Star Wars with occasional sarcasm
“It’s an attack!” Captain Ackbar shouts when the Quarren and their Separatist allies assault the Mon Cal city. Not quite a trap, but Ackbar steals the show in the first half of the season four opener of Star Wars: The Clone Wars. ‘Water War’ sets the stage for this multi-part story with lots of exciting action as things deteriorate rapidly for Prince Lee-Char, the Jedi and Mon Calamari people.
Continue reading “The Clone Wars review: ‘Water War’”
Did you catch last Friday’s season four premiere of Star Wars: The Clone Wars? If you didn’t, catch each half of the two-parter on the revamped StarWars.com: ‘Water War’ and ‘Gungan Attack’. Also, get a preview of this week’s continuation of the story, ‘Prisoners’. With the shark-faced Riff Tamson on the loose, will
the Mon Calamari be served up with cocktail sauce?
At the premiere, Wired got Dave Filoni to talk about animating underwater and reflect on Ackbar’s popularity, and hints that we might see more classic trilogy characters in this season.
Meanwhile, Katie Lucas tweeted how many episodes she wrote this season: “I have four episodes this season that will be airing later in the season! I’m so excited for you guys to see them!”
And NerdApproved.com tells us why you should be watching The Clone Wars, even though Dunc wants you to watch My Little Pony.
Less than twenty-four hours to go before Friday’s premiere episodes of Season Four of The Clone Wars! As we count down for two-parter, ‘Water War’ and ‘Gungan Attack’, here’s a look at Newsarama’s coverage of the star-studded premiere event , held at the Long Beach Aquarium. Meanwhile, Big Shiny Robot scored an video interview with Dee Bradley Baker at the opening, as well as brings out some interviews taken at Comic-Con, with director Dave Filoni, and CG Supervisor Joel Aron.
So, knowing what we saw in promo clips online and at Comic-Con and from all these interviews, here’s what I am looking forward to seeing this season on The Clone Wars:
Continue reading “What I want to see in The Clone Wars, Season Four”
Season four of The Clone Wars begins this Friday night on Cartoon Network with an hour-long two-episode special: ‘Water War’ and ‘Gungan Attack’. The Mon Calamari homeworld is engaged in a civil war that becomes part of the larger wars with the involvement of a new Separatist villain, Riff Tamsen, siding with the Quarren. As with many of the episodes from the latter half of season three, these episodes will be forming a larger story arc, with the third course of Mon Calamari being served up on September 23. Amy Ratcliffe has a spoilery review from the premiere showing. With this season’s theme of “Battle Lines,” you can certainly see from this story arc that season four is bringing more of the wars to Star Wars.
As we count down the final days to season four, I decided to get ready by re-watching the finale from season three: ‘Padawan Lost’ and ‘Wookiee Hunt’ and was amazed again at how fantastic the show is. Here are a few of my favorite things from season three:
Continue reading “Gearing up for the fourth season of The Clone Wars“
The first two episodes of The Clone Wars S4 had their big premiere over the weekend. Bryan Young of Big Shiny Robot attended, and has his review up and ready to go. (Fairly mild spoilers, but only if you haven’t been paying attention.) Be warned, he does say the “level of detail and carnage in these episodes makes Landing at Point Rain look like child’s play.”
If you haven’t been paying attention, USA Today has a feature on the season premiere, or rather, Admiral Ackbar. As far as actual news go, they do drop the name of the Mandalorian that Katee Sackhoff will be voicing later in the season – Bo-Katan.
For everyone who didn’t get an invite to California, the two-episode opener will debut on Cartoon Network next Friday night.
IGN has up several stills from the new season. (via)
Adaptions. On the Dark Horse boards, editor Randy Stradley says that The Clone Wars comic book storyline Slaves of the Republic is being adapted for the show. Could that be the slave storyline the season 4 trailer hints strongly at? The comic was scripted by The Clone Wars’ then-head writer Henry Gilroy.
And yes, that is the one brought us Ahsoka in a slave girl outfit. Maybe that bit won’t make the cut.
Fate of the Jedi. Christie Golden’s Ascension will debut at #7 on the New York Times’ bestseller list, Del Rey tweeted this morning.
Short stories. A new story from Paul S. Kemp, ‘A Fair Trade,’ will appear in the October issue of Star Wars Insider. It will feature characters from Riptide.
People. Republic and Legacy artist Jan Duursema now has a Facebook fan page.
The new season of The Clone Wars will debut the same day as the Star Wars Blu-rays are released. The premiere ‘event’ will be at an hour (two episodes, presumably) at 8 p.m. September 16 on Cartoon Network. You can check out the full press release at TFN.
And there’s a new trailer! Thanks to Big Shiny Robot for that one.
In the, err, cardboard. Del Rey’s Erich Schoeneweiss treats us to a look at a just-printed copy of the Heir to the Empire: 20th Anniversary edition under the jacket. I still wish they’d gone with brand-new art, but making the original black and white does make it slightly less horrible. Slightly.
Listage. The Star Wars Report has ten Expanded Universe characters who could be in The Clone Wars. Some of you may hate the very concept, but hey: That’s what you get for reading prequel EU in George’s driveway. And hey: It means greater possibility for action figures! Just ask Quinlan Vos.
Giveaway. Paul S. Kemp is giving away two unbound galleys of his October paperback, Riptide.
Preview. Another look at The Blueprints from Laurel Woods at MTV. She also has an interview with Bonnie Burton.
Her Universe hosted its second annual panel at Comic-Con last Thursday, with Ashley Eckstein moderating a panel entitled “What Women Want in their Female Sci-Fi Heroes.” The six announced panelists were Dave Filoni of The Clone Wars, Betsy Mitchell (Editor in Chief of Del Rey), Gail Simone (comics writer, including Birds of Prey, Secret Six, and the upcoming Batgirl), Chris Sanagustin (Senior VP Development & Current Programming for Universal Cable Productions), Bryan Q. Miller (Exec. Story Editor for Smallville, comic writer Batgirl), and Melinda Hsu Taylor (writer/producer- Lost & Medium and Supervising Producer on Touch) . They were joined by unannounced panelist Alison Scagliotti (Claudia on Warehouse 13).
Eckstein started the panel by giving each panelist a question regarding developing female roles in their particular media, especially with the female audience in mind. Watch portions of the panel:
Betsy Mitchell comparing now to 30 years ago for women sci-fi readers and women writers and editors, and the rise of female-oriented urban paranormal fiction.
In the Q&A, Simone, Filoni, and Scagliotti fielded most of the questions, with Filoni and Simone clarifying how their approaches to writing female characters were similar. Even though the panel went over time, the audience remained and the panelists stayed on stage to answer questions about incorporating female biology into developing and portraying female characters, the differences in creating female villains from male villains, predicting the future of the importance (or nonimportance) of being critical of gender for characters (and for creators), and finally ended with a young fan thanking the panelists for making it cool to be a young female fan.
