Just a funny bit that’s making the rounds on facebook (hat tip to Walt Simonson and Phil Jimenez), here fan page Comic Book Movies takes a look at Superman’s costume from Man of Steel and gives a suggestion of what a good sponsored cleaning could do for it.

The image originally comes from Deviant Art user “thedreaded1″.

What do you think, does the costume need a scrubbing to go from A to B?

Real Batman, courtesy Reuters

Batman may usually fight people like The Joker and the Court of Owls in his comic book adventures, but in West Yorkshire, England, he’s fighting petty crime.

A suspect charged with handling stolen goods and fraud was turned into the West Yorkshire police department by a concerned citizen – who happened to be dressed in a head-to-toe Batman costume. Like the Dark Knight, the man “disappeared into the night” without revealing his identity.

“Closed-circuit television footage showed a portly figure wearing an ill-fitting costume including gloves, cape and mask, bringing a 27-year-old man to a police station in Bradford in northern England,” reported Reuters.

This isn’t the first time someone has dressed up as Batman to “fight crime,” but it is the first report of success in an international arena. Looks like Batman, Inc has gone global in the real world.

After Peter David’s stroke at the end of the year, his wife Kathleen has been keeping his fans, friends, and family up-to-date on his blog about his recovery process.

PAD, as he’s colloquially known to his fans, has shown progress, from being able to grip the hands of his wife and daughters, to still making jokes and keeping his nurses entertained. The road to recovery is long and expensive, though, and Kathleen, rather than setting up any kind of donation fund or anything of the sort has a much simpler request: Buy and enjoy Peter’s writing.

Specifically, she points out his latest novels, sold directly through Crazy 8 Press, or through Amazon or Barnes and Noble. The books are all available digitally, but will also print-on-demand for those who like to curl up without the warm glow of a tablet screen.

Here are his current books, and both official and Kath-approved descriptions of them:

His currently Crazy 8 Books are

Pulling Up Stakes Part 1
Pulling Up Stakes Part 2 (Brand new)
This is one novel broken into two pieces. This is the cover blurb
Sick of vampire books? Movies? TV shows? Yeah. So are we. Sick of the entire unlife of vampires? Yeah. So is Vince Hammond. Unfortunately, Vince is in it up to his (wait for it) neck. Because Vince is a young vampire hunter who lives with his vampire hunter mother in an entire community of vampire hunters, who in turn are part of a cult of vampire hunters going back all the way to the French Revolution, which many believe to be an uprising of the poor against the rich but was actually a massive purging of vampires from the French nobility (hence the guillotine)

The Camelot Papers
A powerful ruler who’s considered by many to be simple-minded and vacuous and has serious father issues. A no-nonsense, polarizing woman who favors pants suits and pursues dubious agendas involving social needs. A remarkably magnetic leader of men with a reputation as a skirt-chaser. A scheming, manipulative adviser who is constantly trying to control public perceptions. A man seen as the next, great hope for the people, except there are disputes over his background and many contend he’s not what he appears to be.
George W? Hillary and Bill? Karl Rove? Obama?
Try Arthur Pendragon, Guinevere, Lancelot, Merlin, and Galahad.
Whatever you think of the state of today’s politics, The Camelot Papers shows you just how little matters have changed in the past thousand years or so. The Camelot Papers presents a fresh perspective on Arthurian legend by using modern day sensibility and combining it with a classic tale to bring a new insight into iconic characters.

The Hidden Earth Saga of which there are two published and the third is in the works.

Darkness of the Light (book 1 of the Hidden Earth saga) Click here for the first chapter!
Height of the Depths (Book 2 of the Hidden Earth saga)

These are science fiction mixed with mythological creatures and the fate of the Universe hangs in the balance. Big epic sweeping books with those great characters that Peter is famous for writing.

—

Kathleen also asked for anyone and everyone with the means to spread the word. So, consider that done on our end, but if you all can get out and keep rocking that, it would be great.

On a personal note, I wouldn’t be where I am today without the writing and encouragement of Peter David. He wrote my favorite character at Marvel, Havok, in the 90s when I was introduced to him and fell in love with superhero comics. He wrote my favorite character at DC, Tim Drake, in Young Justice, the book that finally got me reading DC Comics on a regular basis and showed me that fun, friendship, and some good, old-fashioned teamwork definitely still have their place in superhero books. And after all that, he was one of the very first people to respond to my request for interviews back when I was running a lowly internet radio show and trying to get my journalism career going. So thanks, PAD. Get well soon.

Last week Image Comics poked a little fun at Marvel for their frequent use of their Marvel NOW! teaser images, and this week it’s Marvel’s turn to have a little fun with the marketing efforts of a publishing rival.

Marvel has just solicited to retailers an Uncanny X-Men #1 “Deadpool 53 State Birds” variant cover for the Brian Bendis-written February debuting series. While it appears to be actually only one cover and not really 53 of them, the variant is obviously a satirical dig at the 52 “State Flag” variant covers DC is offering that same month for the debut of Geoff John’s new Justice League of America ongoing series.

The issue is scheduled to go on sale on February 13th. The cover image doesn’t appear to actually exist yet.

Neil Gaiman is writing another episode of Doctor Who, marking the return of the villainous Cybermen, Deadline reports. The writer’s episode will air as part of the second half of series 7, airing Spring 2013.

Gaiman’s previous episode featured the TARDIS getting a human body, and was critically acclaimed. A self-proclaimed life-long fan of The Doctor and his adventures, Gaiman focusing this time on the classic villains is a welcome surprise.

In addition, Warwick Davis, known well for his geeky roles in small franchises like Star Wars and Harry Potter will star in the episode, along notable British TV actors Tamzin Outhwaite and Jason Watkins.

Elfquest is going to the big screen, according to Variety. Wendy and Richard Pini’s comic book series kicked off in 1978, and has the unique distinction of having been published at one time by both Marvel Comics and DC Comics.

The tribe of elves will be brought to the big screen by Stephanie Thorpe and Paula Rhodes, who made a short film based on the series already entitled Elfquest: A Fan Imagining. Check it out below and see if you’ll like their interpretation.

CM Punk is no superhero, but he’s always loved comic books. Since he can’t fly, he’s using his powers instead to express his love directly at Marvel Comics. The wrestler is writing the intro to Avengers Vs X-Men‘s hardcover collection coming November 7, 2012.

At USA Today, the wrestler also known as Phil Brooks talked about his love for comics and which character he most associates with – and it’s no hero!

He does, however look to one Marvel Hero for inspiration whenever he enters the ring. Like the ever-lovin’ blue eyed Thing, he yells out “It’s Clobberin’ Time!” before taking an opponent to the map. His comic book history includes some G.I. Joe, some Preacher, and more, but that Garth Ennis book changed things for Brooks.

“It’s one of those unfortunate instances where I think people look down on comic books almost the same way they look down on pro wrestling — maybe it’s this lesser art form or it’s just for kids and it’s goofy. But I defy anybody to read Preacher and tell me they feel the same way after that. That opened my eyes to a whole different world.”

Check out the link for more from Punk and check out the collected edition of Avengers vs. X-Men in November!

X-O Manowar, the flagship title of the new Valiant Entertainment, is getting its first trade paperback collection in December 2012. The first four issues of the series are collected in the trade, at a special price of $9.99. The aggressive pricing is designed to bring more new readers into the fledgling universe, as it continues to grow with new characters, and new series, into 2013. At about $2.50 an issue, it’s a savings of almost 40% off the cover price of the first four issues separately.

The “Summer of Valiant” may be almost over, but clearly the company doesn’t plan to slow down in their re-entry into the direct market. Valiant’s official press release follows after the jump!

(more…)

The Wii U is coming in 2012, but it may not be until the final month. That’s the announcement that came late last night for Japan, as Nintendo livestreamed a press event to give a December 8, 2012 release in their native country. The basic console will cost 26,250 yen ($337; £210) and a premium edition will 31,500 yen ($405; £251), though those prices will likely not translate directly in the international markets. The new controller, fashioned as a tablet-gamepad hybrid, will run Japanese gamers 13,000 yen ($167; £104).

Join us for live coverage of the New York press event Thursday morning at 10am EDT where we’ll get all the release details for the US (and likely European) market. We’ll be back here then, so bookmark now and get that refresh button ready!

We’re settled in at a swanky NYC loft space amongst throngs of other journalists and industry representatives. There was some notable presence from Activision, Sega, Ubisoft, and EA here at the event alongside Nintendo.

And here we go. A sizzle reel of the WiiU going on tour was played before NoA President and COO Reggie Fils-Aime took the stage.

“Good morning everyone, and thanks for spending some time with us today.”

“Even with all that’s been said about WiiU so far, there are still some key questions to be answered.”

WiiU arrives in US stores in 66 days, Sunday November 18, 2012.

