Star Wars: Clone Wars

Star Wars: Clone Wars is an animated television series set in the Star Wars galaxy. The series chronicles the Clone Wars between the Galactic Republic under Chancellor Palpatine and the Confederacy of Independent Systems (CIS) under Count Dooku. The Clone Wars occurred, starting with the events of Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones and ending with Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.

Chronologically, the series takes place between the two movies, between 22 BBY and 19 BBY. That is, during the 3-year time period in which the Clone Wars occurred. The original television series was produced by Cartoon Network Studios, aired from 2003 to 2005, and ran for 25 chapters. The 3D version is expected to be produced by Lucasfilm Animation and debut in 2007.

2-D run
The 2-D series consists of twenty, three-minute installments for Seasons 1 and 2 (also known as Volume 1), and five, twelve-to-fifteen minute installments for Season 3 (which is Volume 2). The 25 episodes are mostly comprised of energetic set-piece battles. Since much emphasis is placed on action, the story and plot is less developed than in the films. Despite this, it can be argued that the third season focused more on Anakin's story.

The series follows the Jedi, on the side of The Republic, on their exploits fighting Dooku's separatist confederation. Many characters in the series are also featured prominently in the films, such as Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda, Mace Windu, Chancellor Palpatine, Count Dooku, General Grievous, C-3PO, R2-D2 and Padmé Amidala, but others such as Kit Fisto, Shaak Ti and Aayla Secura are seen briefly in the films. Asajj Ventress appears for the time in the Expanded Universe.

Seasons
1st season (Episodes 1-10)

The first season spent more time on various events of the war, occurring closer to the time of Attack of the Clones, while still focusing on Obi-Wan and Anakin's struggles.

2nd season (Episodes 11-20)

The second season continued the first's style of showing multiple battles, while having a main story at the same time.

3rd season (Episodes 21-25)

The third season was based on early plot outlines of the novel Labyrinth of Evil, by James Luceno. It closely follows the plot of the book. However, since it was made separately from the book, there were some initial continuity issues between the two. Season three delved deeply into, and focused mostly on, Anakin's story and the relationship between him and Obi-Wan Kenobi, while also showing their struggles during the war. It builds up many of the events leading to Revenge of the Sith, taking place closer to the timeframe of Revenge of the Sith, and is an immediate lead-in to Episode III, the opening scene of which takes place only minutes after the end of Episode 25.

Main events
Yoda
 * Yoda seeing a possible future with Qui-Gon taking Anakin to a trial in the tree
 * Strength of Yoda's force push ability in causing two heavy droid landing craft to crash into one another
 * Incredible speed of Yoda
 * Yoda's decision to promote Anakin to Jedi Knight

Anakin Skywalker
 * Anakin leading forces
 * Anakin as an impressive pilot
 * Anakin with exceptional power with the force
 * Anakin disobeying Obi-Wan
 * Anakin chasing Asajj Ventress on wild goose chase
 * Failure of Anakin to control rage in beating Asajj Ventress until she falls
 * Anakin's promotion to Jedi Knight despite reservations of the council
 * Anakin's braid being cut off by Yoda; later delivered to Padmé by C-3PO
 * Destruction of the temple at Ilum and the rescue of two survivors by Yoda accompanied by Padmé
 * Distraction of Obi-Wan and Anakin to a far off world; distraction caused by Darth Sidious
 * Dream of Anakin about the effect of his mechanical hand and/or his dalliance with the dark side
 * Failure of Anakin to recognize the mechanisms controlling warriors
 * Destruction of weather-altering machine and Anakin's gold arm
 * Anakin felt pain when gold arm was inside electric sphere
 * Failure of Anakin to control anger against Techno Guild
 * Warriors' destruction of mechanical implants after seeing Anakin's vengeance
 * Replacement hand for Anakin, modified by Anakin with help from R2-D2

General Grievous
 * Introduction of Grievous
 * Death of many Jedi from Grievous
 * Collection of lightsabers from defeated Jedi
 * Grievous being trained by Count Dooku
 * Grievous's inability to defend against force push
 * Grievous storming Coruscant in order to capture Palpatine
 * Grievous's abilities to clamp with toes plus ability to run down outsides of buildings
 * Grievous's dividing arms, to be used to wield four lightsabers at once
 * In the series, and thus, the official explanation in continuity, the cause of Grievous's cough is: Mace Windu uses the force to damage Grievous's internal organ sack (brought up again in Episode III). However, the real reason behind Grievous's cough is because George Lucas wanted to make sure the audience knew Grievous wasn't a droid.
 * Introduction of Magna Guards, electric-staff-swinging droids that act as Grievous's bodyguards

