I’m not even sure where to start with this evening’s Clone Wars panel. There was so much talked about and so much shown that it’s a little intimidating to figure out just what exactly it is you’d want to read about first.
I suppose I’ll take the advice of the Mad Hatter and just start at the beginning and when I get to the end I’ll stop. I’m sorry if it skips around a bit, that’s just how the panel was.
Right off the bat we were screened the trailer for Season 4 we’d all seen before. There is a battle between the Mon Calamari and the Quarren and the Jedi are helping end the conflict. The panel was introduced and we were shown a new clip, including a new character named Riff Tamson (sp?). He’s a shark looking villian, biting at people and things. He’s part of a new race called Carcadons. (Cue Jaws music and Richard Dreyfuss – “It’s a carcaradon carcharias. It’s a Great White.”)
It was also confirmed that the Mon Calamari seen so prominently in the trailer is indeed Admiral Ackbar as a young Captain. Dave Filoni related a story about how he wanted to have Anakin introduce the concept of a “trap” to Ackbar in order to make his line in Return of the Jedi even funnier, but it ended up on the cutting room floor. This entire Mon Calamari arc is going to be opening the season and it is, indeed, a multi-part arc.
When asked about something special for Kit Fisto (who was in the clip) and his appearance, Filoni remarked, “Kit doesn’t wear his shirt, so I guess that’s like a Twilight reference for you.”
We also saw planet Umbara, which is something new. We’ve seen a couple of Umbarans in Star Wars, but never their home planet. It’s a dark, dreary, misty place and fighting there doesn’t look as though it would be much fun. All indications are that this is a 4 episode arc that shows the clones fighting the Umbarans themselves, a non-Droid, humanoid enemy. This marks the first time that has happened on the show.
Next, as they talked of upgrading the character models over the course of the show, it was revealed that moving forward the clones will have all converted to the Type 2 Clone Armour, bringing them one step closer to Order 66.
The next tasty morsel dropped at the panel was about General Krell. General Krell is a Besalisk Jedi Master whom Dave Filoni described as very powerful and unconventional. You caught a glimpse of him in the trailer, he has four arms and two double-bladed lightsabers and looks exactly like Dexter Jettster. It was said that he gives the clones a lot of things to chew on, challenging their ideas.
Another clip was shown this time and it was very Artoo and Threepio-centric. In fact, this could have been the opening battle scene of A New Hope. There they are, aboard a Star Destroyer, laser blasts going off all around them, but instead of rebels defending their position, it’s stormtroopers. The role reversal was astounding. They even go looking for an escape pod. When Artoo doesn’t find one, he orchestrates for the pair of them to hijack a Y-Wing. It was a really hilarious, incredibly well-animated scene.
Another pair of scenes were shown at this point. The first was a look at the space battle over Umbara, very reminiscent of the space battle of Revenge of the Sith. It followed a pair of clones through this tremendous battle and my breath was taken.
The penultimate clip shown was Katee Sackhoff’s clip from yesterday, but Filoni added onto it by confirming that Jon Favreau was reprising his role as the leader of Deathwatch. Sackhoff plays his lieutenant. As they talked about Favreau, there was a slide show playing that clicked by totally unacknowledged, but went on as though no one noticed. It was production art, to be sure. What was interesting about it were two things in specific: 1) the imply that General Grievous is going to take Naboo apart. And, 2) Savage Oppress might very well find Darth Maul.
At this point, Team Unicorn arrived on the panel dressed as Dathomiri Nightsisters. Apropos of nothing, here they are with Ray Wise (aka Leland Palmer from Twin Peaks)
But, Filoni then showed one last clip that featured the Nightsisters. It was very rough animation and had no lighting or textures, but it seemed to be a very cool battle sequence between the Nightsisters and… The Separatist battle droids? Apparently, Count Dooku wasn’t pleased with the betrayal of his apprentice. How dare she live after he ordered her death?
During the Q and A portion of the panel, there was some pretty succint information given:
- Cad Bane will be back, along with Bossk and Boba Fett
- Joining them is Dengar!
- Han Solo will not be on The Clone Wars
- When asked if Mortis was the home of the Force, Filoni said that he had agreed not to talk about it because there are more episodes concerning the mysticism of the mythology coming
- Durge will not be on the show.
And the last thing that I found interesting was a question asked about Ahsoka. She’s a very clever student, what would happen if she discovered Anakin’s secret marriage to Padme? Dave Filoni seemed to think that Ahsoka (and Obi-wan) both trust Anakin enough to give him the benefit of the doubt. And that Ahsoka, even if she did find out, wouldn’t be likely to tell anyone because she likes them both too much.
That’s pretty much all the news that’s fit to print from the Clone Wars panel. I’ll be back soon with interviews with Joel Aron, Dave Filoni, and Dee Bradley Baker, and more Star Wars stuff tomorrow.
Pick up Bryan’s books Lost at the Con and Man Against the Future.