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The Holocron

Drawing Todo 360

Welcome to a look inside The Holocron. A collection of articles from the archives of *starwars.com no longer directly available.

(*Archived here with Permission utilising The Internet Archive Wayback Machine)

Drawing Todo 360

Ever wanted to draw Star Wars characters and vehicles just like the professional comic book artists? In this step-by-step series, Star Wars artists and illustrators show you how to draw some of the most beloved characters in the saga.

Star Wars illustrator Jessica Hickman explains with these easy-to-follow steps how to draw Cad Bane’s techno-service droid, Todo 360, from Season Two of The Clone Wars.

Steps 1-3 are drawn lightly with pencil. No pen, no dark lines. Finished lines and details will come at the end.

Step One:
First draw the basic shapes for Todo’s body. The head is basically a box, with a smaller box for the upper body, and circles for the lower body and feet.

Step Two:
Next put in the placement of Todo’s eyes, arms and legs. The perspective of the head can be a bit challenging, so take your time and don’t get frustrated. If you have some boxes at home, look at those for reference. Looking at tires on your family car or on toys are good references for Todo’s feet too. Keep your pencil marks light so you can erase any mistakes you make.

Step Three:
Once you’re happy with the drawing, make sure to tighten up the lines in preparation for inking and coloring. I like to color with markers, but you can use anything you want — crayons, colored pencils, and even the computer. You can even make copies of your finished pencil drawing to practice using different coloring media.

Step Four:
Now we get to color! Todo is very easy in that he is a gray droid. I colored him with gray markers, and once the first layer dried, I went over it again in some parts to add shading and dimension. Don’t forget his yellow eyes. I wait until the markers are completely dry, then I go over it with black ink outlines and add some white highlights. Be sure to sign your artwork before you show it to family and friends!

The Holocron

Draw Obi-Wan Kenobi Undercover

Welcome to a look inside The Holocron. A collection of articles from the archives of *starwars.com no longer directly available.

(*Archived here with Permission utilising The Internet Archive Wayback Machine)

Draw Obi-Wan Kenobi Undercover

Ever wanted to draw Star Wars characters and vehicles just like the professional comic book artists? Star Wars illustrator Grant Gould explains with these easy-to-follow steps how to draw Undercover Obi-Wan. Steps 1-5 are drawn lightly with pencil. No pen, no dark lines. Finished lines and details will come at the end.

YOU WILL NEED:

  • Paper
  • Drawing pencil
  • Colored pencils
  • Colored pens

STEP ONE

Drawing lightly with a pencil, create a simple framework using basic shapes like circles, lines and triangles.

STEP TWO

Create a rough outline that shows the placement of his legs, arms and guns. You can also add two mirrored triangle shapes where his eyes and mouth would be.

STEP THREE

Let’s flesh out his weapons first. Start with basic shapes and then add in details when you’re ready.

STEP FOUR

Now you can focus on his helmet. Draw the visor first and then add the three circles near his mouth area, then move on to the remaining details.

STEP FIVE

It’s time to create his outfit and equipment, and don’t forget about the hands.

STEP SIX

At this point, you should have a fairly detailed pencil drawing. Once you’re happy with your masterpiece, you can go over your lines with pen or marker, or heavier pencil lines.

STEP SEVEN

You can color your drawing, too, if you prefer. It’s completely up to you!

The Holocron

Phil Tippett: Hands-On Effects

Welcome to a look inside The Holocron. A collection of articles from the archives of *starwars.com no longer directly available.

(*Archived here with Permission utilising The Internet Archive Wayback Machine)

Phil Tippett: Hands-On Effects

The Early Years

If the 1958 film The Seven Voyages of Sinbad had a toyline, Phil Tippett would not have followed his particular career path. Or so he theorizes upon reflection of the film that influenced him the most. “I would have probably been completely satiated and saturated, and completely happy.”

Instead, the movie stuck with young seven-year old Tippett, specifically the amazing stop-motion animation by the legendary Ray Harryhausen. “I saw it at the Oak Theater on Solano Avenue in Berkley, and it just completely changed everything. It zapped me like a bolt of electricity. I wasn’t the same after that. I just could not figure out how these amazing creatures were brought to life, but I really liked it.”

It was a time before movie websites, before online and television documentaries that went behind-the-scenes, before entertainment programming dedicated to peeking past the curtain of movie magic. “That thing percolated in the back of my brain for many years,” says Tippett, “It was probably in the early ’60s that I ran across a Forrest Ackerman’s Famous Monsters of Filmland publication. In that was a very small article and a few pictures on Ray Harryhausen, and how he achieved the stop-motion effects.”

From such slim sources, Tippett was able to piece together the magic behind the craft. Stop-motion animation takes advantage of the persistence of vision and the frame-by-frame nature of motion picture film. Moving images are actually a succession of 24 still frames shot in a second. By shooting an inanimate puppet or subject one frame at a time, and moving it slightly between shots, a skilled animator could create the illusion of life. Harryhausen had been awed by the original King Kong, featuring the animation of Willis O’Brien. Tippett would follow a similar path, where the movie magic glimpsed as a young boy would lead him to become a pioneer and effects veteran in his own right.

“When I was 11 or 12, I mowed a lot of lawns and bought a little Keystone 8 mm camera. I would set it up in the garage or in my room, on a little table, and just started animating clay or pipe cleaners or whatever I could find. When G.I.Joes came out on the market, it was like, ‘Wow!’ They were so articulated that you could do a lot of stuff with them.”

These little experimental films didn’t see much play beyond Tippett’s parents or his friends, but they were a helpful introduction to the time-consuming and tedious craft. These miniatures required subtle manipulations 24 times just to capture a single second’s worth of motion. “It was very expensive and it took forever to shoot. You’d send the stuff off to Eastman Kodak, someplace in Rochester, and you’d have to wait three weeks to get it back, and you never knew what you were going to get.”

Tippett continued to experiment, finding escape in his little films. “One afternoon, on some terrible science fiction show on TV, there was a guy being interviewed on the show that made a stop-motion movie. His name was Bill Stromberg, and I was able to get in touch with him. He was about 25 years old, and a hobbyist at the time. He made movies on the side, so I became his helper. I would go over to his house every weekend and help him make his 16 mm short films. That provided me with more of a structure and some kind of mentorism.”

This led to contacts in the film industry, but at the time visual effects pictures were few and far between. Studios had closed their effects shops as films became increasingly reality-based. Much of the real experience in visual effects could be found in outfits like Cascade Pictures, which focused on commercial work — accounts like the Pillsbury Doughboy and the Jolly Green Giant. Here, Tippett began his professional work, and would meet a camera operator by the name of Dennis Muren who would also go onto big things. Though none could predict just what lay beyond the horizon.

“I was finishing my B.A. in Art at UC Irvine, doing some work in the gallery when one of the guys I was working with had been in the Navy with Richard Edlund,” Tippett recalls. “He said, ‘Hey, I’ve got this friend that’s doing this movie, and he needs some help, and I’ll have him give you a call.'”

That call was recruiting camera operators for an upcoming space fantasy film helmed by George Lucas. “One thing led to the next. Richard hired Dennis Muren, and Dennis hired Ken Ralston and then it all just kind of began, like a snowball rolling down a hill.”

And Then Came Star Wars

Thus Industrial Light & Magic was first started, though Tippett initially wasn’t part of the team since he wasn’t a camera operator like those initial hires. But when word came that Makeup Supervisor Stuart Freeborn could not complete the Mos Eisley Cantina sequence in England, ILM grabbed the baton and Tippett was hired as part of the second unit creature crew.

“George wanted to set up a little unit and shoot a bunch of insert work, and that’s how we met. We threw together a shop under the guidance of Rick Baker, and it was a bunch of stop-motion animator guys like Doug Beswick, Laine Liska, Jon Berg and myself. We had about eight weeks, and we banged out a bunch of masks,” recalls Tippett.

When you watch the cantina sequence, pay special attention to the close-up shots of creatures in booths. Those were shot months after principal photography of the rest of the bar, when time could be devoted to create more outlandish aliens. “It was very informal and a lot of fun. We got a bunch of the people that built the suits and performed in them,” says Tippett. “I was the lead band guy, and I was the cyclops thing. And then there were two blue bubble-headed guys that were arguing; I was one of those. There was a thing that had kind of a yam-nose. And then there was a…. I don’t know what. It looked like a big tapeworm or something. That’s all I remember at the moment.”

It was during one of Lucas’ inspection tours of the cantina inserts that he happened across a little stop-motion puppet of Tippett’s, a long-necked hulking lizard humanoid with a natty vest. “He saw it and said, ‘hmm… you guys do this too?'”

Lucas was stuck with how to do the holographic chess sequence. His initial plan was to shoot actors and composite them as holograms, but a recent science fiction movie had done a similar effect. “George didn’t want to duplicate something that had just come out, so he thought doing stop-motion for the hologram would be different and a more fun way of achieving the effect. So, he hired us to do that.”

Tippett’s model, dubbed the Mantellian savrip years later by the Expanded Universe, was the first piece. It was a pre-existing model that he had crafted years ago. He and Jon Berg worked diligently to craft the rest of the players over little more than a week. “They were very simple sculpy and aluminum wire, or we just wrapped foam rubber around aluminum wire and brought them in to shoot.” The holographic chess scene was one of the last ones completed for the film. “They were having their final crew party at ILM. Everybody was partying it up and screaming and Jon and I were in the back still animating these toys,” says Tippett.

With Star Wars wrapped, few involved in the production could have known what to expect. But having worked on the last great unknown component of the visionary film — the groundbreaking visual effects — many of the ILMers had more than an inkling of what was to come. “I remember watching the dailies of the bar scene and the chess scene, and even though there was no temp track and it was just production sound, and it was the Van Nuys facility’s projection room, which was really ’60s-ish — just a bunch of overstuffed chairs that kind of smelled like wet dog — we just immediately knew. I mean, you could just say, ‘Wow. This is the picture we’ve always wanted to work on since we were kids.’ It was just so clear that it was going to be cool.”

After the immense success of the first Star Wars, many of the charter ILMers were brought back, this time to a new facility north of San Francisco, to blaze new ground in the much-awaited sequel, The Empire Strikes Back. Whereas Star Wars revolutionized the art and science of motion control and traveling matte compositing, Empire was set to push the envelope of Tippett’s first love, stop-motion animation.

“It was Dennis Muren who really pushed for using stop-motion for the AT-AT walkers, because there were a number of designs that Joe Johnston had drawn up for wheeled vehicles and various other things that could have been remote-controlled. Dennis and Joe really tried to steer George in the stop-motion direction. It took a little bit of time to assess whether there were enough skilled people out there who could do it,” says Tippett.

