April 23 2005

source: comingsoon.net

"Star Wars" creator/writer/director George Lucas made his guest appearance at "Celebration III" this morning at the Indiana Convention Center in Indianapolis and he talked about the franchise. About 9,000 fans had been lined up since midnight for a chance to see Lucas talk.

The event was hosted by actor Jay Laga'aia, who played Captain Typho in "Attack of the Clones" and "Revenge of the Sith," though Lucas funnily made a mistake saying he thought Laga'aia played a Clone Trooper.




LIVE-ACTION SERIES & CLONE WARS 3D CGI

Lucas confirmed that they are working on two TV series. One will be a 3-D computer animated series and the other is a live action series. The live action series will star some of the characters featured in the movies, though not the main characters. Lucas will kick-off the series himself. They are planning on writing the entire series and then shoot the series all at once. He mentioned Lucasfilm is aiming for a production start in about a year.


STAR TOURS

George Lucas said that the "Star Tours" thrill ride at Disney-MGM Studios will be getting an overhaul soon. And he confirmed they are working on bringing the early 90's TV series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles to DVD as well

No main characters? Here's hoping the series features Boba Fett then, as he would probably be the most interesting supporting character for a series. Unless it does not take place post-ROTS, because Jedi characters like Plo Koon would make an awesome show.

3-D huh, well if they do that, i hope that they go to the same people who made "Final flight of the Osiris" and "Final Fantasy: The spirits within".

Both those animations were made a while back and they still look amazing.

Other than that, looking good so far.

Are you kidding? The animation will be done by ILM. The computer animation they use in the prequels is even better than it needs to be for an animated show.

I thought of that, but i was thinking, maybe, just maybe they would use another developer.

Well, FF:SW and Final Flight of the Osiris look better than any bit of visual effects in the prequels. Of course ILM will be doing the show though.

The show should be an all encompasssing look at the SW universe through the eyes of different characters every week...with some ties in every episode to a major SW character or event. Maybe one week, the show centers around a bounty hunter or two...the next week could focus on a kid realizing he has force powers or....the possibilities are endless, as is the reference pool from the movies, books whatever. If the show was an hour long that is.

Just a thought.

That's a great idea. It could be a Star Wars Tales TV Show.

like The Animatrix?

Well, the thing with CGI is that it can look great, but not move very realistically. The Spiderman and Matrix movies look good, but the digital characters move like ass.

The same is true for any part of the PT where digital characters are used to fill in for actors when impossible stunts take place. The characters in FF:SW moved pretty well, I thought, and it looked great; they could have looked better though. When digital characters are used in live action movies, they need to look real. If the whole movie is CGI, then they don't have to look so real.

I've completely forgotten my point; I think I was trying to say that the TV Show just needs to look decent, but it dosn't have to be photo realistic, but that some work should go into making the characters move realistically.

The TV series will feature Bail Organa...just you wait. You'd better believe a TV series option was in Jimmy's contract for II and III.

Am I the only one sick of listening to people who have no clue what they are talking about say things like "CGI movement doesn't look real" or the absolutely absurd notion that the Final Fantasy movie looks more realistic than ILM's work?

from what I've seen so far the cgi in rots looks far better than anything I've ever seen except the velociraptors in jurassic park.

I agree. I couldnt believe it when I found out that ALL the clone troopers were CGI in AOTC.

There´s also the obvious fact that FF came out in 2001 and Osiris in 2003, this will be using technology from late 2005/early 2006. Hard to imagine it as a step down, especially for a company like Lucasfilm.

I can imagine the CG series being similar to that ST:Roughnecks tv series, only more advanced texture on the characters and surroundings. I wonder if this will be an anthology series, while the LA one wil take place between ROTS and ANH? With CGI you could move the stories from one historic era to another more easily.

According to the article on Starwars.com the Animated Series is going to be a full Clone Wars Series. At least that's how the wording makes it sound.

Interesting to see which Jedi survived initial purge

I still think the most encouraging thing about this whole TV show idea is that Lucas said he will run the first season.. more lucas' star wars, which is always a good thing...

and btw, that guy ^ said he was in line at 5... shit i saw RotJ, and went right into line at about 11:30, so its my geek flag to wave bitches...

It sounds like the deal to actually use the studios, not begin shooting immediately. They need to plan these things out in advance, you know.

This is total speculation more of a nerd wishlist, so if those things piss you off, skip this post.

I think the live action series would revolve around Bail Organa and the formation of the rebellion, as well. The intrigue would be how far Bail could push his involvement without the Emperor or Vader, who has sight beyond sight, figuring it out. Obviously, Mon Mothma is waiting to be introduced, as well as Admiral Ackbar, and I suppose you could even throw some EU characters in. But there are also some one-shot episodes dealing with issues I would like to see explored:

Enslavement of the Wookiees: Chewbacca, himself a slave of the Empire, helps other Wookiees escape via an Underground Railroad, at the end giving up the opportunity for freedom for himself to let some cute little Wookiee child go instead, setting the stage for his rescue by Han Solo (not to be touched by a camera EVER - only Harrison Ford can ever play Solo's role).

Diary of a Young Jedi: a young boy and his family on Coruscant realize that he has Force talents. The episode tracks their attempts to hide from the Empire, but they are caught in the end by Boba Fett or a Darth Vader cameo (as long as they don't have anyone other than JEJ voicing). I know LucasFilm probably wants to avoid something so dark, but a man can dream.

Jabba v. the Empire: nothing is better than seeing two disgusting evil forces go head to head and forcing the audience to think about who to root for. Obviously, the Empire is going to crack down on smugglers, and while I am against any kind of Han Solo appearance, I think the tension between the criminal element and the draconian Empire would be pretty cool to watch.

Of course, the refugee Jedi on the run, being hunted down at every turn, perhaps even trying to get in contact with Yoda, to no avail of course.

And the construction of the Death Star: whose to say that desperate Jedi, who proved themselves not to be above spying and assassination, would not resort to a sabotage plot.

Anyway...just thoughts.

I tend to agree that the CGI work doesn't look real. They are too animated. They "float" about too much. The animators are trying to add too much motion. Real living things don't do that - they sit still. Try watching a few scenes with mixed cgi/actors and pay attention to how stiff live actors really are. After a while, floating cgi characters does get distracting.

I think reusing/recycling models from the films will help to ease the work either in the LA series or the animated one, so that can free them up to make other designs. After six films, the Lucasfilm archive must be bursting with models, used and unused.

Re:clonetroopers, in AOTC, the pod Yoda went to was in a combat zone. I reckon most soldiers would be a bit more animated if there´s live fire close by. I know I would look around more often.