In a Rebel Force Radio interview that will go live tomorrow, Dave Filoni says he’s still with Lucasfilm Animation and touches on the next Star Wars series. IGN’s Eric Goldman has the report:
“At this point, I am involved in some early production discussions and exploration of what we’ll be doing with Star Wars animation in the future, which is really exciting for me and I have some friendly faces around me, of course, that are helping me on the project. So it’s a transition time, as I’ve said before, and I think it will lead to an exciting time and hopefully I’ll see things grow again.”
So no details, and clearly very early days yet, but at least it’s some further confirmation that a second show could eventually come into fruition.
Meanwhile, LucasArts, ILM and Lucasfilm Animation aren’t alone in suffering layoffs: Looks like Disney itself is facing a massive reorganization, according to Variety.
Look up Hasbro and layoffs too. Or Tippett Studios. Or, really, any VFX house. The global industry is changing drastically right now. Tough times.
The videogames industry is in turmoil as well. News about layoffs and studio closings pop up pretty much weekly.
I hope Dave Filoni is Supervising Director and I hope it is in the same style as The Clone Wars. Then we at least have the glimmer of hope that 4 out of the 26 episodes they may may per year could be a The Clone Wars special to facilitate the closing of that frontier.
I hope they ditch the Thunderbirds thing, particularly if it’s in a more ‘modern’ era. TCW could be gorgeous (particularly with scenery) but the way the people looked was a major turn-off for me.
In still shots, I agree–it took a while for me to get used to the puppet look. But in motion, they looked a lot better than most animated figures. And over time, the animation improved (especially in the faces) enough to keep the characters from looking too ‘wooden’ for me.
I don’t have a particular opinion on animation style, but it would be cool to see ‘stealth finales’ like Justice League did for Batman Beyond, to wrap up the loose plotlines hanging in TCW. (Yup, straws, grasping. I’m not getting my hopes up).
Mostly, I’m glad Filoni is involved because I respect his track record when it comes to including women and characters of color. So if we’re not going to see how TCW characters wind up, we’re at least likely to get new characters who are diverse, engaging, strong-in-more-than-one-way, etc.
I think the series was moving away from the Gerry and Sylvia Anderson look. I don’t know if it was mostly because of the intensity and quality of the lighting over time, but it seemed severely toned down by the fourth season to me. We started see less obvious uses of the “painted on” look where you could see the swirls of paint by the brush itself. It was still there, but in a much more subtle way.
If money is an issue, keeping that aesthetic would give them a lot of animation assets they could reuse. That would probably be the most appealing aspect of keeping the look consistent. But I can also see moving away from that look to give the new series a freshness and to make it something we have not seen.
I actually enjoy the weirdness of the Gerry and Sylvia Anderson look, myself. I fear that changing the look might be a way of doing everything cheaper and with less quality. Whereas if they keep the same look, it will be telling they’re cutting corners and no one will see it as acceptable.
Either way, I’m excited for more Star Wars. I can never get enough.
Its nice that Dave Filoni is in this, but with Disney at the head, I don’t expect much.
Who thinks Disney would ever dare to make a season finale as sad as the one for season 5?
Who thinks Disney would ever dare to make such a brutal arc as the Darth Maul arc?
Who else thinks Disney would ever dare to make animated stories with no happy ending?
I don’t.
As for the look of TCW, it was stiff and wooden at the beginning, but by season 4 it was amazing. The facial expression, the movement are certainly the best in the TV world, and the ”wooden” aspect from the movie look really got away. By the fourth season, the characters had become very organic, and incredibly animated.
I doubt Disney will ever make something as good looking. TCW managed to connect style with quality in an unprecedented way.
They should spend the money for that new show finishing TCW, or at least for story lines that were almost completed.
I think the look was actually quite a clever choice when they started because they knew they couldn’t compete with the Pixar crowd. So instead of trying and failing, they just turned their limitations into a conscious style choice, and I think it has worked really well. I agree, however, that a new show – should aim higher now and dazzle us in the way they now can.
And as for the new show, I’m pretty sure they’ll put it somewhere between Episodes VI and VII to play the part Tartakovsky’s Clone Wars played for Episode III. That being said, I would personally prefer it if they did the old school thing and create an anthology series with 3 to 4 episode story arcs not set in a specific time period but throughout the vast history of Star Wars. There is so much more to Star Wars than either the clone wars or the civil war, so why not turn the next project into an epic traveller’s guide to a galaxy far, far away?