The season finale of The Clone Wars ended with a seemingly standard invasion of a Separatist base plot. Masters Plo Koon and Anakin Skywalker (with the help of “Commander” Ahsoka Tano) are leading the charge on Felucia when they decide to split up in three squads and assault the base from different directions. While covering the flank of her Clone Troopers, Ahsoka is abducted by Trandoshan Sport Hunters who transport her to a jungle world where they hunt for sport.

Attaching herself to a group of lost Padawan’s who befell similar fates and finding a familiar Wookiee who can help them, Ahsoka leads a battle of survival to get them all back home.

Without a doubt, this was a very compelling episode and proves that the team behind The Clone Wars is still reaching out to the depths of their creativity and storytelling ability and something tells me we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg.

Virtually everything about these pair of episodes were turned up to eleven. The story was well-constructed, the voice acting was better than ever, the musical cues were awe-inspiring, and the look of the show was second to none.

The photography, camera work, and lighting was incredible in a number of different places: First, the faintly lit vegetation of Felucia looked much, much better since the last time we’ve seen it on the show. Then there was the Trandoshan ship that was lit very much like the ship from Predator, which this episode takes so much inspiration from, and it looked incredible. The next moment that struck me was the lighting behind the Padawans during their discussion with the sun to their backs, particularly the look of the Cerean padawan in that scene. Chewbacca’s reveal was also wonderfully rendered, reminiscent of his reveal in Return of the Jedi in Jabba’s dungeon. And perhaps the best camera work on the show was Ahsoka’s fight with the head Trandoshan in his trophy room… When the dagger hit the floor? Wow.

The animation is leaps and bounds better than it’s ever been. The Trandoshans and the Wookiees all looked wonderful, from their facial movements to the way they walked and moved, it was all pitch-perfect. There were moments where I saw real emotion in Anakin’s face and the life behind Ahsoka’s eyes was uncanny. And Chewbacca moved like Chewbacca. It was him, through and through. The animation and filmmaking on these episodes were stunning.

The character work in this pair of episodes was… (I’m having trouble coming up with more synonyms for awesome…) We got to see sparks of Anakin’s fear of loss and how much he’d beat himself up if ever he did lose Ahsoka. And Ahsoka is coming so much into her own, more than ever before. The best and worst parts of Anakin are rubbing off on her and she’s become one of the most interesting and compelling characters in the Star Wars saga. The moment she first force pulled the blaster out of the Trandoshan’s hand, lifted him up by his throat and cracked him into a rock was breathtaking.

And does it need to be said that seeing Chewbacca cut loose and tossing enemies off the sides of ships and choking guys to their knees was a thing of beauty. It’s really the first time we’ve ever seen it happening and it was quite a thing to see.

There were a couple of things about the episode though that I thought could have been improved. First off, there were a couple of scenes were Chewbacca’s dialogue sounded like he was talking in a totally different environment than Ahsoka, whose voice was echoing in a moderately sized metal room. It was a little odd.

The other thing was I wanted to see even just a moment of interaction between Yoda and Chewie and Tarfull. It’s my ardent hope that in Season 4 we might see more of their relationship grow into the trusting one they had in Revenge of the Sith.

Speaking of Season 4… The preview of Season 4 they played at the end (which you can watch here) was thrilling. I’m already wishing I can skip summer and move straight into fall. It’s got Admiral Ackbar (maybe?), General Grievous fighting Gungans, underwater battles, fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles…

Until then, we’ll still be here, reporting on all of the goings on in the Star Wars universe.

The website TV Shows on DVD has revealed that one of my most beloved cartoons from the 80’s will be coming to DVD.  That’s right . . . M.A.S.K. (Mobile Armored Strike Kommand) will soon be available to watch to your heart’s content.

Relive the adventures of Matt Trakker, his son Scott, and that goofy T-Bob as they’re joined by fellow M.A.S.K. members Bruce Sato, Hondo MacLean, Dusty Hayes, Gloria Baker, and all the rest of the mask-wearing gang.  The show followed their adventures as the members of the crime-fighting team used their powerful masks against the plotting agents of V.E.N.O.M. (Vicious Evil Network of Mayhem).  But that’s not all!  They also drove vehicles that could transform, and Trakker had a red Chevrolet Camaro that had gull-wing doors and turned into a jet plane.