Shaak Ti
 * Introduced in battle against General Grievous
 * Rescued by Jedi and Clone Troopers
 * Assigned to guard Supreme Chancellor Palpatine with Roron Corobb & Foul Moudama
 * Acted as lead Jedi
 * Helped Palpatine to escape from Grievous
 * Fear of Grievous during the kidnapping
 * Ability to defeat Magna Guards - various means - very effectively
 * Inability to stop Grievous from kidnapping Supreme Chancellor Palpatine

Aayla Secura
 * Fights against General Grievous
 * Rescued by Jedi with Troopers

C-3PO
 * Is refurbished with shiny gold plating, due to his appointment as Padmé Amidala's senatorial protocol droid

The clones
 * Introduction of clone ARC troopers

Cast (voice talent)
The Republic


 * Mat Lucas .... Anakin Skywalker
 * James Arnold Taylor .... Obi-Wan Kenobi
 * Tom Kane .... Yoda
 * Terrence Carson .... Mace Windu and Saesee Tiin
 * Daran Norris .... Ki-Adi-Mundi and Daakman Barrek
 * Kevin Michael Richardson .... K'Kruhk
 * Cree Summer .... Luminara Unduli
 * Tatyana Yassukovich .... Barriss Offee
 * Grey DeLisle .... Padmé Amidala and Shaak Ti
 * André Sogliuzzo .... Captain Typho, Commander Cody, Captain Fordo, ARC Troopers and Clone Troopers.
 * Nick Jameson .... Chancellor Palpatine
 * Anthony Daniels .... C-3PO

The Confederacy of Independent Systems
 * Corey Burton .... Count Dooku and San Hill
 * John Di Maggio .... General Grievous (Chapter 20)
 * Richard McGonagle .... General Grievous (Chapters 21-25)
 * Grey DeLisle .... Asajj Ventress
 * Daran Norris .... Durge
 * Terrence Carson .... Oro Dassyne
 * André Sogliuzzo .... Battle Droids

Crew

 * George Lucas .... Characters, story, and executive producer
 * Genndy Tartakovsky .... Director, story, and producer
 * Paul Rudish .... Co-art director and story
 * Scott Wills ....Co-art director
 * Bryan Andrews .... story
 * Mark Andrews .... story
 * Darrick Bachman .... story
 * Claudia Katz .... executive producer
 * Rick McCallum .... executive producer
 * Brian A. Miller .... executive producer
 * Jennifer Pelphrey .... supervising producer
 * Geraldine Symon .... producer

Release
(November 7, 2003 - March 25, 2005)

The pilot series, produced in 2-D animation, ran on the kid-friendly (and adult-friendly at times) Cartoon Network during its entire run. In addition to being shown on television, the 25 episodes of the 2-D series was released online simultaneously, in the vein of Strong Bad's E-mail, What The Muffins?, and other similar online shows. On TV, the show was heavily advertised by Cartoon Network, and was shown, usually, immediately before many of their other popular cartoons aired.

Production
The series was produced by Genndy Tartakovsky and employs a similar animation style to Tartakovsky's Samurai Jack and Dexter's Laboratory.

Awards and acclaim
The series, seasons 1 and 2 (Volume I), at the time, won an Emmy award for "Outstanding Animated Program" in 2004. In 2005, Season 3 (Volume II), also won an Emmy award in the same category. The series received some positive critical reviews, some reviewers even believing the show to be better than the first two prequels of the film series.

Criticism
However, many fans and critics even went as far as to despise the cartoon for its style of animation, the over-exagerrated and sometimes ludicrous action, and Vol II's contradiction of Labyrinth of Evil. Some critics also criticised the voice acting.

Trivia

 * Series producer, Gendy Tartakovsky revealed in his Hyperspace commentary on starwars.com and on the Volume I DVD that he purposely animated C-3PO with eyes that sort of move around to pay homage to the animators of and the animation style of Nelvana. He talked of how they had produced the animation for C-3PO for the animated segment of The Star Wars Holiday Special, and how he made his version of the character similar. Nelvaan is the name of a species in the second volume of the show.
 * Chapter 20 on the Volume 1 DVD introduces General Grievous, and Chapter 25 attempted to give an explanation on why he wheezes when he talks. On the film commentary for the DVD of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, John Knoll noted the reason for Grievous' cough in Revenge of the Sith was due to the Force Crush Mace Windu gave him in this series. Canonically, this should be combined with George Lucas's explanation that the General's body didn't adapt well with the cybernetics as he was an experiment for the technology perfected with Darth Vader's armor, to give the reason of Grievous's cough.
 * The show, overall, has the unique position of being the only show released on the internet to win an Emmy Award, due to the fact that it was released on TV and the Internet at the same time. On the internet, it was released on starwars.com's Hyperspace section, which is by subscription only.
 * It is hinted in Chapter 22 that the encounter of Anakin with Padme, following the battles of that episode, was the time at which Luke and Leia are conceived. This is evidenced by the fact that immediately before the scene cuts away from their ecounter on Coruscant, a room light flashes out in the building they are in. This is also suggested in the DVD commentary by Paul Rudish.
 * This was the first Star Wars television production to be created in a widescreen aspect ratio.