Reggie says the reaction as they took the WiiU on tour has been great, with people having genuinely wonderful, happy reactions.

There will be two configurations, the Basic Set is white, has the console, gamepad, an AC adapter for each, HDMI cable, Wii U Sensor Bar and 8gb of storage.

Deluxe Set has 32gb, a charging cradle, stands for both, and the game Nintendo Land, that includes sampling of all the new controls the gamepad offers. The Deluxe set also includes a special Nintendo download subscription with free and exclusive DLC (sounds a bit like PlayStation Plus at first).

Neither set comes with the Wii Remote or Nunchuck, Reggie says because they work with existing Wii ones.

The Basic is $299.99, and the Deluxe is $349.99.

“We deliberately put the big information out right off the bat, so you can sit back, relax, and enjoy yourselves,” said Reggie. “And now, let’s talk about games.”

We’re starting with NintendoLand. Kicking off, Reggie is bringing out Bill Trinen and Corey Olcsvary to show off the new Metroid area in the game.

“We think these team attractions have the depth and fun that will keep you coming back and playing, even if you consider yourself a core gamer,” said Trinen.

“Metroid Blast” was demoed, with one Mii in the classic Samus suit, using a WiiMote and Nunchuk. The other player used the new WiiU Gamepad to control a ship floating above the battle arena, helping his friend take out a variety of enemies. The player on the ground can grapple to the ship when he needs to get away. There are powerups for both ground and air.

“This is just one mission,” said Trinen, “and this is just about 8 missions in, and that’s not even half of what you’ll find in just this mode. You can play cooperatively with more than 2 players too, but you can also play solo in the air or on the ground.”

Metroid Blast will have two other modes, as well, with a ground only MP free-for-all and a ground versus air game.

Pikmiin Adventure, another NintendoLand game will be around on the floor here as well.

New Super Mario Bros U is up next, with new powerups, of course. There is also a fully interconnected map. In new “Boost Rush” mode, which actually encourages speed runs with scrolling levels that speed up as you collect coins. Youtube, here we come.

There are also challenges in the game, and MiiVerse integration so you can discuss your achievements with friends easily from within the game.

LEGO City Undercover is next up, with a special Chase McCane minifig as a preorder bonus. Trinen promises, “comedy, adventure, and fun” in that one.

Reggie retook the stage to “break for something completely different. And I mean for Nintendo something entirely different. The most different non-gaming Nintendo innovation ever.

“Today the Wii is attached to tens of millions of households, hooked up to the big screen where the family gathers. At E3 we mentioned a third pillar we called “entertainment.” Today we give its new name, NintendoTVii. For our idea to fully come to life, we had to wait for the right technology to come along. In a minute we’re going to show you a deeper look,” but first a sizzle reel.

“Find, Watch, Engage, TV Movies Sports” said the ad. The WiiU gamepad becomes a guide. You can pull up sports scores, access Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon, your DVR with Tivo, or directly on live tv, using your WiiU as the remote the whole time. Again, with TiVo integration, you can set your DVR from your gamepad. During a football game, the gamepad became an interactive device showing the plays that were just run, stats, and even replay clips, as well as integrated discussion through twitter. Wow, this is huge.

Now the head of the TVii project, Zach Fountain is out on stage with Reggie to show off a live demo.

Zach started with TV, the guide is a comprehensive one, that ties in all of your profiles and live TV as well. You can go to Popular, Live, Recommended, Channels, and Grid. Recommendations can come from Nintendo, or from friends.

Everything gives you full information right on screen. When he showed Modern Family, it gave access to episodes on Hulu, as well as showing the next live episode in 13 days. You can access IMDB-style info, favorite shows, see who of your friends has favorited it, and more, all from that one screen.

When he clicked one episode, he sees all of the options, Hulu+, $1.99 to own and stream from Amazon, plus the episode recorded on his TiVo.

For movies, you can watch the trailers on the gamepad so you don’t interrupt what’s up on the TV.

Now we’re on to Sports. Football, Baseball, and Basketball are shown. The first screen shows Football, specifically college, and has one large icon and several small, with scores and times all listed immediately.

A unified Search from the main screen will, once again, search all your services/devices simultaneously. Favorites can be customized to everyone in your family; five tabs were shown at once, all with their own Mii of course.

Also from the main homepage is a built-in remote, which directly accesses all of your favorite channels, it’s a cool series of rotary dials.

You can interact on Twitter and MiiVerse while watching a TV – individual scenes will be highlighted on the gamepad, plus polls, all sorts of little fun interactions.

Sports is up next, with an Alabama LSU game on the TV, while other scores, moments being captured on the side; you can see highlighted plays, access wikipedia and other databases from the gamepad to learn more about the game, very in-depth, seems they’ve thought of everything.

That’s all for NintendoTVii, rolling out in US and Canada, then expanding into the rest of the Americas. “NintendoTVii is included in every WiiU purchase at no additional cost, and no monthly fee,” Reggie finished off. “But now, let’s get back to the games.”

First up is a game from Platinum Games, Bayonetta 2. “It’s the sequel to the original Bayonetta, being directed by the producer of the original. It’s a WiiU exclusive, and will be published by Nintendo.”

Also coming from Platinum Games is a co-op action adventure game, Diablo-style with amazing cartoony graphics, now called The Wonderful 101.

“This team of heroes, their massive transformation, and the nonstop action of this alien invasion can only be found on WiiU. Next, we can confirm one more project you may have heard about. Capcom is bringing Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate to WiiU and 3DS in US and Europe. You can progress simultaneously between both platforms, too.”

Next is Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg.

Eric started with “It looks to us like this November Nintendo will once again bring a lot of freshness to the living room. We’re excited because we have a lot of great games that will help show it off. There’s more competition than ever before, but also more gamers than ever before. Video games have become the entertainment choice for a generation.

Nintendo has always focused on hardware and software being intertwined. At Activision we focus on making great games for fans around the world.”

Now a sizzle reel of titles available in the Launch Window. Skylanders Giants, Wipeout 3, James Bond: 007 Legends, Transformers Prime: The Game, were all shown in the reel.

Eric is now focusing on Skylanders Giants, which will have new controls and functionality from the Gamepad including character stats in realtime. in 007 Legends, gamers will play iconic sequences from all the movies.

And now “one more game we’re making for WiiU, wasn’t in the trailer, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. I think what Treyarch is making this year is nothing short of the most innovative CoD game yet,” said Hirshberg. “And it looks great on the WiiU.”

A live demo was shown with Jacob and Jason from Treyarch.

The two demoers are playing with a Pro Controller and a Gamepad. The graphics are great, nearly the same level as the 360. They’re playing a multiplayer match with bots. You can actually take control of some of the aerial drones in the game. On the WiiU, you can change your loadout midgame on the touchscreen. “Treyarch had some fun figuring out ways to leverage the second screen,” assured Hirshberg. You can also use the Wii Remote and Nunchuck, so any of the three controllers.

One player can play on the gamepad’s screen in full screen while another plays on the bigscreen without any splitscreen, coop or competitively. There is of course also full online multiplayer, and a full single player campaign. And that’s it from Activision this morning.

Reggie took the stage once more. “it’s still too early to announce which games will come out on launch date and which will be in the launch window,” said Reggie, “but here’s the Launch Window from November 18 to the end of March’s lineup.”

Tons of games, 8 from Ubisoft, Sega, Namco, THQ, Activision, EA, Disney, WB Games, Majesco, D3, Tcmo Koei, Nintendo of course, and more were shown in a very quick sizzle reel. “over 50″ games in total in that nearly 5 month launch window.

“We hope you’ve enjoyed the presentation,” Reggie said, wrapping up. And that’s all for today’s live coverage. Come back to Newsarama for hands-on impressions on many of these games in the coming days. Thanks for reading!

The Hollywood Reporter’s Heat Vision blog has two new guests at MorrisonCon listed today, James Gunn and Max Landis. Gunn was recently chosen as Marvel Studio’s director for the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy film set to hit theaters in 2014, and reportedly remains in active talks as the sole runner in that race. Landis, meanwhile, wrote the superpowered film Chronicle, a parody youtube video on The Death and Return of Superman, and has a story in the Action Comics Annual in October 2012.

The two Hollywood and Comics connections will be talking at the convention about… Hollywood and Comics’ connections. The duo join Gerard Way, Robert Kirkman,  Jonathan Hickman, Jason Aaron,, Jim Lee, Frank Quitely, J.H. Williams III and Chris Burnham as already announced guests, alongside Grant Morrison, of course.

MorrisonCon hits the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas, NV September 28-30, 2012.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars is how a whole new generation of fans are learning to love the universe that has taken over the minds of pop culture for over 30 years. It’s no surprise, then, that they’re at Star Wars Celebration VI in a big way, with multiple panels and events.

