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Delving into "STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS" - the 2008 movie prelude to the TV series | 034
13 Plays7 hours ago
Join Branwen and Seah as they deep dive into all things Star Wars. Follow along as we fly off exploring all the wonders and geekery of a Galaxy Far, Far Away, chatting nostalgia, worlds, lore, sound, music, story, behind the scenes, and much more with each other and some very special guests.
We've hit Season 3! This is our first episode covering the Clone Wars proper, and to kick things off we're deep diving into the 2008 Lucasfilm animation movie "Star Wars: The Clone Wars", the feature that served as a pilot to the TV show. We get into the background of the movie, the key characters, the storytelling, the cinematography and visual design, sounds, music, baby Rotta (of course!), the voice actors, connections to the TV show and beyond, and much more.
Sisters of the Force is a weekly, UK-based, Star Wars podcast, produced with joy and love by Seah and Branwen. Sisters of the Force theme by Seah and Branwen.
Follow us on Instagram @sistersoftheforcepod, Bluesky @sistersoftheforce.bsky.social, TikTok @sistersoftheforcepod, https://www.youtube.com/@SistersoftheForce, and https://www.facebook.com/sistersoftheforcepod.
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Transcript
Favorite Clone Wars Characters
00:00:03
Speaker
Amen.
00:00:16
Speaker
branden Hello, Hello. Who is your favourite character, new or returning, from star Wars The Clone Wars? My favourite character is the Dathomirian Nightsister, Sarge Ventress. Oh, nice. Who rocks. I've been so looking forward to her character arc in terms of a rewatch because I love her so much. Interesting.
Season 3 Podcast Introduction
00:00:40
Speaker
Okay. Sia.
00:00:42
Speaker
Hi. Who is your favourite character from Star Wars, The Clone Wars? Zero the Hutt. Oh, that was my second choice. Ventress is my second choice. Classic. are so connected. This is why we're here.
00:00:59
Speaker
Yay. I was just like, well, this is a clearly a queer icon in the... Absolutely. The most unapologetically queer hat you can possibly imagine. So good. We love him. This is incredible.
00:01:14
Speaker
Anyway, let's go. You're listening to Sisters of the Force, a Star Wars podcast with me, Bramwen. And me, Sia. Hello. Hello. Welcome to season three officially. I mean, we've had a couple of season three episodes already. but We have, yeah. Yeah. We'll just keep celebrating. We're going to celebrate for a long
Origin of The Clone Wars Film
00:01:30
Speaker
time yet. This is the first of our Clone Wars watch slash rewatch episodes, which is going to make up the bulk of season three interspersed by our journeys into Wild Space episodes. Indeed.
00:01:42
Speaker
But yeah, I'm very excited because Clone Wars begins here. Yeah. I knew that it started with a film, but was this also episodes at some point? It wasn't officially. It was originally intended to be. okay I think the kind of original like concept of it was going to be three episodes, all with castle in the title, right because it's obviously based around the monastery where they take baby Ratta. And there was going to be a fourth episode, which is kind of like a prequel, which would be the introduction of Ahsoka called The New Padawan, I think it was going to be called. So yeah, it never existed like that in real terms, but that was how they originally...
Transition from Test Footage to Film
00:02:23
Speaker
and talk of it I think the story goes that George was obviously helping or involved with the new team, developing the animation style. And like it took a lot of R&Ding to get to the point of where we see it in the film. sure Somewhere along that way, they did a screening of some test footage. And George was like, this is awesome.
00:02:44
Speaker
This should be a film. This should be on the big screen. So they just decided to do that. So did. Excellent. like it. Which is great because it really did kick the series off in a big way. Yeah. Like with an explosion of a nearly two hour film. Yeah. I was thinking, is it like an hour and a bit or something? It's quite long. Like hour 45, something like that. I can't remember the exact runtime, but it's a proper film. It is a proper film. It's so packed. There's so much going on.
Chronological vs Release Order Viewing
00:03:11
Speaker
It's like a film, but with the pacing of the animation shows. Because the animation shows were all quick. You know, normally they've got 20 minutes to get, you know. Yeah, Get you in and enormous And it's like that pace, but for an hour and 40 minutes, which is why I've got 161 bullet points for it.
00:03:25
Speaker
it for Of course, of course you have. It was such a joy. I had so much fun. It was, yeah. I watched this film probably about three years ago for the first time. okay I don't think I'd seen it before then. And I started Clone Wars watch for the first time and started with the film. I'm very like chronological about things. love to do things in order of of release. I hasten to it because I know there are other ways of watching the Clone Wars. yeah But I think the first time around, because it is so
Using the Character Encyclopedia
00:03:53
Speaker
much. Yeah. And obviously I knew some of the characters, but there are a lot of new characters. And I think I was just a little bit overwhelmed with Whiplash. Yeah, quite.
00:04:02
Speaker
You clearly didn't have your ah Clone Wars character encyclopedia that we all have now. Absolutely. We have collectively got... Our Clone Wars Encyclopedia, which, by the way, is on Amazon for not very much money. So if you're following along with us. Also on Goodreads for not so much money.
Merchandise and Character Insights
00:04:20
Speaker
so Yeah. Yeah.
00:04:21
Speaker
Yeah. Get it from it in or other independent bookshops, obviously, if you can. I found mine on a wall. I think I said this in the last episode. That's about the most independent. That's the most independent you can get.
Format Change: Lines to Characters
00:04:32
Speaker
A wall in Bishopston. It's a really useful book in terms of just simple facts, very colourful. I think it's designed for kids, but I love that. Oh my God, it's so good. The whole time I was watching the film, I just had the book open and was like, who's that? No idea. Missed the name. It's all right. I can find them. Yeah. Yes, yeah, yeah. I can find out who they are. So for the first time ever, maybe, know all of the names of all the characters. Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. Me too. I'm usually, I just can't. I watch a series and I'm about eight episodes and I still don't know who any of the characters are. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whereas now we can be looking it up as we on. Literally look it So good. Talking of which, you may have noticed a slightly different format at the beginning of our episode. Yes. How dare we change the format.
00:05:17
Speaker
I think variety is the spice of life and we can change the format whenever we like.
Ahsoka Tano and Asajj Ventress: Character Deep Dive
00:05:22
Speaker
We absolutely can. So instead of doing our favourite line, which, you know, we enjoyed. That was fun. But we're going to change to our favourite character, because partly because of these encyclopedias, I think, because it shows you how many characters there are in the Clone Wars as a whole. is It's a lot. It is a lot. yeah But also because I love a tally chart. Yes. And I am so excited to make some tally charts to see if our favourite characters return, see if we have a different favourite per arc, or yeah, just see see how it goes, really. Yeah.
00:05:57
Speaker
Yeah, we don't have to pick a ah new character every time. No. I mean, probably could because of amount. But no, I think there is this factor of like, it's kind of an MVP thing for us. Like who is yeah the most important person in this episode to
Creation and Design of Ahsoka
00:06:12
Speaker
us? Yes. that might be Ahsoka many times or it might be Anakin or it might be everyone or whatever. But it could equally be background, you know. Background characters or queer villains. Yes.