Tippett worked on the development of the tauntaun — the very first living creature seen in Empire. The need to get fluid, life-life movement in a creature that wasn’t a machine, wasn’t a hologram, but instead a living animal meant that new technologies had to be explored. Also, the creature was to be composited into a moving helicopter shot, which required the animation to sync up to a background plate with shifting perspective.

“I think Doug Beswick built a preliminary tauntaun armature, and we did a rough mockup of the creature,” recalls Tippett. “We developed a track with a pylon attached to the puppet, in order to graph the motion control of the shot. It was very limiting, because you had this support rod so you couldn’t work the object in free space like you could a stop-motion object. You had to move everything around this rod that it was on.”

Though the AT-ATs were afforded some abstraction by virtue of representing non-living machines, they proved troublesome not only for their size, but their intricate design. “They were very complicated engineering problems that Jon Berg needed to solve, because all of the joints were actually exposed. Most stop-motion puppets have articulated skeletons that are embedded deep within the rubber, so they merely have to be functional, but not visible. Jon had to design this series of joints that would work and that had very complicated compound moves, angles, and invent a number of different stop-motion joints that would work with Joe’s design. He had a great deal of internal mechanisms so that if you move the leg, it would automatically move pistons so you wouldn’t have to hand-animate them — the pistons would drive themselves.”

After Empire, Tippett and Muren would work together to further advance stop-motion with go-motion, a technique developed for Dragonslayer. One inherent drawback with stop-motion is that the camera is taking still images of a static object. When this plays back at 24 frames per second, there is a perceivable jerkiness to the image, since the crisp quality of 24 unblurred images creates a staccato-like flicker. Go-motion endeavored to introduce motion blur on the subject, by adding computer-controlled motors to the armature, to move the creature slightly while the camera shutter was open.

This technique was incorporated into Return of the Jedi, but by the time that film started pre-production, Tippett was surprised to find himself named Creature Supervisor. Instead of animating creatures, he would be designing aliens, much like his initial role in developing Cantina creatures. For Jedi, Tippett’s Creature Shop at ILM produced all the aliens except for Jabba the Hutt and the Ewoks, which were built in England.

“It was by executive decree,” he recalls with a laugh. “I am stop-motion animator, not a rubber guy, but they figured I could do it, so I did. We initially started off doing quite a few design maquettes. We didn’t see a script at all at that point. George just had us make stuff, and he would come in every two weeks or so and look at what we had done. He’d would integrate particular characters into the script, so it gave them a particular function — the next week, he’d come back and say, ‘Okay, this guy’s playing the organ and this guy’s singing, and this one’s going to be an admiral,’ and so on.”

Though the Creature Shop didn’t fabricate Jabba, Tippett’s team was instrumental in designing the loathsome slug. “At the time Nilo Rodis-Jamero, Joe Johnston and Ralph McQuarrie and I were all working on different ideas. All the work they did was in 2-D drawings, and I did a bunch of 3-D maquettes.” Initial designs varied from humanoid to a bloated queen termite, but the defining direction came from Lucas invoking a cinematic classic.

“He said to make him look like Sydney Greenstreet in Casablanca,” says Tippett. “I think at one point, we even gave him a fez.”

Such light-hearted gags helped the team manage the stress inherent in developing over 80 creatures for the film. The flippant humor turned up in a lot of the creature names. “Well, the thing just looked like the calamari appetizers we were having, so we started calling them Calamari Men, and that became Mon Calamari.” Other creature names — like Klaatu, Nikto, and Barada, Hermi Odle, and Ephant Mon have similar irreverent origins visible to those who look closely.

The Digital Revolution

After finishing his stint at ILM, Tippett was one of many alumni who went out on his own to follow his own projects. He formed Tippett Studio in 1983, based in Berkley, California. There, he continued to bring his animation talents to a number of fantastic creations, notably the ED-209 robotic sentry in Paul Verhoeven’s sci-fi classic RoboCop.

Tippett had inherited the mantle of stop-motion animation wizard from Harryhausen. So much so, that when Steven Spielberg began work on his tyrannosaurus rex of dinosaur-movies, Jurassic Park, Tippett was recruited to handle the bulk of dinosaur effects, with some experimental digital dino-work by ILM planned for other, specific needs.

“All the dinosaurs in Jurassic were going to be pretty conventional, using stop-motion and rod puppets, and then relying a little bit on computer graphics for some of the stampeding herd scenes,” says Tippett. “As we were developing it, [ILM Visual Effects Supervisor] Dennis Muren was able to get some R&D; money at ILM, and worked up a few tests.”

Those “few tests” led to a watershed moment in the development of digital visual effects. There, in a darkened screening room, the creators of Jurassic Park saw the future unfold in a test shot of a lumbering tyrannosaurus rex, completely digital, stalking across a Marin County background. In a much-repeated anecdote, Spielberg turned to Tippett and declared his beloved craft of stop-motion animation … “extinct.”

“Steven said to me, ‘how do you feel, Phil?’ I said, ‘I feel like Georges Méliès!'” Tippett recalls, mentioning the father of visual effects of the early 1900s. “Everything that I had ever worked towards and loved as a kid was just in the trash can. There was a little bit of the new gunslinger vs. old gunslinger mentality with the CG guys. ‘We’re the new kids on the block,’ and I fell for it! I thought to myself, ‘I don’t have a clue about sitting down at a computer monitor and clicking at a mouse all day long and typing stuff out — it just didn’t look like a job for me.”

Many visual effects companies did not survive the digital revolution, having failed to prepare for the coming tidal wave of computer-generated solutions that would wash away old mechanical and photochemical processes. “I got really sick. My world came crashing down. I got pneumonia. My doctor made me go to bed,” Tippett says. But he sprung back, and instead embraced the opportunity to set some firm footprints in this new territory. “In that time, it became clear that George Lucas, Steven and various people involved wanted me to stay involved with Jurassic Park.”

Computer generated imagery was nothing new in the early 1990s. For almost 15 years, there had been some experimental innovation. Computer animation wasn’t about characters and stories yet, but instead existed to solve problems like reflections, ripples, and procedural rendering. Those most schooled in making a computer simulate reality weren’t schooled in imbuing inanimate subjects with vitality and motion, and vice-versa.

“Most of the work that the computer graphics guys were doing at the time was, on some level, theoretical,” explains Tippett. “It wasn’t bound to conventions or the physical realities of gravity, because it never needed to be. That education didn’t exist. Up until that point it had been a lot of flying logos or things like that. Dennis had been working more on hallucinogenic kinds of things — the stained glass man (in Young Sherlock Holmes) or the water-snake in The Abyss, or even the metal man in Terminator 2.

“Now these things had to be really concrete and perform with a kind of instinctual projection. Weight and mass and acceleration and deceleration and intentional issues of eyelines and things like that became extremely important.”

To bridge both disciplines, Tippett’s team assembled a hands-on solution for the computer world. Further hindering the paradigm shift from physical to digital was that computer animation applications at the time weren’t very user-friendly. The newly crafted “digital input device” made the computer work far more closer to the “just for fun” stop-motion films of childhood.

“I think as a consequence of CG still being in its infancy, Dennis felt uncomfortable about putting all his eggs in one basket and wanted to co-evolve and cross-blend stop-motion animation with the CG stuff,” says Tippett. “So Tom St. Amand and Blair Clark built these big stop-motion puppets that each had optical encoders on them that ran into the computer, and that was the initial way of inputting both the raptor-attacking-the-kids scene, and the T-rex entrance.”

With this as a starting point, there was still a lot of learning and unlearning in CG animation. “The computer had this function at the time, describing the animation as an analytical curve that ends up looking like a map of the British underground railway,” says Tippett. “And if you looked at this analytical function curve and saw what a conventional computer graphics guy was doing, you’d see something that was very, very pretty and very precise and very mathematically worked out. As a result, all the animation looked very smooth, and very boring. What the stop-motion guys were doing was adding these odd spikes and jags to that curve whenever a creature’s elbow connected to the ground. Initially, some of the technical people were saying, ‘that function curve doesn’t look right!’ True, but the movement looked right.”

This reintroduction of natural chaos, which Tippett called “breaking it,” led to amazingly realistic animation, and garnered ILM and Tippett an Academy Award for their work on Jurassic Park. Rather than throw in the effects towel, Tippett Studio began ramping up their digital expertise, first with small projects like Tremors 2, and eventually graduating to full CG spectacles. Starship Troopers was Tippett Studio’s landmark foray into massive swarms of computer-generated performances.

Hero of the Federation

Though manipulating puppets and pixels is an entirely different discipline than directing a live action movie, Tippett’s VFX-background was of great help as he cut his directorial teeth with the straight-to-video thriller Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation. A sequel to the big-budget big-screen Paul Verhoeven film of 1997, Troopers 2 scales down the galaxy-spanning war epic to a single outpost, and a small group of soldiers holding their fort against innumerable warrior bugs.

But there’s little safety within that concrete bunker, as a new type of bug makes distinguishing friend from foe a very deadly game.

Collaborating with longtime associates, Producer Jon Davison and Screenwriter Ed Neumeier, Tippett knew this Starship Troopers adventure would be a departure from its theatrical predecessor.

“We had been trying to develop various projects unsuccessfully in Hollywood, because they were all too weird and nobody wanted to do them,” says Tippett. “Jon got the idea of seeing if there was any likelihood or interest in Columbia/TriStar Direct-to-Video’s part in doing a sequel to Starship Troopers.”

The original film had a budget of about million dollars, but only grossed about half of that once it ended its theatrical run. A big movie follow-up wasn’t feasible, but there was still life to the continuing stories of fascist Earth forces battling against terrifying insect infantry.

“Sony was definitely interested in keeping the franchise alive, if we did it for a rock-bottom amount,” says Tippett. Davison, Neumeier and Tippett came up with a single-setting story that exchanged epic battle scenes for psychological terror and claustrophobia. Tippett likens the differences between original and sequel as the inverse of Alien and Aliens. It’s smaller, but scarier.

Production-wise, though, a smaller production with a tiny budget is much less frightening to the executives tasked to bankroll it. “The administration is always worried if they’re spending million, and everything gets so micromanaged that nobody’s has any fun,” says Tippett. “What we wanted to do was get back to our ancient Roger Corman-style filmmaking roots and just make the picture. The bad news is that you don’t have any money. The good news is that you don’t have any money. So all you can do is the best you can with the resources that you’ve got — and that really frees you up. So our deal was, let us make our movie and don’t micromanage us.”

