THE WINNING WOOKIEE!

Love that exclusive cover. Well done, INSIDER!

CLASSIC IMAGE: THE NIGHTMARE SCENARIO

Jedi Knight Aayla Secura looks on in shock as her Clone Troopers turn their weapons against her in the final stages of The Clone Wars on the strange jungle world of Felucia. Though we all knew it was coming by the third film, ORDER 66 was nonetheless a shocking sequence and certainly one of the stand out scenes of REVENGE OF THE SITH, accompanied by a superb and moving theme by John Williams.

With thanks to Chris Baker for the image.

AFICIONADO REVIEW: "CLONE WARS GAMBIT: STEALTH"

Karen Miller's 2010 epic two-part CLONE WARS GAMBIT Prequel adventure for Anakin and Obi-Wan comes to paperback from ARROW BOOKS in the UK, with part one, STEALTH, out now.

Check out our review here:

http://www.starwarsaficionado.com/clonewarsgambitstealth.html

CELEBRATION V: THINGS WE LEARNED...

Originally, THE CLONE WARS Supervising Director Dave Filoni had planned that the previous 2003 and 2005 CARTOON NETWORK CLONE WARS animated character of Durge was to have returned and been a major enemy in Season One and Two, but instead George Lucas wanted to have a new and different villain, and introduced the cooler bounty hunter, Cad Bane, instead.

Filoni has prepared a time line for the events of THE CLONE WARS, incorporating events from the previous CARTOON NETWORK animated seasons, which will eventually be released to fans.

THE CLONE WARS voice actors were often very surprised at some of the things they signed for fans at CV. There were limited edition cast and crew pieces handed to them that they had actually never received or knew of, and that they now really wanted to have! Some members of the cast had not even seen the UK theatrical release posters for the one and only (at least so far) animated movie! Additionally, all of the actors love their characters, and some would love to contribute more dialogue and story material for the series, but at the end of the day its Lucas's universe and he decides the ultimate direction of story and characters in the lead up to events in EPISODE III.

Ben Burtt worked on the sound design for the original ALIEN, directed by Ridley Scott. He recalled that he met Scott in a limo one late night in Los Angeles-it was the only time the two could meet then-to discuss the creation of a terrifying and highly disturbing noise for the alien space ships distress call which is picked up by the human crew of the Nostromo. At the end of the day, despite lots of work, the sound effect was not considered successful by either Burtt or Ridley Scott and, by that time of its completion, the scene where the transmission is played would be cut from the film (though the completed sequence is on the deleted scenes of the DVD release, and I personally think its a pretty good sound!).

The "Wilhelm" scream, as far as Ben Burtt can track it down, may have come from an actor from an old-time WARNER BROTHERS adventure film, whose character is attacked and eaten by an Alligator.

As has been previously established, the sound of the Garindan snitch at Mos Eisley for STAR WARS was the voice of John Wayne speeded up. At the time in 1976, Ben Burtt had access to a movie studio sound vault and managed to sneak his voice from one of these films into the first movie.

When Sound Designer Matthew Wood had completed his work on REVENGE OF THE SITH, Lucas and Producer Rick McCallum asked him to stay on with his STAR WARS duties for what was originally planned as eight test episodes of what would become STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS.

Carrie Fisher revealed that her Bounty Hunter characters of Boushh had no name when she was filming JEDI. In all likelihood the name was given for the PALITOY/KENNER toy figure release in 1983.

Apart from the white droid later known as CZ-3, Anthony Daniels did not play any other background droids in the original STAR WARS filming of 1976.

Ben Burtt revealed that the sound of the Talz creature heard in the Mos Eisley cantina for STAR WARS was originally planned for the treadwell droid that breaks down in the first introduction to Luke Skywalker, in the Tatooine desert, for STAR WARS.

At THE MAIN EVENT, Lucas confirmed that Darth Sidious did indeed kill his master Darth Plagueis prior to the events of EPISODE ONE, which the character, as ever brilliantly played by Ian McDiarmid, alluded to Anakin Skywalker during the opera scene of REVENGE OF THE SITH.

The title of THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK was thought up by Gary Kurtz during an Italian press conference for STAR WARS. He told the press then that STAR WARS II would have a B-movie esque- title in homage to that genre, and THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK simply rolled out of his mind. The title stuck-at the time, Ben Burtt was surprised at the choice.

The most difficult sound design that Ben Burtt ever undertook for any of the STAR WARS films is still Artoo Detoo-due to the worries in providing a unique sound effects voice for the character that audiences would be able to relate to. It was a task that took a long time-over six months-to achieve successfully. He still has many sound effects recorded for the original STAR WARS from 1976/77 that haven't been used, that are in his personal archives and at LUCASFILM, which may one day be used elsewhere.

Presumably due to Anthony Daniels not being available for a short period, Tom Kane was the voice of Threepio for a little bit of one of the episodes of the CARTOON NETWORK animated micro-series in 2003.

John Morton (who played Rebel pilot Dack and, for one scene only, Boba Fett in EMPIRE) no longer acts-instead he works in a position of organisational work linked to US Homeland Security. He still visits the UK from time to time and is a keen sports rowing expert and aficionado. He worked on EMPIRE for several months at ELSTREE (including the scene of the assembled pilots seen with Princess Leia in the hangar bay) and enjoyed it. His filming work was done in between bouts of shooting for SUPERMAN II-where he played the US Astronaut inside the Earth lunar vehicle destroyed by the Kryptonian super villains-of which the first batch was shot by director Richard Donner, and the next, a year later, was by replacement director Richard Lester.

Talking to dealers at the event, it looks like there will be very little merchandise or celebrations for STAR WARS Thirty-fifth anniversary in 2012, with the next Celebration geared for THE CLONE WARS and, most likely, the Thirtieth Anniversary of RETURN OF THE JEDI in 2013.

SHAAK ATTACK!

In the Prequel films the noble lady Jedi Knight Shaak Ti, as played by the gorgeous Orli Shoshan,was rather shortchanged in screen time, with most of her action within the deadly Geonosis arena cut, whilst her EPISODE III death scene (filmed in two ways) would end up being regrettably relegated to the editing room floor. Thankfully, the 2003 animated CLONE WARS series from CARTOON NETWORK restored some of her adventurous glory, and it looks like the new third season of THE CLONE WARS, starting in October, will continue to do so (amongst some other exciting new faces yet to be revealed), as we finally see her realised in the CGI animated 3-D dimension (pictured above from the recent COMIC CON exclusive), this time working with the Kaminoans and their trainee Clone forces.

And one things for sure, if the Separatists decide to infiltrate or attack this critical Republic facility, this lady will be ready for them!

"ARC TROOPERS..DEPLOY!" THE ORIGINAL "CLONE WARS" ANIMATION

I love the new CLONE WARS animated series and eagerly await season three, but lets not forget the superb work done by SAMURAI JACK's Genndy Tartakovsky and his excellent team of writers and animators back in 2003 and 2005, when they pioneered the STAR WARS animation media and set the whole ball of Lucas's imagination rolling with their superb 2-D animation series. The first season of short episodes were by far my favourite, and it's a shame that the Tartakovsky vision of the saga couldn't have done a few more seasons before the arrival of Dave Filoni and his equally fine team.

Lets hope that these original and exciting shows get a worthy Blu-ray release at some point in the not too distant future, with a lot more extras and behind the scenes things than were on the original, quite basic DVD releases of the time.