Animated Film Set To Kick Off Star Wars TV Show 270
Sasseen writes "George Lucas has announced that the animated Star Wars television show, which we've discussed previously, will be kicking off with a feature-length theatre release. Lucas felt that, 'there were a lot more 'Star Wars' stories left to tell. I was eager to start telling some of them through animation and, at the same time, push the animation forward.' A fully animated film will be released in theaters on August 15 with a TV series of more than 30 episodes planned to follow on Cartoon Network and TNT. Also of note from the article, 'A new character named Ahsoka, Anakin's padawan, will be the first female Jedi to be a character of focus'."
Timeline (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Timeline (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Timeline (Score:4, Funny)
this can only end with him showing her his lightsaber.
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I'm pretty sure that at the beginning of the 3rd movie, Anakin is already a Jedi (though not a master), although it's pretty clear that he is still partnered with Obi-Wan.
There are over 100 books in the star wars extended universe spanning a huge timeline... Ok, I'm assuming at least a few slashdotters have read a fair number of these. Does anyone know if there's any mention of Anakin ever taking a Padewan?
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I think the idea is that 10 years pass between Ep. 2 and Ep. 3, and the idea is that Anakin and Obi-Wan are *re*united for the mission to save the Chancellor; after 2 but before 3, Anakin becomes a Knight, and the two of them split up to go do their own things; Obi-Wan, having successfully trained a Padawan into a Knight is awarded the rank of Master, given command of an Army, and off he goes. Anakin, meanwhile, now a Knight, is sent off as more of a captain than a general.
This would also explain some of
Also Ties to Force Unleashed (Score:4, Interesting)
Also, in the upcoming Force Unleashed game, you play as a female sith. Supposedly the unknown apprentice of Darth Vader. The character in this TV series may NOT be killed when Anakin kills the other padawans, rather, she may fall to the dark side with him, and be the apprentice in that game.
This is just speculation though.
Re:Also Ties to Force Unleashed (Score:4, Informative)
Umm, no according to The Wookieepedia the main char is a Human Male [wikia.com] done by the guy who played LT in the first season of Battlestar Galactica. Anyways, during the previous cartoon network Clone Wars, there was Sidious, Tyranus, and the chick who tries to kill Anakin, so they apparently don't hold fast to the two and only two rule.
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Re:Timeline (Score:5, Funny)
I've got a bad feeling about this.
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Re:Timeline (Score:4, Insightful)
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I thought that at first, but I remember reading something on the starwars website to say there were only two. If that's true it's kind of idiotic, the Sith survived by limiting their numbers to TWO? In a galaxy of a few trillion? A group's pretty much not surviving anymore when there only two of them. That's like saying "we figured out how to keep our army from vanishing--we're going to
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There may exist more than two, but only two work together, because master Siths don't trust each other, or are killed by their padawans. Siths don't have more than 1 padawan because the padawans would probably off each other in the competition anyway. (remember how palpatine wanted luke as his apprentice...probably to replace vader who was getting old and independent...so he wanted luke to kill his father, lose himself to darkness, and then become the next padawan)
Re:Timeline (Score:5, Insightful)
There may exist more than two, but only two work together, because master Siths don't trust each other, or are killed by their padawans. Siths don't have more than 1 padawan because the padawans would probably off each other in the competition anyway. (remember how palpatine wanted luke as his apprentice...probably to replace vader who was getting old and independent...so he wanted luke to kill his father, lose himself to darkness, and then become the next padawan)
No, with the Sith, it would have to be the traditions that keep them alive. If you consider the Jews, they've persisted as a unique cultural identity for so long because of the strength of their religion and traditions. They set themselves apart from their host society, there's lots of social approbation for keeping it within the religion, not inter-marrying, etc. You compare them with their biblical contemporaries, all of those people have been subsumed by new cultural groups. The Philistines, Romans, their descendants probably aren't even aware of their own lineage.
What the Sith would have to be is a highly arrogant in-group, selected by a pure meritocracy, with an understanding that they hang together or will surely hang separately. There would be great pride taken in being amongst this august order, the very name of which causes planetary populations to cower. But they tend not to congregate in great numbers because that many egos bouncing around in the same room would lead to violence. If you consider sharks, some can school and some are solitary. They may attack each other in the open sea and in a feeding frenzy certainly and yet they're able to suppress the feeding instinct from time to time and can get close enough to mate. If they could not, they would go extinct. The Sith would pride themselves in being better than everyone else and would have their own code of honor they use in dealing with other Sith. They'd have to or else they'd tear themselves apart. The way Lucas portrays the Sith, they would go extinct! Now of course there are going to be Sith who are rather antisocial, even by Sith standards. The kind that would use guile and deceit and violence against other Sith, he would end up seeing himself shunned. None of the other Sith would put themselves at risk. So he can go off and be his chaotic evil badass self, conquer planets, get himself defeated, but he certainly wouldn't represent the whole order of the sith and defeating him doesn't mean you've seen the end of them.