The final budget was well under million dollars — a fragment of what a typical non-VFX theatrical drama costs. Pricey film stock and development costs were curtailed through the use of 24p HD-cameras, the same style of digital cameras used to capture Episodes II and III. The biggest budget-stretching boon was the production’s abilities to use hand-me-down wardrobe from the first film — quality armor and uniforms that were ready to use. Though, as Tippett recounts, the mixture of costumes and camera almost proved to be a derailing setback on Troopers 2.

“We had done all our camera tests with a different camera, and a week before the start of shooting, it came down that we had to use a Sony camera, so we had to re-do all of our tests,” says Tippett. “We’re relighting and retesting the costume, and Christian Sebaldt, the Director of Photography, starts freaking out. All these horrible moiré patterns were emanating all around the costumes. It turned out the lines of resolution in the cameras and the weave of the fabric in these costumes created these ridiculous patterns.”

Down to the wire, the production had to remake all the costumes in time for the first week of shooting. Though on-camera, the costumes passed muster, they failed a few key quality tests as action garments. “The first things we were doing were all these action scenes. All the troopers start to run, and all the crotches rip out of their pants. So everyone was putting gaffer’s tape on people’s crotches the first day of shooting,” Tippett laughs. “That’s a pretty typical stupid story.”

Such character-building war stories aside, Tippett was able to navigate the first-time director waters by applying what he had learned from working with a number of award-winning directorial heavyweights. “I would meet with Paul Verhoeven every month or so and go over production strategies. He was my mentor on the show. My memory of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg and Ron Howard and all these guys was that they were extremely inclusive. What they’ll do is invite you into a project to do your best work,” he says.

“I found that the more experienced the director was, the easier it was to work with him. The less experienced the directors were, the more horrible it was to work with him. Primarily because they were freaked out and worried,” he continues. “But I had seen that in action. Coming from a visual effects, you really get to cradle-to-grave these projects, and you’re working right from the beginning with the writer all the way through to when they’re striking the release print. So, you get to see the whole process and it’s not a mystery.”

Low budget-necessity proved to be the mother of production-invention in solving a number of challenges. It wouldn’t be Starship Troopers if the soldiers couldn’t use guns, but working weaponry proved to be a budget-buster. “In the first Starship Troopers, the budget for guns and ammo alone was like .5 million! That would cancel the picture right there, but I remembered this thing that Craig Hayes had devised when we were doing Robocop. I needed to have the ED-209 blast his guns with interactive lighting. Craig designed this rig with these little flash tubes that I was able to put into the barrels of the stop-motion character. It worked out great, so we used a similar idea. We manufactured these guns designed by Blair Clark, and one of our cameramen Frank Petzold put this quartz flash in the barrel. Because we were shooting HD, we were able to shoot with a shutter speed that would blow everything out.”

Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation boasts a modest 125 visual effects shots designed for maximum impact. Whereas the first film was a spectacle, this one is more of a gruesome horror picture, with the creature design and execution handled accordingly.

“On the horror side of things, the less you know and the more that is left to the mind and the unconscious, the better,” says Tippett of his creature-design philopshy. “It’s better if things are kept in the dark. But when it comes to spectacle, you have to try to give the things a lived-in sense of history. You have to have the thing explain itself without any explostion to make it feel like it’s actually been a real lived-in thing with an evolutionary history of its own. So that they don’t just feel like they’re designed by some cool designer who gave it a modeler and just said, ‘hey, make this and put it in a movie.’ A lot of times things fail because people are just making decisions based on things that look cool, but they’re not total concept planning.”

As far as the directorial debut experience goes, Tippett doesn’t seek to mystify the process. It seems clear-cut to him. “I figured if we have fun making this picture, then some of that will leak out into the finished product, and people will have fun watching it,” he says.

Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation is now available on DVD from Columbia/Tri-Star. It is rated R for violence, sexual content and brief language. Phil Tippett is also one of the dozens of behind-the-scenes talents interviewed on the supplementary material found on the Star Wars Trilogy DVD, due out September 2

This Article was Originally posted 2022-10-07 16:17:29.

The Holocron

The Clone Wars Episode Guide: Season Six

Video

Welcome to a look inside The Holocron. A collection of articles from the archives of *starwars.com no longer directly available.

(*Archived here with Permission utilising The Internet Archive Wayback Machine)

The Clone Wars Episode Guide: Season Six

As I said in the previous post, the format changed for the Episode Guides, so I have created a Featurette covering clips and interviews from The Clone Wars – Season 6 so I hope you enjoy them (bit short tho’).

Expect the same for the rest of the Seasons and expect Season 7 soon.

The Clone Wars Episode Guide: Season Six

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The Clone Wars Episode Guide: Season Five – Part 3

Video

Welcome to a look inside The Holocron. A collection of articles from the archives of *starwars.com no longer directly available.

(*Archived here with Permission utilising The Internet Archive Wayback Machine)

The Clone Wars Episode Guide: Season Five – Part 3

As I said in the previous post, the format changed for the Episode Guides, so I have created two Featurettes covering clips and interviews from The Clone Wars – Season 5 so I hope you enjoy them.

Expect the same for the rest of the Seasons and expect Season 6 soon.

The Clone Wars Episode Guide: Season Five – Part 3

The Holocron

The Clone Wars Episode Guide: Season Five – Part 2

Video

Welcome to a look inside The Holocron. A collection of articles from the archives of *starwars.com no longer directly available.

(*Archived here with Permission utilising The Internet Archive Wayback Machine)

The Clone Wars Episode Guide: Season Five – Part 2

As I said in the previous post, the format changed for the Episode Guides, so I have created two Featurettes covering clips and interviews from The Clone Wars – Season 5 so I hope you enjoy them.

Expect the same for the rest of the Seasons and expect Season 6 soon.

The Clone Wars Episode Guide: Season Five – Part 2

File Lost in Site Transfer Glitch!

The Holocron

The Clone Wars Episode Guide: Season Five – Part 1

Video

Welcome to a look inside The Holocron. A collection of articles from the archives of *starwars.com no longer directly available.

(*Archived here with Permission utilising The Internet Archive Wayback Machine)

The Clone Wars Episode Guide: Season Five – Part 1

As I said in the previous post, the format changed for the Episode Guides, so I have created two Featurettes covering clips and interviews from The Clone Wars – Season 5 so I hope you enjoy them.

Expect the same for the rest of the Seasons and expect Season 6 soon.

 

The Clone Wars Episode Guide: Season Five – Part 1

The Holocron

The Clone Wars Episode Guide: Questions Answered

Video

Welcome to a look inside The Holocron. A collection of articles from the archives of *starwars.com no longer directly available.

(*Archived here with Permission utilising The Internet Archive Wayback Machine)

The Clone Wars Episode Guide: Questions Answered

As I said in the previous post, the format changed for the Episode Guides, so I have created two Featurettes covering clips and interviews from The Clone Wars – Season 4 so I hope you enjoy them.

Expect the same for the rest of the Seasons and expect Season 5 soon.

 

The Clone Wars Episode Guide: Questions Answered

The Holocron

The Clone Wars Episode Guide: A Look Back

Video

Welcome to a look inside The Holocron. A collection of articles from the archives of *starwars.com no longer directly available.

(*Archived here with Permission utilising The Internet Archive Wayback Machine)

The Clone Wars Episode Guide: A Look Back

As I said in the previous post, the format changed for the Episode Guides, so I have created two Featurettes covering clips and interviews from The Clone Wars – Season 4 so I hope you enjoy them.

Expect the second part tomorrow.

Expect the same for the rest of the Seasons.

The Clone Wars Episode Guide: A Look Back

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The Clone Wars Episode Guide: Padawan Lost

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The Clone Wars Episode Guide: Padawan Lost

Episode No.: 65 (Season 3, Episode 21)
Production No.: 316 (Season 3, Episode 16)
Original Air Date: April 1, 2011

“Without humility, courage is a dangerous game.”

Written by Bonnie Mark
Directed by Dave Filoni

Cast:
Ashley Eckstein as Ahsoka Tano
Gwendoline Yeo as Kalifa
Matt Lanter as Anakin Skywalker | Ratter
James Arnold Taylor as Plo Koon | Kat Moll | Lagon
Dee Bradley Baker as clone troopers | TZ-33
Sunil Malhotra as Jinx
Zach Hanks as Garnac
Richard Green as Lo-Taren
Cam Clarke as O-Mer
Kevin Thoms as Dar
Matthew Wood as battle droids
Tom Kane as narrator

Synopsis: Ahsoka and a group of abducted younglings find themselves trapped on a Trandoshan moon, prey in an elaborate and cruel hunt. The forlorn younglings have lost all hope, despite the best efforts of their spirited leader, Kalifa. Ahsoka rallies them to defend themselves and strike back against the Trandoshan, an effort with deadly consequences.

New Characters: Kalifa, Garnac, Dar, Jinx, O-Mer, Lo-Taren, Smug, Kat-Moll

Returning Characters: Ahsoka Tano, Anakin Skywalker, Plo Koon, Clone Captain Rex, Clone Commander Wolffe, Comet, Sinker, Boost

Worlds Visited: Felucia, Wasskah, Coruscant

Secrets Revealed

  • The Jedi “cookie” at the start of the episode references “a dangerous game,” which is a nod to the 1924 short story, “The Most Dangerous Game,” by Richard Connell. The story is about a Russian hunter who stalks a big game hunter on a Caribbean island. It has been adapted to film and television many times.
  • This episode sees the return of Plo Koon’s Wolfpack clone troopers, led by Commander Wolffe, and featuring troopers Comet, Sinker and Boost.
  • Trandoshans are the same species as Bossk, the bounty hunter seen in Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back and in The Clone Wars Season Two’s three-part finale. The species name Trandoshan was established in a 1989 roleplaying game book, Galaxy Guide 3: The Empire Strikes Back, which also revealed that big game hunting was common in their culture.
  • The original script had the hunt take place on Dosha, the Trandoshan homeworld. It was later moved to Wasskha, a moon.
  • Also in the original script, the Trandoshan hunting lodge was a ground-based camp. During the development of the episode, it was moved into the sky to make the idea that the younglings had never found it before more plausible Among the prisoners delivered to Wasskha with Ahsoka are a Snivvian named Katt Mol (his red-and-black jumpsuit is inspired by the classic cantina character, Snaggletooth), a Terrelian Jango Jumper named Lika (modeled after Cassie Cryar), a Selkath named Morgo (modeled after Chata Hyoki), and a Sakiyan named Vadoo. In the script, Katt Mol, Vadoo and a hunter named Simna banded together for survival. This footage was shot but had to be cut for time.
  • Lika gets shot by a burly Trandoshan named Sochek, whose amber-tinted goggles and cargo shorts are inspired by Walter Sobchak, a character played by John Goodman in the 1998 Coen brothers movie, The Big Lebowski.
  • The yellow feathered birds are called convorees (singular: convor).
  • The Trandoshan hunting pods are inspired by the classic Cobra Trubble Bubble flight pod toy from the G.I.JOE toyline.