The 65 episodes from Season 1 will be released, though there’s no word yet on the 10 episodes from the short-lived second season.

The cartoon’s opening sequence and theme song has long been a personal favorite of mine, with its lasers and explosions and never-ending action.  The song is catchy and energetic, and it has found its way into my personal MP3 collection once or twice.

I actually still have my old Manta toy around somewhere . . . it was the vehicle for V.E.N.O.M. agent Vanessa Warfield, and it’s a purple car.  I never could locate Gloria’s Shark, though.

Hopefully the DVD release will live up to my treasured memories of the show.

No release date has been provided.

I did an interview with Dave Filoni, supervising director of The Clone Wars for my piece on The Huffington Post about The Clone Wars (which you can read here), and we talked at length about the political intrigue that has ramped up in Season 3 of the show and where we can expect the show to go from here.

Every time I talk with Dave Filoni, you can just feel how much he loves the Star Wars universe, as much or more as any of us fans.  And this conversation we had provides quite a few tantalizing tidbits about the direction of Season 4.  And once again he proves his thorough knowledge of the ins and outs of the Star Wars universe, both as a storyteller and a filmmaker.  He never ceases to impress me.

This is an abridged version of our talk:

Dave Filoni: The second half of season 3 is much more indicative of where the series is going as a whole.  They’re much more in the mold of the swashbuckling vein of the original trilogy, but they still have the political overtones the prequels had.  We still have to deal with the senate.  We did the political episodes in the first half of the season and we got better and better at them as we went.  By the time we did ‘Heroes on Both Sides’, I think we showed that the Separatists aren’t all villains and Ahsoka says, “This war isn’t as black and white as I once thought it was.”  And to me, that’s her coming to terms with being a human being (I know she’s not a human being) but coming to the understanding that the world is a much more complex place than she first thought.  When you’re growing up as a kid and you realize there are kids all over the world and they all have different political views and people don’t always agree on things.  That doesn’t necessarily mean  it’s evil or good.  It’s an awakening for her.

We don’t get as detailed with that in the future season but we definitely show it more from the war front side.  In some ways it’s like the film Patton.  In that film you always understood that the politics were always affecting what Patton was trying to do on the front line but you saw it more from the General’s standpoint.  The future of the show we go more from the general’s standpoint and how some of the machinations we saw, how the corruption we saw across the galaxy, is affecting these soldiers and these commanders on the front line.

Bryan Young: Watching the show with my kids, they have questions about things like the opening crawl in Revenge of the Sith that says “There are heroes on both sides, evil is everywhere” you guys were able to clear up some of that.

DF: When you look at that opening, it was a really intriguing statement.  Even though I’m an adult, I thought, “Wow.  What does that mean?”  And when you look at the Star Wars saga, you understand that the Republic just transitions into the Empire.

In my opinion, Anakin doesn’t really see that he changes sides at all.  If you ask Anakin as Darth Vader, “Did you betray the Jedi?” he would say, “No.  The Jedi betrayed the Republic.”  He doesn’t ever understand that he transitions from one thing to the next.  He definitely makes the moves to gain more power, which George [Lucas] has always said is really at the root of a lot of evil of the dark side is that they’re selfish and through those selfish motives they try to seek power.  And Anakin does it by being selfish and trying to keep his friends alive at all costs when he doesn’t look to Yoda and isn’t selfless about letting go of people.  You can see these extremes just looking at Anakin and it says there are heroes on both sides and evil everywhere and the Jedi didn’t see that clearly enough.  Much to their downfall.

It’s an interesting story to tell in that I know the Clones which the kids like very much eventually in Revenge of the Sith turn around  and are ordered to execute their commanders, the Jedi.  So it does make me think of a lot of things to do with the story, especially with popular characters like Captain Rex and I think that because those big questions, evil is everywhere, heroes are on both sides, the politics are thus involved to help explain some of the machinations behind it all.  So you’ll have a better understanding of how this all happened.  In the movie’s it’s all much more focused on Anakin’s personal story.

