Friday, September 28, 2012

Star Wars Clone Wars season 5 premieres tomorrow.

Star Wars The Clone Wars
While George Lucas claims he's retired and wants to spend his days shooting experimental films nobody will ever want to see, we get to see what happens next with our favorite science fiction characters, as 'The Clone Wars' returns to the small screen for another season of action packed fun.

After Genndy Tartakovsky (Dexter's Lab, Samurai Jack) came up with his 2D animated series of Star Wars in 2003, following the exploits of Lucas' main characters from the prequel trilogy, 'The Clone Wars' was greenlighted for further endeavorment. Showing us more of what really took place between SW II 'Attack of the Clones' (Anakin-good-guy fights for the Republic) and SW III 'Revenge of the Sith' (Bad Anakin suits up to become Darth Vader), a CG animated feature of 'The Clone Wars' was released in 2008, followed by the first 22 episodes of season one, that aired on Cartoon Network.

Below: character designs for Padmé Amidala by Kilian Plunkett and final 3D model in Maya.

Star Wars The Clone Wars character design, model sheet, Star Wars modelsheet
Star Wars The Clone Wars character design, model sheet, Star Wars modelsheet
















Tomorrow, the first episode of season 5 will premiere on the CN. Beside the CG animated series, other plans are still in the making. So far, 50 scripts have been written for an expensive all out live action TV series of Star Wars, as proposed by Lucas a few years ago. Latest reports say the production of this continuing saga have been put on hold for at least several years as of now, giving room for 'an increase of technical developments' according to Lucas, meaning that CG and VFX production costs may have dropped drastically by then. (Production of the series would cost at least 50 Million per episode, according to Lucas, if it would be made today).

Rick McCallum, producer of the upcoming series (which supposedly has been given the working title 'Star Wars: Underworld') says it will be about the republic's growing corruption and downfall, taking place between episode III and IV ('A New Hope') In a recent interview he said the main story showed quite some similarities with current economic events and joked that it centers on keyfigures not unlike 'the people on Wallstreet, who are basically running the United States now.' McCallum is positive the new series will actually happen, although it may take some more years, adding jokingly 'If we're all still alive by then'. In the meantime, let's enjoy the action packed new episodes the CN has in store for us this season and see what plots will unfold this time around.

Star Wars The Clone Wars character design, model sheet, Star Wars modelsheet, Yoda

Star Wars The Clone Wars character design, model sheet, Star Wars modelsheet









Above:'The Clone Wars' is Computer animated using Autodesk Maya software. Character designs for 'Yoda' by Dave Filoni, and the 3D CG model in T-pose. Directed by Dave Filoni and produced by Katherine Winder, the pre-production, scripts and models are created by ILM, but all animation production is done by the talented people at CGCG in Taiwan, known for the popular 'Lego Bionicle' animated features.

Check out the great trailer for the upcoming season below, showing you just how good 3D animation for TV has become. It looks pretty amazing! Toggle 1080p for a higher resolution.



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