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The Clone Wars Episode Guide: Citadel Rescue

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The Clone Wars Episode Guide: Citadel Rescue

Episode No.: 64 (Season 3, Episode 20)
Production No.: 317 (Season 3, Episode 17)
Original Air Date: March 11, 2011

“Without honor, victory is hollow.”

Written by Matt Michnovetz
Directed by Steward Lee

Cast:
James Arnold Taylor as Obi-Wan Kenobi | Osi Sobeck | Plo Koon
Matt Lanter as Anakin Skywalker
Ashley Eckstein as Ahsoka Tano | K2-B4
Blair Bess as Even Piell
Dee Bradley Baker as clone troopers | Saesee Tiin | Admiral Coburn
Stephen Stanton as Tarkin
Tom Kane as the narrator | Yoda
Matthew Wood as battle droids
Corey Burton as Count Dooku
Terrence Carson as Mace Windu
Angelique Perrin as Adi Gallia

Synopsis: After their ship and only way off the planet is destroyed, Anakin and Obi-Wan must lead the escaped prisoners across Lola Sayu’s perilous landscape as Plo Koon commands a task force of four cruisers and their fighters through the Separatist defenses in a daring rescue. Even Piell is ravaged by anooba tracking beasts, but before he dies, he passes on his Nexus Routes coordinates to Ahsoka. When the survivors return to Coruscant, Ahsoka knows half the intel, and refuses to disclose it to anyone but the Jedi Council, while Tarkin refuses to hand over his half to anyone other than the Chancellor.

Returning Characters: Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Ahsoka Tano, R2-D2, Clone Captain Rex, Clone Commander Cody, Fives, OOM-10, K2-B4, Plo Koon, Mace Windu, Saesee Tiin, Adi Gallia, Kit Fisto, Count Dooku

Worlds Visited: Lola Sayu, Coruscant

Secrets Revealed

  • The Citadel combat scenario seen during the clone training sessions in “Clone Cadets” are named after the Citadel installation in this trilogy.
  • When escaping the crab droids, Commander Cody pulls a move that one of his clone troopers in Episode III will later do on Utapau — running atop a crab droid and gunning it down.
  • The Expanded Universe of Star Wars novels originally had Even Piell survive the Clone Wars only to be killed while as a fugitive in the early days of the Empire. Piell’s death in the Citadel Mission is the character’s true fate.
  • In the script for this episode, Osi Sobeck was to have been killed by Tarkin. Tarkin would have shot an unarmed Sobeck in cold blood, causing the Jedi to further question his honor.
  • When Saesee Tiin refers to “the Old Republic,” he is talking about the government that predates the modern founding of the Galactic Republic 1,000 years ago. That is a time of great strife and conflict, when the Sith battled against the Jedi.
  • Saesee Tiin’s starfighter has the same pattern on it as Ahsoka Tano, but in a different color. Likewise, Adi Gallia’s fighter has the same pattern as Plo Koon’s starfighter, seen in earlier episodes.
  • During the space battle, a clone trooper aboard an exploding Republic vessel lets out a distinct, high-pitched scream. This scream, called the “Wilhelm,” is an old sound effect that dates back to the 1930s, and appears in all six of the live action Star Wars feature films.
  • The Plo’s Bros gunship that rescues the strike team from Lola Sayu is designated a “space gunship”, with a sealed cabin and search spotlights mounted in the gunnery sockets.
  • The anoobas are actually a concept designed for Episode I by concept artist Terryl Whitlatch, who explored the sharp-toothed hound as a possible creature on Tatooine.
  • The cage the anoobas are kept in was visually inspired by the velociraptor cages in Jurassic Park.

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The Clone Wars Episode Guide: Counterattack

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The Clone Wars Episode Guide: Counterattack

Episode No.: 63 (Season 3, Episode 19)
Production No.: 315 (Season 3, Episode 15)
Original Air Date: March 4, 2011

“Anything that can go wrong will.”

Written by Matt Michnovetz
Directed by Brian Kalin O’Connell

Cast:
James Arnold Taylor as Obi-Wan Kenobi | Osi Sobeck | Plo Koon
Matt Lanter as Anakin Skywalker
Matthew Wood as battle droids | commando droids
Ashley Eckstein as Ahsoka Tano | K2-B4
Stephen Stanton as Tarkin
Dee Bradley Baker as clone troopers
Blair Bess as Even Piell
Tom Kane as the narrator | Yoda
Corey Burton as Count Dooku
Terrence Carson as Mace Windu

Synopsis: With freed prisoners in their possession and the brutal warden attempting desperately to thwart them, Obi-Wan and Anakin search for a way out of the Citadel and back to Coruscant. The prison, however, has more traps, perils and pitfalls in store for them than they had imagined and they must work past their differences if they are to escape. Their bid to board their shuttle fails when heavy weapons fire destroys the escape craft. Trooper Echo dies in the blast. The escapees then flee to the caves and call for rescue from the Jedi Temple on Coruscant.

Returning Characters: Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Ahsoka Tano, R2-D2, Clone Captain Rex, Clone Commander Cody, Echo, Fives, OOM-10, K2-B4, Plo Koon, Mace Windu, Saesee Tiin,

Worlds Visited: Lola Sayu

Secrets Revealed

  • Seen several times throughout the Citadel are mouse droids, the same little boxy droids seen as messengers aboard the Death Star and Star Destroyers in the original trilogy, and on Mustafar in Episode III.
  • Anakin’s hopping on a STAP is an echo from way back in 2008, The Clone Wars animated story.
  • The entire sequence where Obi-Wan and Even Piell try to sneak around the landing platform when they emerge from the ventilation duct was originally shot on top of the citadel tower. It was later moved with minimal pickups to the landing area behind the tower, on the ground.
  • Obi-Wan’s line to Osi Sobeck, “I must say, you’re not at all what I pictured. Someone with such a soft voice,” is particularly ironic given that actor James Arnold Taylor voices both characters.
  • The monitoring devices along the walls of the Citadel seen in these three episodes are designed after similar devices seen aboard the Death Star in Episode IV.
  • The non-existent Separatist outpost that OOM-10 mentions as part of his bluff is Point Tarron.
  • To differentiate Lola Sayu’s hellish conditions from the lava planet Mustafar, its molten rivers are colored a bright yellow, to suggest sulfur. Given what sulfurous deposits smell like, it’s understandable Tarkin and Anakin hold their noses.

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The Clone Wars Episode Guide: The Citadel

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The Clone Wars Episode Guide: The Citadel

Episode No.: 62 (Season 3, Episode 18)
Production No.: 314 (Season 3, Episode 14)
Original Air Date: February 18, 2011

“Adaptation is the key to survival.”

Written by Matt Michnovetz
Directed by Kyle Dunlevy

Cast:
Matt Lanter as Anakin Skywalker
James Arnold Taylor as Obi-Wan Kenobi | Plo Koon | Osi Sobeck
Ashley Eckstein as Ahsoka Tano | K2-B4
Dee Bradley Baker as clone troopers | torture droid
Blair Bess as Even Piell
Matthew Wood as battle droids | commando droids
Stephen Stanton as Tarkin
Anthony Daniels as Threepio
Tom Kane as Narrator

Synopsis: With help from R2-D2 and a squad of captured battle droids, an elite team of Jedi and clone troopers led by Obi-Wan and Anakin attempt to free a captive Jedi general, Even Piell, from an impenetrable prison. Despite orders to the contrary, Ahsoka Tano tags along, though she proves indispensable when the infiltration mission begins to evolve. Piell and his fleet officer, Captain Tarkin, as liberated from their cells, but now the fugitives must escape the Citadel itself.

New Characters:Even Piell, Osi Sobeck, K2-B4, OOM-10, Captain Tarkin

Returning Characters: Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Ahsoka Tano, R2-D2, Clone Captain Rex, Clone Commander Cody, Echo, Fives, Plo Koon, C-3PO

Worlds Visited: Lola Sayu

Secrets Revealed

  • Osi Sobeck is a Phindian, an alien species that originated in the Expanded Universe, specifically the Jedi Apprentice series published by Scholastic, Inc. The species was first pictured in The Essential Guide to Aliens Species, published by Del Rey Books in 2001. Osi’s design hews closely to the art by R.K. Post.
  • For James Arnold Taylor’s characterization of Osi Sobeck, he performed the dialogue with pauses and inflection inspired by Christopher Walken’s distinctive speech patterns.
  • Ashley Eckstein, who ordinarily voices Ahsoka Tano, joins James Arnold Taylor, Matt Lanter, Tom Kane, Corey Burton, Cara Pifko, Phil LaMarr, and Gary Scheppke as the voice of a tactical droid. The droid, K2-B4, has been colored to match the Lola Sayu environment: purple and yellow.
  • K2-B4’s colors also work well as the droid’s name is a nod to crewmembers who are fans of the Los Angeles Lakers. When K2-B4’s animation model was created, the Lakers won the championship. Kobe Bryant’s number 24 translates to K2-B4.
  • The texture of the exterior Citadel walls is meant to be visually reminiscent of the Death Star surface when seen from afar.
  • During Season One, discussions about getting past droid scans led to Superising Director Dave Filoni and writer Henry Gilory developing the carbon-freezing tactic, though it never made it into an episode. Gilroy later used it in an Expanded Universe Clone Wars comic book story, The Shipyards of Doom. Its use in ‘The Citadel’ brings it to the screen.
  • Some of the smallest asteroids seen orbiting Lola Sayu are re-textured rocks seen floating over Mortis or Iego.
  • According to the screens in the Citadel orbital security stations, the Separatist shuttle that R2-D2 commands is an escort shuttle, class type B.
  • Even Piell is a Jedi Master first seen in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Piell’s short height and long ears caused many fans to speculate some sort of relation to Yoda (some called him “the pink Yoda”), but Piell is a distinct species: a Lannik. Though Even Piell is male, in the live action movie, he was portrayed by a woman: Michaela Cotrell.

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The Clone Wars Episode Guide: Ghosts of Mortis

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The Clone Wars Episode Guide: Title

Episode No.: 61 (Season 3, Episode 17)
Production No.: 313 (Season 3, Episode 13)
Original Air Date: February 11, 2011

“He who seeks to control fate shall never find peace.”