BY: You guys have received a lot of criticism for taking the bad guys from the original films and making them heroes here.  But is there a better lesson people can be taking from that?

DF: I think Palpatine, as far as the lesson there, is that he’s deceptive.  He seems like the kindly old man but he is really the evil monster he’s revealed to be in the later films.  That’s such a common thing in mythology.  You think the person is kind, the beautiful Queen in Snow White is supposed to be kindly, but her beauty is a deception.  She’s not.  She’s really evil.  The old man you think is withered and helpless is deceiving you, he’s actually a powerful sorceror.  There’s a really simple directorial thing in Return of the Jedi that illustrates it really well.  When he gets off of the shuttle, he’s walking using the cane, and all the scenes you see him in up until Luke Skywalker shows up he generally has his cane.  But then when Luke is in front of him, he rises up out of his chair and just walks over to Luke.  As the audience, you were being deceived into thinking this guy was really aged and weak and he’s not.  He’s extremely powerful.  So I think that’s part of the lesson being learned.

And part of our examination of the clones in great detail is more really looking at these guys as soldiers and asking how they follow orders and do they follow all of them like the Kaminoan’s think?  Are they thoughtless in their execution of following orders?  Do they develop a personality?  How would the Jedi interact with an entire race of soldiers created for them and do they try to humanize these guys, not just use them as tools?  I think once you’re dealing with a cloned army, a lot of those questions come along with that idea.  Especially since you have the Jedi, this selfless people guiding this army, you’d think that they would try to be kind to them.  And we tried to show that each Jedi  General’s personality is reflected in their soldiers.  So it’s going to be a big shift for everybody when they become Stormtroopers in the end.  It’s fun stuff really.

BY: Do you think there’s something to be said about the fact that you’re showing people the sympathetic side of these people?  And really this is in play in even the classic trilogy, but it depends on your own point of view what’s evil.  Especially in today, reflecting in the events of what’s going on, good is a point of view.

DF: That’s what Palpatine would like you believe, for sure.  I found it really interesting in Return of the Jedi that Obi-Wan Kenobi tells Luke that “you’re going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.”  And that’s the response to the fact that he lied to Luke about his father.  But when you find Palpatine in the opera scene in Revenge of the Sith, he tells Anakin that good and evil is a point of view.  That you’re listening to the dogmatic views of the Jedi and evil is a real thing only depending on what side of the fence you sit on.  There’s probably some truth to that in a way, but it’s a very good line by Palpatine because it’s very easy to believe that.  If you believe that it makes you think that other things you do aren’t so extreme because it’s only a point of view.  Are the Clone Troopers evil because they executed an order they were given?  Can they help when they do that order?  Are the all complicit when they do that order?  Do some of them not want to follow Order 66?  Those are all great questions that I think this series will be headed towards before it’s all over.  It’s a great question to ask.  Is that true?  Good and evil is dependant on your point of view?  Or are there truly evil things?

I think everybody in a way is a pawn of Palpatine during the Clone Wars.  The politicians that work with him, they’re greedy and they want more power for themselves.  If they knew he was a Sith Lord, they probably wouldn’t even care.  What does that mean to them as long as they mean more money and become more powerful?  The Jedi are so wrapped up  in their own politics and doing what they think is right from wrong that they can’t see this guy that in a lot of ways they helped get elected (through the defense of Naboo and  and different channels) is the Sith lord they should be looking for.  He’s right under their nose.  Padme believes in Palpatine because he’s from Naboo and he’s a fatherly figure to Anakin and her.  It’s all under the umbrella of this truly evil guy.  In some ways the Bounty Hunters are the most removed because they’re independent.  Like Boba Fett and Cad Bane.  But Bane is driven by greed.  Boba Fett is confused about his motivations because of the death of his father.  It sounds like a lot of ramblings, I’m sure, but in a way it goes to illustrate how fertile this area of Star Wars is for storytelling because there’s so much at work, politically, with the Jedi, with the Clones, in the Outer Rim, with the Bounty Hunters, it really is the heyday of this period before the Empire comes in and puts it’s big boot down and tries to get everyone in order.

