Star Wars

[Marcello]

First look at Ezra Bridger:

 

The Force will soon be strong with this one. Meet Ezra, a charismatic teenage con artist who is one of the main characters in the upcoming animated series Star Wars Rebels.

Premiering with a one-hour special this fall on the Disney Channel before moving to Disney XD as a weekly series, Rebels bridges the gap between the two Star Wars movie trilogies. Set in the Outer Rim territories in between Episodes III and IV — also known as 2005's Revenge of the Sith and 1977's A New Hope — the show follows the genesis of the rebellion that ultimately leads to the adventures of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and Princess Leia. Fourteen years after the massacre of most of the Jedi knights in Revenge of the Sith, the Galactic Empire has consolidated power and its despotic intentions are no longer a secret.

When we meet Ezra, he has little interest in becoming a revolutionary. The suave teen has been living on his own on the planet Lothal and is just starting to learn how to use his mysterious new powers. "To survive, instinctively every now and then when he's in a jam he uses the Force," exec producer Dave Filoni says in the exclusive preview video below. "He doesn't call it that. He doesn't know that's what he's doing. He thinks he's got some abilities that are a little strange every now and then, but they help him out. It's instinctive, it's reactionary."

As Darth Vader and Co. begin to expand their grip on the Outer Rim, Ezra will be drawn into the burgeoning rebel alliance. "With Ezra we see how a kid is reacting to this imperial rule," Filoni tells TV Guide Magazine. "That becomes a big question: What is imperial rule like? We've seen it in the movies with a big rebellion that ends up blowing up the Death Star, but do we just assume that when the Empire took over in Revenge of the Sith it was seen as a bad thing? I would challenge that. It wasn't this terrible thing that came in and was cruel to everyone all at once. It was slow to build its power base and spread out, and then we get to see the rebel alliance it affects, and the repercussions of that tyranny."

Ezra is played by Taylor Gray, who starred in the Nickelodeon series Bucket & Skinner's Epic Adventures. "I'm excited to voice the role of Ezra in Star Wars Rebels but I'm even more excited to be a part of the Star Wars legacy," Gray says. "I can't wait for fans new and existing to come together and see the next chapter in the most legendary tale known in the galaxy."

Filoni chose Gray for the role because his voice wasn't too contemporary. "I don't want to sound like I just went down to the local mall [to cast the role]," says Filoni, who also oversaw the previous Star Wars animated series, The Clone Wars. "There's a rawness to him that feels very authentic. Taylor really seems to be able to occupy the character in this time period of the Star Wars universe. He's a real kid who's out there in the galaxy."

For those hardcore Star Wars fans who might be groaning over such a young protagonist — and Filoni knows you're out there — have no fear, Ezra will be mentored by Kanan, a Jedi who survived the Emperor's purge and is part of the rebel movement. (Freddie Prinze Jr. voices the cowboy-like character.)

Check out this exclusive first look at a preview of the character. And tune in to Disney XD on Monday, Feb. 17 during Kickin' It (6/5c) and Lab Rats (6:30/5:30c) for the premiere of two new teaser trailers for Star Wars Rebels.

http://www.tvguide.com/News/Star-Wars-Rebels-Ezra-1077773.aspx

Once again, video at the link.

So, it looks like we can look forward to al the main characters being revealed now.

I like the design. Reminds me a bit of Aladdin. The clothes are reminiscent of the pilot overalls of the rebellion. And I really liked seeing his hair move around, after living with plastic haired Anakin in Clone Wars.

The idea of him using the Force without knowing what it is is nothing new, but it's something I always like.

As for the voice actor, I don't know anything about him and he doesn't have an English Wikipedia page, but here's a list of what he's been in from the Spanish page:

2011–2013     Bucket & Skinner's Epic Adventures     Bucket     Protagonista, Serie de TV Nickelodeon
2007     Numb3rs     Jo Santiago     "One Hour"
2007     The Tenth Day     Danny     
2007     A Starchy World     Classroom Kid 4     
2007     The Take     Javy De La Pena     
2007     Hawthorne     Carlos González     "No Guts, No Glory"
2007     The Mentalist     Shorter Kid

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_Gray

[Marcello]

Reposting from a different forum.
 
Some Rebels toys show off some designs, such as Zeb and some previously previously unknown characters:

http://www.starwars-union.de/nachrichten/13719/Bilder_von_den_neuen_Rebels-Spielzeuglinien/

 

I don't feel like reuploading the pics and when I tried posting them there was an error, so you'll have to go the the site, sorry.


