George Lucas Unveils "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" at Cartoon Network Upfront

George Lucas unveiled his latest project Star Wars The Clone Wars at this morningamp8217s Cartoon Network Upfront presentation held at Terminal 5 in New York The CGI animated series is at the heart of the networkamp8217s efforts to continue to diversify its onair offerings and which will anchor Friday nightamp8217s fantasyadventure programmingYou might recall an animated series of shorts by the same name which aired on Cartoon Network from 20032005 during which the network was experimenting with the form The CGI animated Star Wars The Clone Warsamp160 featurelength film is set to release on August 15th The Cartoon Network series debuts this fall and picks up where this summeramp8217s feature film leaves off George Lucas the gueststar of the upfront event sat down for a QampampA with Cartoon Network president and COO Stuart Snyder Lucas shared that he started out in film school in animation and was enthusiastic about returning to the medium When asked about the design of the series and characters he said amp8220When youamp8217re doing animation about modern action actors and everyone knows what they look like you really have to come up with a very sophisticated and dynamic caricature of those peopleamp8221 In addition to coming up with innovative ways to depict the existing Star Wars characters Lucas added entirely new characters namely a preteen Padawon who plays the role of Anakin Skywalkeramp8217s protamp233gamp233 Lucas emphasized that most Padawons donamp8217t become Padawons until they are 14 or 15 amp8220So sheamp8217s a very young Padawonamp8221 he says amp8220And sheamp8217s very feisty and sheamp8217s very outgoing and independentminded which gives Anakin a real challenge because heamp8217s sort of that way tooamp8221Lucas also talked about his enjoyment of working in television When asked about working on feature films he said amp8220It comes and it goes Television oddly enough has a longer life because itamp8217s repeated and repeated Itamp8217s much more like what we call the oldfashioned studio system where you just come up with great ideas you execute them and move onamp8221In his closing thoughts Lucas said the target demographic for the series was preteens but added that the partnership with Cartoon Network and Turner Entertainment would give the series a wide reach and could very well be considered entertainment for the whole family According to the Myers Emotional Connections Study of 2007 Nearly half 466 of adults 1824 agree they frequently watch the Cartoon Network 42 of males 372 of females age 1824 agreed that Cartoon Network is relevant to themFor a sneak peek watch the video below Cartoon Network also announced the creation of The Cartoonstitute a think tank for animators who will produce up to 150 pieces of programming over the next 20 months The initiative will be lead by animation veterans Craig McCracken The Powerpuff Girls Foster39s Home for Imaginary Friends and Rob Renzetti My Life as a Teenage Robot Dexter39s Laboratory

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George Lucas Unveils "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" at Cartoon Network Upfront

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George Lucas Unveils "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" at Cartoon Network Upfront

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