00:06:24
Speaker
So while we're here then, and I think this could become part of this regular slot, is yeah let's just dig into those characters a bit, especially the first time they come around, to help us get to know them a bit more and our listeners to get to know them a bit more. If you're on a first-time watch with us, getting to know the background of these characters is possibly useful. It certainly is for me. So you said Ventress.
00:06:45
Speaker
Yeah. My immediate Ventress notes... Oh, my first Ventress note is, oh, hi. Are having feelings for an animated character already? i have been known to do that. Yeah, I know this about you. That was the first book note. But also, is this the first time we've ever met Ventress then? Is she a brand new character to this or have we heard about her somewhere before? Yeah, I don't think she'd been anywhere. I'm just, my brain is playing. No, I don't think that. I think this is our introduction. Okay. I love this about this film, and I love this about the Clone Wars generally, is that it always throws you in in the middle of something. Yeah. Which is so on brand for Star Wars, as we know from A New Hope onwards. True. But it really does that, and it does that with the character. it kind of assumes you know these people, even if you've never met them. The only character, really, that gets a proper introduction in this episode is Ahsoka. Ahsoka, yeah. But that's because the characters are meeting her for the first time. Yeah, I think as well, because she does sort of become the protagonist of the Crow Wars in a she is Yeah.
00:07:48
Speaker
in a way yeah and she is us yeah I saw a little interview, i think it was with George it might have been with Dave, I can't remember which, talking about Ahsoka and how important she is. Because Anakin has now risen in status, he's no longer a Padawan, he's no longer training. Sure. And i thought yeah, I'm sure it was George. he I think he sort of said that the audience liked to have a kind of, you know, a student to follow because like they're learning about the galaxy and we're learning about it through their eyes. But because our other two protagonists, Obi-Wan and Anakin, are now Jedi Knights,
00:08:21
Speaker
There's nobody for us to sort of go with, if you know what i mean, on the adventure. So this is why they introduced Ahsoka. as like us And also I saw Dave Filoni saying, and she's a woman and she's a Jedi. And let's face it, that's much needed. was like, yes, Dave. Thank you, Dave. definitely is. Thank you. Thank you for acknowledging We will take it. are Sith women, Ventress. Yeah. Great. I think it's probably why I chose her. like i I mean, I just love her. So her background yeah is, as I said in the intro, she's Dathomirian. She comes Dathomir. She's one of the Nightsisters, which we're going to see quite a bit more of. If you watched the Ahsoka TV show, you will have seen some live action Nightsisters. Oh my God, I'm so excited.
00:09:02
Speaker
Which is incredible. And by the way, I'm following this amazing trio of cosplayers who do incredible Nightsister characters. I may have reshared some of them on the Instagram account, but accident I will do again because they're so lush.
00:09:15
Speaker
But yeah, she was taken as a child on a planet called Ratatak. It rings a bell to me, but I can't remember much about it. that is. So she was nicked by pirates. And then there was a so stranded Jedi knight there called Narek, which again, that name rings a bell. I'm sure to find out who he is.
00:09:33
Speaker
ah He was killed before he could sort of finish training her. And so she was then like angry about his death and the fact that she was now left with no one, which made a prime acolyte material for Darth Tyranus to find and take under his wing.
00:09:49
Speaker
yeah ah She is pretty cool. She's cool looking. at Her character design is incredible. it's Such incredible design. yeah And her arc, no spoilers, but like she keeps going beyond the Clone Wars as well. Oh, I'm excited. There's a brilliant novel called Dark Disciple about her, which is...
00:10:08
Speaker
Yeah, fantastic listen as well. Her connections with some of the Jedi and where she ends up is beautiful. And I don't think we've like heard the last from her still. I think where we last saw her technically, I'm not going to say where that is in case people haven't watched all of the things. Okay. But it's definitely leaving things open for more Asajj in the future. Ah, And so Zero, oh my gosh.
00:10:33
Speaker
i Zero's great. As soon as he appeared, I was like, well, this is a hut I can get behind. In terms of like, he just seems like he's so much fun. Yeah. Love a queer villain to start with. Yeah. So he's Jabba's uncle. Yeah. Which plays a lot. Gay uncle. Excellent. The old gay uncle. I love it.
00:10:55
Speaker
He's like tattooed all over, which... Yeah, with like ultraviolet reactive paint sort of vibe. I don't know So one of my jobs is as a UV reactive slug. and like so I just felt very, very connected to Zero in this.
00:11:12
Speaker
That's hilarious. Very connected to Zero in all of this. But my notes on him was, is this the first time we hear a Hutt speaking common straight away? i think it was, yes. Yeah.
00:11:24
Speaker
Because instantly, he doesn't speak Huttese until he's talking to Jabba. Yeah. Yeah. Which is really cool. He lives on Coruscant and yeah just seems to be living his best life. He's just having a whale of a time.
00:11:37
Speaker
And he makes some lovely little snide comments about Rotter and just... He's just an absolute bitch in the best way possible.
00:11:50
Speaker
Also, the book says, obviously we haven't got to this bit yet, but apparently Size Noodles is an old flame of his, which is like, what?
00:11:59
Speaker
I need that content. I don't think we get that content, sadly, but oh my gosh. I'm sure, yeah. Wow. I can't. I can't even begin to imagine, but I love her Great, love it.
00:12:13
Speaker
It's just fun. Yeah. But yeah, also a sneaky rat, double-crossing everyone. and Yeah. yeah And then goes and blames Pandooku on it. It's just like, it wasn't my fault. Like, oh yeah, come on then. There was ah ah quite a bit in this film with Jabba doing the same thing, where they're just constantly changing their angle to stay on the upper ground, you know? And they'll just tell lies at the drop of a hat just to make...
00:12:38
Speaker
yeah but So fun. But they are the criminal underworld, so what can you expect, to really? They're slippery slugs. They are slippery slugs. That was my other thing about this film, was like the Jedi were desperately kind of trying to make deals with Hutts, and I was like, this seems very odd. Yeah, it was quite a specific detail, which I think I missed both times. It was only afterwards I think I was looking stuff up, researching whatever.
00:13:01
Speaker
to sort of really understand that it was to do with rite of passage through hu space, you know, yeah or certain parts of the Outer Rim or whatever. yeah Because the separatists, they're taking control in those Outer Rim type areas yeah and the Republic need to have access to those places yes yeah to keep trade going and everything else. And so the huts were, yeah, they were just cashing in on their yeah their kind of geography. really Yeah. but So I thought before we get stuck into details about the film, it would probably be good to talk about the background of it a little bit. Yeah, tell me.
