Archive for ‘The Clone Wars’



The Clone Wars Crew Remembers Ian Ambercrombie

Pete Vilmur | January 30, 2012

Ian Ambercrombie, best known to Star Wars fans as the voice of Supreme Chancellor Palpatine in The Clone Wars, sadly passed away on Friday. He will be deeply missed by The Clone Wars crew and the many Star Wars fans who have enjoyed his Clone Wars characterization of Palpatine and his alter-ego, Darth Sidious.

The Clone Wars supervising director and producer relayed their regrets on Friday to the Lucasfilm Animation crew and the many fans of Ambercrombie’s work on The Clone Wars:

Supervising Director Dave Filoni:

“Today is a very sad day for Star Wars fans, as we lost a dear friend in Ian Abercrombie. I cannot express how thankful I am to have had the opportunity to work with Ian. He was extremely passionate about his role on the series and he was brilliant at it. I always called him ‘Chancellor’ no matter where we were, in the studio or out at a restaurant. I think he enjoyed that a great deal. I learned so much from him about directing actors, and working with dialog. His advice and mentoring will be sorely missed by all of us. Though he played a villain on our show, you would be hard pressed to meet a kinder person. He loved to laugh and his sense of humor always lightened our record sessions. I will miss his stories, I will miss his performances, and I will miss his contribution to our show.

“My friend, the Force will be with you, always, and you will never be forgotten.”

Producer Cary Silver:

“Today is a sad day in the Star Wars galaxy. We lost not only an incredible actor but also a very dear man. Ian Abercrombie was an integral part of Clone Wars from the beginning and we will deeply miss not only his portrayal of the Supreme Chancellor, but also his professionalism and especially, his stories. We owe a great debt of gratitude for the time we did get to spend with Ian. May the force be with him.”

You can read more about the work of Ian Ambercrombie (who is also well known to Seinfeld fans as Mr. Pitt) at imdb.com.

Lucas, Filoni and Others Sign Clone Wars Poster for Charity

StarWars.com Team | January 26, 2012

Clone Wars Supervising Director Dave Filoni

In an effort to support the Aids and Breast Cancer Emergency Fund of San Francisco, Lucasfilm Animation has just posted a 3-day auction at eBay for a rare Clone Wars artwork poster by Dave Filoni, supervising director of The Clone Wars. In addition to the striking artwork, what makes this poster exceptionally cool are the signatures that grace it — here’s the auction description:

This is an extremely rare poster that was only made available to select pass-holders at Star Wars Celebration V (2010). The artwork was done by Dave Filoni, Supervising Director of the hit series Star Wars: The Clone Wars and features fan-favorite characters – Cad Bane and Boba Fett.

The poster includes original signatures from George Lucas, Dave Filoni, Daniel Logan (“Boba Fett” in Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones and Star Wars: The Clone Wars) and Corey Burton (“Cad Bane,” “Count Dooku,” and “Ziro the Hutt” in Star Wars: The Clone Wars).

Opportunities to pick up any officially-sanctioned, multiple-signature posters from Lucasfilm don’t come up too often, and this one’s window will be closing in less than 3 days — head on over now and place your bid!

More images below:

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Inflatable R2-D2 Black Friday Offer

StarWars.com Team | November 22, 2011

For a limited time only Star Wars: The Clone Wars Magazine is offering a FREE inflatable R2-D2 with every subscription!

Pay just $24.99 and get 6 fantastic issues and an exclusive R2-D2 inflatable figure!

Offer includes:
• Pay just $24.99 for 6 issues – saving 17% off the cover price!
• FREE R2-D2 Inflatable figure
• Get your copy before it hits the stores!

Subscribe by calling 800-999-9718 or by clicking here!

Free Digital Sampler: Star Wars: The Clone Wars Magazine

StarWars.com Team | October 26, 2011

Have you checked out the official Star Wars: The Clone Wars Magazine?

If not, here’s your chance! The magazine is packed full of incredible features about the hit animated show, as well as brand new and exclusive Star Wars: The Clone Wars comic strip stories!

You can see a fantastic selection of them in our free digital sampler edition. There’s no need to download anything – just click here and view the magazine straight away!

Subscribe to the print edition of Star Wars: The Clone Wars Magazine and don’t miss out on sensational Star Wars coverage in 2012, including season 4 of The Clone Wars and the 3D release of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.

Plus, new subscribers receive a free Hasbro action toy*, as well as the following benefits:

- 6 issues a year for just $25.95, saving 15%!
- Get your copy before it hits the stores!
- Free delivery straight to your door!

To subscribe call 800-999-9718 or click here

*Limited supplies. Action figure may vary.

Get Your Lightsaber Moves Into The Clone Wars

StarWars.com Team | October 10, 2011

Got a cool lightsaber move you’ve been secretly rehearsing in front of the mirror? Well get those moves in front of a camera and submit it to JointheJedi.com for a chance to see your moves animated into a fifth season episode of The Clone Wars!