DVD release
Volume I (seasons 1 and 2)


 * Chapters 1-20 of the micro-series were released on DVD as "Star Wars Clone Wars: Volume I," as an edited together compilation of the 20 chapters.
 * Released by: Lucasfilm Ltd.
 * Region 1 encoding (US and Canada only)
 * Language: English
 * Release Date: March 22, 2005
 * Features:
 * Available subtitles: English
 * Available Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround), French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround), Spanish (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround)
 * Chapters 1-20 of the animated series
 * Exclusive featurette: "Bridging the Saga: From Clone Wars to Revenge of the Sith," including new interviews with George Lucas, Genny Tartakovsky, and the Clone Wars production crew; also featuring a glimpse of Star Wars: Clone Wars Volume Two
 * Behind the scenes featurette
 * Director commentary
 * Hyperspace commentary
 * Two galleries of concept art, storyboards, sketches & more!
 * Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith teaser trailer
 * Episode III video game trailer
 * An Xbox playable game level of Star Wars: Republic Commando

Volume II (season 3)


 * Chapters 21-25 of the micro-series were released on December 6, 2005.
 * Released by Lucasfilm Ltd.
 * Region 1 encoding (US and Canada only)
 * Language: English
 * Release Date: December 6, 2005
 * Features:
 * Available subtitles: English
 * Available Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo), Spanish (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround), French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround)
 * Commentary by Genndy Tartakovsky and his band of artists
 * Exclusive "Connecting the Dots" featurette takes you inside the creative process that Genndy Tartakovsky and his team used to link Clone Wars to Revenge of the Sith.
 * Two galleries of concept art, storyboards, sketches & more!
 * Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith launch trailer
 * Star Wars: Battlefront II video game trailer
 * Star Wars: Empire at War video game grailer
 * Revenge of the Brick short film from LEGO
 * Access a special Xbox-playable demo with two entire levels from the new Star Wars: Battlefront II video game
 * Note: The second volume of the Clone Wars series is being released significantly later than the DVD release of Revenge of the Sith. According to the producer of both DVD's, Van Ling, the Clone Wars Volume II disc is to be released at such a late date due to an extremely tight schedule in producing the DVD's. According to starwars.com, both DVD's were produced at exactly the same time, but apparently, Clone Wars DVD couldn't be finished in time for the DVD of Revenge of the Sith. Ling apologized to fans for this. Evidence of the release date originally being earlier, before the Revenge of the Sith DVD release date is shown in one of the features in the new Clone Wars disc. The new disc has a feature allowing disc owners to play a demo game of the video game, "Star Wars: Battlefront II." The actual game itself is being released over a month before the Clone Wars disc, along with the Revenge of the Sith DVD.

3-D run
A fourth season and possibly more of the show has been confirmed. George Lucas said the series might return, but in a 3-D animation series half-hour format. He later confirmed that it would return in this format. The show will continue telling the stories, which began in the 25-episode 2-D pilot series. It is set, just like the 2-D version, during the 3-year time period in which the Clone Wars took place, between the events of Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith. It is likely to focus on more of the stories and battles between The Republic, led by Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, and The Confederacy of Independent Systems, led by Count Dooku, except in a 3-D format.

Cast (voice talent)

 * Frank Oz .... Yoda (At the press conference for Revenge of the Sith, Frank Oz confirmed that he is involved with the series, and this is the most likely role for him.)
 * Many of the actors from the original series are likely to return, with more actors doing the voices of new characters which are likely to be introduced.