00:13:36
Speaker
Although this isn't the first animation that came out of Lucasfilm, it was way more significant than anything that had come before. Yeah. So we'd had like the droids and Ewoks cartoons back in the 80s. Yeah. And then there is that other version of the Clone Wars, which Yeah, so that's the one I've seen. Yeah, the 2D one. Yeah. Yeah, okay. So that was the first of the Clone Wars I saw as well. And I wasn't a massive fan at the time. i think it was very quick. They were very short episodes and I wanted something a bit more... Meaty. Yeah, a bit more meaty. Sure. ah But yeah, that was the original thing. It was a microseries on Cartoon Network yeah by Genndy Tartakovsky, which he sort of developed with George Lucas and has been sort of moved into Legends now. So yeah although some interesting stuff happens in it and I've since watched it,
00:14:24
Speaker
It doesn't have an impact on canon yet. Right, got it. But that was kind of ah almost like a test run, I think, in Lucas's mind. I think he always wanted more from the Clone Wars. Sure. He saw as an opportunity to really fill in the galaxy at this point. And he talks a lot about the fact that the films were very much the Skywalker story, the story of Anakin. And although Anakin is in the Clone Wars, there's so much more in the Clone Wars and he couldn't,
00:14:52
Speaker
really justify putting it in the movies in any more detail than he you did with just that little bit of the end of Attack of the Clones and yeah the very, very end of it at the beginning of Revenge of the Sith. So he always wanted to explore that. gave him an opportunity to explore so many different characters, planets, civilizations, whatever. And yeah, he got taste of it with the little 2D animation, but this is where he wanted to go big. He found Filoni. He needed somebody who loved Star Wars and knew Star Wars really well, but was also an animation whiz. And Filoni is that person. Excellent. Yeah. And so they kind of locked themselves away in Skywalker Ranch. They took over an entire house with a team of brilliant animators and designers and started evolving the style. They looked at anime and manga. Obviously, you can see the influence of that. But also, which I hadn't acknowledged, but I love it now I know it, is, you know, the sort marionette series is like Thunderbirds. Oh, Thunderbirds. Captain Scarlet. Yeah. Yeah. So that's a massive influence. And if you look at the 3D models of Anakin, for instance, and imagine them as a marionette. Yeah, the way they move. Totally. It is that, yeah.
00:16:04
Speaker
I think one of the first and biggest developments of it was creating Ahsoka, who's obviously yeah a kind of protagonist we've already mentioned. She was originally designed to be called Ashla, ok which was in Legends the planet Tython, which is where Mando takes Grogu to reach out to the Force, yeah the yeah the mountainous sort of area that they went. That's the planet Tython in canon. But in Legends...
00:16:31
Speaker
It was a different planet. Well, it was probably the same planet, but just felt a bit different. But it had two moons. One was called Ashla, and that's the sort of the light side moon. So that was going to be Ahsoka's name, but they yeah kind of just morphed it a little bit. yeah I'm sure we'll get to Tales of the Jedi eventually. yes But listener, if you haven't watched it yet, it's a very good listener. There are Tales of on Disney Plus and their little animated series, very easy to watch, very short. Each section consists of three stories normally, and each season is like two lots of that. So Tales of the Jedi was the first one. So I had a little three-episode thing about Ahsoka and a three-episode thing about...
00:17:09
Speaker
Dooku, I think, was the other one. okay And in the Ahsoka one, we learn a bit about her past, where she came from. And you can also find out more about her from the novel by E.K. Johnston, which is amazing, by the way.
00:17:22
Speaker
And in both of those... properties, she is using at a certain point the name Ashla as like ah an alias when she's hiding yeah for different reasons. so So they do kind of keep that. Yeah, it's kept that, which is very Star Wars. Where does Snipes come from then? Is it Snipes or Snips he calls it? Snips. Snips. Because she's snippy.
00:17:46
Speaker
Just because she's argumentative. The very first time he kind of talks to her, his first conversation, and he says, you're very snippy or something. I can't remember the exact line. Yeah. But yeah, and I think the fact that she starts calling him Sky Guy immediately. That's so funny. He starts calling her Snips, which is brilliant. I noticed a lot in the film that there's a lot of like nicknames and slang stuff going on, particularly with the Soka she calls the battle droids. Oh, what she call them? Tinnies. Tinnies, yeah. So the clones are calling them clankers and she's calling them tinnies. And then later on she calls the IG Magna Guards stick tinnies because they carry those purple shock weapons. It's so funny.
00:18:32
Speaker
She's great. I love that they give Anakin a padawan against his will. I think that was great. Yeah, definitely. and I'd forgotten how quickly he did embrace it. I feel like he was fighting it for a lot longer in my memory, but yeah, he's quickly on board. I think because she comes up with some good ideas quite early and he's like, oh, you could almost see him double taking. And she chats back. I think it's important that Ahsoka chats back to Anakin or otherwise he wouldn't accept it. She keeps him on his toes. Yeah. Obi-Wan is just so eye-rolling-y and, you know, he's so done with Anakin most of the time. Whereas Snips is more like, yeah, come on, give me more.
00:19:07
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's see what else you got. Lucas decided she should be an alien because he could see that, you you can animate human faces. Yes. And you can capture likenesses of actors from the live action stuff. Yeah. But he felt like having an alien gives you a bit more freedom and a bit less pressure. Yeah.
00:19:28
Speaker
I can see that. I've noticed like her eyes are huge compared to her. She's kind of much more anime kind of style. yeah But I love the stylized cartoonness of all of it. yeah One of my favorite character designs in this is Count Dooku. He looks incredible.
00:19:45
Speaker
Yeah, he's like your best 80s cartoon villain design. Yeah, so good. Yeah, I mean, the animation style develops through the show, obviously, and then with successive shows like Rebels and Bad Batch and Maul now, they've kind of developed the animation in different ways for different series.
00:20:04
Speaker
I feel like this is a really solid blueprint. There is a sense of realism about it. I noticed the Palpatine's office scene and the office background just looks exactly like the office background in the movie. It's just the same, yeah. Yeah. The same bit. Background-wise, they're really interesting. And the planet designs and stuff is really cool. Yeah.
00:20:24
Speaker
But yeah, I think they build on the character to models. And obviously Ahsoka changes because she's so young. Well, yeah, she grows. I think she's supposed to be like 14 or whatever, which the big eyes thing feeds into that you know childlike thing But yeah, as as the series grows, and then when we meet her again in animation in later shows, she looks different again. Yeah.
00:20:44
Speaker
Also, they do just drop her into a battlefield. Yeah, I mean, they drop us and her. It's a bit like, okay. Yeah, straight away, like... Welcome to Star Wars. There you go. On the front lines. Off you go. There's a lot conversation about the fact of Jedi Padawans being kids, effectively. Yeah, yeah, She's During the Clone Wars, they were just sent out to fight because they just needed people on the front line. And she's a really great example of that. But yeah, it's pretty shocking in a lot of ways. Yes. Obviously, this episode is bit of a kind of introduction to the whole of The Clone Wars. We're going be talking about all of these things as The Clone Wars develops, but here we are at the very beginning. feel like we can't not mention the voice actors because they bring so much. I watched a lot amazing behind-the-scenes recording sessions this week just because I really excited. And seeing them recording together, which Filoni is a great
00:21:39
Speaker
a lover of putting the voice actors in together, which I think doesn't happen a lot in animation. no Like a lot of the time the actors record their lines individually. But yeah I've heard the Rebels cast on part of Rebellion talking about this, the fact that they would record together yeah because they can react to each other and yeah they bring a lot of energy that way, which would be harder to summon if you're on your own in the booth. Yeah. Yeah.
00:22:02
Speaker
yeah And they use a lot of physicalisation while they're performing as well. a lot of the the scenes are very physical. It's a battle a lot of the time. there's a lot of physical struggle involved and watching them do physical performances while they're recording is really interesting. i love that.
