Star Wars with occasional sarcasm
The Nerdist Channel has the latest episode of their All-Star Celebrity Bowling show, and it’s the Wolfpack from Star Wars: The Clone Wars taking on Chris Hardwick and his team from Nerdist. Dave Filoni, Ashley Eckstein, Catherine Taber, and Dee Bradley Baker hope to strike back at host Chris Hardwick. There’s probably more bowling / Star Wars puns to be had here, but I’ll spare you.
With ‘The Lawless’ airing last Saturday, the story arc of Darth Maul’s ambitions to become a major player in the galaxy have come to an end. Naturally, with many of the big developments that came out of this story, most notably the deaths of Pre Vizsla, Duchess Satine, and Savage Opress, and Maul being spared by Sidious, there’s a lot to talk about with Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Here’s a rundown of some of the buzz on Darth Maul / Death Watch storyline: Continue reading “Roundup: Wrapping up the Maul/Death Watch story on The Clone Wars“
With some big happenings in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, supervising director Dave Filoni took to the Internet with three cast members to discuss today’s episode, ‘The Lawless’, which concluded the Maul storyline and also preview the final story arc of the season, featuring Anakin and Ahsoka. Hosted by Pablo Hidalgo and Christian Blauvelt, the entire video session from Google hangout (more than 50 minutes) is now available online at Youtube, but here’s some of the key points (trying to keep it free of major spoilers for this episode and ones to come):
Overall, a lot of fun and I hope that we get more of these types of events with the cast and crew, especially with some of the voice talent of recurring but not main show characters, like Sam Witwer (who gave a great interview with Christian Blauvelt on Hollywood.com).
Don’t forget that Dave Filoni and three cast members of Star Wars: The Clone Wars will be taking questions in a Google+ hangout today – at 10:30 am Pacific / 1:30 pm Eastern, after today’s airing of ‘The Lawless’. Sam Witwer (“Darth Maul”), Matt Lanter (“Anakin Skywalker”), and Ashley Eckstein (“Ahsoka Tano”) will be chatting alongside supervising director Filoni and the event will be hosted by Pablo Hidalgo and Hollywood.com’s Christian Blauvelt. Join the event on Google+, or watch the livestream on youtube.
To get you ready for the hangout, Christian Blauvelt has a great spoiler-free interview with Sam Witwer that examines Maul’s journey on the show and ties together Maul, Sidious and Anakin Skywalker.
The Darth Maul storyline reaches its epic conclusion this Saturday with ‘The Lawless’, this week’s episode of Star Wars: The Clone Wars. With Satine deposed on Mandalore, and the Jedi ordered to not follow up on the menace of Darth Maul, it’s up to Obi-Wan to go rogue and save his duchess. Both of the previews for this week refer back to some classic scenes from A New Hope, but also we see the return of Twilight, with Obi-Wan as Rako Hardeen in the first clip. In the second clip, below, Obi-Wan does some elevator improvisation after he realizes he is a little short for a Mandalorian. And in the third clip, Darth Sidious shows up for his first in-person appearance on the show (in all previous episodes, Sidious has only appeared as a hologram). Continue reading “Obi-Wan goes undercover in ‘The Lawless’ on The Clone Wars“
The USO has posted their highlight clips from last week’s visit by the cast and crew of Star Wars: The Clone Wars to MCAS Miramar in San Diego. Ashley Eckstein has posted her experience from the USO tour to the official Star Wars blog. I’ve already posted the transcript of the part I: the first question and answer session with Dave Filoni and the voice actors at Big Shiny Robot! earlier this week, along with my report on the event, and interview with James Arnold Taylor. Now it’s time to present the second Q&A session, the one that happened after the US premiere screening of ‘Eminence’.
Cartoon Network has put out their lineup for the 2013-2014 season, using a multi-city road tour for the next few weeks to promote their new and returning shows. Most notably, they are hyping three quarterly specials for LEGO Star Wars: The Yoda Chronicles, and saying nothing about the return of The Clone Wars. Does this mean that The Clone Wars is leaving Cartoon Network for the fall? Or just that it is still in negotiation (ie, they can’t announce anything yet)? They list their returning shows, and the adventures of Skyguy and Snips aren’t on it.
