Star Wars: The Clone Wars (TV series)

Star Wars: The Clone Wars is an animated science fiction/fantasy television series set within the world of the Star Wars film franchise. The series was created and produced by franchise visionary George Lucas and began airing on Cartoon Network on October 3rd, 2008. The series ties in to the franchise's prequel trilogy and is a direct sequel to the 2008 Star Wars: The Clone Wars feature film. The series takes place between the events of the 2002 film Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, the 2003-05 Star Wars: Clone Wars animated micro-series and the events chronicled in the 2005 film Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.

The animation style is the same as that of the feature film and created by Lucasfilm Animation, Lucasfilm Animation Singapore and CGCG, Inc. The regular cast of characters from the movie make regular recurring appearances in the TV series as well including Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Padmé Amidala, C-3PO, R2-D2 and Chancellor Palpatine. A new character, introduced in the film, Ahsoka Tano, plays a major role in the series and many of the episodes are viewed through her perspective. Though some of the episodes are serialized, not all of them are broadcast in chronological order and may take place at any point during the time era between The Clone Wars film and Episode III.

Notes & Trivia

 * In 2010, at the Celebration V Star Wars convention in Orlando, Florida, director Dave Filoni explained that he and first season head writer Henry Gilroy had originally assumed that Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker would make occasional appearances on the show. The main characters were to be a Twi'lek Jedi and an apprentice who fought piracy and mercenaries around the galaxy. Another idea was to stick to a couple of recurring locations, not unlike the television series Firefly and keep landscapes to a minimum for rendering and conceptualization reasons. However, they soon found out that George Lucas didn't intend to keep The Clone Wars small.


 * In order to make the Clone troopers sound like individuals, Dee Bradley Baker records every voice separately and gives each one a different inflection. He likes to write down a particular adjective for each one. For instance some sound a bit younger, others a bit more proper whereas another may sound like a bully or a grunt.


 * Dave Filoni and George Lucas have both stated that the look of the characters is inspired by those from Gerry Anderson's super-marionation series Thunderbirds.

Awards
Star Wars: The Clone Wars was nominated for the Saturn Award in 2009 for the category of Best Syndicated/Cable Television Series at the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films.

Music composer Kevin Kiner was nominated that same year for Best Music in an Animated Television Production or Short Form at the Annie Awards for the season one episode "Rising Malevolence". He was nominated again in 2010 for the same category for the season two episode "Weapons Factory".

At the Motion Picture Sound Editors Awards, the Golden Reel award for Best Sound Editing went to supervising sound editor Matthew Wood, sound designer David Acord, supervising foley editor Frank Rinella and foley artists Dennis Thorpe, Jana Vance and Ellen Heuer for the episode "Lair of Grievous". The series was nominated again in 2010, for the episode "Landing at Point Rain", but lost to The Penguins of Madagascar.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars was nominated for the TCA Award at the Television Critics Association Awards for the category of Outstanding Achievement in Children's Programming, but lost out to the live-action children's series Yo Gabba Gabba!