00:22:18
Speaker
The banter between Anakin and Obi-Wan, I feel like that would be really hard to capture without... Without being in the same room. Yeah, yeah, completely. So Ashley Eckstein is Ahsoka. She's one of my favorite people. She's just one of my favorite people generally. She's a brilliant ambassador for Star Wars. yeah She's a brilliant ambassador for women in Star Wars. She's developed a clothing line for women called Her Universe. Go and check it out if you want you know to get some Star Wars clothes. are not She is a great proponent of mental health stuff. She does Mental Health Mondays, I think it is, on Instagram. okay Star Wars have featured her on...
00:22:54
Speaker
The YouTube channel doing stuff about mental health as well. She's just an all-round awesome person. Lush. And did she voice Ahsoka all the way through the Clone Wars then? Yeah. And Rebels and beyond. She is the voice of Ahsoka. I was a little bit... don't know. I had mixed feelings when they announced live-action Ahsoka and it wasn't there.
00:23:13
Speaker
yeah I know why they did what they did, yeah but I still can't help feeling a bit gutted about that, in a way. Just for her, really. I mean, I'm gutted for some of the other voice actors who didn't get cast when live-action versions of their characters came out, but I think her particularly, because she's such a key part of all of Star Wars animation.
00:23:32
Speaker
Ahsoka turns out multiple times in multiple seasons of different things. Yeah. And she's at the heart of it. And she I think she was one of the the few actors that was voicing a new character. So she was creating the character voice-wise herself, whereas a lot of the others were having to work on their- Go off other performances. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:23:51
Speaker
Which is also interesting. Yeah, yeah. Having to adopt Ewan McGregor's Obi-Wan for however many seasons. We can now reflect and realise that James Arnold Taylor, i think we've mentioned this already, but he's played Obi-Wan Way more, yeah.
00:24:06
Speaker
than More than Ewan has. Ewan Alec Guinness put together. you know He's very much made Obi-Wan. And I think Ewan McGregor spoke about that when making the Obi-Wan TV series because obviously all this has come out in the intervening years. yeah So he's been able to go back and watch The Clone Wars, for instance, and see what Obi-Wan has developed. you know What has James Arnold Taylor brought to the character that he could then bring to his interpretation? That's really interesting. And a really interesting kind of like...
00:24:33
Speaker
if you play a character at some point, but then it's almost retrospective because Alec Guinness played it first. Yeah, yeah, he was already basing it on somebody else, yeah. Yeah, so Ewan McGregor is basing a character off Alec Guinness, who's then going on and, what? It's a massively collaborative yeah character building thing. I love it. But then that's kind of, i guess that's what happens. We're used to seeing that in theatre or live performance a bit more because yeah you'll do the same plays with different actors yeah over and over again.
00:25:04
Speaker
so Sometimes you get stand-ins and then they get recast when the other when the main actor goes off to do something else. Yeah, yeah that's super interesting. hadn't thought of it like that. But you only get that in something that's so epic and sprawling like Star Wars that has so many different bits of it. Yeah. Yeah. yeah Some of the characters were their original live-action voices yes for this film. I think that didn't necessarily continue, but we had Anthony Daniels. I think Anthony Daniels is pretty much exclusively voiced C-3PO. I don't think anybody else has ever done that. Fair play to him. He's always there. He's just like probably the the person who's in the most Star Wars. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Samuel Jackson and Christopher Lee, I think, voiced Mace and Dooku in this, which they didn't continue that that. The voice actors took over from here on. Although I think they may have come back at certain point later on. We will find out. too right interesting ah Matt Wood, who plays the battle droids. yeah Roger Roger. And he also plays Grievous as well. There's some great footage of him recording because obviously throw those characters have been manipulated with audio effects and processing to make them sound like droids. But hearing his original voices of them is really interesting as well. Like he's certainly laid the foundations for those characters. Okay. And then the technology is kind of
00:26:26
Speaker
Just helping. yes Which is really, really cool. That is really cool. I love the battle droids in this. I love, they're just used for comedy. um i feel like the Clone Wars made me love the battle droids. I think when I watched the prequels originally, I was... Oh, they were just annoying. Yeah, I was not a huge fan. Like, I could see why they were what they were, and I know they were appealing to kids and everything else, but I just found them a little bit annoying. Yeah. Whereas in Clone Wars, they just get better and better. Yeah. We talked a little bit before we started recording about the fact that through this podcast, through seasons one and two, we've been tracking droid behavior. Yeah.
00:26:59
Speaker
And that Clone Wars is going to give us a whole whole load of that. i that To the point I've got like a color code for droid behavior now. They're really sassy. My favorite battle droid moment is ah one who comes up to Ventress and is just like, shall I tell him you failed? And she chucks him off a cliff. Yeah, she false pushes him off a cliff.
00:27:21
Speaker
The best use of the force push ever. There was another falling off the cliff moment with a battle droid where a battle droid was using macro binoculars, which to me is ridiculous as well. like You're a droid. Program that into the photoreceptors. I don't know. But then he falls off the cliff because he loses his balance. What? You're a droid.
00:27:45
Speaker
We also see a super battle droid falling off a Yes. And he moans because we were talking the other week about battle droid voices and that we hear them very often. This one cries out in terror as he falls the death. Yeah, he does.
00:27:57
Speaker
Which again is interesting behaviour for a droid. Like they know they're in imminent peril of death. Yeah, yeah. And so they moan or cry out like humans do. so Have I told you about what happened when I data bent that Furby and I started to like take it apart and it screamed at me? Yes, yes. Yes.
00:28:14
Speaker
That's tracking droid behaviour in real life. That was that was quite unnerving. had to take the batteries out to stop it wailing at me. Poor little Furby. To be fair, you were doing some pretty gruesome things to Furby's at the time. I was, yeah.
00:28:29
Speaker
They sound cool, though. Yeah, I mean, like ah we've now seen battle droids being repurposed and rebuilt and everything. and Yeah. As evidence, I bring Mr. Bones from the Aftermaths trilogy, who is an incredible reprogrammed battle droid. I guess we don't see the actual rebuilding of them or the reprogramming. We just know what they went through. But they usually seem quite happy. We've just seen some in The Mandalorian and Grogu. They've got a whole new life. Yeah, they do. They seem quite chill. So I suppose if we're going to get the film, as we're halfway through the episode, we haven't even talked about the film specifically much.
00:29:06
Speaker
It's apparently based on, well, not based on, but it borrowed some aspects from a samurai film, unsurprisingly. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. That tracks. A 1989 film called Shogun's Shadow, which I've not seen, um but I think it involves the kind of the kidnapping yeah of the child kind of thing, which I guess is yeah the kind of heart of the story.
00:29:27
Speaker
Considering that we sort of mentioned that this is almost has its origins in individual episodes. yeah It did feel like a pretty solid structure, like a pretty much like through storyline, which I hadn't remembered it being so coherent in that way. Not that it wasn't coherent, but I feel like it jumped around a lot and went to different places. A lot more.
00:29:45
Speaker
It does have a fairly solid story of, yeah which is what I guess comes from Shogun's shadow with kidnapping our little baby Rota, which watching it now, having having seen the Mandalorian for the first time, fallen so much in love with Rota the Hutt as a teenager or whatever he is. He's a teenager in that, but he's a hutlet in this. He's cute little hutlet. In the encyclopedia, it under the description of Rotter, it says that Ventress hutnaps him, which I think is really cute. Hutnaps him. I love it. Or hutletnap. It should really be, I think. Bit of mouthful. She hutletnaps him. And he is he's so tiny and he's so cute, but also he's animated really weirdly. Yeah. I don't know what it is about him. I'm just like, you don't quite fit.
