And, of course, by “Cartoon Network,” we really just mean “Star Wars: The Clone Wars.”
You no doubt saw my non-chronological posting a few days ago, when I just couldn’t wait to praise the full-length episode that Cartoon Network and LucasFilm surprised us with, but I knocked it out so quickly that I didn’t wait to offer up any of post-viewing comments from Dave Filoni, the supervising director of the “Clone Wars” series. I also didn’t mention how downright giddy Filoni was, both before and after the episode, about the mere fact that we were getting to see it!
“I am real excited, and I’m really thrilled that we get to share an episode with you,” he said, prior to its airing. “The secrecy is really top form with ‘Star Wars,’ so this is really exciting for me to share with all of you.” As he said it, I had this vision of George Lucas, sitting in his office, rotating his hand between thumbs-up and thumbs-down, keeping Filoni in suspense as to whether he was going to let us lowly TV critics get a gander at the episode before the diehards down at Comic-Con, but, man, I’m so psyched that he opted to allow it. You may remember (though you probably don’t) how there was a battle last year in mid-panel over ABC wanting to hold onto to purportedly critical “Lost” information and reveal it at Comic-Con rather than during the TCA Press Tour, and many of the critics essentially bullied ABC into giving us the info. I totally didn’t agree with the way that went down, and, frankly, I expected a backlash from shows with a major Comic-Con presence, so I definitely didn’t expect us to score a “Clone Wars” coup.
But we did.
SCORE!
You may have seen a preview for the upcoming animated “Clone Wars” film, but to put things in perspective, the movie is standalone from the series, according to Filone. “It sets up the major characters we know, like Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker, and the new character, Ahsoka,” he explained, “so it’s made to stand alone and introduce everybody to the universe we’re showing in the ‘The Clone Wars.’ Then you come to the series, which has its small arcs and shows you the war from across a broad spectrum of episodes.”
You could tell the “Star Wars” fans from the non-fans in the audience, with the former camp generally asking the kind of questions that only geeks would care about…like, for instance, how long the series will go on, given that the Clone War has been established as lasting for a specific length of time.
“We’re not just telling Anakin Skywalker’s story,” Filoni reminded us. “If we were doing that, we would be stuck on one single arc. I look at the episodes where we have him and Ahsoka, which is his student, and I know that there is an arc there, because something has to happen to her, since we don’t see her in ‘Revenge of the Sith.’ So we use those kind of points to show the progression of the war. Because we can kind of go left or right of that plot and deal with characters that we have never seen, there’s a lot of material, so I can stretch it and, you know, keep making episodes about things that George would like to see or I would like to see. That’s one of the things I have been amazed at. It’s a three-year period, the Clone War, in the history of the ‘Star Wars’ universe, but in that period, there are so many stories to tell that I’ve been amazed that just in the first season what we didn’t get to, you know, and what I would still like to get to, and what stories we would still like to explore. So for me, the longer it goes, the more chance we all get to tell fascinating stories in that galaxy.”
One of those stories, to be certain, is the one of Ventress, a disciple of Count Dookoo who we meet as she represents the Count during his “negotiations” with the Toydarians. “She fits into the structure of the Sith,” explained Filoni. “The one thing George talks about with evil and being consumed by power is when you are the apprentice, you always want to usurp the guy that’s overtop of you. So Ventress is Dooku’s way of trying to attempt that at first. He’s training her in the dark side, and she’s getting more powerful. One of the things I wanted to do with her in the series was make her a little more intelligent, a lot more deceptive, but also kind of sexual. She’s kind of a forbidden fruit that walks around the Jedi who are supposed to be very hands-off and not get involved with the more lustful aspects of life. So that’s why she’s a bit sensuous-feeling, like a serpent or whatnot. So that’s another fun dynamic to get involved in this series.”
Why do I get this feeling that little kids everywhere are going to be growing up really, really quick while watching “The Clone Wars”?
Actually, that’s kind of ironic, really, given that what I’ve seen of “The Clone Wars” makes this grown-up feel like a little kid again. But, of course, one cynical bastard up front still had to pose the dreaded question, “When is enough ‘Star Wars’ enough?”
“Every time I go to Toys R Us, there are kids picking up light sabers and imagining they are in that galaxy far, far away,” said Faloni. “If that inspires them, then I’m happy to make more.”