The press got an intimate occasion with the stars and head of the Clone Wars crew Saturday afternoon, as Dave Filoni, Joel Aron Sam Witwer, Dee Bradley Baker, Ashley Eckstein, and Matt Lanter answered questions about the past, present, and of course, future of Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

We’ll do this simple Q&A style.

Q: With George Lucas’s semi-retirement, will your role step up beyond just Clone Wars, Dave?

Filoni: No, I don’t think so. His retirement even just means he has more time to come and see the show while we’re working. He told me when we started that one of the reasons I’m here is so that when he’s not around I can make sure things are going well. It’s amazing for our confidence and our crew that he feels like he can retire.

I look forward to all the things we’re doing in the LucasFilm Animation division, but Clone Wars remains my focus.

Q: How many seasons do you think you’ll do?

Filoni: We’ll keep making them as long as you’re watching them. Season five is completely done, but Season 6 is being written and worked on now in advance. We go season to season, Cartoon Network has been a great partner to us, and right now we’re focused on Season 5.

Q: Why the change in the schedule from Friday night to Saturday morning?

Filoni: They actually changed their entire action block to Saturday mornings.

Q: Any chance of a second Clone Wars movie? You mentioned it is better on the big screen…

Filoni: You know, it’s always about what the fans want. We focus on making the show as cinematic as possible, we shoot in 2:35 and it’s ready to be projected at all times.

Q: We recently had a fan poll at Star Wars Insider, and Revenge won, why do you think that resonated?

Witwer: In terms of Darth Maul, the guy has the Boba Fett factor going on. He looks cool, and there was an attitude that was affected in that movie. We can’t do the same thing, we can’t bring the character back exactly as he was.

We talked about how he couldn’t just be good at sword fighting, you have to pick a guy who is really smart and could eventually take over the mantle. The big thing for Revenge and Brothers was not to just show you the cost, but the unadulterated Dark Side of the force. He’ll get funnier as he goes on.

Q: What’s it like closing out Season 4 and starting Season 5 focused on you, Sam?

Witwer: You know, it’s the Star Wars show, it’s not the me show. It’s all about how the scenes are shot, how the character is written, how it’s lit, and that makes my job so easy.

I have to say, too, I had no idea that Lanter did the voice of one of the pirate captains in that episode last night! That was great!

Lanter: Yeah, what was his name?

Filoni: Jiro

Lanter: Sweet, I’ll add that to my list!

Q: Is there anything intensity wise that doesn’t make it into the show?

Filoni: A lot of kids haven’t seen Revenge of the Sith and they shouldn’t! It illustrates my problem, that I have Clones on one side and Revenge on the other, and one is way more intense than the other.

One thing I noticed last night at the premiere though, was when Obi-Wan rose up and [omitted for spoilers] the crowd went nuts, and that means we’re doing things well, we’re making the villains bad enough, and making the heroes have their big moments.

Q: Dave, are you surprised that Hasbro isn’t making more of the Clone Wars toys?

Filoni: Not particularly; there’s such a legacy of the live action and cinematic looking figures. I think it’s exciting that they’ve taken some of our characters like Ahsoka and done those in the live action fashion. Whatever decisions they make, I’m sure they do for reasons.

Q: For Ashley, it was brought up at the panel that 34% of the audience is female, your character headlines that, what do you think of that?

Eckstein: Oh, it’s not just Ahsoka! Padme of course, Ventress is an awesome character.

It’s something that of course I hoped would happen. We talked about that a lot, I said, “Hey is this a hope, do we want to create a female audience?”

Filoni: And we actually just chose to go with a girl because we didn’t want it to just be Anakin or Luke all over again.

It worked out great, you’ve been an ambassador beyond belief for the fans. You’re a tiny powerhouse!

Eckstein: I will say I’ve seen a difference, after doing 4 years of Disney Star Wars Weekends; the first couple years it was mostly boys and fathers, and the past two years it’s been probably 80% moms and daughters, so that’s great.

Q: Any directors you’d like to bring in from outside of LucasFilm Animation?

Filoni: You know, we do that at George’s request sometimes, but I have five killer episodic directors, and I like to showcase them, they all do such great work. You’re going to see some amazing stuff from them this year.

Q: Any chance of Mark Hammil doing a voice on Clone Wars?

Filoni: You know, Mark, as you say is a huge talent; if we were going to bring him on it has to be something really awesome and really special. I want to be able to cast Mark in a way that’s meaningful for him to come in and perform. It’s on my mind, it’s on my list of things to do. It won’t happen in Season 5 but hopefully before it’s all said and done I’ll get Mark back into the Star Wars franchise. It’ll be unexpected.

Q: Matt, do you have a desire to go more into Anakin’s dark side?

Lanter: I really like being able to play both sides, and it’s a great challenge to take him smoothly from the swashbuckler to the point he’s at in Revenge of the Sith. I think that’s really fun as fans to see that as well. I don’t like playing one side more than the other at all though.

Q: How will the 22 episodes of Season 5 pan out in terms of storytelling?

Filoni: It’s pretty much like previous seasons, except this season they’re mainly four part arcs. We tied the premiere directly into last season which we haven’t done before. The next few episodes past that are about the Clone War and Onderan. Each of these four episode arcs are designed to play out as an 88 minute movie if need be. Ahsoka is always the thread, you can watch her and tell where we’re at.

There are also some considerations for timing where we’ve say blown up a base, and it remains destroyed.

Q: For Ashley and Matt, is there any limitation to voice-acting in connecting to your characters and developing them?

Lanter: Aside from the obvious of not having props and scenes, there’s not a whole lot of difference. This stuff is beautifully written, some of the character interactions and development as a team is top notch, so no, it rolls really smoothly!

Eckstein: Yeah, one of the misconceptions of Voice Acting is that Voice Actors aren’t actors. There are so many talented actors that are part of this cast.

In one episode that we did this season, my heart was beating out of my chest! You get emotional.

Witwer: Yeah, I’d like to say wiht the limited characters I’ve done on this show. I don’t know if you appreciate the pressure that these two actors are under for their roles from the fans. These guys, every episode are faced with something that Dave gets letters about, so they have my respect totally for being able to handle that, it’s a cool thing.

Q: Some actors say they can’t go back and watch their performances, is it easier for you because it’s animated?

Witwer; Um, absolutely! I love this show!

Baker: You know, I love going back and watching these, it’s a very different idea and experience.

Witwer: Who would’ve guessed 20 years ago that we would have troopers that have real lives and you know the guy behind the mask?

Q: One of the things the show has done best is reveal things we’ve heard of in one-liners but not gotten to see, is there another big reveal like that?

Filoni: Yeah, there’s a lot of that. This season we deal with a lot of big questions, and in future seasons. This season is really focusing on the characters we created in the Clone Wars, the Satines and Ahsokas, and Hondos of the world. There are unexpected consequences for these characters.

There’s the new planet Onderan, a new planet called Skippio, the home of the banking clan. We’ll answer a lot of questions on the formation of the Empire itself. You’ll be, at the end of this season, just like the Jedi, looking around and thinking “wow, we didn’t see this coming, this is more than we thought was going to happen.”

Baker: It’s knock-out, too. I’ve only seen a fraction of it, but it’s really a knock-out season, I’m really excited to see it.

Filoni: Yeah, it’s funny they never get to see it. Most of them last night was the first time they saw the premiere, with you! We go away and do a whole bunch of other episodes and forget about that.

I think sometimes its actually more interesting for them to watch because they had almost no context for what they were saying, and now they get to see how it all plays out.

Witwer: What’s cool is how as the show gets more complicated, it looks and sounds better and better (he pointed to Aron while saying). They could’ve jumped right into Mortis or something, but it wouldn’t have been the right move, and that patience in storytelling is something really amazing and special.

Aron: Yeah, we don’t light it like animation. Because of that, I’ve tried to push it even moreso cinematically with influences of movies like Drive; we’re talking about Season 5, I can’t just have characters talking to each other. We want the audience to throw out the idea that they’re watching animation.

Baker: It’s so exciting for us, there’s a three dimensionality to a vocal performance too. When we get to see it on a theater screen in digital clarity, we’re thrilled by it just as much as everyone else.

I got so excited seeing Gregor (the lost Republic Commando) today. I remember recording him and doing his story, but to SEE him, you don’t have to know anything about the guy, and you see him putting on the helmet and it’s just so exciting!

Eckstein: I want to underline going back to our vocal performance, it is all about Dave’s direction. He’s the best director I’ve ever worked with, and he’s brilliant. He knows us indivdually and knows how to get the best performance out of everyone. He makes it simple and easy.

Witwer: And relaxed, too! I remember I had to do some extra shoots alone with this side studio, and the studio guy came to me and said he’d shot features and TV shows and this Filoni guy was the best he’d ever worked with!

Filoni: What are you trying to do, make sure I don’t kill you off?