00:30:34
Speaker
But also you do. And it's it's very odd. I've been getting my algorithm on Instagram has figured out my rotter obsession. now I'm getting loads that content. Of course it has.
00:30:48
Speaker
Rotter content. I've seen people unboxing like Rotter things. I didn't realise that there is an Ahsoka action figure with backpack with little baby Rotter. It's too tiny. It's kind of a collector's one. It's a bit more expensive than other figures. But my eBay, yeah. I did see someone had three d printed a baby Rotter and like painted it beautifully like a mini. That came up on my Instagram as well. Yeah.
00:31:14
Speaker
Our Instagrams are now quite aligned, I think. Yeah, I think so. I saw somebody unboxing an actual rucksack, which has got a life-size plushie, which is just gorgeous.
00:31:29
Speaker
That's so funny. lady who's unboxing it, she's just losing it as she pulls them out. And I'm like, yeah, I'm there. I need to find out where you got that from. adorable. So yeah that rucksack, I had a question about that.
00:31:42
Speaker
it's quite niche it's got an imperial cog on it and then that got me thinking about when did the symbols and stuff become because we've got the imperial cog we know that as being quite menacing but obviously that's also a the clone troopers have it to start with yeah well I think it's and then it becomes an imperial thing slightly different slightly different version it's a definite evolution the same way as the republic evolved into the into the rebellion one don't no the rebellion evolved into the new republic symbol yeah Yeah. so like the
00:32:13
Speaker
the original rebellion symbol, I think, was a Sabine design with the phoenix. Okay. Which then connects to the New Republic one, I think. And in a similar way, yeah, tracking the original Republic going into the Age of the Empire, going into the First Order is like a ah kind of ongoing development. But yeah, it's weird to think that we are, I mean, we're seeing that. We've got Admiral Yelaren in the film, who we then later see working for the Empire. yeah He's in Andor, you know, he's part yeah yeah the Empire there. yeah And the ships have become more and more like Star Destroyers as time goes on. We obviously see that in Attack of the Clones when they're
00:32:53
Speaker
all taking off at the end of the film and you're like, wow, okay, are. It's all quite sinister and you're like, oh I know how this is going to turn. Yeah, yeah. And I don't mean, clone troopers obviously are like the original precursor to stormtroopers.
00:33:05
Speaker
So yeah, it is weird to see that and to see the Jedi being part of that. yeah And I mean, we'll track Ahsoka's story, but her relationship with the Jedi and how... She kind of says what a lot of us have been thinking, you know, yeah yeah in in universe kind of thing, which is interesting. So to see her carrying that, yeah.
00:33:24
Speaker
It's kind of odd. Yeah. So they go they call Rotter Stinky throughout the whole. Yeah. Throughout whole thing, they've just renamed him. And I don't think they ever learn his name, though, do they? So they just call him Stinky off them. Yeah, do we hear his name in... I don't think we do.
00:33:41
Speaker
No. If we do, it's right at the end. Yeah, maybe. Yeah. I mean, we didn't know that from, I guess, from sort of like extra material, you know, the expanded stuff. Yeah, that's a good point. He's just Stinky, isn't he? And it's another example of Ahsoka nicknaming things. Did you notice her calling R2-E? Yes, did. What are you doing? What? What is that? It's so bizarre. It's not his name. I'm sure there are some other nicknames along the way, but maybe we'll... I will find them. She does it lot.
00:34:12
Speaker
Yeah. So we got some new planets. I don't think we'd seen Christophsis before. and We also get the planet Teth, which I don't think we'd seen before. I'm obsessed with Teth.
00:34:23
Speaker
And it turns out that the Bomar monks inhabited that monastery, which they are the spider things. They're the spider ones with the brains from Jabba's Palace. Yeah, yeah. And I think they've got this kind of...
00:34:35
Speaker
so story alongside the huts because I hadn't realised that the huts took over this monastery as well because Java took over the Bomar Monks Monastery on Tatooine. So there's some connection with them. okay And the fact that the monastery has this kind of hut architecture architectural style, even with the the Japanese arch thing, yeah yeah the We've talked about there's one on Jakku at Nima Outpost, which is built based on Nima the Hutt, who lives on Jakku. Ah, okay. Because we've asked questions about these arch things before. Yes. We're still not there quite yet, but they are definitely Hutt design. There is still one question, which is about Corvus. which is in the episode The Jedi in Mando season two, where Mando goes to find Ahsoka and he finds Morgan Elspeth and she's got that, yeah, she's building sort like that imperial stronghold on Corvus and they've got one of those archers. So I don't if there's a hut involved in Corvus at all. Yeah, yeah. We'll have to watch for that. But it's all very pink and purple it's nice. It's very beautiful. This is my favourite music cue, is on that planet.
00:35:51
Speaker
As they are going up, they've got those weird walker droid things that they climb Yeah, climbing vertical thing. Climbing the vertical cliff. And the music there is incredible. It's a banger. Oh my gosh, yes. Yes. That was a lot of interesting music. I mean, they're sort of bridging the gap by using some very Williams-esque music yes at and different times, particularly in the beginning in that opening fight on Christophsis. It's very Star Wars, you know, he sort of like bringing us in. But then we've got, there's a lot of percussion stuff when there are heart things going on yeah with some kind of Arabic flavoured melodic instruments and Which is a kind of trope of desert planets. you We often get that kind of vibe. get that dr But it also had like synth bass in it as well, which I was really excited to hear because straight away we're then deviating from the live action films and we're making something new, which is really awesome. yeah Shout out to Kevin Kiner. Kevin Kiner is...
00:36:50
Speaker
the composer of this film. Excellent. And he's composer throughout. Throughout? Yes. yeah Excellent. And his family, right who have become part of what we now refer to as the Kynas. Okay. And they were on Pod of Rebellion by coincidence this week because they composed Star Wars Rebels as well. And i think they composed Maul, Shadow Lord as well. Oh, wow.
00:37:13
Speaker
They are a big part of Star Wars animation. And they were talking about Pod of Rebellion how they come from different backgrounds. And Kevin Kiner, he's you know the one on this film, yeah he was talking about how he grew up with Led Zeppelin and other rock and soul and stuff like that. So you can definitely hear that. Hear that, yeah. Yeah, there's diegetic music when we get to Coruscant, or pseudo-diegetic, guess. Yeah, so... which is kind of quite funky. yeah And we're hearing all sorts of different yeah different musical vibes. There's some electro beats in some of that kind of Arabic-y stuff when we're in the monastery. I think that's the the stuff you might have been talking about. i' yeah I'm not sure.
00:37:54
Speaker
No, it's it's definitely the battle on the vertical bit right okay is my favourite music cue. It's so good. Like once we get on top and we get into the monastery, yeah we see clones with their like lights on the sides of their helmets and there's some...
