Club Jade

Sam Witwer stopped by Today to show Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb some lightsaber moves. Sounds like a recipe for a wine-soaked disaster, no?

Tonight’s episode of Star Wars: The Clone Wars begins the final story arc of the season, a four episode tale that will eventually bring back Darth Maul in two weeks. In ‘Massacre’, Count Dooku sends General Grievous to start his attack on the Nightsisters of Dathomir, but Mother Talzin and Asajj Ventress are ready with their dark side powers to stop the droid assault. This first clip has Talzin counseling Ventress with sisterly love, while the clip below has Grievous getting his marching orders from the Count, who instructs him to wipe them out, all of them.

UPDATE. Entertainment Weekly is doing another chat during tonight’s episode, this time with Matthew Wood.

Want more? At the bottom of this post, get a sneak peek at Darth Maul and his brother in a video preview featuring Sam Witwer getting into the character of the horned half-Sith.
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USA Today features the return of Darth Maul and his Friday debut on The Clone Wars. Dave Filoni talks about the character and how he survived and the tone of the story:

He says it’s pretty dark and dramatic, and in regard to facing off with Obi-Wan again, “there’s going to be a lot of want for revenge in his mind, what he’s been thinking about through what must have been a terrible trial.”

Filoni promises fans will find out the secret behind his new lower half and, instead of wielding his double-bladed lightsaber from Phantom Menace, Maul will have only a fragment of it left since it, too, was damaged in battle.

The four-episode arc featuring Maul will close out the season.

The year of Maul, indeed. Dark Horse’s Randy Stradley announced two upcoming projects featuring Darth Maul yesterday. Up in August will be a digest, The Sith Hunters, from Henry Gilroy and Steven Melching. There’s also an four-issue mini-series from Tom Taylor that we’ll learn about in “the near future.” (Celebration, maybe?) Stradley also reveals that the Maul storyline will bridge S4 and S5 of The Clone Wars.

Authors. Drew Karpyshyn has retired from Bioware, where he worked on The Old Republic, to “focus more time and energy on my novels and other non-video game related projects.” Karpyshyn is currently working on the fourth Old Republic novel.

Curious… A new book appeared on the Random House site this week: Glittering Images: A Journey Through Art from Egypt to Star Wars by author and cultural critic Camille Paglia. It’s set for an October release.

Excerpt. This week’s mini-excerpt is from Jeff Grubb’s Scourge. It features Wookiees slapping droids around a bunch of other people I’ve never heard of.

Interviews. Graphic Novel Reporter talks to John Jackson Miller about Knights of the Old Republic: War. On that note, the last standalone Lost Tribe of the Sith story is now available for preorder. (Yes, it’s still free, it just won’t be out until March 5.)

Review. James has good stuff to say about Dawn of the Jedi #1.

As rumored, Sam Witwer is indeed voicing Maul for The Clone Wars, confirms MTV’s Laurel Woods. She also has a behind-the-scenes video featuring animation clips and Witwer with Clancy Brown (Savage Opress) in the studio. This is Witwer’s second Clone Wars character, the first being the Son from last season’s Mortis arc.

Witwer is actually the second ‘voice’ of Maul – although Ray Park played the character in The Phantom Menace, it was British actor Peter Serafinowicz who provided his voice.

Witwer’s Maul will make his debut in the March 9th episode.

Entertainment Weekly’s Christian Blauvelt has a sneak peek at Darth Maul’s Clone Wars debut. (Unless you count the screencap above, from the Opress arc.) His return will take place “at the end of an epic four-episode arc that’s going to tie up a bunch of The Clone Wars‘ loose ends.”

Meh. There’s a free app as well.

NukeTheFridge.com reports that Sam Witwer, who portrayed Starkiller in The Force Unleashed series and voiced Son in the Mortis arc of The Clone Wars, is returning to the show to voice Darth Maul. The first reports of the Being Human‘s star coming back to the show came from an interview at Dragon*Con by Star Wars Report, where Witwer confirmed that he will be doing a character new to him, and recounts:

Dave Filoni calls me up, gets me on the phone, and he says, “Listen, so we want you to come back to work and we need you to play…” and he tells me the character’s name. And I almost had a car accident. And he says, “Can you do it?” And I’m like yes. And then I worried about later whether I could do it or not. But I was like yes, yes, I will do that. So it is a tremendous opportunity and I can’t wait for you guys to find out about it.

Until we get official word, it’s just a rumor that he’ll play Darth Maul, (who was previously announced as returning next spring) – but an exciting one at that.

Meanwhile, Slate has done an article for parents on how to sound intelligent when you talk to your kids about The Clone Wars. Basically, it sorts out that everything you know about Star Wars from the original trilogy has been turned on its head: Clonetroopers and the Republic are good, while the rebellious Separatists are evil. Not a whole lot on knowing who the show’s original characters are – Ahsoka barely gets mentioned, and I think Rex doesn’t even get mentioned. If you’re reading this blog, you’re probably well ahead of the people who need to refer to the Slate article for help.

Always feel bummed about contests that are for US residents only? Well, here are two different chances to win Star Wars: The Clone Wars Season Three DVD and Blu-ray sets: SFX is giving away the Blu-rays and Entertainment Focus is giving away the DVDs – for people in the United Kingdom.

Jaina Solo, Jag Fel, and Darth Maul are spotlighted in the back cover art for Fate of the Jedi: Apocalypse and Darth Plagueis. The art was revealed at the Del Rey panel at New York Comic Con yesterday, and posted online today by editor Erich Schoeneweiss. The Darth Plagueis cover is by Torstein Nordstrand while the Fate of the Jedi: Apocalypse cover is by Ian Keltie.

Suvudu has more details from panel at NYCC. In addition to the announcements of two new novels, Drew Karpyshyn’s untitled The Old Republic tie-in for fall 2012, and Timothy Zahn’s untitled Han Solo novel, there was also this teaser from Fate of the Jedi: Apocalypse:

“Perhaps they feared Luke Skywalker just that much.

And that was a mistake.

Luke Skywalker was not the Sword of the Jedi. Jaina was, and now the Sith had trapped themselves inside a locked Temple with her.”

And for those waiting for a picture of Abeloth from Fate of the Jedi, Erich has mentioned that there will be a scene of her confronting “Luke, Ben, Vestara,” and the Sith in Allies in the Essential Guide to Warfare.

The Clone Wars will be cashing the check it wrote in season 3′s Savage Opress arc this spring: Darth Maul is back, and Entertainment Weekly has video.

UPDATE: USA Today has another image of Maul that shows more detail. They also reveal that we can expect a trailer for The Phantom Menace attached to Paul W.S. Anderson’s crazy steampunk-looking The Three Musketeers on Oct. 21. (via) Meanwhile, StarWars.com has a glimpse of the TPM 3-D poster.

It’s “an amazing storytelling opportunity,” they say. Personally, I find a resurrected Maul less facepalm-worthy than some of the other stuff they came up with last year, so, hey: Bring it on.