Witwer: I think Maul becomes their friend! (all the panelists laugh)

Baker: (to Lanter) Sure, you’re laughing, you’re the only one who’s safe!

Q: Sam, we talked about Matt and Ashley’s pressure, but how do you deal with that with Darth Maul?

Witwer: Just take a Xanax and go! (laughs) No, you know, it’s so much easier with the writers, you know they’re not going to make you look foolish, and just talked a lot with Dave Filoni.

Filoni: You know, I thought there were so many great moments, but in that first episode where you were going completely crazy, then there was just the one line where you look at Savage and say “Revenge” and that completely brought it back to the Phantom Menace moment.

Eckstein: We love with guest actors or new people like Sam come in, because it makes us raise the bar and just try to get better and better.

Lanter: You were talking earlier about watching episodes and insecurities as an actor, I had that the other day in the booth, where I wanted to redo a scene and Dave said we got it right. These characters are so great and so complex, we want to get them right!

Star Wars The Clone Wars Season 5 premieres Saturdays at 930am this fall!

After yesterday’s big reveal of the new show, the Star Wars Detours crew came back to the Celebration Stage at Star Wars Celebration VI for a second panel, showing off their new show to a completely packed house. The trailer was greeted by lots of laughs and cheers as Matt Senreich, Seth Green, and Todd Grimes showed off their new comedic Star Wars property.

They reviewed yesterday’s news of the three environments, the general idea and tone of the show, but then changed things up by showing some new clips.

The first was of the goofy stormtrooper pair played by Donald Faison and Breckin Meyer

The trio wanted to make sure its known that “these aren’t vignettes. These are actually stories with beginning, middle, and ends,” divulged Senreich.

Another clip showed Greedo meeting up with Lando Calrissian – while dressed as him. Lando of course will be voiced by Billy Dee Williams once more.

“Omigod I love Billy Dee so much,” said Green. Grimes said there’s a scene where Lando is teaching some other guys how to flirt with women, and Grimes is trying to direct him. “Look, man, I’ve been hitting on women a lot longer than you have,” Williams retorted.

Of Obi-Wan’s character in the show, they say he’s gone a little crazy living alone in the desert “waiting for Luke to be old enough to talk to without being creepy!” said Green. A clip showed Obi-Wan being a makeshift recruiter trying to restart the Jedi order. Hilarious stuff, and they gave promise of Obi-Wan and Luke interacting as well.

“We are desperately in love with Star Wars guys, so we’ll never let it go completely off the rails,” promised Green.

Head writer Brendan Hay came out on stage once more, just as he did yesterday, and did a cartwheel that was… interesting. “For a writer, that was incredibly athletic,” proclaimed Hay.

Hay ran through the writers once more, like Jane Espenson from Buffy and Dave Mccullough from Venture Bros, who has invented Biff Tarkin, Gran Moff Tarkin’s son. David Goodman from Family Guy who did their Star Wars specials has joined the crew too. Hay promises each character has their own unique favorites.

“Radda the Hutt, who is Jabba’s son, in our universe, is a really surly teenager who hates his dad, and everyone who works for his dad,” said Green for an example.

Producer Jennifer Hill came out on stage to tell a story of arm-wrestling George Lucas before talking about the big, talented voice cast for the show. There will be guest voices like Weird Al Yankovic and Felicia Day, as revealed in yesterday’s sizzle reel, as well.

Now one actor from the show, the aforementioned Donald Faison, came on stage and asked everyone to ignite their lightsabers while singing the imperial march. The Behind-the-Scenes clip was shown once more. Dee Bradley Baker, Grey DeLisle, Hugh Davidson, Cat Taber, Dan Milano, Cree Summer, Zeb Wells, Nat Faxon, Jennifer Hale, Abraham Benrubi, Ahmed Best, and of course Seth Green does some of the voices on his own! Billy Dee Williams got a huge pop when he appeared on screen.

The Jane Espenson-written parody of Katy Perry’s Teenage Dream was shown, with Donald Faison’s stormtrooper singing about his dream of being a mattress salesman.

Grimes then told a story about screening an animatic for George Lucas, and how there weren’t really any notes – then he said, “No wait, let’s go back to the beginning where Darth Vader is doing this recruitment video, we should pull it back a little bit and see someone directing him. Show a guy with white hair and a white beard and a flannel shirt…” And Grimes asked if he was asking to be put in the show, because the artists had all already drawn him.

They showed a clip of him on the show, and then George Lucas took the stage himself! The entire crowd was on their feet cheering for the creator of their beloved Star Wars.

Lucas: “I want to make it clear, the writers were only around for two weeks, but all the shorter people, the director, Seth, and Jen were at the Ranch for the whole thing.” Thanking them for no longer making him the shortest guy in the room.

Senreich asked, “What’s it like working with us?”

Lucas said, “The question I get at noon when I’m writing with these guys is ‘why do you leave at noon?’ Um, don’t you think it’s obvious?” he joked.

Seth Green asked him if all their nerdy questions are annoying, and he said, “yeah.”

The other panelists thanked him greatly for his support, with Grimes saying he specifically felt pushed by Lucas in a great way.

“George called me into his office one time. He was like, ‘all these drawings you did? Let’s not do any of those, let’s start over. If I liked your stuff I’d just call you on the phone, I wouldn’t have called you in here.’ Luckily, I haven’t been called in since.”

Senreich asked Lucas “Why do this? Why do Star Wars comedy?”

Lucas said, “I’ve always wanted to do this. I think it’s fun, and we’ve created something that’s truly for all ages.

“We’ve always been a little outside the box, but this is so far outside the box, it’s in a space shopping mall!”

Green said that because the “universe is inherently intellectual” the show will be smart. Lucas said “You’ve successfully made it either so dumb that it’s smart or so smart that it’s dumb.”

That’s all she wrote! Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more from Celebration VI.

Visual effects supervisor Joel Aron and Dave Filoni, the head honcho of The Clone Wars came back to Star Wars Celebration VI Saturday morning for one more panel to talk to fans about what they saw in the Season 5 premiere Friday night, and oh yeah, that crazy new trailer.

As the pair sat down with David Collins on the Valencia Theater stage, Filoni proclaimed right away how excited he was to hit 100 episodes this year.

“We sit with George at the ranch for a week or two and write about 3 outlines a day, and then just get those stories out there,” said Filoni.

Aron and Filoni said that despite the addition of technology, the time to make each episode continues to grow as they continue to add more detail and characters.

“The Lucasfilm philosophy is ‘dare to be great, challenge yourself.’ The fans demand it, they want to see something epic every week, and we have to deliver on that,” said Filoni. “That’s a LucasFilm tradition that we have to carry on.”

The series moves to Saturday mornings at 930am this fall, a change from its Friday night slot that they hope makes it even more of a family viewing experience.

A new clip showed a brand-new lush jungle planet with Ahsoka and some natives trying to take on a massive invading droid force. The visuals had the audience literally gasping.

“Wow, we’re giving a lot of stuff away here!” exclaimed Filoni after the clip. Collins started to geek out a bit over the new fauna and flora of the planet and the technology showing brand new ships and droid components. Filoni loved that even Collins, an accomplished voice actor and music designer for LucasFilm and LucasArts, could get so excited over the new clip.

“In Season 5, Anakin comes up with the idea to start training the insurgent groups who are trying to get out from under the thumb of the separatists. These new rebels will work with individual Jedi to try to come to arms and drive away the droid armies on their own. This is all borne of Ahsoka’s relationship with Lux, who it turns out is from Onderan,” revealed Filoni.

Aron next divulged that they are revealing Anakin’s personal quarters in the Jedi Temple for the first time. Filoni said the room will have many knick-knacks, a lot of droid parts and tools, the same things he might have been playing with as a kid.

“It does answer one big question: how much does Obi-Wan really know about Anakin and Padme, and what’s going on there,” teased Filoni.

Another new clip showed Anakin, in his room, tooling around with a droid. Obi-Wan walked in and started discussing Anakin’s feelings for Padme, with Obi-Wan talking about his own feelings for Satine. A poster of Anakin’s big podrace from Episode 1 was a nice easter egg for fans, with Ben Quadrinaros on the poster, which drew laughs and cheers from the fans.

“As an animated series, I think there’s a perception in this country that it’s for comedic purposes, to make you laugh, and I’m thrilled that we now have Detours to do that, they’re doing a fantastic job.

“But to keep these dramatic moments real and accurate, we had to update the way that we animate. I think we’ve gotten to the point on our show that we can tell these types of shows and give you this kind of information.”

Collins asked about Anakin’s gleams of the Dark Side in Season 5 versus the past.

