Those that are keeping track of the ever emerging new Star Wars canon may have taken note of one of the more recent episodes of the Disney XD series Star Wars: Rebels, in which our padawan hero Ezra constructs his own rather individualistic lightsaber. More than 30 years ago another young padawan, though he was never called that, built a saber of his own. But like so many other great moments in film history, Luke Skywalker’s light saber construction ended up on the cutting room floor. Thanks to the internet, where anything is possible, we proudly present that all too brief missing scene from Return of the Jedi.
When Disney bought out Lucasfilms and talks started about sequels and an animated series, fans were understandably nervous. What would the massive multi-media conglomerate do with our beloved characters, characters that shaped our own character? Star Wars: Rebels is easing some of those concerns. Continue reading Star Wars: Rebels – New Disney Show Gives Fans What They Want→
So, Star Wars Celebration VI happened last weekend and I regrettably was unable to attend. But hey, they released an extended trailer! And this trailer showcases plenty more badassery than the last one, as awesome as it was. Let’s not keep you in suspense any longer. Check out the trailer below:
Based on more of the footage shown it becomes pretty clear that the Maul brothers will be joining forces with the Death Watch this season, though see the clip of Viszla and Maul throwing down it might be a tenuous alliance at best. It looked like Maul was even sporting his own Mando gear and even had his own Mandalorian troops. Vat in za hell?!
We also get more of the fighting on Onderon which another clip below expands upon. To me that whole thing takes a backseat to the Maul-Death Watch-Sidious stuff. More on Sidious after this clip:
So yeah, the Bantha in the room…. Sidious+Dual Lightsabers=holy shit. And oh yeah, he’s taking on Maul and Savage solo! So much for Sidious just being in the back seat for the duration of the Clone Wars, but I suppose it had to come to this. I half expected Maul to be seeking out Sidious for a confrontation in this season, but it would appear that ole’ Palps came straight to him. The outcome of that fight should definitely be interesting and I’m guessing either Maul or Savage doesn’t make it through the ordeal alive.
The new trailer shows the hairless harpy, Ventress, in action again. And this time she is sporting a pretty awesome looking mask! No clue if she’s still toeing the good guy line, but she is definitely tangling with Ahsoka in the trailer. I’m still waiting to see what direction they ultimately go with Ventress. I realize they’ve spent a good deal of time trying to make her a good guy of sorts but I truly think they’ll have her back in the villain saddle before the end of the show.
And here’s one more juicy tid-bit for all of us fans of the Republic Commando X-box game and the Karen Traviss Republic Commando novels; We get to see a Republic Commando… in action! We were able to catch a glimpse of a squad of these bad lads in season 3 of the Clone Wars, but now we’re going to see what one can do against those petty droids. I’m hoping for some massive mayhem being caused by a one clone killing machine. I’m sure the show won’t go into much detail about the commandos themselves but I’m hoping we at least get an inside the helmet look at the Heads Up Display in the clone commando helmet!
Regardless there is tons to be excited about for the upcoming season of Clone Wars. It would also appear that they are going to force me into looking like more of a kid than I already feel by moving the Clone Wars to a different date and time: Saturday mornings at 9:30am. Damn it… I hate mornings and I haven’t watched Saturday morning cartoons since I was 23.
The Clone Wars ended on a bit of a high note last season. Darth Maul is back, apparently stronger than ever, shirtless and sporting a nice robotic torso and matching legs. Our hero Obi-Wan Kenobi couldn’t stand up to him and even had to resort to teaming up with bald broad Assaj Ventress to survive. And at the end of this ordeal? Maul is still on the loose along with his equally dangerous brother Savage Oppress. This team up gave a bit to think about as in who will be in Maul’s path when he inevitably begins cutting a swath of mayhem throughout the Galaxy Far, Far Away. Now, from the first trailer from the upcoming season 5 we know a little more.
It was fully expected that Maul will continue to pursue Kenobi. I mean, I would totally be after someone for separating me from the favorite half of my body. Then of course there is the question of Sidious. Would he have known that Maul still lived or would he have just left the poor bastard for dead either way? It appears that Maul will be focusing that part of his rage against Count Dooku, whom he proclaims to be a Sith pretender. So not only will there be a big emphasis on the Maul brothers in season 5, but the Death Watch seem to be returning in a big way. The last time we saw them it was a brief skirmish with Ahsoka that showed us how merciless the Death Watch can be. Jon Favreau returns to voice the slimy Pre Viszla and looks to be leading the Death Watch into persuading the Mandalorians to re-don their warrior ways.
I really can’t agree with this more and truly hope that the show clears up the whole Mandalorian pacifists angle by maybe….killing Satine and her Mandalorians? I know that sounds harsh but in all of the other expanded universe material the Mandalorians were always warriors and bounty hunters with the Death Watch being the worst of them. It doesn’t mean all Mandalorians were murdering scum, but there definitely weren’t pacifists amongst them. Something that would really be welcome is a team up between Darth Maul, Savage Oppress and the Death Watch as is possibly hinted at by Darth Maul’s dialogue in the trailer. It would seem they all have mutual beef not only with the Jedi and the Republic but with Dooku and his Separatists as well. One of the most interesting parts of the Clone Wars may now be a third faction joining the war in the form of the Sith and Death Watch. I wonder if Sidious foresaw that whole thing. Then again this is all up for speculation and I’m sure we’ll find out more after Star Wars Celebration and the summer comic conventions.