JointheJedi.com also includes some other cool interactive features as well as a chance to win one of 2000 Ultimate FX lightsabers from Hasbro:

  • Train Like a Jedi – Train with a master Jedi through a series of sessions to sharpen your lightsaber skills
  • Look Like a Jedi – Create a Jedi photo of you as Anakin, Yoda or other Clone Wars characters!
  • Act Like a Jedi – Show off your best lightsaber moves with the all new Ultimate FX Lightsaber. The best move will be animated into an episode of The Clone Wars TV series!

While the overall promotion — including the Ultimate FX lightsaber instant win game — ends December 31, 2011, the video submissions will close on October 31. So dust off those saber skills and get them uploaded for your chance at fame in an upcoming episode of The Clone Wars (be sure to read the official rules for video guidelines, content restrictions, judging, and more)!

Comic-Con 2011: The Clone Wars Season 4 Panel Recap

StarWars.com Team | July 23, 2011

Couldn’t make it to The Clone Wars Season 4 panel featuring The Clone Wars supervising director Dave Filoni and producer Cary Silver, moderated by Lucasfilm’s Pablo Hidalgo. Don’t worry! Below are some of the panel highlights.

Dive right in!
Season 4 starts with an underwater story arc on the planet of Mon Calamari. Filoni said they wanted the cameras to have similar movements to underwater scuba camera. They had to create an entire civilization from the buildings to the population of the people — male and female fish, warriors, the Quarren army, etc.

It’s a….!”
Captain Ackbar is indeed in this underwater story arc. There was some debate whether or not they should have Ackbar refer to traps, but they didn’t do that.

Watch out for sharks!:
The shark-like race works with the Separatist. They have sharp teeth and bite the heads off of characters, but Filoni assures that it’s not too violent because “bubbles make it better.”

Kit Fisto is back!
“Everyone likes Kit Fisto because he smiles,” Filoni says.”He doesn’t have his shirt on, so that’s a bit of a Twilight reference.”

Scuba Clone Troopers!
Kit Fisto has scuba clone troopers in Season 4. Filoni challenges the 501st Legion to come up with scuba trooper costumes!

New Clone Trooper Story Arc with Captain Rex:
Umbara is a new planet shrouded in darkness & for the first time you get to see clone troopers killing non-droids, but infact humaniods that live on the planet. All the technoloy the Umbarans fight with weapons you’ve never seen before. Fans have actually seen Umbarans before; Palpatine’s creepy aid is an Umbaran. And a lot of the favorite troopers who have survived so far like Captain Rex and Fives will show up in this episode.

New Faces and Armor:
They changed the look of a lot of the main characters like Anakin, Ahsoka and Obi-Wan, so this season they upgraded the facial expressions on the clone faces and changed some of the armor as well. Captain Rex doesn’t like the new armor because he thinks it’s too disposable so he makes a hybrid of his old armor welded together with his new armor. He’s worried that the Republic looks at the clones as more of a disposable army.

New Jedi Character: General Krell
He’s the same species as Dexter Jettster! He’s an uncoventional, powerful Jedi who causes the clones to question things in different ways.

C-3PO & R2-D2 have new adventures!
Star Wars is like a fairy tale from their point of view,” Filoni says. the classic animated series Droids was an inspiration.

Never Cry Wolffe
Clone trooper Wolffe returns but he’s different than Rex since he lost all his men so he’sa bit of a “curmudgeon” and doesn’t like C-3PO much.

Madame Mandalorian?

Filoni revealed that Battlestar Galactica actress Katee Sackoff will be voicing a female Mandalorian. He really wanted to have an actress voice her that really understood the fan culture. Filoni wanted to put a female Mandalorian on the show to give the woman fans another cool costume option to cosplay. Her helmet design is based on a barn owl because Filoni’s wife likes owls. Director Jon Favreau will be back as Mandalorian Pre Vizsla, as well.

Nightsisters return!
Savage Opress, Asajj Ventress, and Nightsisters will return this season as well. (As Filoni mentions the Nightsisters return for Season 4, the geek girl cosplay collective Team Unicorn — dressed as Dathomir’s Dark Side witches — walk up onstage! And he shows a clip that isn’t completed yet and even George Lucas hasn’t seen yet — of the Nightsisters fighting against battle droids!)

Bring on the Bounty Hunters!
Filoni says Cad Bane, Bossk, and Boba Fett will be back, along with an old favorite coming to the series — Dengar!

To Han or Not to Han?
A fan asks if we’ll see a young Han Solo in the series. Filoni says no, unless Lucas really insisted on it. “I don’t want to be the guy who defines that.”

By Your Commando!
Filoni confirmed clone commandos will be on the show, but not Delta Squad because he doesn’t want to mess with that continuity.

More Mortis on the way
“We’re going to do more about those kinds of mystical things in the future. It won’t be the last you hear of those types of stories. And you’ll learn more about those Force wielders and what they are and how they fit into the bigger spectrum of things,” Filoni says in answer to a fan’s question on whether the Mortis planet was the home of the Force.

New Challenges for Ahsoka:
Lux’s character might challenge Ahsoka’s own feelings about someone that she care for. When a fan asks about her pending fate, Filoni says he’s thought of about eight different possible outcomes for Ahsoka, but nothing has been decided yet.