“Matt Lanter and I were talking about that, we think that Anakin is mostly just much quicker to anger as the war has gone on,” said Filoni. “They continue to get more and more beat down, felling that pressure bear down on them. Anakin has a lot less patience. He has a few key things that keep him in place, like Ahsoka, Obi-Wan, and Padme. Matt’s performances this year are just fantastic, and I hate to jump ahead, but his performance in the season finale is just incredible.”

Ahsoka is “getting older, wiser, understanding what Anakin says to her and making her own decisions,” said Aron. “They’re master and apprentice, but ultimately she’s his friend, she’s his little sister at this point,” Filoni continued. “She understands more than anyone when he gets angry now. She gives hi a little more leeway there.

“Of all the decisions I’ve had to make as Supervising Director, casting Ashley Eckstein has been the best. The way that she’s handled the performance and the way that she’s reached out to fans: 34% of the Clone Wars fanbase is girls! A lot of that is due to her efforts.”

New images were shown off with things like “Episode 505 Outer Rim Meteor Field” and new shuttles. The season will feature an early arc where R2D2 and a compliment of Republic Droids have to go on a mission – all by themselves.

“We re-drew R2 this year. We had to redesign him, update his model and update his textures a great deal to get him closer to what you know from the live-action,” said Aron. Filoni said the mission has R2 and 3 other astromechs and a pit-droid taking on an infiltration mission. “It’s R2 on a true military mission for once.”

The droids, accompanied by a diminutive frog-like alien named Gascon, drop out of hyperspace and directly into a storm of comets. R2 and the other astromechs go into the perilous environment to try to fix the broken ship. Filoni said that even George Lucas just saw this clip “a few weeks ago.”

Filoni and Lucas both thought there were great opportunities for the droids and taking them “into that grand sense of wonder. It’s fun, those are the episodes that you sit down, the whole family will watch those and this is Star Wars.”

There’s also an episode based on the art of Moebius called “The Void” coming this season, an example Filoni gave of the way things vary greatly.

Some new characters like a rebel named Gregor and a diner chef, oh, and a REPUBLIC COMMANDO were shown off in images. The commando’s helmet has a bunch of hashmarks on it, marking his kills.

“Dee Baker does a phenomenal job of playing all of the Clones! You forget that it’s one guy doing all of those. It’s always a big challenge, he gets exhausted doing it, but yeah, Republic Commandos! We have so many types of clones coming your way. We hear the fans saying they’re loving the clones and the clone stories, so we’ll have many more,” announced Filoni.

Filoni revealed that to help Dee Bradley Baker keep all the personalities separate, there are three parts to a triangle, there’s Rex at the top, the very militant guys to the right and the very green ones to the left.

“We used to record him, where he’d do one voice all the way through, then the next character. Now he just has a conversation with himself!”

Going back to a new clip featuring the droids, they’re now backed up by the Republic Commando from the images. He moves and shoots more efficiently than your run of the mill clones and is actually the stylish rebel named Gregor from the same images! Huge applause for the clip as Gregor takes down tons of droids with ease.

Filoni said of the tickmarks on his helmet, “I play ice hockey, have for decades, and put the tickmarks on there for the goalie of the Boston Bruins,” though he’s actually from Pittsburgh and a fan of their teams.

“Fans love it when the Clones have those distinguishing figures, and find interesting things,” Filoni added.

Gregor’s history will all be revealed in his episode, as well.

Mustafar and the Black Suns fortress was shown off, as well as a Falleen Black Sun leade, from Shadows of the Empire.

“They’re a dangerous group of intergalactic gangsters,” teased Filoni. Their new Frigate was shown off as well. Lom Pyke, a new race of crime lords involved with Kessel Spice smuggling was also shown.

Aron, who came from ILM, still has access to the database of assets there, so he actually used the exact backdrop of Mustafar from Revenge of the Sith and used that in the Clone Wars. To show off how well it works, they showed another new clip.

It’s a baffling clip, with Savage, Maul, and Death Watch Mandalorians going to meet with the Falleen. Maul seems to have more regular legs now, something he’ll need after the season premiere.

Filoni talked about one of those butt kicking ladies of the show, Bo Katan, “for the girl that wants to get out there and kick butt with the boys! This was something that comes full circle, man, I’d love to see this character walking around a convention,” and he brought up an amazing cosplayer who has already made her full armor.

Another clip shows Obi-Wan in full Mandalorian armor being led away by jailers. Bo Katan and another in blue start to take them on, and she quickly dispatches 3 Mandalorian warriors with ease. HUGE applause.

And then, a huge surprise guest, Filoni introduces him as “their biggest fan,” George Lucas!

Filoni asked George why he wanted to come to animation.

“We were kind of taking a chance in making a dramatic animated series, which is kind of in a never never land of animation here,” started Lucas. “We’re also making a younger-skewing show that we’re developing, and of course Detours which is way out on its own.

“We can do things in animation that are very hard to do in live action.”

Filoni asked Lucas about the big Rancor that fans brought to the show, and he said “I loved that Rancor.”

Filoni said he would love to take it home but won’t fit in his office. A fan yelled, “get a bigger office” and George Lucas deadpanned “No, I don’t think so!”

Lucas talked about bringing Darth Maul back next.

“In a feature you’re very restricted by a story and storyarc. In animation we can go ‘why don’t we go way over here!’ And we did four episodes with nothing but droids. Then we did the same thing with Darth Maul and bringing him back. He’s one of my favorite characters and we killed him right away. But it’s been a lot of fun to have him and create his brother, and the witches of Dathomir.”

Filoni said, “I have something, a rare thing, something YOU haven’t seen,” to Lucas, introducing the new 3 minute trailer they showed to fans at the premiere last night.

Huge applause for Lucas and for the trailer alike. Standing Ovation, and thus ends the panel.

Brian Wood is writing Star Wars. It has no subtitle, it’s not a mini-series, it’s an ongoing comic book at Dark Horse and it’s going to be exciting.

To talk about his plans, Wood came to Star Wars Celebration VI for an intimate conversation about his new series.

Wood’s series will be set directly after the first film, Star Wars, later subtitled Episode IV: A New Hope. The film leaves a nascent Rebel Alliance, a Luke who is gaining confidence, and a Leia who has been leading these Rebels for a few years.

Joined by editor Randy Stradley, Wood gave some hints to his plans for the future (past) of Star Wars.

“Everyone knows the future of the timeline. I do, readers do, but the characters don’t. I have to tread carefully; for example, you know that Luke and Leia are brother and sister, but they don’t, but I can’t push that to the point that it’s gross.

“I have to be aware of this world, this timeline, that the characters don’t know. It’s not an alternate world, or an alternate timeline. All the stuff has happened, or will happen to the characters, it just hasn’t yet.”

The story will take place in a very similar way to The Clone Wars, which fills in the blanks between episodes 2 and 3. We moved almost directly into Fan Q&A.

Wood will be introducing some new planets, locations, and characters.

“There’s definitely a core cast, and it’s large, everyone you’d recognize from A New Hope. There’s a secondary cast of pilots that start appearing about issue 3, but they’re secondary. The main cast is Luke, Leia, Han, Chewie, R2, 3PO, Mon Motha, Vader, Emperor, Wedge, I really wanted to put Wedge in there, I’m a really big fan of the X-Wing novels.”

Wood made a real effort to not re-read any of the old comics or books, to not “steal from them on accident!” He has read them all before though, as a big fan himself.

As to humor, a staple of the Star Wars universe? “That’s not really my strong suit, but I wish it was. I guess there are sarcastic comments!” Stradley says there are scenes that include a lot of character banter; “not exactly funny, but not all woe-is-me.”

Wood said he wanted to make sure it wasn’t “really dark, that’s not really what Star Wars is.”

Wood says while he knows where they end up in at the beginning of Empire, the story will be “more of a day to day thing, I’m not even thinking about that. The first arc will be them searching for a new place for a base, they’re on their last legs, and searching for a place to find their roots. I don’t think there’s anything that says Hoth was their immediate next base, it’s a long ways off.” Incidentally, Wood says, “That really is my favorite place in the whole Star Wars Universe, though, Hoth.”

Wood says he’s working hard to get the tone of the voices of the characters similar to the first film.

“It’s really fun writing Han, because he’s still kind of a dick. So that’s really fun, writing Han.”

There have been some small gaps in Wood’s knowledge on the deep intricacies of the Star Wars universe, but LucasFilm has been very helpful, things like ranking on an X-Wing. He said he didn’t have to dig through a lot of archives, though, as he’s internalized a lot of Star Wars knowledge.

Working with Carlos D’Anda on art, Wood hasn’t found a groove with him just yet, but tries to be helpful; in his scripts he includes links to visuals and reference where appropriate.

“I see things very very visually. When I switched over from being an artist/writer to being just a writer, I’d get really upset when the art wouldn’t come back looking like it did in my head. I’ve since trained that out of me, it’s really unfair.”