Written by Christian Taylor
Directed by Steward Lee

Cast:
Matt Lanter as Anakin Skywalker
Lloyd Sherr as Father
James Arnold Taylor as Obi-Wan Kenobi
Sam Witwer as Son
Ashley Eckstein as Ahsoka Tano
Liam Neeson as Qui-Gon Jinn
Dee Bradley Baker as clone troopers
Tom Kane as the narrator | Yoda
Ian Abercrombie as Darth Sidious
Catherine Taber as Padmé

Synopsis: The Jedi remain stranded on Mortis, and the Son, aligned with the dark side of the Force, renews his efforts to convert Anakin as the Jedi prepare for a decisive confrontation. Anakin is stunned by images of his dark future. The Son promises him the power to avert this destiny.

The Father recognizes that the Son has broken the rules of time. He wipes Anakin’s memory of these future visions, and steals the Mortis Dagger to end the conflict. The Father impales himself, thus preventing the Son from stealing his power. The Son, stunned by this, is run through by Anakin. With all three Force-wielders destroyed, the imbalance in the Force disappears on Mortis. The three Jedi are transplanted back to the galaxy proper, apparently at the moment that they disappeared.

Returning Characters: Anakin Skywalker; Obi-Wan Kenobi; Ahsoka Tano; Son; Father; Qui-Gon Jinn; Clone Captain Rex

Worlds Visited: Mortis

Secrets Revealed

  • It is completely intentional that the Father is the only one of the three Force-wielders that vanishes upon his death as Obi-Wan and Yoda do.
  • The lava used in the Well of the Dark Side uses some of the same elements from Revenge of the Sith Mustafar scenes, according to effects supervisor Joel Aron
  • The very portable Jedi jumpseeders are based off a speeder bike concept drawings from Return of the Jedi.
  • Some of the concept design for the Well of the Dark Side was taken from early Ralph McQuarrie designs for subterranean levels of the Imperial Palace where Luke was going to face the Emperor deep within Coruscant in Return of the Jedi.
  • Ahsoka is wearing a re-purposed par of Hondo Ohnaka’s pirate goggles with the strap removed.
  • Hidden among the constellations etched into in the Father’s monastery is a wolf.

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The Clone Wars Episode Guide: Altar of Mortis

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The Clone Wars Episode Guide: Altar of Mortis

Episode No.: 60 (Season 3, Episode 16)
Production No.: 311 (Season 3, Episode 11)
Original Air Date: February 4, 2011

“He who surrenders hope, surrenders life.”

Written by Christian Taylor
Directed by Brian Kalin O’Connell

Cast:
Matt Lanter as Anakin Skywalker
James Arnold Taylor as Obi-Wan Kenobi
Samuel Witwer as Son
Adrienne Wilkinson as Daughter
Ashley Eckstein as Ahsoka Tano
Lloyd Sherr as Father
Tom Kane as narrator

Synopsis: Before the Jedi can leave Mortis, the Son takes Ahsoka captive in an attempt to entice Anakin into joining him to use their combined strength to overpower his Father and Sister. To this end, the Son casts Ahsoka under the spell of the dark side.

Meanwhile, the Father attempts to stave off a disastrous showdown between his children and maintain the Force’s increasingly precarious balance on the planet. Fearing that the Son may be unstoppable, the Daughter does the forbidden by taking Obi-Wan Kenobi to the Altar of Mortis, wherein is kept the Dagger of Mortis, a weapon capable of killing a Force-wielder. The Son steals the weapon, and attempts to use it against his Father to steal his power and end his rule, but the Daughter sacrifices herself, placing herself in front of the blade.

Returning Characters: Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Ahsoka Tano, Son, Daughter, Father

Worlds Visited: Mortis

Secrets Revealed

  • The Son’s “prison creature form” has no proper name. Sam Witwer provided the voice for it as well.
  • The look of the Altar was very much derived from the Wagner opera Siegfried. In it, Siegfried crosses through a ring of fire to find the valkyrie warrior Brünnhilde, who shall “work the deed that redeems the world.” This description could apply to the Mortis dagger, as well as to Anakin.
  • The Son’s cathedral is an homage to the tower of Orthanc from The Lord of the Rings, the Two Towers, which was also a single dark tower set within a circle. “If you know The Lord of the Rings films you may notice that the tower itself resembles Saruman’s staff,” says Supervising Director Dave Filoni. Saruman was portrayed by Christopher Lee who also played Count Dooku in Episodes II, III and The Clone Wars movie.
  • Though the Father is not depicted in a beast form, he does have wings.

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The Clone Wars Episode Guide: Witches of the Mist

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The Clone Wars Episode Guide: Witches of the Mist

Episode No.: 58 (Season 3, Episode 14)
Production No.: 312 (Season 3, Episode 12)
Original Air Date: January 21, 2011

“The path to evil may bring great power, but not loyalty.”

Written by Katie Lucas
Directed by Giancarlo Volpe

Cast:
Corey Burton as Count Dooku
Clancy Brown as Savage Opress
Nika Futterman as Ventress
Barbara Goodson as Mother Talzin
James Arnold Taylor as Obi-Wan Kenobi | Plo Koon
Matt Lanter as Anakin Skywalker
Stephen Stanton as Brother Viscus | Toydarian Guard #2
Dee Bradley Baker as clone troopers | Toydarian Guard #1
Angelique Perrin as Adi Gallia | Talia
Terrence Carson as Mace Windu
Brian George as King Katuunko
Tom Kane as the narrator | Yoda
Matthew Wood as battle droids

Synopsis: Anakin and Obi-Wan, sent to track down the mysterious figure behind the deaths of several Jedi, soon find themselves on the trail of the monstrous apprentice that Ventress has created: Savage Opress, who has been trained in the ways of the Sith by Dooku.

Dooku sends Opress to Toydaria to capture King Katuunko. The monstrous apprentice clashes with the Jedi, and in the course of the battle he kills the king. Opress returns to Dooku’s flagship having failed his Master. It is then that Ventress strikes, with Opress at her side, against Dooku. A three-way battle for dark side supremacy ends with Dooku triumphant, Ventress fleeing, and a disillusioned Savage abandoning his loyalties to the Sith. He returns to Mother Talzin, who gives him a new task. To seek the Outer Rim for his long-lost brother….

However, Dooku and Ventress also discover that this new apprentice has a will of his own.

Returning Characters: Anakin Skywalker; Obi-Wan Kenobi; Savage Opress; Asajj Ventress; Count Dooku; King Katuunko; Adi Gallia; Plo Koon; Yoda; Mace Windu; Brother Viscus

New Characters: Boss; Scorch; Fixer; Sev; Saesee Tiin

Worlds Visited: Coruscant; Serenno; Dathomir; Toydaria

Secrets Revealed

    • The clones escorting Halsey’s body to the Jedi Temple are the four Republic commandos created for the 2005 LucasArts video game.
    • Expanded Universe lore had previously suggested that the Jedi never knew Darth Maul’s name, but the captured Neimoidians would have known it during the Naboo invasion. Maul’s EU connections to Iridonia are also mentioned, though the episode reveals Maul was raised on Dathomir.
    • When Dooku looms over Savage after besting him in a lightsaber duel, he holds two lightsabers at his throat in a very deadly scissor formation. Ironically, this is how Dooku meets his end in Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith.

  • Dooku evidently holds a grudge: King Katuunko rejected Dooku’s offer to join the Separatists in the very first episode of The Clone Wars, “Ambush.”
  • The ship that the Jedi take to leave Toydaria is the Thief’s Eye, the same vessel briefly glimpsed in “Ambush” and used by King Katuunko.
  • Dooku’s escape hatch concealed in his quarters was previously seen in Season One, “Dooku Captured.” Though Savage does not pursue because he is interrupted by Jedi intruders, it’s questionable whether his enormous build would even fit into the escape tunnel.
  • Savage’s long lost brother living in the Outer Rim? Interesting.

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The Clone Wars Episode Guide: Monster

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The Clone Wars Episode Guide: Monster

Episode No.: 57 (Season 3, Episode 13)
Production No.: 310 (Season 3, Episode 10)
Original Air Date: January 14, 2011

“Evil is not born, it is taught.”

Written by Katie Lucas
Directed by Kyle Dunlevy

Cast:
Nika Futterman as Ventress | Nightsister
Corey Burton as Count Dooku | Halsey | Nightbrother #1
Barbara Goodson as Mother Talzin | Nightsister
Clancy Brown as Savage Opress | Nightbrother #3
Dee Bradley Baker as clone troopers | Feral | Knox
Stephen Stanton as Brother Viscus | Nightbrother #2
Tom Kane as Narrator

Synopsis: When Count Dooku calls upon the Nightsisters seeking a replacement for Ventress, she and her kin seize the opportunity to exact revenge. Ventress visits the far side of Dathomir and the males of the planet seeking the most brutal and powerful warrior among them. Talzin has Asajj secretly select a warrior from the distant Nightbrother village: Savage Opress. With the power of dark magic, Talzin transforms Savage into a hulking warrior ultimately loyal to Asajj. She then delivers Opress to Dooku, where he will serve as his secret Sith apprentice in a plot to overthrow Darth Sidious.

Returning Characters: Asajj Ventress; Count Dooku; Mother Talzin; Halsey;

New Characters: Savage Opress; Feral; Brother Viscus; Knox; Clone Commander Trauma;

Worlds Visited: Dathomir, Serenno, Devaron

Secrets Revealed

  • As he did in “Nightsisters,” Dooku makes mention of an old allegiance with Mother Talzin, though the full nature of this association has yet to be revealed. “Long ago,” presumably when he was a Jedi, Dooku helped Talzin out of some manner of predicament. Given Talzin’s penchant for long-term planning, she may have been concocting this scheme since that day.
  • Talzin offers Dooku a rejuvenating beverage of blackroot. Fans of Willow will remember that blackroot puts hair on your chest, but you should never ever feed it to an infant. If that means nothing to you, then see the movie.
  • The Zabrak species, represented in Star Wars by such memorable characters as Darth Maul, Eeth Koth and Sugi the bounty hunter, are a culture that has spread across the galaxy. Though many hail from Iridonia, their wide colonization efforts mean that many only associate themselves with the colony world of their birth. In the case of Maul’s people, these Zabrak call Dathomir home.
  • When Maul first appeared, his striking striped patterning was quickly assumed to be an example of Sith heritage by many artists and writers. They are not exclusive or even derived from Sith, but are instead the markings of a warrior.
  • The look of a shirtless Darth Maul was first developed by concept artist Iain McCaig when the need arose to illustrate Maul for a Dark Horse Comics comic book. That design has since appeared in action figures. It defined the look of the shirtless Nightbrothers in this episode.
  • Aside from Feral, Viscus and Savage, none of the other Nightbrothers are named in the script.
  • The Nightsister incantation that empowers Savage is as follows:

    Geiss kan erde mak | harden ob stein
    geiss kan lewf mak | krig ob blitz
    geiss kan pire mak | blud loge raga
    geiss kan vass byn | skol zum Asajj
    erde-blitz-raga-byn | ede-blitz raga byn
    erde-blitz-raga-byn, zum Asajj!

