An all new Star Wars adventure hits screens this week in animated form. Star Wars: The Clone Wars takes place in-between episodes II and III and serves as the pilot for the new 100-episode animated series. In fact, the Clone Wars movie was initially slated to debut on television but Lucas and director Dave Filoni felt the feature was simply too spectacular not to debut on the big screen.
Dark Horizons got the unique opportunity to fly up to George Lucas' Skywalker Ranch in Marin County just outside of San Francisco recently and talk to the iconic George Lucas in the flesh. There was also a chance for a brief tour of the facilities as well as the Lucasfilm and Lucasarts offices in the Presidio. All were lined with George's impressive collection of classic movie posters as well as life size statues of Boba Fett and Darth Vader. Outside of both facilities, a Yoda statues welcome visitors.
The first question starts the interview off on an amusing note. What do the characters of the Star Wars universe do for fun? Lucas laughs before responding: "They like pod races, they like gambling, they like card games. They go out and shoot at wamp rats in the canyons. There is an entertainment industry, but you won't find that out until we get to the live action show in a few years."
The characters of Clone Wars have a very stylized look to them. We asked Lucas why this choice was made rather that giving the characters a more realistic look. "Photo-realistic is what live action movies are," Lucas said. "Animation is an art. You either like photo-realistic art and you hang that in the Museum of Modern Art or you like something that tries to find the truth behind the realism. Animation is all about design, style. I've been making photo real movies all my life."
Setting the series in the Clone War period between Episodes II and III was an obvious choice for Lucas, who saw the time period as one of the great unexplored areas of the film series. "On Revenge of the Sith, I lamented the fact that I had to jump over the Clone Wars because it had nothing to do with Anakin Skywalker. He's just another player. It's too bad because it's like World War II, it's a huge canvas there to be [explored]. So we decided we would do a little five-minute animation series for Cartoon Network. That sort of got me into thinking we could do a regular TV show. I got to fill in a blank and go around in a universe that is a little bit more lighthearted."
As it moved along, Lucas decided the best way to launch the series would be the same way all the other Star Wars movies debuted -- in the theater. "When the first few shots came back, I looked at them and said, 'This is fantastic. This is better than I ever imagined it could be, so I said 'Why don't we make a feature? Why don't we just make a feature that introduces Ahsoka, one of our main new characters.'"
"I wanted to develop a character that would help Anakin settle down," Lucas says of Ahsoka. "At the end of Episode II he's kind of a wild child and he and Obi-Wan aren't getting along. So the idea was to see how they become friends, how they become partners, how they become a team. One of the ways to do that is that when you become a teacher you have to become more responsible. What I wanted to do was take Anakin and force him into this [thinking] 'Now I have to teach somebody, now I have to be more responsible.' It was that juxtaposition. I happen to have a couple daughters, so I have a lot of experience with that particular situation."
The other new character in Clone Wars, the evil Asajj Ventress, draws her origins from the early planning of Episode II: Attack of the Clones. Director Dave Filoni discusses the wicked new character: "Ventress was a character that was actually developed for early concept art of Attack of the Clones. There was this idea that the Sith Apprentice after Darth Maul would be a girl. That got abandoned eventually in favor of Count Dooku but the concept art existed. The comics books and novels on the Clone Wars that were done before had utilized that new character. When it came time to develop the series, we [realized] that was a big fan favorite, so let's draw her out."
The show will have the chance to showcase the Star Wars universe in a way fans haven't seen before, with characters living their daily lives. "This is more episodic," says Lucas. "It's more like Indiana Jones actually. You have themes and things. This is bigger. We get to go more places. The fun part about animation especially is that we're allowed to go and do stories about clones. We get to know them and find out what they do for recreation and find out what Jabba the Hut's family is all about and do all kinds of things that don't have anything to do with the main character."
Only a few of the original actors from the features (Anthony Daniels, Christopher Lee and Samuel L. Jackson) reprise their roles for the new movie. Why didn't others return as well such as Ewan McGregor or Natalie Portman? "When we started the project it was initially a television series," Lucas said. "We needed to be able to work at a pace that was pretty rapid. It was hard to get all the actors that would be off on a set. You need people available every week. You can't really afford multi-million dollar actors to do a television series. Those guys make more during their coffee break."
"To be very honest with you, I don't really think I need to hire a big movie star to publisize my movie. If you like it, that's fine. I don't need Angelina Jolie here. That's what it comes down to in the end. They have two days in the studio and then they have like two weeks doing press. They are mainly paid for the press stuff."
For years, Lucas has been quoted as saying that he hopes to one day return to the smaller, art house fair of his origins. One journalist brought this up, stating that it would seem Lucas could do just about anything he wants at this point in his career. "I don't have time," Lucas said after a pause. "Again, opportunities present themselves. I wanted to do the TV series. I've got about maybe 15 projects sitting here and I have to say, 'Well which one works now? It makes sense for me to do these TV things so I'm doing some television. This is one of them."
The long-awaited fourth Indiana Jones movie was met with mixed reactions earlier this summer, but considering it still made a bundle of money, will there be another? "That's one of those things," Lucas said in trademark vague fashion. "It's on the shelf there, one of 50 projects and if I can come up with a story -- it's very hard to come up with a story for that thing. It's really impossible. It has to be real, it has to be something that actually happens and it has to be something people know about. It's a really difficult research project. They're researching now and last time it took us 14 years."