Wood says his one rule is, “I can’t write anything that will invalidate something that’s coming. As long as I don’t do that, I can do anything.”

Why come back to Work for Hire?

“I’ve hardly done any of it. I got to this point where a lot of my creator owned books were wrapping up, and I thought, if there’s a time, let me give this a shot. I’d never really done it before, so I figured it would help make me a better writer, a more well-rounded writer. I took on Conan, I took on X-Men, so taking Star Wars was part of that, stretching my wings. I also really thought, I mean, this is a really fun job. It’s really flattering to be offered something like this, if there’s something I’d want to write like this, it would be Star Wars.

“I still sort of consider myself a creator-owned guy. That’s the identity I’ve built up over all this time, but for now I’m having fun with all these books, so we’ll see where it goes!”

While Wood is mum on most plot points, he did hint that Luke will connect with someone outside the core cast, so there will be some other pulled in throughout.

A fan asked if there will be new tech or ship models, and Wood simply said, “Yes.”

There’s a current outline for about a year of stories, but Wood wants to keep taking smaller steps. Stradley says he wants him to keep writing “until he stops!” The first arc will be three issues, but “it’s not such a hard break, arc to arc. They’ll feel more like chapters of a book.”

The editor from LucasFilm Licensing re-iterated that this is the book to give to non-comics Star Wars fans, this is the entry point to the extended universe for them.

That’s all from Wood in this late-night panel. Stay tuned for much more from Star Wars Celebration VI throughout the weekend!

Star Wars: Detours. That’s the new comedic animated series coming from the team behind Robot Chicken, as revealed today at the “Super Secret Star Wars Panel with Todd, Seth, and Matt!” Fans excited to see the next, and very different, chapter of the Star Wars saga crammed into the Celebration Stage at Star Wars Celebration VI for the big reveal, and we have all the news about the new series.

Stay tuned and keep your F5 key handy as we update live for the next hour on all things Star Wars: Detours with Todd Grimes, Seth Green & Matt Senreich!

First out once again is the host of the Main Stage, James Arnold Taylor. The voice of Obi-Wan Kenobi and approximately 25,000 other voices came out to pump up the crowd. “You are all part of the insane here, today, right now.

“What can you say about Robot Chicken? It’s a fantastic show and they’ve paid such a great tribute to Star Wars,” started Taylor.

He then introduced our panelists, to a standing ovation. They also came out with three Mandalorians, who tied down Taylor and took him off the stage!

Green started off by saying “Last time at Celebration we said that we had something coming, it’s funny, and it’s Star Wars, and that was it.”

Senreich, “Yeah, it started a couple years before that, we got called by George Lucas’s people, and we thought we were getting sued.”

Green, “Lucas was sitting at a desk and said, ‘You guys think you’re pretty fucking funny, don’t you? So, how about we do something funny together?’

And we said ‘Matt and I need to change our pants.’

We are showing it to you WAY earlier than anyone else. George actually said out loud to us that if we don’t show this to you at Celebration, we’re not doing our jobs right.”

Matt and Seth introduced Todd Grimes as the “Dave Filoni of our show.” Green also said we’ll be very overwhelmed by all the information today.

After explaining how excited and grateful they are to be here, the three took a picture of the entire audience to post to twitter. After, they took a picture of all the lightsabers in the audience.

Senreich “Ultimate, George told us he wanted to make something funny because everyone else is doing it. The tag line is kinda “Star Wars without the Wars”. This is the time between Episodes 3 and 4, so you’ll see characters you love in very different times in their life.”

Green, “None of this is making fun of Star Wars, but more jsut thinking about what the Star Wars version of life is like!”

Tom, “Does Darth Vader do online dating? We answer those questions.”

Green, “George gave us authority that “whatever you make up in this show is canon. The fans can deal with it.”

After the extended intro, they debuted some footage of the show. it all kicked off with Han Solo, some jawas, Boba Fett, Darth Vader, Bossk, all in hilarious animated versions of them.

“A-ha: It’s a ruse, it’s a snare! It’s a confining device!”

Thunderous applause after the superdeformed versions of beloved characters kept the audience laughing.

Green: “Phew! Thank goodness, we totally had nightmares of this going a different way.”

The humor is very Robot Chicken-esque, with some fun animation.

There are three main setting areas. One is the Death Star, which is being built under the guise that it’s actually the best mall in the galaxy.

Green, “Sort of like the office, you have the foreman trying to get his workers done. We have the IT guy. Todd plays Jeff, the IT guy.”

Senreich, “and then also you have these random inspections from Vader and the Emperor.”

Green, “In this universe, you have Vader as the face of the empire, so he’s the guy doing ribbon cutting ceremonies and things like that.”

They showed another clip which got more laughter and applause.

Joel McHale, Donald Faison, Breckin Mayer, Seth McFarlane, and many more will be doing voices. Jennifer Hale was mentioned as well, Shepard from Mass Effect, as a “bad ass female officer” who is a recurring story.

Green described her character, Major Steel, taking a little baby Ewok and dressing him up in a major’s uniform.

The next area for the show is Tattooine, which originally started as just Jabba’s palace, but now goes all over, “from the Lars Homestead to the Cantina” and beyond, said Green.

Another clip was shown, of Chewbacca and Han Solo arguing like an old married couple.

Of course, the last area is Coruscant, often starring a super-bratty 15 year old Leia. Cat Taber, who is Padme on Clone Wars and has played Leia all over the place, as well, voices her and all four of her decoys. Dee Bradley Baker from Clone Wars is also going to be on the show playing tons of characters, including some old clones.

Green: “We have one old clone named Basher, George named him, he’s this old clone who is grizzled and super serious about everyone.”

Green said Max Reebo exists in this world, and is like the Gene Simmons of the universe.

The head writer of the show, Brendan Hay from “The Daily Show” was brought out on stage next.

Hay said he’s very excited about the writing team including Zeb Wells and Tom Root from Robot Chicken.

“Zeb Wells will make Dengar your new favorite character!” said Hay.

Green also announced Jane Espenson, writer of Buffy, Battlestar, Once, and much more is going to write for the show!

Simpsons, LEGO Star Wars, Venture Bros, Spongebob, Pinky & the Brain, Regular Show writers are all involved.

The assemblage said that their story meetings with George Lucas were incredibly awesome and geeky. They said that George Lucas’s explanation of Midichlorians made them all believers “That makes total sense!”

The producer, Jennifer Hill, also joined the panel late.

Anthony Daniels, Billy Dee Williams will both be playing their characters, as well as Ahmed Best. (That’s 3PO, Lando, and Jar-Jar of course!) Green promises that everyone will love Jar-Jar Binks on this show.

Hay: “We’ve either saved his entire image, or you’ll hate him for an all-new reason!”

Donald Faison joined next, singing the Star Wars theme to lots of applause.

Faison made a youtube LEGO film called “Black Stormtrooper.” He also interned at Robot Chicken for six months to learn how to do the series.

“I’ve love Star Wars since I was a kid,” said Faison.

Green asked if he has been inducted into the 501st yet, and Faison asked what he has to do to make it happen.

After that, some behind-the-scenes footage was shown. The clip also revealed Grey Delisle and more voice actors like Felicia Day who got lots of applause.

‘they wrapped with one last clip; A full Storm Trooper recreation of “Teenage Dream” in which Donal Faison’s Stormtrooper sings about wanting to be a mattress salesman.

The hilarious Star Wars: Detours is coming soon!

Friday morning saw the return of Jedi, Stormtroopers, and even a few Jawas to the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida for Star Wars Celebration VI. The first panel of the day saw the stars of Star Wars: The Clone Wars take the main Celebration Stage to talk about their craft, the show, and maybe even some hints about season five of the show.

Dee Bradley Baker (Captain Rex and the clones), Ashley Eckstein (Ahsoka Tano), Tom Kane (Yoda), and Matt Lanter (Anakin Skywalker) join host James Arnold Taylor (Obi-Wan Kenobi) for what’s sure to be a fun morning panel!

Stay tuned and keep your refresh button handy as we update LIVE throughout from 1030am until 1130am EDT.

The panel started with a “greatest hits” sizzle real of The Clone Wars, with the largest applause coming for Darth Maul when he appeared on screen.

James Arnold Taylor, the host of the main stage, literally ran out, jumping down into the audience giving out high fives.

“I don’t know if everyone knows, I’m Obi-Wan Kenobi on The Clone Wars. I’m also a voice actor, I know people are looking at me saying ‘who’s this guy that looks like David Spade and sounds like Michael J Fox?”

He went through a huge list of voices that he’s done… it’s scary how many voices he has. He also plugged his one man show “Talking To Myself” which premieres a special one hour version Saturday Night at the show.

“I would say this if I didn’t do a voice on this show, I think it’s the best on television. I love that you’re supporting the voice actors of this show.”

