Latest Updates: Monday, July 14, 2008
The SciFi Channel's SciFi Wire has just posted up an article about the characters of the Clone Wars, stating that the animated film will be examining some of the smaller side characters, in addition to the main characters.
Here's the full article:
Star Wars: Clone Wars supervising director David Filoni told SCI FI Wire that the animated TV series won't focus on the main characters of the feature films but rather will flesh out the stories of some of the lesser-known characters.
Creator George Lucas is very much involved in the animated show that will air for 22 episodes on the Cartoon Network sometime this fall.
"We're not just telling Anakin Skywalker's story," Filoni said in an interview at the Television Critics Association's summer press tour in Beverly Hills, Calif., on July 11. "If we were doing that, we would be stuck on one single arc. I look at the episodes where we have him and Ahsoka, which is his student, and I know that there is an arc there, because something has to happen to her. We don't see her in [Star Wars-Episode III:] Revenge of the Sith."
Following Ahsoka's journey allows the writers to show the progress of the title war, Filoni added. "We can kind of go left or right of that plot and deal with characters that we have never seen," he said. "There's a lot of material, so I can stretch it and, you know, keep making episodes about things that George would like to see or I would like to see."
The TV series and its accompanying animated feature film, also called Star Wars: The Clone Wars, take place between the second and third films, Star Wars-Episode II: Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith.
Filoni laughed when asked if the much-maligned Jar Jar Binks will show up in the series. "I have to hold a few secrets back," he said.
Meanwhile, the Clone Wars movie, which comes out Aug. 15, "is a very stand-alone movie," Filoni said. "It sets up the major characters we know, like Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker, and, of course, the new character, Ahsoka. So it's made to stand alone and introduce everybody to the universe we're showing in the series"
The Clone Wars last three years in Star Wars mythology. "In that period, there are so many stories to tell that I've been amazed that just in the first season what we didn't get to, you know, and what I would still like to get to and what stories we would still like to explore," Filoni said. "So for me and the longer it goes, the more chance we all get to tell fascinating stories in that galaxy."
Among the stories to be explored in the show: Master Yoda's backstory and how he came to be as powerful as he is. The series will also ask show whether clone troopers have separate personalities and how the comical attack droids are clone troopers are good guys before they fall under the spell of Darth Vader. "It gives us a chance to look at them from very different points of view, as Obi Wan would say," Filoni said.
Another new character is Asajj Ventress, the bald, tattooed apprentice of the nefarious Count Dooku. "She is kind of sexual and strong in the dark side of the Force," Filoni said. "The Jedi are supposed to suppress those feelings and be hands off, but she is like a serpent, and that's another different dynamic."
Tom Kane will voice Yoda, who has been voiced by Frank Oz in the feature films. "It's very challenging, because he had a lot of dialogue, and it's a strain on poor Tom's voice," Filoni said.
Some of the movies' sounds, created by master sound-effects wizard Ben Burtt, are picked up and used anew by Matt Wood in the animated series. "Ben came up with great sounds, and Matt was his understudy and left a legacy of classic sounds, and they made hundreds of new sounds that they had to invent for things we've never before seen," Filoni said.
Source
Labels: Clone Wars
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