BY: For adults that might ordinarily say, “I love Star Wars, but why would I watch this cartoon?” what would you say to them?

DF: We’re just telling stories and a good story is a good story no matter what style or medium it’s  told through.  I’m sure they all go and see Pixar films because they’re wonderfully told stories.  I think they’ve proven that even though the kids like it, adults get a lot of it, too.  Clone Wars is that way.  We’re telling these stories using animation but they’re stories just the same as George has  always told them going back to 1977, he loves animation.  Many of those live action films you’d go see have a huge amount of animation in it, so it’s all just coming together.  A lot of people in animation feel like we’re just telling stories and we happen to use animated characters.  I have brilliant voice actors behind those characters, brilliant animators doing the work, and at the end of the day if the story is good, and I think these stories are aimed at everybody, for old and young…

When I was a kid I remember Star Wars being the first big thing my dad and I really sat down and I knew he liked.  He wasn’t a crazy fan of it, but he was always into opera and it was kind of like space opera.  That was always a big creative bridge between us to talk about the music of Star Wars and of the operas he liked.  I get a lot of comments from people that they watch Clone Wars with their kids and this is a family Friday night, even when the shows are sometimes fun and whimsical and sometimes more intense, they like to sit there and talk about what the show will say.  And I think biggest compliment we can get on this series is that we’re getting generations to sit down and watch it in this fantastic world that George created.

BY: It’s funny, my favorite episodes are not my kids’ favorite episodes, and vice versa.  Their favorite episode, hands down, is Bombad Jedi and they will watch it on a continuous loop.

DF: How about that…

BY: They’re big Chaplin fans and they’ll watch that and “The Kid” back to back and they think it’s just as good.

DF: Wow.  That just proves there’s something for everybody in The Clone Wars.

The Clone Wars season three finale airs on Friday on Cartoon Network. Be sure to check local listings for showtimes. Season four begins in the fall.

Be sure to come back to Big Shiny Robot! for all your Star Wars news! (All your geek news, too.)

Lucasfilm has been kind enough once again to give us a taste of next week’s Season Finale of The Clone Wars, featuring everyone’s favorite Wookiee, Chewbacca.

It’s almost too bad we won’t be able to see Chewbacca’s capture into slavery (if that’s what really happened) because this series covers virtually no ground after The Clone Wars, but we can always hope for that with the Live Action Television show if it ever happens, now can’t we?

Having said that, this clip has NOTHING to do with Chewie and Ahsoka… Well… She’s a badass and it’s obvious that she’s been trained by Anakin Skywalker.

From the Lucasfilm press release:

In the pulse-pounding, hour-long season finale, Ahsoka Tano is taken captive and stranded on a planetary game preserve, where she finds herself on the run from merciless and sadistic Trandoshan hunting parties. With the odds stacked against her and no rescue in sight, hope for survival begins to dwindle – that is, until her escape efforts receive an unexpected boost from a friendly – and furry! – fellow captive. The chase begins with “Padawan Lost” and continues into “Wookiee Hunt” – it’s a must-see, double dose of Star Wars: The Clone Wars,airing at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT Friday, April 1 on Cartoon Network.

By now, it’s no secret that a familiar face will join Ahsoka’s private guerilla battle against the Trandoshans. After all, it’s hard to keep a seven-foot Wookiee under wraps, and Chewbacca’s certainly not one to hide in the shadows when his friends are in danger. Making his Clone Wars debut, loyal and lovable Chewie teams up with the desperate Padawan to wreak havoc on the vicious hunters’ plans – proving once and for all that it’s not wise to upset a Wookiee.

“Everybody loves Chewie, “says Dave Filoni, Supervising Director of Star Wars: The Clone Wars. “He’s like a big teddy bear, except that he’s got a temper. You want him on your side, because if he’s on your side, he’s the best friend you could ever have – and who wouldn’t want a Wookiee for a best friend? But we didn’t include him lightly. He’s such a special part of the films, and we knew that we had to do right by him. The story had to do him justice.”

Both literally and figuratively, the finale’s guest star is a big one for The Clone Wars – but even bigger than a towering Wookiee was the challenge of bringing the gentle giant to life. But the Clone Wars crew had the blessing – and the expert counsel – of actor Peter Mayhew, the man who has played the iconic role since Star Wars’ debut in 1977.

