WC 08: The Clone Wars Creators Speak

February 23, 2008 - At the Lucasfilm panel today at WonderCon, Lucasfilm's Steve Sansweet described the upcoming animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars as, "Weekly episodes that are more cinematic than anything we have ever seen before." Sansweet said the show boasted, "An entirely new look and feel. It combines the broad scope of the Star Wars saga with computer-generated animation" and that each episode functioned as, "a half-hour mini-movie."

Star Wars: The Clone Wars will be introduced first via a theatrical movie made up of the first three episodes of the series, and after showing a behind the scenes short currently available on starwars.com, Sansweet was joined on stage by Producer Catherine Winder and Supervising Director Dave Filoni to discuss the project further. As slides were presented, showing character and vehicle designs from the series, Filoni described The Clone Wars as, "The chance to explore a lot of things that George [Lucas] wanted to get around to," without being, "restricted by the story in the six films."

Comparing the new Clone Wars to the popular series of the same name from Genndy Tartakovsky, Winder said that the big difference was that earlier series, which was mainly comprised of shorts only lasting a few minutes, was about, "smaller vignettes that took moments from the Clone Wars and explored them." However, with the new series, which is ongoing and comprised of half hour episodes, "You've got the ability to tell full narrative stories, get to know characters, and explore themes." Winder noted that, "the episodes are all written and produced as stand alones, but some are two parters and some are three parters and have an overreaching narrative."

"What's great as a fan myself is we get to explore outside the movies a lot of characters I know the fans like," said Filoni. While Filoni had to be careful not to say too much regarding specifics on a lot of the show, he did bring up the Jedi Kit Fisto, saying that getting to center an entire episode around that character was exciting.

Unfortunately, the creators could not yet get specific at all about the plotline to the Clone Wars movie, with Winder saying "It's a self-contained story. We can't share the plot yet, but soon." StarWars.com recently revealed an important new character introduced in The Clone Wars, Anakin Skywalker's young padawan, Ahsoka Tano, and Filoni did reveal that in the movie (or, if viewed as such, the first three episodes), "We meet Ahsoka and it's an important element to what's going on in the entire Clone Wars. What goes on in the film sets you up for a lot of things that will happen in the entire series. After you see the film, you'll say 'Okay, that stage is set.'"

Winder explained that with The Clone Wars, "We have written it both for the diehard fan and the new fan. We worked really hard to make this for a broad audience." Filoni said that not only he, but others on the show qualified as some of those diehard fans, who could constantly reference minutiae and storylines from other Expanded Universe stories. Winder was not as schooled in all of that, and Filoni said it was helpful to have her there "to get if she got it," when they were in danger of being too obscure or perhaps wrongly assuming everyone watching would pick up on what they were referring to. Filoni also said George Lucas himself was a great help, because he would come in and say "Guys, what are you doing? That's not Star Wars," or, "That is Star Wars."

Winder said Lucas asked her to find a team to create, "a look that had never been seen before on television," for the show, "which was a huge challenge." Filoni explained that he and his collaborators looked to the films and, "Took Ralph McQuarrie and Joe Johnston [designers on the original trilogy], and then what Doug Chiang did in the prequels," all as influence and also worked to, "Take things that Genndy had done [in the Clone Wars shorts] and take them into a three-dimensional look."

Despite having initially been told to expect to see him two or three times a year, Winder revealed they generally see Lucas once a week, and that he was "Extremely involved. He works on all key phases of the production." Besides approval of key components to the show, the Star Wars creator has been, "Very involved in all aspects of story." Filoni said that having Lucas so involved had helped encourage them all to make the series, "As much like Star Wars as we possibly can," adding, 'The more we did, the more [Lucas] responded to."

The panel ended with them playing a trailer for The Clone Wars. Unfortunately, it was the same trailer that has been available at starwars.com since last May, meaning fans will have to wait a bit longer for some brand new footage.