posted 02-22-2003 12:11 AM               

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And here's a promo image from the official site:

I admit, I'm looking forward to this a great deal. It's going to be something very different, and it's one of the few instances I can think of of Lucas letting someone else play with the toys in a motion-picture setting. Tartakovsky's got an excellent track record with me, too. I just hope the backgrounds are a little bit more, I dunno, dimensional than in some of his other stuff. I gotta assume the budget for these things is gonna be big.

posted 02-23-2003 04:50 AM               

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Don't get me wrong, I think the design work on all of Tartakovsky's stuff is great. He does tremendous things with pacing, the design and angle of shots, facial expression on characters, and so on, and the fluidity of the animation in the battle sequences is tremendous.

What I'm talking about is what's often referred to as Jack's 'minimalist' style. There's not a lot of shading on the figures to give them a sense of being three-dimensional, for example, and I don't usually get a great sense of depth from the backgrounds. It works great for Jack, but I'm not sure it would fit Star Wars.

posted 02-23-2003 10:56 AM               

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It's a cartoon not a piece of fine art. I'm not really sure, but I am sure if I'm wrong you'll correct me, that many cartoons use shading, if any at all. The one that I'm thinking of that might is Batman but I can't remember. I just popped on Cartoon Network to check and the Bugs Bunny cartoon that was on didn't seem to have any more shading than a Samurai Jack cartoon.

Wow, that last paragraph was pretty nasty. I didn't mean for it to be but the main point is : The whole point of a cartoon is to minimalize.

Besides, what's going to be happening in these shorts? I'm leaning towards heros traveling to different worlds and then big fat lightsaber battles. Now besides the banter that's going to be going on between Ani and Obi, I'm seeing some slight parallels between these shorts and Samurai Jack.

If you're saying that it'll just look weird to have them non-shaded because, you know, it's STAR WARS, then I don't know what to tell you. I can't think of anyone else who could do it all better. I think if you just hold out, you'll be pleasently surprised. Although, just for kicks I'd like to see what Paul Dini and company would do for the characters.

For the shorts my two special wishes are that Mark Hamill does somebody's voice because besides the fact that he has the best villian voice in history, it would just be funny, and that in the first episode someone cuts off Anakin's chin with a lightsaber and he has to get a new one though preferably not a gold one.

That reminds me, who's doing the voices? Because that could screw up the whole thing.

posted 02-23-2003 11:00 PM            

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Well I've long been of the opinion that the CGI character stuff is not as good as the original Star Wars effects, so I have to agree with Alie on that front.

However, I gotta go with Dave on the stylistic differences between the Samurai Jack cartoon and Star Wars. Using the Samurai Jack "miminalist" approach on the Star Wars shorts will fail to convey the complexity and detail of the Star Wars universe. I have faith that Tartakovsky will be able to apply a different style to the Star Wars shorts then he presently uses with Samurai Jack. It works perfectly with Jack, but I don't think the same style would work for Star Wars.

posted 02-24-2003 07:17 PM               

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I just want to know if Jar Jar's gonna show up. Meesa thinking that would be bombad.

Okay, okay, there was no need for the hail of rotten fruit. But seriously folks...I kinda like what I see from the promo art.

Repeat after me: "At least it's not Ewoks." There. Feel better?

posted 03-17-2003 12:00 PM               

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A guy makes one hopefully-constructive comment, and look what happens.

As for voices - the folks who are already approved to do voiucework for LucasArts games based on the movies will be doing that. I have no idea how any of them sound, since I haven't played any of the prequel-based games.

posted 07-28-2003 03:41 PM               

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FYI, they did try to get the original actors to do the voices but, with the exception of the guy who does Threepio, everyone said no.

I heard the Yoda and that's not bad anf in my mind, that's the hardest one. If they can get that one right, the others should be OK.

I'm with you on voices being important. I am about to strangle whoever does Wonder Woman on Justice League.

posted 07-28-2003 07:14 PM               

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Eh...I used to do Yoda for a nationally syndicated radio morning show when I was 19. I woulda done it for 'em.

And God bless Anthony Daniels - between this, and being the only original trilogy cast member to stick out out for all of the NPR radio adaptations...he's up for anything, isn't he? I'm sure he gets to cash a decent check at the end of the day, but hey, he manages to stay reasonably low-key while also sticking with what pays the bills.

posted 07-28-2003 10:49 PM               

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I actually thought the most dead-on voice was the guy doing Obi-Wan.

Daniels apparently called the producers because I think they had given up on the original actors before they got to him, so they made sure to work him into an episode. Now that I think of it, has there been any substantial iteration of SW he hasn't been involved in? I know he's read some of the novels-on-tape, he's done the old cartoons, now he's doing the new cartoons.

But to be more general, I had no problems with any of the voices. They're certainly close enough for government work.