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Maybe it's not surviving that they are going for
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Re:Timeline (Score:5, Insightful)
This "rule of two" is what allowed Sidious to take over the Galaxy. The Sith were able to slip into the highest levels of the Republic, right under the Jedis' noses. They didn't need an army of Sith to do this, but an army of blindly loyal droids and clones.
"Always 2 there are..." (Score:2)
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What did they call the Football team? The Fighting Gundarks?
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Hey, George, Here's a stick (Score:5, Funny)
Translation (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Unfair (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously... if he wants to keep the SW universe going, good for him. All he has to do is *leave the goddamn Skywalkers/Solos out of it*. This would make it a lot easier to stop stepping on his own characters' backstories.
Re:Unfair (Score:4, Insightful)
Lucas makes a great producer, perhaps even a decent writer, but a lousy director. I can't bear to watch him squander the talent he had in the prequilogy. He spent so much time creating a "rich texture" visually that his actors came across completely flat.
The result is a distance between the audience and the movie, a decrease in satisfaction, and an increasing level of frustration. In our current cynical society, it's easy to discard Lucas as "greedy" for delivering lackluster material. Granted, it's equally easy for me to say he's "disconnected from his fanbase", or "full of himself." That doesn't mean that any of those statements are true, just easy to believe.
The real questions, IMHO, are:
1) Does he know that there are people who don't like what he's made?
2) Does he care?
This leads to a 2x2 grid where the corners are:
11: Lucas keeps trying to make something better, to make it up to us.
10: Lucas is just making more Star Wars stuff to make money.
01: Lucas truly believes that we love Star Wars and can't get enough.
00: Lucas just makes Star Wars for himself.
Any of which I'm willing to believe.
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I think it's a load of hooey, but I can believe that he believes that.
So I think he doesn't mind if the average slashdot reader doesn't like what he's made as long as "the kids" find it entertaining.
But nice Karnaugh map of the Lucas psyche, anyway.
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Not that it's all his fault -- internet, Matrix, Harry Potter -- lots of strong competion.
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I think it's a load of hooey, but I can believe that he believes that.
Re:Unfair (Score:5, Insightful)
Meesa gonna mock you now.
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New Stories? How about going beyond ROTJ? (Score:5, Interesting)
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As you probably know well, there were many books written after ROTJ detailing the events thereafter and not so many written about what happened before ANH. So, rather than contradict all of the fan fiction, Lucas is choosing to tell stories in a relatively uncharted Star Wars era.
This is also one of the reasons Lucas has given for not making any more movies describing the events after ROTJ.
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* - Based on the fact that Obi-Wan had Anakin at h
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There are some very excellent novels [wikipedia.org] out there that take place right after the events of the second Death Star destruction. Some say the "Thrawn" series is the defacto trilogy after RotJ.
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Also Starring (Score:4, Funny)
It's already gone on for parsecs too long (Score:2)
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No, I'm sure George will find new and exciting ways of continuing the "saga". Anyway, he can do whatever he wants, I'm done with it!
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Who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
Jedi are boring.
Anakin is boring even for a Jedi.
Lucas has a major hard-on for Jedi, but they are just incredibly limited as characters in a story. What we need is a "Star Wars" show based on a young Han Solo.
My Kingdom for Mod Points... (Score:2)
(and maybe something, somewhere, that shows at least some rebel forces who do more than act as synonyms for the Star Trek Red Shirts?)
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Yup... just... one long trail of redshirts.
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Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Star Wars BABIES! baby anakin, Baby yoda, baby JarJar......
I'll go shoot myself now for even suggesting it.
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Correct me if I'm wrong... (Score:3, Interesting)
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Didn't he try this already? (Score:2)
Wasn't there some kind of Star Wars animated TV series a few years back? Did anybody notice?
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And not [imdb.com] very GOOD [imdb.com] CG at that. I wouldn't be so disappointed if it felt like some REAL effort was put into making it high quality CG Movie and not just a Video Game [starwars.com] tie in and mechanica money grab.
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And not very GOOD [imdb.com] CG at that.
Not interested at all (Score:2, Informative)
As soon as I saw the "quality" of the CG and character design, I lost what little interest I had in watching these clone wars.
And here I thought it couldn't get much worse than the animated shorts they had on Cartoon Network a few years back.
Ahsoka? (Score:3, Interesting)
BTW, Emperor Ashoka, [wikipedia.org] won a bloody war, had a change of heart and renounced violence. His empire disintegrated shortly thereafter.
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Oh, really? (Re:Ahsoka? ) (Score:2)
Ah, well. At least if the character dies, we could maybe hear some Jay Ungar and Molly Mason mixed in with the John Williams, as they play "Ahsoka Farewell".
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Integra, Maxima, Altima...