  • Savage’s body armor is based on Roman armor, with thin metal plates that slide over each other for a greater range of movement.
  • According to concept art, Savage’s spear can fire its tip .
  • Jedi Halsey previously appeared in the background of the Season Two episode, “Grievous Intrigue.” Concept art at the time identified him as Jayfo Ong, and he later became known as Tukker Val Loo and Lev’loa before his final name, Halsey, was settled upon. The name is spoken aloud in the next episode, “Witches of the Mist.”
  • Halsey and Knox re-use existing character geometry, but with newly textured finishes. Halsey is made up of Kit Fisto’s body, while Knox’s body is that of Bolla Ropal.

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The Clone Wars Episode Guide: Nightsisters

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The Clone Wars Episode Guide: Nightsisters

Episode No.: 56 (Season 3, Episode 12)
Original Air Date: January 7, 2011
Production No.: 308 (Season 3, Episode 8)

“The swiftest path to destruction is through vengeance.”

Written by Katie Lucas
Directed by Giancarlo Volpe

Cast:
Nika Futterman as Ventress
James Arnold Taylor as Obi-Wan Kenobi/Pirate #1
Matt Lanter as Anakin Skywalker
Dee Bradley Baker as clone troopers | Ratch
Barbara Goodson as Mother Talzin
Corey Burton as Count Dooku | Ky Narec
Cara Pifko as TJ-912 | Naa’leth
Tom Kane as the narrator | Yularen
Ian Abercrombie as Darth Sidious | Pirate #2
Catherine Taber as Karis
Matthew Wood as battle droids

Synopsis: Troubled by Asajj Ventress’ growing prowess with the dark side of the Force, Darth Sidious commands Count Dooku to eliminate her. But Ventress survives Dooku’s assassination attempt, and the jilted former apprentice vows to take revenge, enlisting the aid of her kinswomen — the mystical Nightsisters — in her sinister scheme.

Mother Talzin, leader of the Nightsisters, veils Asajj and her fellow assassins in a cloak of invisibility, and they infiltrate Dooku’s palace on Serenno. Though they fail to kill the Count, their use of captured Jedi lightsabers leads Dooku to mistakenly believe that the Jedi have tried to kill him. Interested in protection, he requests a new apprentice from Mother Talzin.

Returning Characters: Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, R2-D2, Count Dooku, Asajj Ventress, Darth Sidious, Admiral Yularen

New Characters: Mother Talzin, Naa’leth, Ky Narec, TJ-912, Ratch, Karis, Talia, Hal’Sted

Worlds Visited: Dathomir, Serenno, Rattatak

Secrets Revealed

  • Asajj Ventress began life as concept art by Dermot Power for a potential female Sith Lord during the development of Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones (2002). When the character was abandoned in favor of Count Dooku, the female Sith warrior was repurposed as a “Separatist commander” for the Clone Wars spin-off material developed by Lucas Licensing in toys, comics and novels in 2003-2005.
  • Asajj’s costume at the start of the episode is a direct recreation of the costume she wore in her initial concept art and early EU appearances.

  • Author W. Haden Blackman developed Asajj’s Expanded Universe backstory for the Star Wars: Republic comic. An early draft of her character was named Juno Eclipse, a name that would be discarded and resurrected as an Imperial pilot in The Force Unleashed. Ventress’s backstory tied her to the planet Rattatak and revealed her to be the student of Jedi Knight Ky Narec.
  • For The Clone Wars series, writer Katie Lucas preserved much of this EU backstory for this authoritative depiction of Asajj and her history. In the flashbacks seen in the episode, young Asajj is handed over by her Dathomirian mother to a Siniteen criminal named is Hal’Sted. The flashbacks then move to Rattatak, where she is discovered by Ky Narec after Hal’Sted dies from an assault by Weequay raiders.
  • Another Expanded Universe concept is the planet Dathomir and its Nightsisters. Though the idea of witches in Star Wars has been around since the ’80s (the Ewoks live action movie and cartoon both featured witches), these in particular debuted in the 1994 novel, The Courtship of Princess Leia by Dave Wolverton. The planet and the Nightsisters have made numerous appearances in publishing since then, but it was their inclusion in the The Clone Wars: Jedi Alliance videogame that prompted their appearance in the series.
  • Mother Talzin’s look is derived from a Sith Witch concept first developed by concept artist Iain McCaig for Episode I. Before Darth Maul was defined as Episode I’s principal Sith Lord, McCaig explored several nightmarish witch concepts.
  • When in their spectral forms, the Nightsisters do not cast shadows

  • In addition to Talzin, Naa’leth and Karis, a there is another named Nightsister in this episode, Talia.
  • This episode sees the return of the Geonosian fanblade starfighter as Asajj’s vehicle. It was originally designed for the pilot Clone Wars micro-series. Its distinctive shape was inspired by a Japanese fan.
  • This episode marks the debut of Obi-Wan Kenobi’s new Season Three character model.
  • At the start of the episode, the Republic cruiser Resolute is destroyed, though Admiral Yularen did escape.
  • The tactical droid TJ-912 acknowledges an order by quoting a classic Battlestar Galactica line often uttered by Cylons: “By your command.”
  • The scavenger vessel is called the Raider. It is a re-use of the Vulture’s Claw model from Season One, but with a distinct paint job and some other modifications. Though his name is not spoken in the episode, the Twi’lek scavenger who finds Asajj is named Ratch.

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The Clone Wars Episode Guide: Pursuit of Peace

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The Clone Wars Episode Guide: Pursuit of Peace

Episode No.: 55 (Season 3, Episode 11)
Original Air Date: December 3, 2010
Production No.: 307 (Season 3, Episode 7)

“Truth can strike down the specter of fear”

Written by Daniel Arkin
Directed by Duwayne Dunham

Cast:
Catherine Taber as Padmé Amidala
Dee Bradley Baker as Onaconda Farr, Robonino, Mot-Not Rab
Phil LaMarr as Bail Organa, Orn Free Taa and Alderaan guard
Corey Burton as County Dooku, Chata Hyoki, driver
Ashley Moynihan as Teckla Minnau
Stephen Stanton as Mas Amedda, Mak Plain, Edcel Bar Gane
Jason Spisak as Christo, Zinn Paulness, Coruscant guard
Tom Kane as narrator, police droid and Twi’lek punk
Ian Abercrombie as Chancellor Palpatine
Kath Soucie as Mon Mothma
Gideon Emery as Mee Deechi
Jameelah McMillan as Halle Burtoni

Synopsis: Padmé, Bail Organa and Onaconda Farr attempt to rally Senators in opposition to a bill that would appropriate funds for millions of new clone troops and have disastrous financial consequences for the Republic. Their opposition to the measure, however, soon makes them targets for intimidation and attacks by hired guns. After escaping two hired thugs — Chata Hyoki and Robonino — in a harrowing speeder bike chase, Padmé, is able to sway the Senate with a stirring account of how the war has affected an everyday civilian, her handmaiden Teckla Minnau.

Returning Characters: Padmé Amidala; Senator Bail Organa; Senator Onaconda Farr; Chancellor Palpatine; Mas Amedda; Senator Halle Burtoni; Count Dooku; Robonino; Senator Mot-Not Rab; Senator Orn Free Taa; Lolo Purs; Mon Mothma; Mee Deechee;

New Characters: Chata Hyoki; Mak Plain; Senator Edcel Bar Gane; Hogan Tinmar; Senator Christo; Teckla Minnau

Key Locales: Coruscant

Secrets Revealed

  • Padmé’s driver’s name, not spoken in the episode, is Hogan Tinmar. Mak Plain is the Banking Clan representative that Padmé and Onaconda visit.
  • This episode is immediately followed by Season Two’s Senate Murders, where Onaconda and Mee Deechee meet their end.
  • Chata Hyoki is a Selkath alien, a species that first appeared in the 2003 video game, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Established as an aquatic species, Hyoki’s chest armor includes misting vents to keep his skin moist.
  • Teckla Minnau’s character name was pieced together over time from multiple sources. Nathan Hamill, the son of Mark Hamill (who played Luke Skywalker), was a Naboo extra in Episode I. He unofficially named his character Rehtul Minnau, but that name did not appear in any continuity. Later, the script to Episode II referred to the server at the Naboo lake retreat as Teckla, but gave her no surname. StarWars.com then began offering Fan Club members the opportunity to create new Expanded Universe lore through the databank in a feature called “What’s the Story?”. In 2008, a Star Wars user with the screen-name ShadowCultist fleshed out Teckla’s back-story and gave her the last name Minnau, which is now her last name as spoken in The Clone Wars.

  • The backseat of the Coruscant police speeders have security bars for the detainment of those arrested.
  • This episode confirms what many have suspected: most of Padmé’s elaborate coifs are wigs already prepared into their headdresses.

  • Mina Bonteri’s off-screen death (attributed to a Republic attack) now makes Lux an orphan. His next interaction with the Jedi or the Republic should prove interesting.
  • The Coruscant police speeders list their jurisdiction (“Coruscant police sector 417”) as well as an emergency contact number, “9-1-1.”

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The Clone Wars Episode Guide: Heroes on Both Sides

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The Clone Wars Episode Guide: Heroes on Both Sides

Episode No.: 54 (Season 3, Episode 10)
Original Air Date: November 19, 2010
Production No.: 306 (Season 3, Episode 6)

“Fear is a great motivator.”

Written by Daniel Arkin
Directed by Kyle Dunlevy

Cast:
Catherine Taber as Padmé Amidala | Voe Atell
Ashley Eckstein as Ahsoka Tano
Kath Soucie as Mina Bonteri, Mon Mothma, and maiden #1
Phil LaMarr as Gume Saam, Bail Organa, Orn Free Taa
Corey Burton as Nix Card, Count Dooku and engineer
Gideon Emery as Lott Dod and Kerch Kushi
Stephen Stanton as Mas Amedda and Senator
Dee Bradley Baker as clones, Mot Not Rab, and Onaconda Farr
Jason Spisak as Lux
Matt Lanter as Anakin Skywalker
Ian Abercrombie as Chancellor Palpatine
Jameelah McMillan as Halle Burtoni and maiden #2
Matthew Wood as General Grievous and battle droids
Tom Kane as narrator

Synopsis: When the Senate begins debating a bill that would eliminate government oversight of the Banking Clan’s activities in order to fund the war, Padmé and Ahsoka travel in secret to the capital of the Confederacy of Independent Systems. Amidala attempts to forge a peace agreement with the Separatists, while Ahsoka sees, for the first time, the people of the Confederacy. Padmé’s friend, Mina Bonteri, spearheads the peace initiative, and convinces the Separatist Congress to sue for peace.