He brought the actors out, Matt, Dee, Tom Kane, and Ashley. Dee did the Perry the Platypus “trill” to applause.

“I’m Dee Bradley Baker, I do the voice of the CLONES on Star Wars The Clone Wars. And for those of you that love the clones… there’s a lot coming this season that will make you happy.”

“I’m Tom Kane, I’m the opening narrator” and some guy named Yoda. He went through some of his other voices across many shows.

Ashley Eckstein is “the mvoice of Ahsoka Tano” which got a lot of screams and cheers. “No one wants to know what will eventually happen to her. I don’t have a long list of voices that I do…”

Kane: “When you look like that you don’t have to!”

Ashley: “Oh, thanks! I miss my other girls up here though.”

JAT: “Before we go any further, I want to dedicate this panel to Ian Abercrombie, who passed away this year.”

Matt Lanter introduced himself as Anakin Skywalker, amongst several others. Taylor asked him how he got the part.

Lanter: “I got called in for ‘Deek Starkiller’ and it was very nerve wracking. I was really scared. An interesting tidbit, I was recast as Anakin, they had recorded a few episodes with someone else, and I had to go into the LucasRanch and re-record over his stuff for those first few.”

Ashley said she “had no idea” her role would be so pivotal. She was originally called in for Padme, and the auditions were running late, it was her last one after a long day. She walked in and they said “No, you sound way too young for Padme. But there’s this new character, a 14 year old girl with an icelandic accent that we think you’d be great for.”

Taylor: “Oh, she was supposed to have an accent? That would’ve been tough.”

Ashley: “It would’ve been tough, and it wouldn’t have been me. I couldn’t do it, I tried to study an Icelandic accent and couldn’t nail it. They wanted her to sound like Bjork and I couldn’t do it.”

Taylor: “Now Matt, you’ve been doing Yoda for years, right?”

Matt: “Yeah, as Frank Oz got more and more successful it was hard for him to go back and do other voicework for other directors. I started doing Yoda in little bits and pieces, and Frank finally said “yeah, I’m retired from that.” George just said “let’s just keep using Tom!”" Kane did, however, have to read for his other roles like the narrator and the admirals he has voiced.

As for Dee Bradley Baker?

Baker: “You know, at the time, I was known for sound effects! So to be brought in for something as straight ahead as a soldier, I would never think of myself for that role, but Dave Filoni and Andrea Romano who was helping Dave cast that show, they knew my work from Avatar, the Nickelodeon series. So they brought me in and I got the role.”

Taylor moved into a little trivia portion, where he decided to test his fellow actors’ knowledge.

“We have four people who have played Jedi on this stage, so let’s see who gets the most questions right and has the highest Midichlorian count!” announced Taylor.

Ashely got the first question, just a simple identification of Chewie. Matt Lanter knew his right hand was cut off as Anakin. Dee got one as well, but Ashley jumped on many questions and was the clear biggest fan. They all had some fun shouting over each other, and Ashley did wind up winning.

Matt Lanter did the Anakin voice and said “I’d like to check your Midichlorian Count” as a pick-up line, apparently a joke from Star Wars Weekends.

Dee Bradley Baker, after the raucous trivia event, did a quick demo of doing some creature sounds from Clone Wars. After his demonstration, Ashley asked the interpreter “Is there actually sign language for the signs that Dee just made?”

The interpreter did a little trill with his hand under his neck. Lots of applause for that.

Taylor then asked Matt how Star Wars has affected his acting career outside of the show.

“A couple years a go I did a movie called Sorority Row and it had Carrie Fisher in it. I went up to her and said ‘so hey, I’m your dad, and it’s really cool.’ She like signaled for someone to take me away. I have done some other voices too, I’m on Ultimate Spider-Man.”

Taylor, “Oh, I was on a Spider-Man series, I was Harry Osborn! Who are you playing now?”

Lanter, “Um… Harry Osborn.”

They looked awkwardly at each other, and Taylor switched seats with Baker to lots of laughs.

Lanter also does Venom on the show. He did a voice on Scooby Doo where the villainous version of his character was played by mark Hammil. “I’m your dad!” he joked again.

Taylor praised Tom Kane’s ubiquity in voice over work, including the announcement voice for TED which he said was basically Captain Picard, then joking in the voice, “Ensign Crusher, in my bedroom. Get ready!” to laughter.

Kane said when people find out he’s Yoda in other voice sessions, he often signs pictures of Yoda for their kids. “Most people don’t know I’m Yoda, they talk to me for an hour and I don’t sound anything like that.”

Taylor moved the conversation over to Ashley and the Her Universe geek apparel for women and girls brand she runs.

Eckstein “Early into the series, I went to StarWars.com and wanted to buy some new Star Wars shirts, and there wasn’t a single one for women on there. I did some research, found that almost half of Star Wars fans are women, and I went to LucasFilm to say I wanted more female shirts. They really supported me and let me start to do that.”

Eckstein also announced that the Ahsoka costume hoodie will be out for adults for the first time in October 2012.

“And now… questions from the Council” aka Fan Q&A!

Q: What input do you guys have in story/dialogue?

Baker: “Our input is pretty limited, it’s in a limited time. Our window is narrow. We get a script based off something that’s already staged, we do the voiceover, then they fully animate. Sometimes we’ll add a little in after.”

Q: Some voices are very natural, but some you have to work on, what’s the difference for you?

Lanter: “Well Anakin for me, is pretty much just my voice but a little deeper, so that one is very easy.”

Baker: “If any of you want to be a voice actor or the career of it, I laid out info on a website called IWannaBeAVoiceActor.com We’re also all on twitter, so please follow and we’ll try to interact on there!”

Q: How has the Clone Wars recording changed over the years from when you first got into the studio to now?

Kane: “Well, it’s gotten better! When the movie came out, it was unfortunate, to release it as a film wasn’t LucasFilm’s idea, that was Warner Bros. It was a little nervewracking. If you look at what we’ve done now, it’s evolved, it’s a much better show. And I’m not blowing smoke, but the next season is even better.”

Q: I’m wondering what happened to Ahsoka after the Clone Wars?

Baker: I’m wondering that too!

Taylor: Yeah, I think we’ll find out at some point…

Baker: I want to know what happens to Rex, and what happens to Ventress! But We don’t know!

Lanter: “There’s actually a little something Ashley and I have recorded that you guys don’t know about. You were all kicked out of the studio.”

Ashley: “Yeah, we do have that scene!”

With that, the actors read a scene that James Arnold Taylor wrote, to demonstrate their voices. That’s all for this panel, folks. Stay tuned for the special announcement of Seth Green and the team behind Robot Chicken’s new animated series at around noon today!

Lightsabers, blasters, exotic aliens, space battles: they’re all components to the Star Wars Universe, but ultimately, what makes them sing is the story.

In the modern world of Star Wars, Supervising Director Dave Filoni of Star Wars: The Clone Wars is the keeper of an entire era of Star Wars mythos. In the special Lecture Hall area at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, FL, Filoni came to the convention to teach eager students how to tell a story in the Star Wars universe. The lecture hall packed to capacity before the panel began, and fans were ready to find out the intricacies of story telling in this world they all love.

Stay tuned and keep the refresh button handy as we update LIVE during Filoni’s special education.

Dave Filoni took the stage to great applause, saying “I’m wiped out! Last time I did this, I said next time I’m going to be more prepared. I am, but not as much as I’d like to be. I’ll start the first half hour with the basics of visual storytelling, and around 6 o’clock I’ll talk more about how you do that cinematically.

“Anyone that has seen me before knows I’m a talker. I may get off topic a bit, but I should be able to fill the time.

“Storytelling: we do it every day, and we’re consuming stories every day. What you’re probably not aware of is you’re doing this every day. At some point today, near the end of the day, you’ll meet up with your friends and they’ll say “what did you do today?” Then you have to tell that story, and you won’t think about it, you’ll do it naturally. There’s a way you can do that so they understand it and there’s a way you can do it that will make them say “what are you talking about?”

Filoni told a quick anecdote about a friend who uses terrible pacing in his own personal stories.

“All of it is about clarity. Clarity is the key component of a story. A lot of what I teach you today, you’ll go watch a movie and say ‘but Dave they didn’t do it that way in this movie, they broke that rule in this movie.’ But I’ll tell you what George Lucas tells me, and that’s if it’s easy to do, everyone would do it!

“There are tons of little choices that all matter.”

Filoni’s focus will, as advertised, be on telling a Star Wars story. “It’s fast, it’s clear, and hopefully it’s very original.”

After the basic introduction, Filoni started to outline his process.

“Where are we? Remember, the audience only knows what you’re showing – they don’t know anything else. The only thing that matters is what the camera sees. It’s like you have a hold of someone’s head. You see space, you see a planet, you see a little ship enter the screen, and a big ship enter the screen. The little ship is getting shot at, and suddenly you immediately feel bad for that ship and the people on it.