“Having Peter’s involvement was essential, and it was a major coup for the crew,” says Filoni. “We’d done some preliminary designs and some rough animation tests, but we were coming from a place of observation. He’s lived with the character for more than three decades. He is Chewie. He helped us focus in on the qualities that make Chewie live and breathe. His input helped make our version of the character that much more authentic – his mannerisms, details of his walk, facial expressions, that sort of thing. We couldn’t have done it without him; it just wouldn’t have been Chewie.”

Beyond capturing the iconic mannerisms and distinctive idiosyncrasies of everyone’s favorite “walking carpet,” the Clone Wars crew pushed the visual envelope in other areas, as well – most notably with the finale’s lush locations and impossibly rich environments. But setting the bar for TV animation is no easy task. It’s a constant uphill battle, especially considering production constraints and the level of fan expectations for the series. Helping Filoni lead the team effort is CG Supervisor Joel Aron – a visual effects veteran whose credits include two of the live-action Star Wars prequels.

“I can’t make it happen; I can only envision it. Joel is the guy who makes it come alive. He’s my right hand, my hit-man, my Vader. He’s revolutionized the show, no doubt in my mind,” says Filoni. “I really push him, and so does George [Lucas]. I’ll draw a picture and say ‘This is what I imagined’ – and he makes it happen. It’s a challenge, it’s what he wants – it’s food for him and the team. We’re taking that knowledge, applying it forward. Just look at the backgrounds in these episodes; we’ve got our characters, and now the background environment has also become a character.”

Bringing with him lessons learned at Lucas’ Industrial Light & Magic, Aron inspires enthusiastic innovation, just as he struggles to strike the delicate balance between creating something completely unique and quintessentially familiar.

“My goal is always to capture the essence of Star Wars, the key elements that stick with you,” says Aron. “It’s a very specific feeling, and it’s not always completely literal. We’re in a different medium than the films, working on a different timeline with different tools. That’s a unique challenge; we have to find stylistic ways to reflect those familiar ideals – using shapes and colors, adding textures to backgrounds. But everyone on the crew is up for it, and we love it when it pays off.”

 

Impressive though it may be, the Season Three finale is still just a stepping stone in the show’s ongoing evolution – a jumping off point as The Clone Wars kicks into hyperdrive.

 

“These finale episodes are among the best we’ve produced, and it’s only going to keep getting better,” says Filoni. “This is what audiences can expect to see in Season Four. There’s still a big galaxy out there.”

 

Star Wars: The Clone Wars Season Four will launch on Cartoon Network this fall.

I literally can’t wait. I had a chance to see the Season Finale tonight in San Francisco but my damned geography prevented it, so I’ll have to wait until next week with the rest of you.

Until then, May the Force Be With You.

USA Weekend had a chance to sit down with Dave Filoni to talk about the season finale of The Clone Wars and he gave some hints for Season 4.

We’re hard at work on Season 4 right now and making it as best we can bigger and better than what we’ve done before. In the season finale, fans will get a glimpse of what Season 4 is going to look like. We take such a leap technologically and story-wise in the last two episodes, where the visuals are even stronger than they’ve been the whole series.

He also talked a lot about the decision to bring Chewbacca onto the show and how George Lucas arrived there.

It came about in the writers’ room. We meet to go over all the stories we’re going to do for a season, and George knew that the fans had been wanting Wookiees on the show for a long time. It’s something that I mentioned to him. Wookiees had come up and I said, “I think we’re ready to do it.” And then he sprung Chewbacca on me. He very much wanted to see Ahsoka and Chewbacca together in an episode.

They also have an exclusive clip of Ahsoka evading a Trandoshan. It’s my firm belief this is the “Predator” episode that Dave Filoni teased all those many months ago and I couldn’t be more excited.

The season finale airs April 1, 2011. Check local listings for showtimes.

While wishing William Shatner a happy birthday (his 80th is today) voice actor Maurice LaMarche announced (while in his bathrobe) that he has finished negotiating his contract and Futurama will be back for a seventh season!