As for the episodes that aired last night, here's a summary from Theforce.net:

Tup does not have a tumor, his organic chip - which consist of 'Klonprotokoll 66', most likely 'Clone protocol 66' in English - is failing. No explanation is given what caused that. Palpatine claims in the end that some sort of parasite was responsible for it.

The episode starts with a Republic attack on an apparently Separatist controlled world. Cyborg Trench is in charge of the defense. It may be that the Confederacy won that battle since the Anakin and the 501st are back on Coruscant in the last episode of the arc.
Trench witnesses Tups attack on the Jedi master, and informs Dooku. Tyranus informs Sidious who instructs him to capture that defective clone. Tyranus is very aware of the clone end game. He orders Trench to capture Tup, which he does with a tremendous amount of efficiency. It's very sad that we won't see him in future episodes...

Anakin, Rex, and Fives sneak to the outside of the Separatist hangar and capture the transport on which Tup was going to Serenno.

They decide to take Tup to Kamino for a full medical exam.

On Kamino it is revealed that Lama Su and the chief scientist working on the clones, Nala Se, are in cahoots with Lord Tyranus whom they contact. Tyranus wears his hood and is not recognizable as Dooku, but it's not really clear whether the Kaminoans know or care that they are working for the Sith. I bet they do and don't care.

Tyranus is worried whether the Tup situation is going to cause problems for 'clone protocol 66' on a larger scale. He provided the Kaminoans with the organic chip they implanted in all the clones and claims that Sifo-Dyas is the only other person knowing about this. We don't know if that's really the case, but I guess this will be revealed in the coming Yoda arc.

Nala Se claims a virus must be responsible for Tups behavior while examining him together with Shaak Ti. Fives wants to know what's wrong and teams up with a really funny Kaminoan medical droid whose number I don't remember. When the Shaak Ti and Nala Se are at odds whether to do a level 5 scan on Tup, Fives starts his own investigation on Tup and finds a tumor in his brain which is eventually removed by the droid. Upon which Tup dies in a very touching scene, muttering about the mission that's always going on his dreams, the mission all the clones know about. The tumor is no tumor at all but a degrading organic chip which is only revealed later.

Tup's remains and the tumor are supposed to be sent to Coruscant, but Shaak Ti and Nala Se disagree on whether they are supposed to be sent to the Jedi Council or to the Chancellor's new medical facility (the one in which Vader is built!).
Nala Se gives Shaak Ti fake evidence. Fives is supposed to stay on Kamino and is scheduled (without Shaak Ti knowing about it) for memory wipe and reprogramming just as his buddy, the medical droid, is. The Kaminoans always speak about the clones as if they are machines. They want to shut them down and stuff like that.
Fives escapes, determined to find out what is going on. He and the droid use medical facilities to find out if Fives as the same chip. It is found and removed. Fives then finds out that all the clones get them as embryos.

When Nala Se confronts him she claims that those chips are 'inhibitor chips' preventing the clones from becoming like Jango Fett (i.e. violent and disobedient). The order to that came from the Jedi, more precisely from Sifo-Dyas. She says that without his chip Fives has become a threat. She claims that Tup killed a Jedi because his chip was degrading. Fives is taken into custody to go to Coruscant and explain himself to Palpatine. On the way Nala Se injects Fives with a drug. They meet in the medical facility, in the very room where Vader is built. Palpatine sends everybody out but Fives and his guards and then claims that Fives tried to kill him (his clone guards are dead when Shaak Ti busts into the room). Palpatine hands the two chips - Tup's and Fives' - to Nala Se. The words they exchange strongly indicate that they both know that Palpatine is involved in this whole thing.
Fives is on the run, hides in a clone bar on Coruscant, is tracked by a probe droid, and eventually contacts Rex and Anakin (who are back on Coruscant). They want to meet but Fives gets more and more paranoid and erratic due to the drug he was injected with. He captured Rex and Anakin in ray shields, attempting to explain everything to them. That all the clones are used for something evil, that the evidence is in them (the chips), and that Palpatine is involved (he has even said as much to him, he claims, most likely offscreen). A bunch of Palpatine's personal clone guard arrives and eventually shoots Fives when he tries to reach for his weapon. Fives didn't want to go back with them.