But here’s the description of The Yoda Chronicles:
LEGO Star Wars returns in epic style with THE YODA CHRONICLES, a thrilling, funny and action-packed new LEGO Star Wars story told in three animated TV specials! Set in the “Prequel” Star Wars timeline, THE YODA CHRONICLES stars the one and only Yoda—the Jedi Master who has seen it all, done it all, and taught generations of Jedi Knights—in an all-new adventure. With the help of a fresh class of Padawans, Yoda leads the Jedi in a desperate fight to stop Darth Sidious and his minions from creating a new super-weapon that could crush the Republic and win the war for the forces of Evil.
Some of those news articles are claiming that the Yoda Chronicles are set in the original trilogy timeframe – I think this definitively says “prequel era” with such keywords as Republic.
Back to The Clone Wars: Is this the end of the show, or will Disney XD (or another Disney channel) be picking it up? We know that they have been working on season six, and perhaps a network change has prevented them from talking about it much officially.
And also coming back: The Powerpuff Girls in a new special!
EDIT: While the list of returning shows (and new shows like Teen Titans Go! and Total Drama All Stars) is primarily for their prime-time lineup on weeknights, there is also the lack of their DC Nation block of cartoons (Green Lantern, Young Justice, etc.), which follows The Clone Wars on Saturday mornings. Is the Saturday morning crowd just not big enough to mention in their release? However, other shows which have been aired on Saturdays are listed in their returning shows: Beyblade: Metal Fury and Pokemon: Black and White – are they being bumped up to primetime, or are they anchoring the Saturday morning timeslot. What does this also mean for the DC Nation shows? Just like Clone Wars, are they not important enough to list, still in negotiation, or not coming back? It seems that most comic books sites are calling Green Lantern and Young Justice as cancelled.
Darth Maul has assembled his army from the underworld, and his next step is to help Pre Vizsla take over Mandalore from Duchess Satine, in this week’s episode of Star Wars: The Clone Wars – ‘Shades of Reason’. Interesting title for a storyline about the action-heavy Sith Lord. Once viewed as an instrument of rage, he’s now taken on the mantle of mastermind. In the clip above, he spells out his plan to his allies. Satine gets upstaged by Pre Vizsla when publicly addressing the crisis manufactured by Maul, in the clip below.
Continue reading “The Clone Wars continues Maul’s machinations with ‘Shades of Reason’”
As reported last week, some of the cast and crew of Star Wars: The Clone Wars were at MCAS Miramar in San Diego on Friday for special USO screenings of the show, including the US premiere of last week’s episode with Darth Maul, ‘Eminence’. Before the screening of ‘The Gathering’, voice actor James Arnold Taylor (Obi-Wan Kenobi, Plo Koon, etc.) took time to sit with me and chat about season five of the show, his work with the USO to give back to the troops, looking at the growth of Obi-Wan Kenobi and his connections to other characters on the show, and some of Taylor’s other characters on The Clone Wars.
Check out my event coverage of the USO screenings over at Big Shiny Robot or check out photos from the event in my Flickr album.
Continue reading “Interview: James Arnold Taylor at the USO screening of The Clone Wars: ‘Eminence’”
Pre Vizsla and the Mandalorians of Death Watch encounter some new potential allies when they come across Darth Maul and Savage Opress in ‘Eminence’, this week’s episode of Star Wars: The Clone Wars. While they have a common enemy in Obi-Wan Kenobi, the Sith and Death Watch first team up to take on some crime lords on Nal Hutta, in order to start building up Maul’s criminal empire so he can challenge the Jedi for his vengeance. In the clip above, Vizsla and Bo-Katan encounter the injured Sith brothers, and decide to keep them alive. In the second clip, below, Maul wakes up and has to answer some questions. On Saturday, watch for the appearance of a Falleen and listen for the Huttese!
Continue reading “The Clone Wars delivers Darth Maul to Death Watch in ‘Eminence’”