The New York Times reports that everyone’s favorite Wookiee will appear in The Clone Wars two-episode season finale on April 1. Peter Mayhew will be doing the voice honors:
To portray Chewbacca for “The Clone Wars,” Mr. Mayhew was not required to don the outfit at all. (“I was doing it in my own clothing,” he said.) However, he did record dialogue for the character, having learned over the years to emulate the blend of bear growls and other animal noises used to create Chewie’s voice.
It’s a small galaxy after all, I suppose.
Meanwhile, over at Entertainment Weekly, there’s new video of Tarkin.
the season ends in April?!
BTW, the NYT article has a video snippet at the end introducing Chewbacca to Ahsoka.
The animation for TCW has come really far and Chewbacca looks great!
Why why why why why can’t we just have a new wookiee character instead of Chewbacca? This galaxy is apparently smaller than the local Quick Mart. It’s smaller actually. It’s like every iconic character is crammed in a closet and they just keep accidentally kneeing and elbowing each other. Next seasons = Baby Han, baby Lando, Baby Crix Madine, young Ackbar, a trip to Endor, Kitster’s return as an up and coming politician, a young Thrawn etc. etc. etc. I wouldn’t be surprised if OT characters started time-traveling back into the Clone Wars, like Luke, Leia etc. Bah!!!
Mayhew does Chewie’s voice? That I can’t wait to hear. ;-)
As for guest appearances I’d prefer them to make a little more sense. Tarkin for instance is a logical choice. He should be a rising star during the Clone Wars. Chewie on the other hand should be sitting around in his jungle watching holo cooking shows. ;-)
So for the next seasons I’d like to see some of the OT’s military officers in action: Dodonna, Rieekan, Veers, and Ozzel. Or – if they want to include the EU – why not show off some of the future Grand Admirals? Shouldn’t they be out there cutting their teeth? I wouldn’t want Thrawn there, but some of the other guys might be nice. :-)
Yay Chewbacca! It’s too much to hope that it being April 1st and all, that they would show the episode early at WonderCon. The coolest thing that WonderCon got was Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher 2 years ago. We get short-changed too often! :(
Chewbacca makes sense to be in the Clone Wars. He and Tarfful are pretty loyal to Yoda by ROTS (and Yoda mentions that he’s a good candidate to go to Kashyyyk in the first place because he has good relations with the Wookiees). It could be that this TCW episode shows how Chewbacca first gets involved with the Jedi, and becomes Yoda’s friend… or it could be that Chewie, as Yoda’s friend, is sent to seek out help from the Jedi, and runs into Ahsoka.
Should’ve been Dee Bradley Baker. I kid. :P
I give the show a lot of credit for waiting this long to bring him in. Less creative folk would have done it during the first season.
Having Chewie on Clone Wars sounds like fun. Star Wars should be fun. (Admittedly, this is coming from someone who has a soft spot for the Holiday Special.)
@Aaron:
“So for the next seasons I’d like to see some of the OT’s military officers in action: Dodonna, Rieekan, Veers, and Ozzel.”
Completely agree.
However, I can’t remember if there were even Grand Admirals around this time. For some reason I remember them being kind of a newer invention, like Moffs. I could be completely wrong, though.
The one EU character I really would love to see is Pellaeon, even if he just has a cameo.
@ Nanci: Sure, they wouldn’t be Grand Admirals yet, but one or two might make an appearance as the Republic’s counterparts to the separatists’ Admiral Trench in Cat and Mouse – great tacticians (well not too great in the end ;-)) who draw Palpatine’s attention.
That’s generally something TCW should get into as they move closer to ROTS: Why do all the non-clones in the Grand Army of the Republic support Palpatine during and after Order 66? We should at least get some idea why they end up being pro Empire (sad childhood, aristocratic background, alcoholics or whatever ;-)). Or where they came from in the first place. TCW threw Admiral Yularen at us without ever mentioning how the Republic acquired seasoned officers after a thousand years without a galactic army.
Okay, those might not be the most exciting stories in the Clone Wars era, but they spent hours on end with Padmé’s tiresome political work. And even more hours on the training of cloned cannon fodder. Time for some officers’ tales. :-)
I think sometimes you just like the comfort of the older characters to make it fun.
And at least it makes sense that Chewie is around during this time. Maybe this shows how he starts to get into the trouble that will get him captured as a slave.
Aaron: part of what makes Order 66 so successful for Palpatine is that there is very little before, and not much during, and little after. The clones carry it out.
Palpatine has the perfect excuse: he’d played the Jedi into a plot to try to assassinate him and stage a coup. With the Jedi attempt unsuccessful and nearly every Jedi dead or driven underground, and the war now ending, who’s going to publicly stick up for the Jedi among the military. Only people who don’t care about their careers. Fear becomes the order of the day… until eventually those who go along with it are fine ‘not knowing’.
One of the Purge comics has Darth Vader being introduced to the top naval officers, and there’s a scene where some officers discuss not being happy with the transition to an Empire.. and who the heck is this armored man in black anyway, other than he rooted out and saved the Emperor from the Jedi plot.
A young Ozzel made an appearance in TCW comics, and makes you wonder how he eventually got up to admiral.
As for how the Republic would find seasoned officers without having its own military – just because they don’t have an active standing army doesn’t mean that they don’t have a Naval officer pool: member worlds with their own military and law enforcement units, or Republic anti-piracy naval task forces called up like UN peacekeeping misisons, or the civilian Republic fleets – the Republic cruiser from TPM had a captain and crew serving the Republic in flying the Jedi around.