeping Yoda consistent with his legacy. Coleman served as an animation director on Star Wars Episodes I, II and III, and was responsible for Yoda’s famous lightsaber duel with Count Dooku.

“When I was storyboarding Yoda’s big fight scene in ‘Ambush,’ Rob (Coleman) told me that George (Lucas) liked to flip a switch so that Yoda would go from very reserved to ‘springy,’” Bullock says. “Overall, the episode is a good mix of the impish Yoda of The Empire Strikes Back, some serious, reflective moments, and Rob’s ‘ninja Yoda’ for the action bits. And Yoda kicks some serious butt in this episode.”

The assignment to direct “Ambush” was taken with great reverence by Bullock.

“I'm really proud of the fact that this episode went to me to direct as I knew it was ‘the Yoda episode,’” Bullock says. “It wasn't even titled ‘Ambush’ until it was in layout – for months it was just called ‘The Yoda Episode.’ Any chance to work with the main Star Wars characters is a thrill because we knew we were adding to their history, but it was also a bit unnerving because we knew that it had to be handled properly or the fans would not buy it.”

Attached you’ll find a new image from “Ambush.” Stay tuned for more information and images throughout the next week, leading to the series premiere of STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS at 9 p.m. ET/PT Friday, Oct. 3 on Cartoon Network.

[hr]
...and "Rising Malevolence":

[hr]
"The Jedi face a devastating new Separatist weapon that’s in the hands of General Grievous in the second of two episodes that mark the season premiere of STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS, an all-new animated series debuting Friday, Oct. 3 on Cartoon Network.

In “Rising Malevolence,” which premieres at 9:30 p.m., an attack by an unimaginably destructive weapon aboard a mysterious warship leaves Jedi Master Plo Koon and his clone troopers struggling to survive until Anakin Skywalker and Ahsoka Tano can find them. They discover that the ship is piloted by Grievous himself.

“Rising Malevolence” follows the 9:00 p.m. debut of the episode “Ambush.” STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS will introduce new episodes at 9:00 p.m. Fridays on Cartoon Network.

Series supervising director Dave Filoni helms the episode “Rising Malevolence” from a script by Steve Melching. George Lucas is the series’ creator and serves as executive producer, and Catherine Winder is producer.

“Rising Malevolence” features several prominent series debuts, most notably those of Jedi Master Plo Koon, General Grievous and his menacing warship, the Malevolence. Also appearing for their first time in the series are Anakin Skywalker and his padawan, Ahsoka.

Plo Koon’s presence was established in Star Wars: Episodes I, II and III, but his character was seen fleetingly in those films. Nevertheless, just as the seldom-seen Boba Fett became a fan favorite after The Empire Strikes Back, Filoni grew fascinated by Plo Koon. He chose the relatively unknown Jedi Master as his first project of character development.

“I liked the design of the Plo Koon character, and I also liked that he was a Jedi Master,” Filoni says of his initial attraction. “Like so many Star Wars fans, I had always wondered what other Jedi were like – and The Clone Wars presented an opportunity to explore those characters”

Melching said he, Filoni and script supervisor Henry Gilroy worked hard to reveal Plo Koon’s character by example – and, at the same time, offer greater perspective on the ways of the Jedi. Moreover, they reveal in “Rising Malevolence” an important connection between Plo Koon and Ahsoka Tano, Anakin’s Padawan learner.

“We were able to examine both Plo Koon’s personality and Ahsoka’s background by showing their bond and the extreme loyalty of Anakin and Ahsoka to their Jedi comrades,” Melching says. “They know he’s stranded and might not be alive, but if there’s even a chance, they’re going to find him. They have to deviate from their mission to try to rescue him, but they can’t endanger their larger mandate.”

The episode offers numerous scenes of Plo Koon and a small group of clones stranded in a disabled escape pod, which Melching says offered opportunities to expand on the thoughts, sensibilities and unique attributes of each clone trooper.

“The clones are really an army of one – they’re all the same guy. But their experiences in the war are all different, and that affects their relationships with other clones and their Jedi leaders,” Melching says. “They may all seem be the same guy, but they’re developing different personalities, and we work hard to show how they think, where they come from. That helps to define each episode. After all, the clones are ultimately the key to this war.”'

[hr][/align]
[/spoil]



Nothing outstandingly new, but I'm kind of hoping they've resurrected, for the first episode, some of Yoda's mud-faced and flatulent alter-ego that was supposedly planned for ROTS.

Here's a link to Director Dave Bullock's blog: http://bullockartworks.blogspot.com
There's a great interview about the series there!