Lucas Offers Peek at New `Clone Wars'

LAS VEGAS — Fans never seem to get their fill of "Star Wars," and George Lucas is happy to oblige.

Lucas offered a glimpse into the latest creation in his sci-fi universe at the theater-owners convention ShoWest on Thursday, showing a sequence from "Star Wars: The Clone Wars," a computer-animated movie due in theaters Aug. 15. It will be followed by a TV series of the same name, to air on the Cartoon Network and TNT this fall.

The movie came about as an afterthought while Lucas was developing an animated TV show of the same name. That show debuts this fall, but Lucas figured it was ripe for big-screen treatment, too.

"You've got the whole assembly line built, and then you say, `Hey, we can make up something,'" Lucas said in an interview. "It was like old-time moviemaking. What I love about television, it's like Monogram Pictures or the old studio system, where a couple guys come to work and they sit and have some coffee and go, `Why don't we make a movie about such and such? OK, fine.' And at the end of the day, it's pretty much on its way."

Set in the years between episodes II and III _ "Attack of the Clones" and "Revenge of the Sith" _ of the big-screen "Star Wars" chronicle, the movie and series present fresh adventures of Jedi warrior Anakin Skywalker, his mentor, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and other colleagues.

The movie introduces a female Jedi, Ahsoki, who is Anakin's young apprentice.

"It's like `Band of Brothers' in space, with Jedi," Lucas, 63, said. "You can tell lots of stories. They come up all the time."

Lucas said he plans to produce at least 100 hours worth of TV episodes of "Clone Wars."

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He also is moving forward with a live-action "Star Wars" TV show focusing largely on new characters removed from the Skywalker family. That show will be set in the decades between "Revenge of the Sith" and the period when the original film, 1977's "Star Wars," takes place.

So can fans ever get enough of "Star Wars"?

"I don't know," Lucas said. "I'm thankful every year that it keeps going."

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Time Warner Inc. owns TNT, the Cartoon Network and the film's distributor, Warner Bros.

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On the Net:

"Star Wars":

http://www.starwars.com/

Comments

[protagonia]

Other parable sci-fi/fantasy films for today (And tomorrow) are: Speilberg's WAR OF THE WORLDS,
THE LORD OF THE RINGS TRILOGY,
CHILDREN OF MEN,
HANDMAID'S TALE,
APOCALYPTO,
BLADE RUNNER,

And countless others. Not seeing what we WANT to see, but what we would be served well to see.

[catharsis271828]

"Only a Sith (or a Bush) deals in obsolutes."

Keep up the good work George. I can't wait to see the new stuff.

[catharsis271828]

Duh, oops I should have said "absolutes"
That's what I get for not previewing my post

[sparkey]

The clones look like the space cadets I use to watch on some of the old Japanese monster movies Maybe the younger viewers haven't seen those movies.

[DaveWBR]

I don't think the general public is really aware that this move didn't just happen out of the blue. The Clone War animated series was sort of "tested" back in 2005 on the Cartoon Network. A series of 5 minute episodes that amounted to (2) hour and a half movies.

And over at my blog I talk about comic books, and in that arena they've made literally hundreds of issues that explore the time before, during, and after the movies. So what I'm saying is the ground work has been laid for years in low cost media and now they're convinced that enough people are willing to come on board if they spend the big bucks. It's good. It's a good mythology.

[hardrain77]

I notice more and more how the Clone Wars is mimicking our own current times--without the space/Jedi thing.

It's a shame more people don't write about this. Everything that happened in the prequels regarding the rise of the Empire is almost a mirror image of our own country and global strife.

[HopeandChange]

The story was written 30 years ago. You're only seeing what you want to see.

[MrVinegar]

A vague outline concerning what happened before Star Wars was written 30 years ago. Nothing resembling a full script was written then.

[BlackWidowPilot]

The story is timeless. As a Military Historian, I have seen despots rise and fall over the centuries. I have seen tyrannies rise and fall. And I have seen human decency and justice also rise and fall. It all depends upon the willingness of the people who live those times to side with the light against the darkness.

We cannot as a certain wizard said choose the times we live in, but we can choose what we do with them.

Damn that Lucas! He's been successfully separating me from my hard-earned money since 1977... May he live to be 120 and never stop making movies!

Leland R. Erickson

Citizen

[protagonia]

HopeandChange See Profile I'm a Fan of HopeandChange

The story was written 30 years ago. You're only seeing what you want to see.

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Dialog changes are up-to-the-minute though. The pages arrive the night before, quite often. As for only seeing what hardrain77 wants to see, perhaps it's only a case of trying a little hope to effect change.

Just a thought.

[TheOtherMaven]

Some people know how to ride the wave, some can't handle it and wipe out. Lucas is riding it tall and proud, and why shouldn't he?

[quoveritas]

I agree, and I would add that author's of science fiction/fantasy, good author's like George Lucas, have always written with clear foresight. Thus, the moniker 'visionary' as relates to their stories. It's no coincidence that we in the west still consider Homer's 'Odyssey' relevant to our present state or that 'Star Wars' is enduring the test of time.