We can only hope that it’s a full season and not a half season like the last three. I’ve been slowly catching up on season five which just hit DVD and Blu-ray recently and it’s just as good or even better than I remember the show being in the first place. And since it’s airing on Comedy Central as opposed to Cartoon Network or Fox it has a little bit of a sharper edge to it, also.

Maurice LaMarche provides voices for characters like Morbo, Kiff Kroker, Calculon, and everyone’s favorite Hyper Chicken. He might be best known as the voice of Brain from Animaniacs (and Pinky and the Brain).

The point of his video, though, was to highlight International Talk Like William Shatner day, which takes place on Shatner’s birthday. It seems like as fitting a holiday as any.

“Citadel Rescue” wraps up the Citadel Saga and the penultimate story arc in the third season of The Clone Wars.  It’s obvious the writers are getting more and more ambitious with the scope of the storytelling, as this episode had simultaneous space and land battles with an emotional price to the action.

This episode might be my favorite of the three episodes and used all of the characters to the best of their abilities, not wasting a single one.  Tarkin particularly seemed to fit and the notes of the Imperial March on their final handshake added an excellent gravitas to the foreshadowing of things to come.

I greatly enjoy the prison escape genre, particularly in the Star Wars universe, and this episode was no exception.  Though I must say, I did find it incredibly humorous that the narrator (played by the always capable Tom Kane) spent almost a minute to explain the dire situation the characters were in and how urgently they were on the run and the episode immediately them taking a leisurely walk and then stopping to sit down and regroup.  The juxtaposition of that seemed hilarious to me.

With our heroes on the run and the Separatist commander hot on their heels, the Jedi Council sends Plo Koon, Adi Gallia and Saesee Tiin to rendezvous with them once they’ve eluded capture.  But things grow complicated for the rescue party when the Separatists heavily blockade the planet, intent on recapturing the escapees and torturing the vital information from them.

This episode came to an incredibly satisfying crescendo and I’m loathe to talk much about the emotional core of the episode because it’s very good and I wouldn’t want to spoil it for anyone.  Though I will say on a different emotional level I was pleased to see the relationship between Ahsoka and Plo Koon grow. They had a very tender moment I enjoyed immensely.

As far as the action in the episode, I was very impressed.  Sobeck, the Separatist commander, launched a double pronged assault against the Jedi starting with canine like hounds called anoobas and personally led an assault on a STAP.  Now, I’ve always loved STAP’s.  (Single Troop Aerial Transports.)  The first toy I ever bought from the prequel era was the preview version of the STAP and I always felt they’d been under utilized in the films.  Anakin has done some cool stuff with them in the show, but this was the first episode where I truly thought they were utilized to the best of their abilities.  The Jedi (particularly Ahsoka, sporting both lightsabers) made this acrobatics show something truly special.

So with the STAPs and the anoobas bedeviling our heroes egress from the Citadel and the Separatist blockade making the space battle above truly spectacular, we’re privvy to an episode of The Clone Wars that reaches some of the shows highest heights and most complicated feats.

I can’t even begin to imagine how they’ll top this next week…  Oh.  Right.  Chewbacca.

Sweet baby Skywalker, I can’t wait.  But I also don’t want it to come.  Because it will be over.  And we won’t have new episodes for a long time…. a long time….

UPDATE: I’m reading that there are issues with EU wonks angry about Even Piell’s handling in this episode. To them I hope they can lighten up. This show is better than just about anything else in the EU. You can’t keep carrying this water for the EU. It’s expendable. They prove it every week.

Lucasfilm and Yahoo are running a promotion in advance of the April 1st season finale of The Clone Wars where kids can submit questions to Chewbacca and they will be answered on video on March 28th.

It seems pretty clear they’re looking for questions for Chewbacca, not Peter Mayhew. And the questions should be geared toward the Wookiee.

So if your kids have any questions, be sure to let them submit them!

Personally, I’ve always wanted to know why the Wookiee has no pants.  I’d also be interested in knowing what it was he and Han had done to Lando prior to The Empire Strikes Back that Han was sure Lando had forgotten about.

You can do it Yahoo! Kids.