00:38:09
Speaker
Yeah, interesting electronic yeah going on there. I loved it. I loved the music. i mean, we we should really mention the theme. We've got this new theme, which is right at the beginning, which is like a 4-4 version of the Star Wars main title. Yeah. ti which is wild. Suddenly realising that the Star Wars main title isn't in 4-4. It's a three-time thing.
00:38:31
Speaker
Also, shout out to the introduction radio announcer. Love that. The War of the Worlds. Yeah, that continues. i love it. It's like 1950s, which is the War of the Worlds vibe, isn't it? Yeah, exactly.
00:38:44
Speaker
So he's a guy called Tom Kane who died very recently, I think last week, sadly. So we've lost we've lost another Star Wars great. He also voices Yoda and he voices Admiral Aaron as well. So he's kind of got that older man voice. And yeah he just does such a brilliant propaganda, yeah you know, classic yeah accent, which is perfect for the beginning of every episode. It's like Pathรฉ News, you know, the newsreel. yeah yeah got it This is what's going on. So they can then throw us right in the heart of it. I love that. I love that as a storytelling device. Yeah. Yeah, me too. Because I love a little like, here you are, go, rather than having to like visually go through it. Yeah, and it's like a crawl, but without. It's like The Crawl, yeah, but it's narrated, which is better. Yeah, definitely. Voice acted rather than. Better for my brain anyway. You don't have to read like it slow moving text across the screen. Not that we don't like The Crawl, we do love The Crawl. We do like The Crawl, but also when I was a kid, I hated The Crawl. Yeah, you've got to read all of them I'm very dyslexic. There's a lot of words that aren't words in there. Yes, yeah, exactly. Lots of like strange spellings of like alien species and things.
00:39:56
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely love him. I've been reading the Chris Kemshaw book, which we've spoken about recently, The Rise of All of the Galactic Empire. Yes. And he talks a lot about the Empire propaganda, which we're not quite...
00:40:08
Speaker
but At the Empire yet, but no like Palpatine's plan is obviously moving us towards that point. And he talks about how Palpatine uses propaganda within his master plan yeah to get people to think that what he's doing is the right thing. And with that in mind, like whose lens, Chris Kemshel asks this question in the book, by the way, whose lens are we ship being shown the Clone Wars through?
00:40:34
Speaker
because interesting. Because each episode opens with this propaganda voiceover. Yeah. And it's a lot about the heroic Republic fighting team, you know, the clones and the Jedi. fighting the Separatists.
00:40:46
Speaker
or like we know it retrospectively and because we're observing from a distance yeah and because of the way it's being told to us that Palpatine is really just playing the Republic. Pulling the strings on all of it. yeah Yeah, off the, he's in charge of the separatists as well. Wild. And the Confederacy of Independence. It's like he's just playing the whole thing and propaganda is all about that. Yeah. It's informing the public in the way that you want them to be informed. We're making... The public of the galaxy feel the way Palpatine wants them to feel. And is that how the Clone Wars is being told? It's super interesting. I've literally this morning before we jumped on to record, finished the Somni arc in Cloud Atlas. And this is exactly the same thing. It's exactly the same thing. oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. Like the language in that arc.
00:41:37
Speaker
Yeah. It's like an evolution of our language, but however many 50 years or whatever in the future whatever that is said. Yeah, it's in the future. I don't know how long in the future is. But again, it's that whole kind of like propaganda and like she's on trial, but it's all a sham. And what?
00:41:51
Speaker
By the end of it, you're like, I'm so confused. But yeah, propaganda. Cool. Got it. It's very interesting. something we should continue as we carry on watch. You know, like, who is this celebrating? Who is being shown as the heroes? yeah Because that changes yeah through the seven seasons. Yeah, of course.
00:42:12
Speaker
Ooh, very interesting. Okay, that's another colour for your colour code. Yes. Are you running out colours yet? I have actually run out, to be honest. I had to come up with a new colour for droid behaviour and I was like, well, it's going to have to be a bit like the cinematography colour. That's fair. Which maybe is a nice little segue to talk about cinematography because visually, we've already talked a bit about the animation style.
00:42:33
Speaker
gorgeous. But it's just so visually awesome. Yeah. I love that they went full cinematic. Even though this is a cartoon network show, it's an animated show initially anyway, they still went widescreen and they stick with widescreen. The whole time,
00:42:48
Speaker
Very cinematic. It's very dramatic. The planet design, I've already mentioned Teth as being this lush kind of misty pink planet air with lilac sky. We've got the crystalline backgrounds on Christophsis. There's a brilliant shot of Christophsis where we see it's like blue crystals with these kind of like yellow stripes across the planet surface. all the planetary stuff is very visually stunning. Yeah.
00:43:12
Speaker
yeah I noticed that bit I mentioned just now about the clones with their like helmet lights on entering the monastery and they use volumetric lighting which if you're doing that in live action you have to pump like fog or yeah smoke machine gently into your environment so that it fills the space and then lights become volumetric yeah they kind of do that straight away with the clones yeah it's so good it all just a shout out to the animators like what yeah What an undertaking. They've obviously considered the virtual lenses that they're using for particular shots when you've got like wide shots and then they're using like anamorphic effects to make the focus pulls look interesting and all of that is so much thought has gone into that. Yeah.
00:43:56
Speaker
And what I found interesting is that the whole thing has been made by two teams as I understand it, certainly at this point, yeah where you've got the Lucasfilm at Skywalker Ranch team yeah doing the design and the building and pre-vis stuff. And they they created a new thing called Z-Viz, which is like a bit like pre-vis where you're just doing very rough animations yeah to get the movement, which is part of the cinematography. like how what's the pace of these characters and the ships and everything? How do we track them in real time? yeah Because Lucas was like, we don't want to do storyboarding. Storyboarding is slow. yeah yeah We could go straight in with like previs and it's going to like leapfrog a step yeah in the process and make it all a lot quicker.
00:44:39
Speaker
And because animation relies so much on that movement and cinematography stuff. But then you've got this other team in Singapore who are doing the hard work of animating. it yeah They're actually bringing the stuff to life and getting the sort of textures to move right and all that kind of stuff, I guess. I don't know. I don't know exactly how that workload was divided. yeah But between them, they built this look, which is so cinematic and just great just very original. Yeah.
00:45:06
Speaker
Again, Lucas just constantly pushing the team, yeah pushing the technology. We know him he's like a kind of developer of technology. He'll make people build new software to do things because he wants it to be a particular way. yeah yeah His vision is incredible. That super cool. I love stylized animation stuff anyway.
00:45:27
Speaker
yeah Yeah, it's just beautiful. So beautiful. Yeah. They use a software called Autodesk to animate, which blows my mind. Like I've used a version of Autodesk to do yeah like planning for building, you know, building renovations and stuff like that. I'm like, oh my gosh.
00:45:43
Speaker
But the time, there weren't so many 3D programs out there. So they were kind of expanding on. So they use Autodesk to do the animation. then there's some software called Maya 3D, which I remember using back in the like early 2000s or whatever. To like make 3D models of the world and the characters and the creatures. yeah So it's like model building and then you import the models into Autodesk okay to put it all together. i love animation and I know so little about it. It's such a mystical art, isn't it? Yeah. like It just looks so easy and effortless, but it's like so wild. I don't know who if many other people had done this, but they were using motion capture in some places yeah to animate the characters, which is a brilliant way of doing it because you get so much of that realism. yeah You can then pick your physical actors, whether you... motion capture the voice actors' faces while they're recording. yeah I didn't see them doing that in The Clone Wars, but I know that does happen. yeah Andy Serkis has talked about that extensively yeah like in his work. But then the body animation, so you can get like martial artists and you know brilliant physical performers to wear the motion capture suits. And do the whole thing.
