Star Wars: The Clone Wars Film
George Lucas Returns His Highly Successful Franchise to Theatres
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. There wasn’t supposed to be anything left for them to tell. That was the initial belief after Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith was released in theatres during the summer of 2005. All the loose ends had been tied up and all the pieces were now properly fitted. Anakin Skywalker had become Darth Vader, Luke and Leia were born and consequently split up and Yoda made his dashing escape from the clutches of the Empire. Everything now made sense. The story and the franchise were over.
That is until George Lucas decided that the story was, in fact, not complete. Of course, there have been numerous video games such as Knights of the Old Republic and Battlefront (and even novels & magazines) to help add more elements to the story about the galaxy far, far away but Lucas has never seemed quite content with putting the series to bed for good. In fact, he still feels the desire to experiment which is exactly what Star Wars: The Clone Wars is.
The Clone Wars Movie
On August 15, 2008, Star Wars: The Clone Wars will be released theatrically in North America. The film’s story will take place squarely in between Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones and Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. However, the film does not follow the standard guidelines of the Star Wars universe. Rather then creating another live action film, Lucas and team have decided to construct a full-length, computer generated cartoon movie.
The goal of the development team was to create a film that was very much like Star Wars except that it would contain animated characters. In an interview with Empire Magazine (June 2008), Lucas refers to the film as: “a stylized cartoon...it is not photo-real because the characters look like they have been painted”.
Is It a Star Wars Movie?
So can the film actually be regarded as a true companion to the six other Star Wars films? When asked this question by Empire, Dave Filoni (director of the film) immediately says it can be: “The Clone Wars can be regarded as an actual Star Wars movie….This is a different Star Wars but it feels like Star Wars to me”. He confidently adds that the movie will be an honorable entry into the big screen canon that is the franchise.
The storyline of the Clone Wars has been, as expected, under strict supervision. However, this much has been rumored: The eponymous Clone Wars rage between the Confederacy of Independent Systems and the Galactic Republic. When Jabba the Hutt's son is taken by a group of renegades, Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi depart in search of answers: where is the Hutt's son, and who is controlling this mysterious renegade group? In accordance with the mission, Yoda sends Ahsoka Tano (a Padawan) along as Anakin's apprentice.
Dave Filoni was allowed free reins with the story (of course, it had to be run by Lucas first) and was allowed to explore the unmarked territories of the Star Wars universe (that is, creating new characters and planets and situations) as long as he did not infringe on any story elements that had already been explored by Lucas in the films. The information that had already been presented to audiences through the six films could not be tampered with in any way.
Not Intended as a Film
At first, this mythological adventure was not initially conceived as a film. The original idea was to create an animated television series to help fill in many story gaps not explained by the films. However, after Lucas saw the early drafts of the show, he felt that: “..this will look really good on the big screen”. Thus, the choice was made to make both a film which will be released in August and a weekly animated series which will premiere in September.
How long can the Star Wars saga continue on before it begins to fizzle out? In all likely hood, this may be a question left unanswered for quite some time. Star Wars has had such a tremendous impact on society that it has now become a defintive example of the heights popular culture can soar to. As a result, it appears that society may never tire of the fictional universe of this franchise. Now, the only question is whether or not this film can be a worthy member of the series? Only time will tell.
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