Maul covers The Clone Wars S4 Blu-ray

Blu-ray.com and their forums have the details for The Clone Wars: The Complete Season Four Blu-ray. The 3-disc set features 22 episodes, 5 video commentaries, and the Jedi Temple Archives (concept art, test animation, 3-D turnarounds.)

It’ll be out October 23rd and retail for $59.99. Presumably the DVD will be out the same day – and I suspect it’s that otherwise-unreadable ‘$49.99’ bubble on the graphic. (via)

SDCC panels announced: The Clone Wars and Firefly’s 10th anniversary

Cartoon Network released their schedule of panels at Comic-Con, coming up in a few weeks in San Diego. For Star Wars fans, they confirmed the Lucasfilm panel on Star Wars: The Clone Wars coming on Saturday, July 14.

From the press release:

Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Onto Season Five
The aftermath of Season Four has left the Star Wars galaxy a very dangerous place: Darth Maul is alive, Asajj Ventress is a bounty hunter, and the Mandalorian Death Watch is deadlier than ever. How will these threads continue in Season Five of Star Wars: The Clone Wars? Find out in this behind-the-scenes panel, which will feature new clips, new insights and more. Join the discussion with Supervising Director Dave Filoni and head writer Matt Michnovetz (who wrote Season Four’s powerful Umbara arc). Moderated by Star Wars author Pablo Hidalgo. Room 6DE

Also from Cartoon Network’s announcement: panels for Adventure Time, Regular Show, DC Nation,Ben 10, and Mad and two new shows based on existing properties: Annoying Orange, and Dragons: Riders of Berk (from How to Train Your Dragon). The Adult Swim programming block will have a single panel on Friday to highlight seven of its shows, including Robot Chicken (and their upcoming DC Comics Special) and The Venture Bros.

Meanwhile, there’s been some confirmation from Tim Minear that Comic Con will also have a 10th Anniversary panel for Joss Whedon’s Firefly. That’s gonna be a mighty fine shindig. Will Nathan Fillion be there? Probably so, even if there’s no Castle panel. Who needs Castle when there’s a (Dan Harmon-less) Community panel?

See you in San Diego!

Carrie Fisher returns for Celebration VI

Well, they promised us Celebration announcements, are here they are: Carrie Fisher will be back for her third appearance at the con. Also confirmed: Jeremy Bulloch and Daniel Logan, along with the news that this year’s art helmet will be Fett’s. And another Clone Wars guest, CG Supervisor Joel Aron, who will teach “master class sessions” in the lecture hall.

And, of course, to bring us the ‘no duh’ component, the family room will return.

Of a bit more interest is the fan table lineup. I’m not surprised by the amount of costume clubs, but I am a little sad that Wookieepedia is the only straight-up fansite. But then again, all us fansite folks are going to way too busy covering stuff to sit around manning tables..

Filoni on The Clone Wars S4, continuty, and what’s ahead

IGN’s Eric Goldman talks at length witb Dave Filoni on season 4, including this season’s movie (and Star Tours influences, quadruple decapitation, the brouhaha over casting Simon Pegg and more. Including this interesting bit from where he talks about adapting Slaves of the Republic and the tweaks that had to be made to get it to fit where it does in the show:

…I think it really clearly illustrates the difference between the EU material and what makes it up on the screen as George wants it. Which is that in the end, the comic books are a great place for ideas and creativity by many, many really talented artists and writers. But when George is gonna bring it into his universe, a lot of times it’s going to need tweaks. Some things are really similar, but they’re not exactly the same, which isn’t that strange when you think about it, when you consider anything that’s adapted from one medium to the other. A lot of things change, whether large or small, all the time.

On continuity issues and things like the undeath of Maul:

I’ll even take stuff and ask George, “Hey George, would this work out? It’s not going to be in the show, but just to keep this all together.” There’s a very coordinated effort going on to keep things moving forward all together in the right way. So it did come up, how does he get there, and why don’t the Jedi find him or his body, or what’s going on with that? And that’s been discussed in some detail actually.

There are even a few tidbits about season 5: Apparently, it’s going to be a big year for Ahsoka.

Be sure to check back in the morning for our own roundtable discussion of S4!