00:46:57
Speaker
although Although this is very heightened, it's very fast. We talked to the beginning how quick it moves. Yes, there's so much going on. It's like battle here, battle here, Europa here. But it's quick and there's a lot happening, but because it's kind of aimed at children-ish, it's yeah got this incredible mix of like plot, peril, politics, and like yeah and it's just wrapped up in like such a nice, kind of easy to understand.
00:47:25
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. As a kid, I was completely lost in all the bureaucracy bits of the prequels. Yeah, yeah. Like, didn't have clue what was going on. I still struggle with that one. Yeah. But like this, I understood completely what was happening. And like, I understood the politics of it all straight away. Like, yeah the whole like, oh yeah, this is going on and they're double crossing and they're trying to negotiate because they need the flight path through Hotspace. All of this stuff. Like, I was just like, okay, yeah, I understand. I've got it. Completely...
00:47:55
Speaker
completely got it it's It's a masterful team. yeah I think Filoni, he directed this and he is obviously a brilliant storyteller, especially in the animation space. But you've also got the writers, Henry Gilroy, who's regular writer throughout the Clone Wars.
00:48:09
Speaker
He's phenomenal and continued beyond. Clone Wars as well in Star Wars and Stephen Melching and Scott Murphy who co-wrote this with them they must have like really focused on how little do we need to tell people you know how quickly can we make it move yeah so that kids love it and are excited by it yeah visually and story-wise but also tell tell the story authentic story about the Clone Wars yeah like what's going on the big picture stuff because the What I think they did in this movie, which again I'd forgotten from my first watch, is they introduced us to so much of what we're going to get in The Clone Wars. They tell us a bit about what is going on with Dooku and Palpatine and Ventress, introducing Ventress to us as like this new villain.
00:48:52
Speaker
But also we get to see Coruscant and we get to see what Padme is, where she is a little bit and the underworld stuff. And obviously we get Anakin and Obi-Wan and the new character Ahsoka. Yeah.
00:49:04
Speaker
ah The clones were introduced to Rex and Cody makes an appearance. Oddball, who we get to see again in Revenge of the Sith. The way that the army is fighting with the clones, there's so much in it yeah that becomes miniature stories, micro stories throughout the series.
00:49:22
Speaker
But like it's all crammed into this, yeah. But as you say, it's really easy to follow. Yeah, yeah. Which is quite baffling. Just brilliant storytelling.
00:49:33
Speaker
Can I tell you couple of things that I was really excited to see? Yeah, yeah. Let's talk about some little moments. We're jumping around. We're not going to through the entire film. No, we're not going through entire film. But okay, my first one.
00:49:46
Speaker
is incredible line from Obi-Wan about Anakin teaching as a privilege. Loved that. Oh, yes. like That was yeah such a gorgeous moment. Yeah. I loved that as a whole thing. Was overjoyed to see one of those little bunny server droids. Yes. I made a note about that. And it's got this like head thing that it can project holograms from. And it kind of flips over on its head and out pops a hologram.
00:50:09
Speaker
He was working for, um i had to look him up. Worm loathsome. Worm loathsome. Yeah. I was going to do a feature, and I'm sure this will happen at some point, on Clone Wars Names, where the name basically dictates the character. There's quite few. and for That's a brilliant one. Worm Loathsome, has a he has a lovely moment with Obi-Wan just stalling for time. Yeah, they're just having tea on the battlefield. Brilliant. Having tea with each other while Obi-Wan takes the b***h, basically. Yeah. In a very, like, overly diplomatic way.
00:50:41
Speaker
Also, we get this whole, like, little sequence with Ahsoka holding court among the clones. Yeah. Where she's just, like, showing off. what she's done and pointing out that she's above them in the like command chain like okay cool this 14 year old outranks me she wins them over and obviously her her relationship with Rex is going to become a big story point throughout But there was a really beautiful moment where Rex says, great job, General Skywalker, you too, kid. Yeah. And Ahsoka just has this moment of like, because although she's bossy and sassy, she is also looking for that kind of validation. Yeah. She needs some confirmation that she is worthy of yeah being in the clone army, you know, amongst the clone army. Another one, Obi-Wan and Ventress having a flirt over there. oh my gosh. Over their lightsaber battle. You'll have to do better than that, my darling. Yeah. It was his line. I'm like, what just happened? Incredible scenes. Love that. Okay, while we're on lines, Ahsoka said a great line. His fever broke. I think he's going to live to stink another day. yes
00:51:54
Speaker
So good. Okay, tiny, tiny battle droid Easter egg. Concentrate fire on sector 11374265. And then another battle droid says, 1137, what was that again? Which is one number off 1138, which Lucas's number, like his original film, THX 1138, which he made before. Yeah. Well, it's kind of like his college film and then his post-college film. Sure. And that sort was a bit of a blueprint for what he could then do with Star Wars. So 1138 pops up a lot. Pops up. Okay. So to hear 1137 was really funny. Just made me laugh.
00:52:29
Speaker
Excellent Easter egg. Love that. Another favourite moment. Back to the flirting again. We've got the flirting of Obi-Wan and Ventress as they're fighting. Great lightsaber fight. Really enjoyed that. Yes. And then at the end of it, Obi-Wan just casually jumps out a window. Yeah.
00:52:45
Speaker
Classic. We know Obi-Wan is a lover of jumping out of windows in spectacular moments. I seem to feel like Ventress almost rolled her eyes at that point. Yeah, she does follow him, but she's like, oh God, here we go. Here we go. Fine.
00:53:02
Speaker
And Banthas. We get a shot of Tatooine and we get some Banthas. Animated Banthas. my gosh, I miss the Banthas. I was so happy. i must have been writing notes.
00:53:14
Speaker
It was great to go back to Tatooine, have to say. It was. I'll never get bored of going back to Tatooine. Nice. Lush. And Anakin does his whole, like, not going to talk about it. Yeah. he's yeah He has some internal struggles in this episode. He does, yeah. Which is fair enough.
00:53:29
Speaker
Yeah. Did you have any sound moments? We've talked a little bit about music, but we haven't gone into sound yet. There were some cool sounds. lots of really cool sounds going on. I didn't write any specifically down. I did have a Wilhelm count.
00:53:43
Speaker
Yes, i was going to say. ah Yay! A count that suggests there's more than one. I heard two on my tallying. Okay. I noticed one, which was a clone yeah um getting blasted by a walker at some point. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was the second one. There was a shorter one at the beginning somewhere.
00:54:02
Speaker
I don't think it was the full Wilhelm, but it was a okay it sounded like a Wilhelm to me. like So yeah, I had a little tally chart just to yeah cross them off. My very first note about the film was the fact that it starts with with sound design yeah over the Lucasfilm logo, which is normally silent, I think. But we get the sound of clones talking on their radios, on their comms, which was really exciting. is And it sounded very war-like and news reporting-like as well. Just drops you straight in again, doesn't it? It's all that kind of yeah helping to drop you in.