Palpatine tells the Jedi a tale about a parasite from the world the 501st was fighting on in the beginning which was messing with the inhibitor chips of the two clones. He says a vaccine is developed to take care of the problem. The Jedi seem to buy the story. Nala Se contacts Darth Tyranus on Serenno, telling him that everything has been taken care of. Dooku removes his hood and contacts Sidious, and they both ensure each other that everything is going to plan and the Jedi won't see Order 66 coming. Sidious even laughs in the end.

http://boards.theforce.net/threads/tcw-bonus-material-episode-discussion-spoilers.50010467/page-257#post-51325652


Pretty great episodes that really started tying things together for Ep.3.

If you have a German IP address you can watch them here:
http://www.superrtlnow.de/star-wars-the-clone-wars/zustand-unbekannt.php?container_id=153365&player=1&season=6

And some more of a previously unknown character:

I saw some people speculating she's Bo Katan's daughter due to her name being similar to Satine and her helmet and chest plate looking similar to Bo's.

[Marcello]

Teaser trailers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qogqaJ2aXQc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cAwLmyARpE

Looks really great. I'm loving the facial animation. Especially where Ezra jumps off the Tie Fighter.

[Marcello]

More characters: Steve Blum Zeb and Sabine:

 

http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/02/18/star-wars-rebels-exclusive-first-look-meet-zeb

 

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/star-wars-rebels-meet-sabine-681433

 

You know, I wish someone would reply :U

[DarkRula]

All the new characters shown off for Rebels so far look good.

And the new toys shown off at the Toy Fair are mostly brilliant. But the LEGO ones look cool, especially the Rebels stuff. The Official Star Wars Blog had both the LEGO and Hasbro figures collected together in two posts. Still not sure I like the look of Rebels' Stormtroopers. The helmets look a bit too big for their head. The Inquisitor's lightsaber looks cool though.

 

Oh, and I just wish TT Games would hurry up and make a LEGO Star Wars 4 already.

[Rinzler]

Final Rebels characters:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzopG0SGJYI#t=80

 

I think they sound pretty fun, especially Sabine(grafitti Mandolorian ftw!).

[Marcello]

Hera reminds me of Katara from Avatar a bit. Which is good. Sabine seems cool, too. I hope the music from her trailer isn't in the show, though. Clone Wars tried using different styles of music early on and I didn't like it.

 

Anyone notice that Rebels is the first time we've gotten an entirely new cast since A New Hope?

 

Also, just to side note, none of the main cast seems to be white.

 

 

 

Clone Wars:

 

Season 6 English trailer:

Yoda vs. Sidious?

Probably something similar to Luke vs. Vader on Dagobah, but if not, I really need to see that explained.

[DarkRula]

Oh, that is just brilliant.

But it so makes me sad the series has been cancelled. It could have been so much more. I really hope a full documentary is made giving us insights into how the story would have ended. Maybe on the inevitable Collector's Edition of the Series.

Or, you know, more of the scripts adapted into comics.

[DarkRula]

Double post necessary as I will reveal now.

 

Vanessa Marshall, voice of Hera in Rebels, has done an interview with Newsarama about the series -

 

http://www.newsarama.com/20414-hera-speaks-star-wars-rebels-vanessa-marshall-on-pilot-plot-and-family-dynamic.html

 

- and it reveals quite a bit of something for those a little on the cautious side about this. For one, the series seems to be going for the 'pacing, energy and endearing quality' of the Original Trilogy, and characters have that same relationship between each other that made the OT cast so loved.

Other tidbits include how she came to love Star Wars, how she came to be Hera, a bit of a behind the scenes while in the recording studio, as well as mention of ComicCon [where the cast will be] and Star Wars Celebration 2015, which seems to hint at more being revealed at ComicCon, as well as the series being more than one season long [to be expected].

She also mentions that throughout the series we get to understand the characters more and why they are fighting against the Empire.

 

An interesting read, but it is long.

[188Eternal]

Last weekend I finally got my hands on a copy of this:

 

(Yes, I know that I'm 12 years late, but it's better late than never. )

 

IMO, what makes this particular product better than the prequel is the fact that the installation file is compatible with the Windows8 OS of my latest laptop, and also the fact that it fits perfectly on 1 CD instead of being on 2 CDs and prompting me to change disks through the middle of the experience.

Otherwise, I love both this product and its prequel equally.

So far I was able to progress almost up to the third level with only minimally resorting to a single cheat code in a few areas. It's fairly challenging, but not frustrating. Hopefully it will keep me preoccupied for several weeks to distract me from all of the depression and turmoil that's been happening in my personal life lately.

[DarkRula]

Oh Season 6 of The Clone Wars, you are a beaut!