“Always be relating one thing to another, it’s critical. Don’t be coy. George doesn’t play those games, he’s very literal with stuff in Star Wars. Darth Vader wears black – pop – bad guy. Storm Troopers, guys in menacing suits with frown-looks on their helmets – pop – bad guys.”

Filoni talked about one of the clips from Season 5 that have been teased so far, where a bunch of Mandalorians are protecting Obi-Wan Kenobi, and they pull out these arm shields; that was just to help solve the idea of people not fighting in cover – and then he digressed.

“So clarity is key. One of the easiest examples is the establishing shot of the Senate.” Filoni drew a quick sketch showing the establishing shot, where you push in twoards a building, then can cut to that building. “The next shot then is the inside of the office, and you see people standing there. What we have to do at that point is go in, showing a shot of Palpatine, looking right to left.

“We then see him talking to the Jedi, they’re looking left to right, that shows that they’re talking to eachother. What that all tells you is Establishing, they’re in the room in this building, this guy is talking to these people. It’s also good to have over-the-shoulder shots. Yoda is hard to do that with though, because he’s so short!”

Filoni went on to talk about the individual types of shots.

“If you start on a closeup, it can be aggravating. The establishing shot is importnat.” Filoni drew a wide shot of the Jedi temple, then the wide shot of the interior where the council is sitting. “Now, again, you have the wide shot outside, then the wide shot inside, one idea goes to the next idea. After that, if we want to cut to one specific person, that’s when we can get a little more creative with our thinking.

“If I have a character, say Mace Windu in the right third of the establishing shot, then we bring that forward, but still keep him in the far right third.”

Filoni once again got on a tangent about how all the Jedi fold their hands while they sit. Then he started talking about how all the Jedi cut perfect circles with their lightsabers, and how the larger Jedi must cut out basically entire walls. He said George shakes his head when he talks about these sort of things in story meetings.

“Any time you’re watching a movie and it doesn’t cut to another angle, that’s all a single shot. If you look at Hitchcock, he did a lot of single shots. Cuaron does that too. All those relationships with those characters give you an idea of how characters relate to the scene. Does your eye want to travel. So between a wide shot where Mace is in the right third, and a close shot where he’s there, your eye doesn’t have to ping pong between those two shots.”

Next he drew three shots. Anakin is on the far left, and Obi-Wan is over the shoulder. the second panel has the left completely empty, and Obi-Wan is looking straight ahead on the right. “He can be talking or not talking, but your eye goes right to him. As a director, you’re saying Obi-Wan’s reaction to what Anakin is saying is important. One of the most important things to know is when you need to show another character for reaction. That’s a choice.” The third frame has Anakin, close up, but still on the left side of the screen.

“As long as Anakin is on the left and Obi-Wan is on the right, you’ll understand this, even if you don’t know who they are. There’s an invisible line where the characters are supposed to reside. When a character flips sides suddenly, that can be jarring. That’s not something you’ll see us do in Star Wars.”

There is something called a passing position shot, where one object or person crosses the other that allows for that kind of switch.

Filoni talked a bit about his time on King of the Hill where he introduced a three camera system to try to give a more grandiose sense to a scene.

“You have your three cameras, all focused toward a middle section. From those three cameras, you can pull them out to an A position to give you a corresponding wide shot. Then you can push them into a B position for the closer shot, say the top of a table and the torso of the character sitting there. Then the close-up is the C position with the close up. The camera never falls beyond a median line, so that you never break that screen direction line.

“It’s so simple, and it’s so easy to screw up. That’s one of the earliest things George taught me.”

Moving into composition, Filoni talked about his time with Avatar: The Last Airbender, and how he learned there that children today don’t understand three point perspective.

“Most of the time if I’m filming a character, say a dominant character like Dooku. we might do a three-quarter under look. In Avatar, we sometimes tried to do a forced perspective, close to far. What that’s imitating is a lens choice, out of something like a 16mm lens. Most of the time if you’re shooting a close-up you shoot with a 35mm camera. A lot of times because of the speed we work at, we’ll shoot a scene at 16mm for a wide screen, then do a closeup and forget to change the lens – that’s when the character faces look really weird.”

He said he pays attention to those sorts of things whenever he’s watching films. “It’s really amazing when you see how they pull it off, and it works,” and that’s what he’ll try to do in Clone Wars now. He mentioned Scorcese saying “when you start a movie, make sure that everyone working on it is trying to make the same movie.” Filoni says he has to do that in every individual episode.

“There’s so much expanded material now, but we have to say this is the version we’re making. That’s why I love having access to George, cause I can ask him directly.”

Moving to another aspect of composition, Filoni drew four panels, showing a turning head shot of Ahsoka.

In the first panel, she’s looking at us “You have a connection to her. The next, you don’t have as strong of one, the next you’re confused, then finally you are far away from her.”

He drew another example, with the wide head-on shot, then a very close shot where “your whole TV set becomes her face, and you’re right up in her emotion. I’m going to use that to devastating effect later this year,” Filoni hinted.

After the sketching, he showed a clip with no dialogue, to try to show that there’s emotion and attitude based solely off how the shot is framed and how the characters are moving through it. it’s an animatic, labled “Campfire 602.” The clip showed the screen direction of left to right, including the eye direction and where the characters are in the frame from shot to shot.

“George has always told me that any story can be a Star Wars story, it’s just the trapping of it that makes it Star Wars,” Filoni noted when a fan thought the scene was very focused on Jedi “rules,” saying that doesn’t enter the story until very late.

To close up the seminar, Filoni wanted to go into an action sequence on Clone Wars.

“I breakdown pretty much every action moment. We have action meetings where we break down every lightsaber battle, every blaster, everything.”

Talking specifically about the Season 3 two-part finale featuring Chewbacca. When the transport ship was crashing, he described to his episode director, “We have the beach low, I wanted Ahsoka and the other padawans to run up and jump onto the glass and that will get the Trandosians activated. Then she runs inside, and that starts a separate fight inside the cockpit, so now we have two action sequences going at the same time.

The Trandosians are much larger, so he can have a good hand-to-hand combat scene with these two kids. So I came up with the idea that one of them ran at him and jumped, then the other used the force to throw him and kick him.”

The staging of the shot has the three walls angled, and rotating for effect. That’s how he’d generally diagram the whole sequence. He also tries to bring in iconic moments during these initial plans, so that there are clear goal points. After the break down, they talk about individual shots and where the camera goes.

Filoni finished off by showing the final clip.

We’ll update later with some of Filoni’s sketches to give a better idea of what his descriptions here meant, but hopefully you learned something!

Hello and welcome back to our coverage of Star Wars: Celebration VI from the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, FL. Star Wars has a long history of existing in other media outside of the original films. This “Expanded Universe” as it is called gives fans a chance to see the way the universe of the beloved franchise exists on other worlds, in different eras, explore new characters and get deeper into the history, and future, of the characters they already love.

Dark Horse Comics has been making Star Wars series, mini-series, and graphic novels for 25 years. With comic books, they’ve been able to explore everything from the Dawn of the Jedi to the far-future Legacy of the Force. Today, Dark Horse brings John Jackson Miller, Jan Duursema, Doug Wheatley, Dave Marshall, and Randy Stradley to the fans to talk about what’s coming from the company in the world of Star Wars looking into 2013.

Stay tuned and keep the refresh button handy as we update LIVE from 1:30 pm EDT until 2:30 pm EDT, discussing the world of Star Wars comics!

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Greetings from Star Wars: Celebration VI! We’re getting started with our LIVE coverage of the show here in a brand new way on Blog@!

Starting off the show is a discussion on the technology behind your favorite CGI animated series, Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Supervising Director Dave Filoni and VFX Supervisor Joel Aron will be taking us behind-the-scenes of The Clone Wars here in Valencia Theater in Orlando, FL.

Stay tuned and keep the refresh button handy starting at 1130am EDT, as we’ll be updating as we go!

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File this one under some crazy news, if it turns out to be true. NYMag’s Vulture blog is reporting that Barry Sonnenfeld, director of the Men in Black series, is going to helm a DC Comics project: Metal Men.

According to the report, Sonnenfeld has teased that he’s working on adapting a 60s DC Comic. They only source “spies” at the studio, so take it with a grain of salt for now.

The Metal Men consists of Gold, Iron, Lead, Mercury, Tin, and Platinum, six androids made entirely of their respective metal, and each with a unique superpower, along with their creator Will Magnus. The androids haven’t appeared yet in the DC New 52 universe, and were last featured prominently in Wednesday Comics and as a backup feature in Doom Patrol.

If Metal Men truly goes to screen, particularly before a Justice League film, it would mean that Platinum (as the female android) has made it to theaters ahead of Wonder Woman.