00:54:35
Speaker
Okay, blasters of... Yes. like separatist weaponry. I feel like it all has a sort of flanger with a fixed position. yeah So normally a flanger effect is a bit like a phaser effect, yeah which sweeps up and down and gives you that kind of like airplane sound as an airplane flies over. you know, that kind of vibe.
00:54:58
Speaker
But if you stop a flanger effect from doing that, you just get this fixed, weird processing, which I think you've mentioned before. bit like a comb filter. Yeah, where it picks out certain frequencies. And there are those three-legged separatist walkers, yeah which I thought they were made by the Colicoid Creation Nest because they sound like destroyers, droidekas, which have that same flanger, but apparently they're made by the Techno Union. But I'm sure they're sharing tech with the Colicoid Creation Nest. Yeah, yeah.
00:55:27
Speaker
Buzz droids and destroyers and stuff, because they all have flanged blaster sounds, which distinguishes them from clone blasters. Clone blasters, which sound different, yeah. Just a little bit of audio storytelling to help us know who's firing at whom. Yeah. Very niche. Oh, very interesting. The droids hand blasters use the same flanged sound as well.
00:55:48
Speaker
So if you're an audio geek, a flanger is where you have a very, very short echo, like a delay effect. The same sound happens again just milliseconds after the original. yeah And because it's milliseconds, some of the frequencies get cancelled out and some of them layer and build. So that's where you get this comb filtering where like some of the high sounds get louder and some of the low sounds get louder, but some of the ones in the middle don't disappear and so on. Yeah.
00:56:15
Speaker
If you haven't played with a flanger... Go and play with a flanger. You can download them for free on, them what's it called? ah ah Audacity. you yeah go and yeah Go download Audacity, put some sounds in it, and then play with the effects because it's really fun. It's super fun. It makes everything sound spacey and... yet electronic and cool, which I guess is why we hear them a lot in yeah Star Wars sound design. you You can instantly make things sound alien by sticking flanges on it. And phasers, flanges, phasers, ring modulators, all the classics.
00:56:50
Speaker
Last bit of audio that I noticed. I think it's the last bit. No, no, there's more. The shield generator that Anakin and Ahsoka go to shut down on Christophsis to save the battle, basically. They've got to go and switch off the shield generator. They sneak their way in under a metal box or something. Yeah, a metal box thing.
00:57:12
Speaker
But the shield generator itself makes an incredible buzzing sound that's distorted, pulsing. knew it would be a sound that you would love because you like all those kind of like they tingle your kind sound. They tickle my brain in a nice way. Love it.
00:57:28
Speaker
Also, I noticed some of the wipes, you know, the classic Star Wars wipe transitions had sound design on them, yeah which I don't think we've ever had before, like swoosh sounds, the whole kind of trailer thing. Also, the yeah other sound that I liked was the tripping of the booby traps. So when Ahsoka's tripping those traps You get quite a fun little piece of sound design on those.
00:57:53
Speaker
And then she accidentally trips loads of them and it gets worse and worse. Oh, music. Music, music, music. There's some jazz playing, like outright jazz yeah in Coruscant in the kind of lower levels where it all gets a bit underworld-y. We've got a Bith band, yeah probably the same band from Tatooine, probably being in the motor loads. They've now do yeah to moved to Coruscant. Well, this is a prequel, isn't it? It's prequel, yeah. so They started on Coruscant. So they originated Coruscant, maybe. Figuring down. They're playing jazz in Zero's bar.
00:58:26
Speaker
I love it. Zero in general doesn't have quite the same vocal stuff going on as most of the other huts. No, mostly huts have sub pitch shifting going on. yeah You've talked about Little Altar Boy, which is a kind of pitch shifter voice effect, which however they do it, that's kind of what they use to get that deep sub. Like we've just heard Rotter in, well, we've heard many huts. Yeah, we've heard loads of huts in Mandalorian and Kroky. No, Zero has quite a light which is in in his character. It's there, but it's very more subtle. Yeah.
00:59:00
Speaker
Which it kind of also gives it that kind of more classic I'm gay effeminate voice. Yeah, I mean the voice acting wouldn't work with the same effect because the voice actor speaks in this kind of higher register. Yeah. Yeah.
00:59:15
Speaker
super fun Super, super fun. That was my last note. My last note on this is that was so much fun. It is. This film was fun. It was definitely laying loads of foundations. As we said, there's so much stuff that's going to continue into the Clone Wars. introducing us to not an overwhelming amount. Like we got Asajj and we got Ahsoka. They were our two main new characters. Yeah, yeah. Most of the rest of it was fairly familiar. Yeah. But just setting the scene for where we're going. I am so hyped. I'm so excited to continue into this massive sprawling story. Yeah. Seven seasons of it. So much fun. We're going to be starting next week.
00:59:55
Speaker
ah Oh my gosh. And not only that, but think we've got a special guest coming on. We have a special guest coming on to talk about the beginning. One of our lovely... Regular Sisters of the Force is coming to talk about the first arc. So we've promised to keep you up to date with what's coming up.
01:00:13
Speaker
Yeah. So next week, if you want to watch along with us, you've got to watch the very first episode, which is a standalone. Yeah. Episode 101. It's called Ambush. Ambush. And then the next three episodes are part of an arc called Malevolence. So we've got those three, Rising Malevolence, Shadow of Malevolence, and Destroy Malevolence. Okay. and then one more little one-off episode called Rookies. Okay. so you've got just over two hours of Clone Wars stuff to watch to keep up with us. Those the things we're going to talk about. Five episodes. Yeah, five episodes.
01:00:45
Speaker
Nice. Three of which being Anarch. Anarch, yeah. We'll probably cover them in the same way. I think we're not going to be doing this like blow by blow, scene by scene thing because there's just too much stuff going on in these episodes. We're going to jump around and have a nice time. We're just going to dip into the things we love. Yeah. Talk about the story overall. Talk about all the characters. I think the characters are such a big part of Clone Wars. Yes. It ties in with our character encyclopedias that we're using as source material. Going by the character encyclopedia is amazing. Yeah. it is really good it's such a good is so good so yeah we're just going to doing that and talk about music and sound obviously we love that yeah any visual stuff that we love yeah we're just gonna find our way through see what happens we'll share which arc we're doing next in a story as well or something so on our socials yeah i'm gonna make a little graphic which we can reuse every week to show you what we're doing next beautiful beautiful beautiful We love a little graphic. We you quite enjoy designing things. We do. But yeah, as always, follow us on the platforms. Wherever you get your podcasts. We're doing a lot of Instagram content at the moment. Share our stuff. Yeah, reshare.
01:01:56
Speaker
Definitely help us with the algorithm. We're trying to build. We're trying to reach new followers. um We're excited because we're doing two things at once. We're doing Clone Wars and we're doing Journeys into Wild Space. Journeys into Wild Space.
01:02:06
Speaker
Those things are going to appeal to different people probably, although I'm guessing if you're here, you're one of those people that loves all of Star Wars. Yay! Loves all of the content. Anyway, we'll see you next week. We'll see you next week for Clone Wars Season 1.
01:02:22
Speaker
Episodes 1 to 5. Can't wait. Bye. Bye.