Crew

 * George Lucas .... Characters and story
 * Executive Producer .... Catherine Winder ("Ice Age," "Aeon Flux," and "Spawn")
 * unreleased, unknown position .... Dave Filoni ("Avatar: The Last Airbender")
 * Head of Lucasfilm Animation's Singapore location .... Chris Kubch ("the ILM animated short Work in Progress," "Harry Potter and the Chamber of "Secrets," and "Titanic"
 * unreleased, unknown position .... Henry Gilroy (wrote the Dark Horse comic adaptations of Episode I and II)

Release
(Fall 2007)

Originally rumored to be released sometime in 2006, the as-yet-unreleased 3-D series, along with the Star Wars Live-Action TV series, will keep Star Wars prominent in popular culture, as well as provide fans with a determinedly canonical output (a form of fanservice). The Clone Wars 3D Animated Series will be released in Fall 2007 and the Live Action TV Series will be released in 2007 or 2008. At April 2005's Celebration III, Lucas stated that, "you know we are working on a 3-D continuation of the pilot series that was on the Cartoon Network, we probably won't start that project for another year." It is known that the 3-D animated shows will be released before the Live-Action series, which would air later due to marketing purposes. Whether or not the show is to be produced by 2-D series creator, Gendy Tartakovsky, Nelvana Ltd (producer of Droids and Ewoks), or another animation company is yet to be revealed.

Comic-Con
At Comic-Con 2005, several announcements were made on the work on the series. As of July 15, 2005, preproduction has begun on the series, according to head of Lucasfilm fan relations, Steve Sansweet. Sansweet refers to the series as: "the next generation of the Star Wars saga, a cutting edge 30-minute, 3-D computer-animation series based on the Clone Wars that take place between Episode II ... and Episode III." Sansweet described the look of the new series as, "a melding of Asian anime with unique 3-D animation styling." According to another statement by Sansweet, "Over the next several years, Lucasfilm Animation will be hiring a total of about 300 digital artists and others in both California and Singapore locations to produce not only the series, but animated feature films in the years ahead." He says about the series, that, "To get the series underway, Lucasfilm Animation has hired key production and creative talent to lead the development of its first animation project." Steve Sansweet has said that "A large component of the future of Star Wars and Lucasfilm is digital animation." Gail Currey, who's the Vice President and General Manager of Lucasfilm Animation has stated that the early episodic treatments for the series are absolutely amazing, and that she can't wait to share this treat with Star Wars fans."

On July 12th, 2005, Steve Sansweet announced at Comic Con that preproduction had begun on a yet unnamed Star Wars animated series.

The series will be realized as a 3-D computer animation project created by the new Lucasfilm Animation division in their Singapore and California locations. Sansweet described the style as "a melding of Asian anime with unique 3-D animation styling." Each episode will be 30-minutes long and follow an arcing, serial storyline to cover the period between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith.

Key creative staff will include Catherine Winder as Executive Producer, Chris Kubsch as Singapore Head, Dave Filoni and Henry Gilroy, who will work alongside 300 digital artists to create the series.

Steve Sansweet interview
On February 15th, 2006, Steve Sansweet revealed in an interview that:


 * 1) On release dates and production: We're doing it in two phases. The first is Star Wars animation, which is CG 3-dimensional animation, like a Toy Story, that takes place during the period of the Clone Wars that takes place between Episodes 2 and 3. And that we're setting for Fall of 2007. Preproduction is underway, we're doing animation test, people are working on initial scripts. So we're well under way on that. And George is very much taking hand and is very much part of the whole process. I know some people thought maybe he would just hey "hey, go do it," but George is Star Wars and he's always gonna be very closely involved in this.
 * 2) On villains: I think it's possible that we're going to see villains that we already know, like Grievous. I think it's way to early to speculate what's going to happen in the TV show. I think George has an idea of what he wants to do, where he wants to go with it, what kinds of characters he wants in it, but that's something...he's working on the animation right now...that he'll explore later.
 * 3) On music: Of course we used John Williams music in The Clone Wars, the cartoons on Cartoon Network. I don't know if any specific decision on that has been made.

Link to Source

Differences in the series and the novel
The third season of the series is loosely based on the novel Labyrinth of Evil. However, it was only based on early plot outlines, therefore, there are several inconsistancies between the series and the novel:


 * Cartoon: A trio of Jedi Masters made up by the Togruta Shaak Ti, the Ithorian Roron Corobb and the Talz Foul Moudama attempt to rescue Palpatine.
 * Book: Several different Jedi attempt to rescue the Supreme Chancellor.


 * Cartoon: Mace Windu fights alongside Yoda against droids.
 * Book: Mace fights on a train against Grievous.
 * Cartoon: Anakin and Obi-Wan investigate a possible base for Grievous on frigid Nelvaan, and Anakin goes on a spiritual journey.
 * Book: Anakin and Obi-Wan search for Darth Sidious.