Be sure to stay tuned here for more Star Wars news, photos and info at San Diego Comic-Con International 2011!

WonderCon 2011 Recap

StarWars.com Team | April 8, 2011

The Rebel Legion group shot at WonderCon.Death Trooper posing for photos? Pint-sized Ahsoka Tano and Clone Trooper hanging out? Jabba the Hutt lurking in the food court? Yup, it’s that time of year for WonderCon in San Francisco. Three full days of comics, movies, TV shows, costumes, celebrities, artists, droid builders and more!

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Librarian Takes A Closer Look at Jedi Archives

StarWars.com Team | January 4, 2011

Cambridge University head librarian for the university’s Judge Business School Andy Priestner recently blogged about his perspective on Jocasta Nu and the Jedi Archives.

It’s entertaining and informative, to say the least, to read a real librarian’s take on what it would be like to run the Jedi Archives.

Priestner writes:

I was fascinated by its incredibly old-fashioned approach to the electronic library with shelves upon shelves of what appeared to be e-books and very few computer terminals.

Apparently they were known as the Stacks and they are ‘holobook’ shelves (thought so) each containing ‘trillions of datatapes and datacards, carefully sorted and arranged into categories and subcategories’. So yes, Jocasta Nu in her infinite Jedi wisdom bought trillions of ebooks and decided that the best thing to do is to file them away on physical shelves (presumably cases with datachips in them?). Which is precisely what I think some librarians would love to do now if they had the chance!

I’m assuming that the lack of terminals is is to do with the proliferation of hand-held Jedi devices, but Wookiepedia is silent on this, although we are told that the few computer terminals that are there are linked to the main index catalog. Which leads me on to muse that it would be a very brave LAS vendor who would take on the huge Jedi Archives! Apparently the Library catalogue is touchscreen, so I hope there are plenty of monitor-wiping droids about.

Read more here:
Jedi Librarian

Clone Wars Screening Recap: San Francisco

StarWars.com Team | December 15, 2010


A clone trooper checks in at Lucasfilm HQ.

Last week fans flocked to digital theaters for a very exclusive screening on the big screen of an all-new Clone Wars villain –- the monstrous Savage Opress!

The Clone Wars screenings began in Los Angeles at the Egyptian Theatre with the voice actors, director Dave Filoni and writer Katie Lucas in attendance, along with celeb Clone Wars fans.

Screenings continued in Seattle, NYC, Philly, Dallas, Chicago, Boston, Phoenix, Atlanta, Washington D.C. and San Francisco, among others.

Cast, crew and fans alike came out in full Force at Lucasfilm’s Presidio headquarters in the San Francisco to watch this epic screening of The Clone Wars introducing Savage Opress.

StarWars.com was there to report and live tweet the event. Check out the article below for quotes from Clone Wars actor Daniel Logan, CG/FX/Lighting Supervisor Joel Aron, and more!


Joel Aron has some fun with the 501st.

Why is this story arc amazing to see on a big screen?

Joel Aron: We work on it cinematically. When you’re watching it on television you’re actually seeing just a crop of what we’re doing. Every little inch of the screen we think about — the lighting, the composition, the balance, the shapes, etc. To see it on a big screen you actually feel the cinematic pulse of the show. It’s very different when you watch it at home.


Supervising Director Dave Filoni, voice actor/sound editor Matthew Wood, and CG/FX/Lighting Supervisor Joel Aron.

Why do you think fans will get a kick out of this story arc in particular?

Joel Aron: We’re introducing a character that hasn’t been seen on the show before, and it’s a direct tie to the feature films. When that happens people automatically start to associate. There’s something connecting us to Star Wars here. And you’re seeing a long thread. In the past on the show, we’ve had just little segments, but now we’re getting an entire story arc. We have three episodes that are so seamless, you don’t even realize they’re separate episodes.

Why is it important for you to watch something like this with the fans?

Joel Aron: You get to hear what they really like, and what they react to. What Dave [Filoni] and I both do is we listen to what everybody tells us and we put it back into the show. Everything that happened at Celebration V — all the conversations — the fans really drive us to do more.

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Clone Wars Screening Recap: Phoenix & Atlanta

StarWars.com Team | December 14, 2010


This young fan awaits Savage in Phoenix!

This week fans flocked to digital theaters for a very exclusive screening on the big screen of an all-new Clone Wars villain –- the monstrous Savage Opress!

The Clone Wars screenings began in Los Angeles at the Egyptian Theatre with the voice actors, director Dave Filoni and writer Katie Lucas in attendance, along with celeb Clone Wars fans.

Screenings continued in Seattle, NYC, Philadelphia, Dallas, Chicago, Boston, Phoenix, Washington D.C., Atlanta, and San Francisco, among others.

Here’s a selection of some of our favorite fan-submitted photos from the Phoenix and Atlanta screenings!



As always, R2-D2 is a hit with the younglings in Phoenix.


..and with the ladies in Atlanta.

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