At least lucas doesn't over use the letter 'A'.
Kee-fuckin'-rist. Put a nail in the coffin. (Score:2)
He's DEAD Jim.
I didn't even bother with the last set of movies.
Obligitory... (Score:4, Funny)
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A little off topic re: Indiana Jones (Score:2)
Oblig Quotes (Score:5, Funny)
"That's no franchise. That's a merchandising opportunity!"
"Don't try to frighten us with your director's ways, Lord Lucas. Your hidebound dedication to that re-imagined franchise hasn't given you the clairvoyance to see what the fans want or the insight to leave things well enough alone."
"I find your lack of plot disturbing."
and finally
"It's a Trap!"
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It's a trap!! (Score:2)
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"I have a very bad feeling about this..."
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Dammit, now I want to go Photoshop-up some Chewbacca Lulzcats...
Crappy CGI, brought to you by LugreedFilms... (Score:2)
No care in character design? No fluidity of momevemnt? No rendering time for clean textures? No unique style like Genndy Tartakovsky's "Clone Wars"?
Assassin's Creed looks better than that, and its rendered in real time on a single X-Box!
Star wars used to have some class, like the Holiday Special [wikipedia.org].
Uh Oh (Score:2)
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Not a Master (Score:5, Funny)
And, is she hot?
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Re:Not a Master (Score:5, Informative)
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Of all the things wrong with this entire concept, it's not the training timeline.
Anakin got a Padawan? (Score:4, Funny)
ahsoka? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:ahsoka? (Score:5, Funny)
For me, this is one of the major delights of the Star Wars franchise.
Star Trek (Score:3, Informative)
Seriously, though the animation sucked, the animated Star Trek often had much better stories than the original Trek. Let's hope this series does as well. Only with better animation. MUCH better animation.
Yes -- if T.Catt does the art (Score:2)
Action Figures first then the idea... (Score:4, Funny)
Toy Industry Rep (TIR): We've just got the figures in and its great, we are selling loads of toys to boys
George: What about girls?
TIR: Well Star Wars is a boy thing so its not really targeted at them
George: What about if I created a new animated series that had a female lead?
TIR: Its still really a guy thing...
George: What about if she wears lots of pink and is a ballerina princess with a cute white dog?
TIR: Wouldn't that completely undermine the whole vision of Star Wars?
George: Jar Jar Binks.....?
TIR: Good point. Well George I'll get the focus groups working on it and we'll get back with the female character that most girls would buy the action figure for.
George: Excellent, I'll go out and kill a horse while I'm waiting.
Potential (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps they'll cover the "Chewbacca Defense" (Score:2, Funny)
"Why would a Wookiee, an eight-foot tall Wookiee, want to live on Endor, with a bunch of two-foot tall Ewoks? That does not make sense!"
"If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must acquit! The defense rests."
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chewbacca_defense [wikipedia.org]
As a fan, I would like to see... (Score:2)
Oh wait, that was Firefly.
OK, maybe if George just gave someone enough money to bring back Firefly with all the pre-Serenity characters I would be happy. Oh, yeah, and His Georgeness must not write or direct. Or produce. Or advise. Just pay.
what he meant to say was... (Score:2)
"George Lucas has announced that the animated Star Wars television show, which we've discussed previously, will be kicking off with a feature-length theatre release. Lucas felt that, 'There's a lot more milk in them titties and ahm's aimin' to suck it all out.' Lucas, never one to stop while he was ahead, continued talking. 'I'm not content with just raping everyone's collective childhood memory of Star Wars. What's a single rape, after all? I kept it in a cage and went back to it repeatedly while releasing the new trilogy. Finally, I choked it to death with my bare hands, looking it in the eyes, nutting the moment I saw it die. I buried it in a shallow grave out in the woods. Well, it's been a few years and I enjoyed the experience so what the hell, I dug that bastard up and I'm fixing to give it another go.' A fully animated film will be released in theaters on August 15 with a TV series of more than 30 episodes planned to follow on Cartoon Network and TNT. 'Come on,' Lucas continued. 'You fags whinge and yet every time I rererererelease a new DVD, you lap it up. With every passing moment, you become more and more my bitch.' Also of note from the article, 'A new character named Ahsoka, Anakin's padawan, will be the first female Jedi to be a character of focus'. 'See what I did here? This makes not a jot of sense. There was no interval between Anakin being a padawan and falling to the Dark Side. It's chronologically impossible. It would make just as much sense if I said he fathered and raised a son to adulthood when cutting between two scenes five minutes apart. And you know what? You fags will still buy the DVD's! I'll see you nerds dressed up like Ahsoka at all the conventions. I shit in your mouths and you pay me money! My scifi cult's still legal in Germany. L. Ron Hubbard can suck my dick!' Lucas continued to rant long after the battery on my tape recorder died."
Fixed it for ya.
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Re:Retcon much, George? (Score:4, Informative)
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