Meanwhile, on Coruscant, Senators Lott Dod and Gume Saam conspire with Banking Clan representative Nix Card and Count Dooku to make the banking deregulation a reality. At Dooku’s command, General Grievous engineers an attack at the central power distribution grid on Coruscant, carried out by Separatist demolition droids. The chaos and panic spreads to the Senate, which vehemently rejects the Separatist peace initiative, and votes instead to deregulate the Banking Clan.

Returning Characters: Padmé Amidala, Ahsoka Tano, Bail Organa, Senator Lott Dod, Chancellor Palpatine, Mas Amedda, Anakin Skywalker, Count Dooku, General Grievous, Clone Commander Fox, Senator Halle Burtoni, Senator Mon Mothma, Senator Orn Free Taa, Captain Typho, Senator Zinn Paulness, Senator Stronk, battle droids, Eekar Oki

New Characters: Senator Mina Bonteri, Lux Bonteri, Bonteri’s maidens, Senator Gume Saam, Senator Mot Not Rab, Nix Card, demolition droids, engineering team, Senator Voe Atell, Senator Kerch Kusi, Senator By Bluss, Senator Punn Rimbaud, Senator Bec Lawise, Senator Amita Fonti

Key Locales: Coruscant, Raxus

Secrets Revealed

  • During production, this episode was titled “Banking Conspiracy.” The new title, taken from a line in the opening crawl for Episode III, came much later.
  • As previously reported, this episode unveils new models for several of the main characters, including upgrades to Anakin Skywalker and Ahsoka Tano, and a new wardrobe for Chancellor Palpatine. Ahsoka is now older; there is an unspecified passage of time between this episode and her last appearance. With the start of this arc, which continues in “Pursuit of Peace” and concludes in Season Two’s “Senate Murders,” the Clone Wars storyline advances to its furthest point in the timeline, and subsequent episodes should continue going forward without as much jumping back and forth.
  • Since Season Two’s “Senate Murders” is actually, to date, the last episode in the chronology, it’s a good thing that scenes with Anakin Skywalker were cut from that episode, since he would have been sporting an outdated character model. These scenes can be seen in the Blu-Ray release of Star Wars: The Clone Wars The Complete Season Two.
  • Whatever relation Raxus holds to Raxus Prime, the junk planet seen in several LucasArts video games, has yet to be defined, though it is clearly not intended to be the same planet, given the pastoral beauty of the Separatist capital.

  • Senator Gume Saam, an Ishi Tib alien, is supposed to be the same alien seen beside Bail Organa at the parade ground balcony seen at the end of Episode II. The way Count Dooku addresses him strongly suggests he is getting kickbacks from the Techno Union.
  • Lott Dod says Coruscant has not been directly attacked in over 1,000 years, which coincides with a chronology that had the last war between Sith and Jedi around that time as well.

  • The transforming demolition droids have stenciled on their domes “CSD,” for “Coruscant Sanitation Department.”
  • The starship that Padmé and Ahsoka take to Raxus is a Gozanti freighter, a vessel briefly seen in the background over Mos Espa in both Episodes I and II. The ship that delivers the demolition droids to the Coruscant docks is a Taylander shuttle, also seen in Episode II.
  • The battle droids that deal with newcomers to Raxus are remarkably polite.
  • Mina Bonteri mentions her husband died on Aargonar, a planet previously seen in the first run of Dark Horse comics’ version of The Clone Wars.
  • Among the Separatist Senators seen in congress are Voe Atell, the green-skinned female with the double row of horns; Kerch Kusi, who disputes Atell’s stance on the Corporate Alliance; Punn Rimbaud, a deep-voiced female amphibian alien; By Bluss, who votes aye for opening peace negotiations; Amita Fonti, a Gossam alien; and Bec Lawise, a wide-bodied Brainee alien who serves as Separatist Congress Leader.
  • Nix Card is extremely tall — eight feet! — as all Muuns are. When he sits down, he is the same height as Gume Saam and Lott Dod.
  • The power generators are said to be on level 5000, presumably 5,000 levels down from the surface of Coruscant.

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The Clone Wars Episode Guide: Hunt for Ziro

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The Clone Wars Episode Guide: Hunt for Ziro

Episode No.: 53 (Season 3, Episode 9)
Original Air Date: November 12, 2010
Production No.: 305 (Season 3, Episode 5)

“Love comes in all shapes and sizes.”

Written by Steve Mitchell & Craig Van Sickle
Directed by Steward Lee

Cast:
Corey Burton as Ziro the Hutt and Cad Bane
James Arnold Taylor as Obi-Wan Kenobi
Nika Futterman as Sy Snootles and Gardulla the Hutt
Al Rodrigo as Quinlan Vos
Angelique Perrin as Mama the Hutt, MF-80 and chorus girl
Dee Bradley Baker as Clone Commander Cody and Arok the Hutt
Seth Green as Todo 360
Kevin Michael Richardson as Jabba the Hutt and Marlo the Hutt
Tom Kane as the narrator

Synopsis: Cad Bane has broken Ziro the Hutt out of prison and the Hutt Council demands that Ziro tell them where he’s hidden vital — and incriminating — information: a journal detailing the criminal activities of the five Hutt families. Ziro makes another daring escape with the help of his estranged (and strange) lover, Sy Snootles. Bane is back on the Hutt’s trail — but he’s not the only one. The Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi and Quinlan Vos need to find him too.

A chase through the swamps of Nal Hutta leads the pursuers to Ziro’s enormous mother, Mama the Hutt, who points them to the direction of Teth. It is here, in the secret grave of Ziro’s father, that the fugitive Hutt has hidden the diary. When he retrieves it, Snooty reveals her true spots. She’s a deadly woman scorned and a bounty hunter for hire. She kills Ziro, and returns the journal to her client: Jabba the Hutt.

Returning Characters: Cad Bane, Ziro the Hutt, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Clone Commander Cody, Arok the Hutt, Marlo the Hutt, Gorga the Hutt, Jabba the Hutt, Oruba the Hutt, Todo 360

New Characters: Sy Snootles, Quinlan Vos, Rang Thang, Mama the Hutt, Gardulla the Hutt, MF-80, house droid Ran-D, Gamorrean Guards, chorus girls

The Jedi Council has assigned Obi-Wan Kenobi to retrieve Ziro the Hutt with the help of Jedi Knight Quinlan Vos. Unknown to the Jedi, we find Ziro in the clutches of the five Hutt families on the distant world of Nal Hutta….

Secrets Revealed

  • The character of Quinlan Vos is known to many Star Wars fans from his appearances in comic books published by Dark Horse Comics. The design of Vos stems from a background extra barely glimpsed in Mos Espa in Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace. Dark Horse applied this design to a new character featured in the Star Wars: Republic comics, Quinlan Vos. George Lucas took such an interest in the look and personality of Quinlan that he included him in the script to Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith. Obi-Wan Kenobi mentions a “Master Vos”, and there was a plan to include Vos on Kashyyyk during the Order 66 sequence, though that was never photographed. This is Vos’ first appearance in The Clone Wars.
  • In the comic book, Quinlan Vos is depicted as a rather unorthodox Jedi — one prone to bending rules and spending much time in deep undercover in dangerous, seedy parts of the galaxy. He has a unique Force talent of psychometry — the ability to read impressions off of objects so he can see who had previously handled them. In this episode, he uses this ability to detect Ziro’s presence from a discarded drinking vessel. In the script, he was to use it again while tracking down Ziro in the swamps of Nal Hutta.
  • The five Hutt family leaders are are Oruba, Marlo, Arok, Gorga and Jabba. As Jabba is not present on Nal Hutta, Gardulla serves as his representative. This was a change made relatively late in production. Jabba’s protocol droid, TC-30, was changed to Gardulla’s, MF-80.
  • Among the sources of inspiration for the enormous Mama the Hutt was Pearl, the obese vampire in Blade (1998).
  • The small hovering droids in Mama’s house — the Ran-D housekeeper droids — are an homage to to the tiny robots built by ILM in *batteries not included (1987).
  • The dance number in the episode was inspired by the opening scene of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), where Willie Scott and a troupe of chorus girls entertain gangster Lao Che and his henchmen.
  • For those who like to inventory such things: the creatures on Nal Hutta included a slightly redesigned peko peko bird, different in appearance from those found on Naboo; a dragonsnake; and a type of fish first spotted in Duchess Satine’s aquarium earlier this season. The DJ at the Hutt gathering is named Rang Thang.
  • If you listen closely when Ziro dies, he mutters “What a World, what a world!”, a nod to the death of the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz (1939).
  • Marlo the Hutt wears a Sha’rellian toop, a small creature that lives on his head giving him the appearance of having hair. Mama the Hutt has a stack of these as well

 

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The Clone Wars Episode Guide: Evil Plans

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The Clone Wars Episode Guide: Evil Plans

Episode No.: 52 (Season 3, Episode 8)
Original Air Date: November 5, 2010
Production No.: 303 (Season 3, Episode 3)

“A failure in planning is a plan for failure.”

Written by Steve Mitchell & Craig Van Sickle
Directed by Brian Kalin O’Connell

Cast:
Anthony Daniels as C-3PO
Seth Green as Todo 360
Corey Burton as Cad Bane, HELIOS-3E and J0-N0
Kevin Michael Richardson as Jabba the Hutt, Gorga the Hutt and Droogan
Matt Lanter as Anakin Skywalker and droid
Catherine Taber as Padmé Amidala
Nika Futterman as TC-70
Dee Bradley Baker as Shopkeeper droid and Arok the Hutt
Terrence Carson as Senator Aang and alien
Angelique Perrin as SN-D1 and BO-N1
Tom Kane as Narrator
David Acord as rabbit droid
Jeffrey “Duff” Goldman as baker droid

Synopsis: In the middle of a routine shopping trip on Coruscant C-3PO is abducted by the bounty hunter Cad Bane. Bane is looking for information about the Senate building on behalf of Jabba the Hutt. Finding C-3PO devoid of useful information, Bane and his accomplices kidnap R2-D2 and extract the vital data, before memory wiping the droids of the incident, and letting them on their way. The floor-plans and security details of the Senate building are part of a plot engineered by the Hutt families to free their imprisoned brother, Ziro the Hutt, who holds potentially damaging information about Hutt activities.

