So the Star Wars Clone Was series finally kicked off last night. Like many I was anxious to see the final cut. I really have to give a big nod to Steve Melching and Henry Gilroy for doing such a great job with the scripting. They managed to bring some much lacking character back to Star Wars. Hurray!! This was always a big intention of mine, but it would have been futile if not for solid scripting. When I first read the script I immediately knew that story artist Rick Morales was the guy to handle the cave scene where Yoda encourages his Clone escorts. It was a important character peice at the script stage, but Rick stole the show by making this a somber yet inspiring moment with Star Wars' most iconic character. The soft glow of the lantern and the shot selection reinforced the mood perfectly. Sadly Rick's name went unlisted in the credits, so let's give him a round of applause for crafting a great Yoda scene! I hope Lucasfilm will correct this oversight for the next broadcast and dvd release. Also big thanks to Stewart Lee and Justin Ridge for all of the great storytelling they injected into the episode. They're great fellas too! Oddly a few guys who didn't work on the episode at all were credited in the storyboard listing. Wierd.
Overall I am pretty happy with the Episode. So much work goes into these things, and It's great to see your story and pacing sensebilities pay off.
As for giving the Clones individual traits and characteristics that was always one of Filoni and Gilroys main objectives. It is pivotal in getting the audience to care about these often faceless soldiers, and will benifit the series for it's entire duration.
The only things that got cut were two shots of giant flying Thantras (whale like creatures with wings). These guys initially flew over Yoda and his Clones at their pods landing site on Rugossas' moon. They were included to immediatly set up the magesty of the location and later tied back in as tiny baby Thantras landed on Yoda's shoulders at the end of his canyon fight. It's a shame they had to go as Yoda and Thire still have dialogue supporting them and it would have given a better tone to the show. The idea of juxtaposing the beauty and serenity of the enviorments and it's indigenous life, against the machined robots and war hardened clones (and all of the chaos they bring) was what I was shooting for. After all it's a trademark of Star Wars mythology. Yoda the buddist, fits right in here!
I know I saw the giant Thantras flying around in a promo shot for the show, so my guess is they weren't built in time to be included in this early episode.
Russell Chong is the talent who concieved of the moon's coral eviornment. I deviated a bit from the "fishtank" feeling for the canyon location, but still retained the pourous nook texture which lent itself perfect to the inclusion of natural caves. Designing locations that action can exploit is one of the fun things about directing. The color pallet is a bit "pastelly" for my taste, but there is enough Ralph McQuary thinking (mainly the orange sky) to keep it from being too garish.
Overall I would have liked to see more in the way of contact and cast shadows to anchor characters to the enviornment. Depicting weight is really important in "selling" the animation.
The animators did a great job, but bumping up the shadows a bit would have sold their work better.
Killian Plunket is such an amazing talent. He designed King Katoonko and his gaurds. Again, they were animated beautifully by the team in Singapore. In fact this entire episode was handled there and as some of thier early work, it came out amazing! Big appluase for LAS!! The series shines when you've got these great creature designs teamed with solid acting.
Katoonko's little visor was something we added at the story board stage to allow him to have his hands free while using binoculures.
It's been 2 years since I directed this episode. Having some distance from it I can objectivly (well as much as I can be) say I thought it was successful in it's efforts.
Thanks to everyone at LucasFilm for all of their hard work!
It's great to see Gonzo out of retirement!
Dave Bullock