Also of note in the trailer is the healthy amount of beloved bounty hunter Embo… and his hat. The hat still shows itself to be useful as a shield and now as a snowboard too! Pirate Hondo Ohnaka appears to be back in action as well, helping Ahsoka out on the planet Onderon. Onderon as you may or may not know plays an integral part in the Tales of the Jedi stories from way back, taking place thousands of years before the Clone Wars and even years before the Old Republic MMORPG. It will be interesting to see if they touch on the stories of ancient Jedi and Sith Lords Ulic Qel-Droma and Exar Kun.
It looks as if the Clone Wars will continue to get better as each season goes on and I can’t wait for fall to start! If you’re interested there is a leaked clip of Embo doing his snowboarding thing below. The quality is so so, but excellent nonetheless.
DC Comics track record when it comes to animation has been great. They continually blow the competition out of the water, and it goes back a long time. Marvel has had a few successes, but its rare for a Marvel show to last more than 2 seasons, where its rare for a DC show to be canceled before 4. Everybody remembers Super Friends, and Batman: The Animated Series is widely considered to be the definitive Batman series.
So with the new Green Lantern cartoon sharing the title of The Animated Series, it shows a certain confidence by the DC Universe team in their newest show. And it couldn’t happen at a better time. Green Lantern has been reaching new levels of popularity recently, but has never had an animated series devoted strictly to him. When the CG series was announced there was a lot of debate over the animation, but more were cautiously optimistic than negatively opposed. Well, the wait is over.
It looks like after much speculation and geek debate, Darth Maul will be returning to the Galaxy Far Far Away via the Clone Wars this season. After hinting towards his return at the end of the Savage Oppress story arc in Clone Wars Season 3, supervising director Dave Filoni confirmed recently over at Entertainment Weekly that Maul would be back in force with the full blessing of plaid clad billionaire George Lucas:
Filoni was as surprised as anyone during a Clone Wars story meeting when Star Wars creator George Lucas asked Filoni to figure out a way to bring Darth Maul back. He had introduced a similar warrior, the powerhouse Savage Oppress, in the third season of Clone Wars because of the lack of a Maul-type antagonist.
Oppress plays a major role in the return of his “long-lost brother,” Filoni says, and fans can expect Darth Maul to reignite his rivalry with Obi-Wan Kenobi, the Jedi Knight who cut him in half.
Filoni expects a strong reaction from fans, but he promises he didn’t bring back Darth Maul for a short-lived stunt.
“There’s a lot of ground that has not been covered as far as Darth Maul is concerned, so there’s a lot of room to grow with him,” Filoni says. “It’s all balanced with, ‘Boy, we’ve gotta make this really good because this is a really big deal.'”
And of course the official teaser for the return of the soft spoken horned Sith:
So what the hell, I guess if they can make this work then I’ll try my best to enjoy it. I was very skeptical and thought it verged on sacrilege when they announced Darth Maul’s brother would be showing up on the Clone Wars but I ended up enjoying the living crap out of that. The best episode of that season featured the best three way lightsaber fight I’ve seen. And with three dark side users no less….
Maul is just in time for the big 3D re-release of Episode 1: The Phantom Menace in 2012 and I’m sure that’s just around the time we’ll be getting the episodes he’ll be showing up in. The only questions I have are simple, the first one being the most irrelevant. Which planet is he supposedly exiled on? It’s somewhere in the Outer Rim according to Mother Talzin, and I’ll be a little let down if its effin’ Tatooine because there couldn’t be a more overused, boring planet. My second question is how in the bloody hell is this dude still breathing? I’m sure force-users (Dark Side especially) can withstand some brutal hits, but homeboy was sliced in two by my buddy Obi-Wan. So will he be rocking the robot leg look that he made look so fashionable in the non-continuity story from Star Wars: Visionaries? Maybe some sweet type of hover chair? That would be God awful but it wouldn’t be the first time us Star Wars fans were completely put out.
My last question is who will be voicing him? More specifically will it be Sam Witwer? For those of you non-hardcore Star Wars geeks, Sam Witwer is the guy who played Vader’s secret apprentice, Starkiller (Galen Marek) in the awesome Force Unleashed video game and it’s less than satisfying follow up the Force Unleashed 2.
He’s already had a stint in the Clone Wars in Season 3’s Mortis trilogy as the uber dark side using Anchorite The Son, which he completely owned. The guy also does an excellent Emperor Palpatine voice as evidenced in the Force Unleashed video games. It’s already been confirmed that Witwer will be returning to voice a character for this season 4 of the Clone Wars but it’s just a question of whom. Check out this little snippet from Witwer via Theforce.net that reveals absolutely nothing about whom he will play:
“Sam Witwer: I’ve already returned to The Clone Wars to do voiceover.
Riley: Oh really?
Sam Witwer: I am currently, as we speak, working on episodes, many episodes for a character that I have not played… well… it’s… what can I say without getting fired?
Riley: We don’t want you to get in trouble or anything.
Sam Witwer: I’m told the announcement is gonna happen in a couple months.
Riley: Nice tease!
Sam Witwer: It’s an amazing character. It is an amazing, amazing character. I’ll put it to you this way. I was driving over to a buddy’s house and Dave Filoni calls me up, gets me on the phone, and he says, “Listen, so we want you to come back to work and we need you to play…” and he tells me the character’s name. And I almost had a car accident. And he says, “Can you do it?” And I’m like yes. And then I worried about later whether I could do it or not. But I was like yes, yes, I will do that. So it is a tremendous opportunity and I can’t wait for you guys to find out about it.”
Now I wouldn’t call Darth Maul an amazing character or anything. Amazingly bad ass maybe, but character wise there wasn’t much to him. Even if you read any expanded universe material based on him it’s nothing to blow any skirts up. But Witwer did almost had a car accident, so that’s promising. He better not have risked his life on the account of finding out he was playing Wicket of the Ewoks or Uncle Owen…
Grizzly Bomb 