July 21 2006

source: ComicCon Star Wars Spectactular 2006


OVERVIEW:

• Live-Action Series: "Live-Action Series is in the planning stages for airing later this decade."

• Clone Wars CGI 2008: Features New Jedi-Knight Anakin, Obi-Wan, Kenobi Yoda, Various Jedi, Dooku, Ventress, and Grievous.

MF's transcription of all Star Wars TV related information from Steve Sansweet's Star Wars Spectactular @ ComicCon2006:



Steve Sansweet:

Now we're celebrating 30 years of Star Wars but we're also looking ahead to all the great things coming for Star Wars and Lucas activities and Lucasfilm companies.

Among the most anticipated are the Television Shows. Our Live-Action Series is in the planning stages for airing later this decade.

It takes place in the era between Episodes III and IV. But closer in hand is the new, all CG animated TV series for 2008, which takes place during the Clone Wars.

Now I got some good news and some bad news. First the bad news, I got nothing to show you today. I'm really sorry, I begged for it. I really really begged for it. I wanted to show you what I've seen and that leads to the good news. This series is going to be spectactular. Like nothing else you have never seen on television. But in the immortal words of Indiana Jones: "trust me".

We've been spending the last couple of years building from scratch two new state of the art digital animation studios. One at Skywalker Ranch and in Singapore. The scripts for the first batch of shows has been completed and approved and animation is still hard at work on the first several episodes.

This is Star Wars. These shows have the same feel and tone of the movies. What makes them special? Well for one thing George Lucas is the creator and the creative guide for the TV Series and he brings a vision that is really, uniquely all his own.

Rob Coleman, the father of the digital Yoda, is supervising the all important character animation and there are a lot of other great talent behind the scenes thats part of the series. We also have the LucasFilm technology and the know-how on digital film-making that makes everything on screen look amazing.

Now the series is set late in the Clone Wars after Anakin has become a Jedi Knight and it features hard-hitting stories about war, heroes and villains, courage, friendship and honor, treachery and deceit, and betrayal. All served up on a bed of spectactular action that seems to be non-stop.

The stories revolve around some new personalities but also a host of characters that we know very well from the films and other places. Such as Anakin, Obi-Wan, Yoda and other Jedi Heroes, and villians such as Count Dooku, Assajj Ventress, and General Grievous.

Each episode will really be like a little movie and I don't know about you but for me the prospect of a little Star Wars movie from George Lucas and LucasFilm on TV each week is pretty darn exciting.

I promise that I will have something to show for this in at Celebration IV. So just stay tuned.

Hey, as long as all the battles help erase the retarded "3 million clones only" policy, I'm fine with more CW-era material.

Just an FYI, I changed da OP (original post) and made it into a "MF Transcript Report". Raveers and I transcribed all Star Wars TV related information from Steve Sansweet's (LucasFilm Fan Relations Director) Star Wars Spectactular.

In a rare turn of events, StarWars.com HyperSpace member's area was actually on the ball this time around and had all the video and audio from ComicCon 2006's Star Wars day a few hours after it was shown.

The good news from this is the info about Clone Wars 3D. I absolutely love Revenge of the Sith and it appears this would be ROTS: The TV Series. Also from Sansweet's comments it appears that characters, storylines, pre-production artwork and even some video is done. Which means stuff should start leaking soon.

The bad news is The Live Action Series info... before the end of the decade?

Though the live action show will be about other aspects of the galactic civil war, I'm still hoping for Vader appearances every now and then voiced by James Earl Jones (if he's still alive) and Ian McDiarmid playing the Emperor once a year or something.

It would be really cool if they could get people like Sandi Finlay to reprise Sly Moore or David Bowers or Jerome Blake to reprise Mas Amedda. It would be a cheap way of not having the Emperor appear but still see that his wishes are carried out to the new villains.

Many months ago they did mention something about Expanded Universe characters being involved in the live action series. I hope some of the EU Imperials like Thrawn, Pellaeon and Screed (who already showed up in the old Droids cartoon) make an appearance.

On second thought, I think that was from a Rick McCallum interview, so beware

Ya and we all know how much Rick McCallum loves talking out of his ass hole.

What caught my attention was this paragraph:



It's going to be hard to add drama and a real sense of danger to each episode if you know all the main characters are going to live (to appear in ROTS). I hope it doesn't turn into another star trek type series where they have to take some unknown officer with them on a mission just so they have someone there on the spot who can be killed off.

On a positive note, i'm real keen to see what this 'new' animation is going to look like. With Rob Coleman at the helm these animations may be real closer to CGI standard effects than expected? Certainly doesn't sound like it will look anything close to standard animation.

This clones series sounds like an attempt to patch up continuity fuck ups.

That's stupid. By that logic there's no way the prequels could've been entertaining for you. After all, you knew Obi-Wan wouldn't die until ANH and Anakin wouldn't until ROTJ. Where's the drama?

You make a fair point. I guess the drama in the prequels for me was in the story and was not quite knowing how or when the story would unfold and come together. The demise of Qui gon and Maul in ep 1 didn't shock me as they were new characters and there to be fodder from the beginning.

My point was simply that they are going to have to go real hard story wise to keep it all interesting. But taking your point, I did enjoy the prequlels so maybe i am being a bit too harsh on the TV series.