Give Clone Wars another shot. It’s good!

So I was in the audience at Dragon*Con when they showed the first episode of the upcoming Clone Wars cartoon. Do yourself a favor: give it another shot.

I was in the same group as others who found the movie to be, um…tedious. I wasn’t terribly impressed. But the first episode I saw was great! A nice balance of character, story and battle. And I think Yoda has more lines in this first episode than in all the movies combined. It descends into a couple of spots of “only funny to kids” humor, but only for a few seconds here and there. And I suspect that will fade as the series finds its legs.

So don’t give up on it just yet. Stick with it for a few episodes and see if it doesn’t win you back. You might just be surprised!

Are we getting The Clone Wars trailer tonight?

UPDATE: There is probably a Clone Wars trailer tonight on Cartoon Network at 8:00pm: The channel is teasing something very big for that time, and TCW fits that bill a lot more than TFU. (Big thanks to Mike and Tagne!)

Both TFN and Yoda’s News have reports from Dragon*Con on Steve Sansweet’s presentation. He showed the first episode of The Clone Wars and said that the premiere date should be announced early next week with a “month long promotional series for the launch of the show.” Could said date be October 3rd?

Sansweet also mentioned Celebration 5, but without solid specifics: 2010 is a likely date, with a location in the midwest or eastern U.S, consistent with what we’ve been seeing.

He also showed some new The Force Unleashed clips. Tune into Cartoon Network for a game trailer tonight at 8:00pm. (Or… something else? Whatever: Tune in.)

Dragon*Con Stargate Stuff

Curse my inability to function on little sleep! Just now getting around to posting the Stargate tidbits from Dragon*Con.

The Stargate Stuff
Tok’ra Spice ClarifiedVanessa Angel, who played the much-maligned character of Anise on SG1, cleared up some things about her character. She was apparently hired to do nine episodes that season and then join the show as a regular; supposedly to cause some jealousies amongst the team. However, she became pregnant three episodes in and just couldn’t complete the role. She also considered Anise to be extremely thoughtful and deliberate and “outside of emotion.” Explains much about how bizarre her character was! (Of course, nothing explains those outfits.)

Filming in the Arctic – Why did Christopher Judge not appear in the scenes recently filmed in the Arctic? Two words: polar bears. He said he pretty much stopped listening after that, but had his decision cemented by the various bathroom issues one encounters there. He stayed home and played golf.

The Return of Beckett Paul McGillion again expressed his appreciation for the fans’ push to bring Carson Beckett back to life. He again teases that the way they bring him back is “very interesting.” (Must be the stock publicity answer for this one.) And he has yet to see if he’s coming back in Season 5.

The Non-Stargate Stuff
Rage of Angels – Christopher Judge’s in-development series will also have a comic book and game associated with it.

Eureka – Both Lexa Doig and Michael Shanks teased about how much fun they had doing Eureka. Lexa is hoping her character can come back. Michael didn’t think his could. Hmm…

More Lifetime Movies! – Both Lexa and Paul have completed movies for Lifetime. Both movies are planned for October air dates.

BSG news out of Dragon*Con

I’m not sure how many CJers actually made it into any of the Battlestar Galactica panels, but for those wondering what the big news was, SyFy Portal has a report: It seems that Jamie Bamber claimed that Sci-Fi’s plan right now is to split the next (and last!) season into two parts – and not airing the second until 2009. Seeing as how bad Sci-Fi is at learning their lessons when it comes to scheduling (among other things) it’s more than a little plausible.

Or it was all a joke. Okay… This is the Sci-Fi Channel we’re talking about, after all. (Thanks, Scoke!)

In a related personal anecdote, Helen and I figured out how to save BSG from being so relentlessly depressing – add a class clown. See, Wash didn’t die. He just fell through a wormhole and ended up on the Galactica. It could totally happen!

D*C: Liveblogging the Masquerade

Hi! Rogue, Beth, Fen, Paula, Caitlin, Maggie and Dunc here, with Club Jade’s first attempt at live blogging. We’re in a hotel room at the lovely Atlanta Hyatt, watching the D*C Masquerade on the TV. No way in hell were we actually going to try to get the thing. Nothing is worth that line. Plus, probably no wifi.

Any minute now, I’m sure. Stay tuned!

8:21: Oh! Stormtroopers! It’s starting! Continue reading “D*C: Liveblogging the Masquerade”

Saturday and Sunday @ D*C

Helen had to dance for twenty minutes for the author panel, as Tim Zahn was delayed thanks to the crazy traffic. Did you know there’s a reference to The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology buried in The New Essential Guide to Alien Species? As for Tim, there were far too many LOTF virgins the audience, but we did learned he does not approve of the killing Chewbacca. Or ‘Chewbacca,’ as the case may be. Also, if asked to write another SW book, he would pitch a sequel to Allegiance where the Hand of Judgment goes to the Unknown Regions and meet Thrawn. (Of course.)

Later was the cultural panel – the influence of Star Wars on culture and vice versa, with Helen, Lori Sartre of Star Wars Chicks, Beth Spires, and two other folks – Shaun and Stacy, whose last name I didn’t catch. It was really interesting, and packed. (At least for the Dunwoody.) Then, we escorted Helen to Mr. Star Wars, which she was judging.

Mr. Star Wars. Umm… Well. Yeah. Hilariously humiliating! Perhaps far too much for our Karrdes. (Rogue declined to enter.) But it was fun for us, even if the leg-humping went on a bit too long.

And last but not least by a long shot, the Cantina ‘Ball’? Needs to be renamed the Cantina Floorshow. People, if you’re going to advertise something as a party, THROW A DAMN PARTY.

As for Sunday, really the only thing of note was a charity auction I slept through (Rogue will have to catch you up – he was the auctioneer.) and the Star Wars costume contest. There were several really great costumes (including a great Padme funeral dress, extremely impressive TPM Senate Amidala, Gonk, Admiral Ackbar, Zam Wessel.)

And in about a half hour, we’re going to try to liveblog the Masquerade. Pray for us.