We’re kicking off the third day of Celebration VI with the anticipated Joel Aron and Dave FiloniClone Wars Q&A. Lots of new clips and details about Season Five were revealed, some of which might be considered spoiler-y. Also, there was a surprise guest. To the cut!
On the panel: Joel Aron, Dave Filoni, and Dave Filoni’s hat.
Q: What’s it like coming up with ideas for TCW?
Dave: It starts with us sitting down with George [Lucas] and having him let us know what kind of things he’d like to see this season.
Joel: We like going to planets and giving depth to the universe. We will be going to Onderon this year.
Onderon is a big, lush jungle world. Kind of an Avatar (Cameron film) feel based on the concept art. There’s going to be a to more detail in the world environments in season five.
Q: Do you find in season five you’re doing more character building than previous seasons?
Dave: We’re building more characters than we ever have, but we’re also going faster than we ever have. We’re not just satisfied making a show, we want to make something special.
Watching a brand new clip. Droid army going up against a local militia looking element. Very Dragon-riders of Pern feel. Animation looks nice and crisp, they’ve come a long way, particularly with the character face models. Asohka is on hand in this scene as part of the Jedi attachment. Creature designs are fantastic.
Dave: The Clones have become a symbol of Imperial tyranny to many people within the Republic. Anakin will propose a solution of creating rebel insurgent groups to allow the people to have a stake in taking back their worlds.
So yes. Anakin has the idea to create local insurgents. Think about that for a moment.
Dave: We wanted to give Anakin’s room the feeling that he’s constantly working on machines, keeping himself busy with knick-knacks and various electronics. You can see a lot of similarities to Luke’s garage in A New Hope. This look into Anakin’s room will answer how much Obi-Wan knows about Anakin and Padme.
Seeing the clip of Anakin’s room now. There’s a workbench that Anakin’s working on. Obi-Wan alludes that he knows there’s something going on between Anakin and Padme, Anakin gets incredibly defensive. Crowd goes wild.
Dave: We’re moving in a much more dramtic direction, so we had to greatly improve the character facial designs to convey those dramatic sensibilities.
Q: There was an extreme amount of tension in regards to Anakin and Padme. What can we expect to see form Anakin as far as those glints of the dark side?
Dave: Anakin is much quicker to anger than he was in the old days. The longer the war has gone, the longer it has beat the Jedi (and Anakin) down. They’re all feeling the pressure bearing down on them, and Anakin has a lot less patience than the others. Expect Matt Lanter to put on a hell of a performance this year.
Q: What can you tell us about Anakin and Asohka? It seems like she’s really come into her own, so does she pick up on these traits of Anakin?
Joel: She’s becoming older and wiser.
Dave: They’re master and apprentice, but ultimately she’s his friend. She would support and back him up in all things and probably gives him more leeway than anyone else in the show. It’s been Anakin’s job to raise Asohka effectively, and now we’re seeing how much she’s matured and grown over the years. She’s a cross between Obi-Wan’s cautiousness and Anakin’s brashness. She’s sort of a balance between the two. Of all the decisions I’ve had to make as supervising director, casting Ashley Eckstein may have been the best decision.
Dave: Thirty-four percent of the audience is made of girls, and twenty-five percent of that has to come from Ashley’s efforts.
Joel: We talk about how serious this show is, but we do have light moments and they often come from the droids. We’ve got a story-arch coming up that follows the travel of droids.
Joel: We rebuilt Artoo this year to get it closer to what our favorite droid looks like in the films. He was also retextured.
We’re now taking a look at a clip from the droid arc from this season. Four astromechs and one pit droid are assigned on a military mission. Things go sideways when they drop out of hyperspace and into a meteor shower, perhaps a bit of a nod to the original Star Tours. Artoo gets to work being the Big Frakking Hero. As a note, Joel is right. The new Artoo animation model looks great.
Some new character models are being shown. Dave was cagey, but a Republic Commando character model was shown off and people went wild.
Dave: We have so many types of clones coming in the future and they’re going to be a big part of the show moving forward.
Another clip now featuring the Republic Commando clone trooper laying down cover fire for Artoo’s droid group. There are even exploding barrels from the games. The audience goes out of their minds.
There will be more details about the Republic Commando clone trooper in the episode itself, but there’s going to be something even more interesting than the Republic Commando tie-in.
Mustafar will be making an appearance this year.
For Expanded Universe fans, the Black Sun plays a role in season five. Don’t expect Xizor.
Kessel spice smuggling? Yeah, that’s a thing that will be happening this year.
We’re now seeing a clip from Mustafar. Maul is there to talk with the Black Sun. We’ve got Mandalorian mercs, the Faleen, and I think I spotted Death Watch.
Bo Katan looks to be playing a much bigger role this season. Dave’s bringing up a cosplayer portraying her.
Another clip shows Bo Katan in action. Obi-Wan’s in a heap of trouble and she’s off in the background helping him escape. All sorts of asses were just kicked. That was awesome.
Dave is introducing the Clone Wars biggest fan and … IT’S GEORGE FRAKKING LUCAS WALKING ONTO THE STAGE. GEORGE MOTHERFRAKKING LUCAS HAS JUST WALKED ONTO THE STAGE AND THE AUDIENCE HAS LOST THEIR COLLECTIVE MOTHERFRAKKING MINDS.
George: There was a story in the Clone Wars that we just couldn’t tell in film or live-action format. We took a chance, but this was an opportunity to tell these stories. We are making this series more and more adult, but we want to do things that other people aren’t doing.
George: We still have no idea what Detours is.
Dave: If I’ve learned one thing, if you [George] say something’s going to happen, it’s eventually going to happen.
Dave: Can I get a bigger office? George: No, I don’t think so.
George: We had a long discussion on whether or not you can cut Maul in half and have him still be alive.
George and the entire audience are seeing a new three minute season five trailer. Lots of drama, very dark, things don’t seem to be going well for the Republic. Let me just say this. Sidious. Lightsabers. Holy. Frak.