Thirteen episodes of pure goodness. Won't spoil for those that haven't seen it yet [that'll be most of the world then. Well, those who don't want to use Hola, anyway] but woah do we have more dark themes here than in any one season before. Trust me, not one episode was boring.

[Rinzler]

Crap I forgot all about that tbh. Too bad my power is out though.

[Willsy]

Oh Season 6 of The Clone Wars, you are a beaut!

Thirteen episodes of pure goodness. Won't spoil for those that haven't seen it yet [that'll be most of the world then. Well, those who don't want to use Hola, anyway] but woah do we have more dark themes here than in any one season before. Trust me, not one episode was boring.

What's Hola? I really want to see these, this is the most hyped I've been for The Clone Wars since the first three seasons. Sad to see it go though....

[DarkRula]

Hola is an add-on for Google Chrome which can switch out servers of websites so it reads as being from a different country.

That way, you can just set it once installed to the US, head onto Netflix, and it should be the US version. Just sign in or create an account [remember to retract the subscription rights if you don't want to keep it after the month trial though] and watch away.

[Willsy]

Damn, can't do that since I'm on iPad. Thanks for telling me though.

Any chance of it popping it on streaming sites?

Also.....

Looks like Ahsoka will be in Rebels. This is good news.

[DarkRula]

Well, all other seasons have usually appeared on streaming sites within a day of their release. But with the mass release of all of these, as well as where the distribution of content is, it will probably take a couple of days and be down within one.

I expect a mass rollout of this onto other countires' Netflix sites soon enough though, if it gets favoured enough on the US.

[Willsy]

Oh, turns out you can get Hola on Wii (maybe Wii U). I'll try that

[DarkRula]

I know it's been out since March 2012, but has anyone else heard of Fantasy Flight Games' Star Wars: The Card Game, or even, y'know, how to play it? I'd never even heard of it before today, and probably wouldn't have found it had I not just been casually browsing Chaos Cards to see what other games there are.

[Doctor MK]

Potential Episode VII teaser logo revealed?

 

 

I see what they did there

[AlphaRuby]

Potential Episode VII teaser logo revealed?

 

 

I see what they did there

hue hue hue

 

Good one Disney.

[Willsy]

NO. WHAT THE FUCK? NO. JUST NO.

Where the hell is VII? Where is it?

Oh.....it could be fake/not final.

[Doctor MK]

NO. WHAT THE FUCK? NO. JUST NO.

Where the hell is VII? Where is it?

Oh fuck you Disney.

 

It's a teaser logo. The actual film will have the usual "Episode VII" logo, I'm sure. They can't very well use this new style for Episodes VIII and IX can they, after all?

 

Besides, it's not even confirmed to be real. Either way though it's still pretty clever.

[AlphaRuby]

http://uk.ign.com/articles/2014/03/18/star-wars-episode-vii-will-be-set-30-years-after-return-of-the-jedi

 

Key points off this article:

 

• Episode 7 will take place 30 years after Return of the Jedi
• The film will have “a trio of new young leads along with some very familiar faces.”
• Principal photography will start this May at London's Pinewood Studios.

[188Eternal]

Finally bought the Season5 DVD set of Clone Wars to celebrate the fact that I'm almost done college.

And I'm super excited for Episode7, regardless of how it turns out.

[Chaos Incarnate]

 

http://uk.ign.com/articles/2014/03/18/star-wars-episode-vii-will-be-set-30-years-after-return-of-the-jedi

 

Key points off this article:

 

• Episode 7 will take place 30 years after Return of the Jedi
• The film will have “a trio of new young leads along with some very familiar faces.”
• Principal photography will start this May at London's Pinewood Studios.

 

It's nothing I wasn't expecting, but I'm glad this film isn't entirely placing spotlight on the old crew. I feel like they're all too old to really continue and deliver the same magic they did with the classic films (mainly speaking toward Harrison Ford), but I'm happy we'll be presumably be getting the Solo children in-film. I'm disheartened this is writing away an entire lore of stories after Episode 6, but Jacen Solo's character arc is one of the most intriguing in the Star Wars franchise, and I'm really intrigued to see how it could possibly play out if it's actually being done.

 

Some shared focus on younger leads and JJ Abrams directing are what's giving me optimism for this project. I don't really feel Episode 7 is a story that absolutely has to be told, but I'm glad George Lucas' involvement is being kept at a minimum, and it's being done by talented people that actually seem to want to do the series justice.