Recurring Characters: C-3PO, R2-D2, Cad Bane, Todo 360, HELIOS-3E, Padmé Amidala, Anakin Skywalker, Jabba the Hutt, Bail Organa, Mon Mothma, Kin Robb

New Characters: Senator Aang, Droogan, J0-N0, SN-D1, BO-N

Secrets Revealed

    • The loudmouth jogan fruit vendor that swindles Threepio is named Droogan. According to the script, he is a Khramboan. Production notes for this episode name the green shopkeeper droid GL-916, and the speeder used by HELIOS-3E and Todo 360 as a RGC-16 landspeeder.
    • This episode takes place some time after “Holocron Heist,” which saw the destruction of Todo 360. Todo was rebuilt off-screen by Anakin Skywalker after the episode “Children of the Force,” in an attempt by the Jedi to learn more about Bane and his whereabouts. The plan goes wrong and Todo escapes. The episode immediately after this one is “Hostage Crisis.”
    • The pink droid spa attendant is SN-D1. The purple one is named BO-N1.

  • The torture droid working for Bane is named J0-N0. Its design is based on 8D8, a smelting droid seen in Jabba’s palace in Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi.
  • The signage outside the droid spa promises “oil changes, rust removal, memory flushing, polishing, motivator repair, de-fluttering, restraining bolt application and removal, general maintenance overhauls, junk removal” while the signs inside promise “recharge, repolish, repair” and “refit.”
  • Senator Aang is a Roonan, a species developed as a background alien in the Senate in Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace. That he is a member of the Military Oversight Committee, and that Padmé is trying to persuade his vote, are clues that this episode takes place before “Senate Murders.”
  • Among the inspirations for the tone and pacing of the droid spa sequence was the scene where Steve Zissou gives the audience a tour of his boat in Wes Anderson’s The Life Aquatic.
  • C-3PO makes mention that he was previously the protocol droid for the chief negotiator Manakron system. This supports George Lucas’s original character notes that had C-3PO be over a 100 years old at the time of Episode IV A New Hope. Nine-year-old Anakin Skywalker did not build C-3PO from scratch, but rather rebuilt an older droid that had previous protocol assignments.
  • The baker droid is voiced by Duff Goldman from the TV show “Ace of Cakes”; the Food Network show had previously based an entire episode on creating an R2-D2 cake for The Clone Wars season two wrap party.
  • The droid that yells “Murderer!” at Todo and the assassin droid was voiced by Matt Lanter, the voice of Anakin Skywalker!
  • This episode finally reveals who hired Cad Bane for the liberation of Ziro the Hutt: it was the bosses of the Hutt crime families. The design and characterizations of some of the five Hutt families were inspired by mob bosses from classic cinema, including those played by Edward G. Robinson and Marlon Brando
  • Todo 360’s ironic farewell of “thanks for the memories” is a nod to the 1938 hit song of the same name made famous in The Big Broadcast of 1938 and as actor-comedian Bob Hope’s signature song.
  • The nuna drumsticks make a return appearance as the most commonly served food during The Clone Wars.

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The Clone Wars Episode Guide: Assassin

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The Clone Wars Episode Guide: Assassin

Episode No.: 51 (Season 3, Episode 7)
Original Air Date: October 22, 2010
Production No.: 221 (Season 2, Episode 21)

“The future has many paths — choose wisely.”

Written by Katie Lucas
Directed by Kyle Dunlevy
Supervising Writer: Drew Z. Greenberg
Staff Writer: Brian Larsen

Cast:
Ashley Eckstein as Ahsoka Tano
Catherine Taber as Padmé Amidala
Matt Lanter as Anakin Skywalker
James Mathis III as Captain Typho and medical droid
Tom Kane as the narrator | Yoda
Phil LaMarr as Bail Organa and Senate Guard #2
Corey Burton as ZIro the Hutt and Senate Guard #1
Jaime King as Aurra Sing
James Arnold Taylor as Obi-Wan Kenobi and Plo Koon
Terrence Carson as Mace Windu
Flo DiRe as Jocasta Nu

Synopsis: Tasked to protect Senator Padmé Amidala during a political mission to Alderaan, Padawan Ahsoka Tano is plagued by recurring visions of recently-deceased bounty hunter, Aurra Sing. Unable to clear her mind, Ahsoka worries that the stress of conflict is finally getting to her until her visions indeed prove prophetic. Padmé narrowly avoids death when Aurra Sing attempts to assassinate her. Together, Padmé and Ahsoka trap the hunter, and Ahsoka discovers the true villain behind the plot to kill Padmé: the incarcerated gangster, Ziro the Hutt.

Recurring Characters: Ahsoka Tano, Padmé Amidala, Aurra Sing, Captain Typho, Bail Organa, Anakin Skywalker, Yoda, Jocasta Nu, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Mace Windu, Plo Koon, Clone Captain Rex, C-3PO, Mon Mothma, Ziro the Hutt

New Characters: Alderaanian citizens

Key Locales: Coruscant, Alderaan

Secrets Revealed

    • This episode, more than others, reveals the convoluted chronology of stories from the first two seasons. The Season Two finale, “Lethal Trackdown,” actually takes place before the Season One finale, “Hostage Crisis.”In a chronological flow of events, the series begins with the action on Christophsis (“Cat and Mouse,” “The Hidden Enemy”), which introduces Ahsoka to the Clone Wars (“The New Padawan,” which was incorporated into feature film). Then, the kidnapping of Rotta the Hutt introduces Ziro the Hutt, and the movie ends with Ziro’s incarceration. Many Season One and Season Two episodes then follow, with Season Two’s trilogy of Boba Fett episodes introducing Aurra Sing into the storyline. The crashing of the Slave I leads the Jedi to mistakenly believe that Aurra is dead, until she surfaces in this episode, which brings back Ziro — chronologically — for the first time since his imprisonment. The story continues in the next Season Three episode, “Evil Plans”, and Aurra will somehow be freed from captivity in time for Cad Bane’s attack on the Senate in Season One’s “Hostage Crisis.” The drama surrounding Ziro and his freedom then picks up in “Hunt for Ziro,” the ninth episode of this season.

    • The dark strip of makeup across Aurra Sing’s eyes is an homage to a similar look worn by Daryl Hannah in Blade Runner.
    • Anakin is assigned to Balith, site of a large-scale civil war, where he will take command of the Third Legion. Privy to the script of this developing episode, the cartographers of The Essential Atlas were able to place Balith in the Inner Rim in the online appendix of worlds long before this episode aired.

Star Wars: The Essential Atlas Online Companion

Update: The massive appendix of all known star systems in the Star Wars galaxy, available in a convenient, printable downloadable PDF document, has been updated.

August 18th, 2009 saw the publication of one of the most eagerly awaited Star Wars reference books, Star Wars: The Essential Atlas. Written by Daniel Wallace and Jason Fry, with illustrations by Ian Fullwood, Modi, Chris Reiff and Chris Trevas, this 244-page book published by Del Rey was years in the making, and is the most exhaustive and detailed attempt ever to map the Star Wars galaxy.

Given how deeply the Star Wars galaxy extends, and how rapidly it expands, the authors have turned to StarWars.com to offer insight and updates on their work. Bookmark this page, as it will become a repository of links for future updates and essential add-ons to this must-have book.

[dflip id=”119156″][/dflip]

 

Updates:

The Sectors of the Mid Rim A new supplemental map complete with defined sectors is now available.
The Essential Atlas Extra: The Knight Errant Gazetteer provides a thorough introduction to the layout and circumstances in the Grumani sector, setting to the Knight Errant comics and novel.

The Online Appendix of known systems has been updated to a downloadable PDF format, with the following new systems:

Adana, Adras, Alphoresis, Annamar, Aquilaris Minor, Aridinia, Ashterri’s Cloud, Asuin, Atoa, Bizikia, Blaudu Sextus, Bontormia, Bravis, Caulus Tertius, Cavamina, Chelloa, Cilare, Cirtappa, Cosia, Crelythiumn, D’Nile, Dibrook, Fiviune, Garr’lst, Gazzari, Gorobei, Greeve, Grehollo, Gultanna, Hakara, Heterkus, Hidden Tegoor, Iphar, Javarica, Kamasto, Kant, Katalla, Khramboa, Latza, Letaki, Lola Sayu, Maarka, Maldovea, Malpassia, Manakron, Manoe, Marfa, Miko, Mooga, Murakam, Nakrikal Singularity, New Brampis, Nyemari, Odacer-Faustin, Onderia, Opitha Tren, Otavon, Phatrong, Plunder Moon, Qi Lozar, Quesh, Regulan, Samhar, Savek, Sebbadon, Secundus Ando, Sha’rellia, Shotem, Sixela, Slotern, Stewjon, Tanta Aurek, Tanta Besh, Tartaria, Tedonia, Tergamenion, Terrelia, Thory Prime, Thulia, Udrin Cara, Valsedian, Vartos, Vellas Pavo, Ventruun, Verig, Vo Tunbren, Winnagew, Xandonia.

The following systems have had their information updated: Aargonar, Abaarian, Abbaji, Aida, Aikhibba, Alagon, Alakatha, Alassa Major, Alderath, Alderbathe, Aldin, Almak, Alsakan, Alui, Amorphiia, Anga, Angeria, Anic, Ankus, Annaj, Ansarra, Ansek, Anzat, Aplooine, Ardru, Ariarch-17, Aridka, Arthon, Ast Kikorie, Auril, Azure, Balis-Baurgh, Balowa, Baltizaar, Bandomeer, Bannistar Station, Barcaria, Bars Barka, Bastooine, Baylin Cluster, Beauchen, Bedlam Pulsar, Belshar Othacuu, Belvaria, Benja-Rihn, Berason, Beris, Biravia, Blathar, Blood Nest, Bomodon, Boranall, Boranda, Bortele Cluster, Bresnia, Bryx, Bseto, Burska, Byllura, Byrsym, Cadannia, Caramm, Carbos, Carnth, Casfield, Cataalda, Cerea, Ceti 597, Ch’manss, Chalcedon, Cheelit, Chokan, Chroma Zed, Chryya, Cificap, Cimarosa, Codia, Cols, Contruum, Copperline, Corbett Cluster, Corbos, Cornesia, Corthenia, Corweillia, Crintlia, Cron Drift, Cygnus, D’faria, Daalang, Dagro, Daimar, Dakaret, Dalonia, Dalron, Daminia, Danalbeth, Darie, Darkon, Darlon, Deersheba, Delphania, Demnadi, Deneba, Denebrilla, Dennaskar, Denon, Denubba, Devros, Deylerax, Diado, Din Nebula, Din Pulsar, Diorda, Dithanune, Dlor, Doaskin, Dohlban, Dohnia, Dohu, Doldrums, Dononter Minor, Dor Nameth, Dorajan, Dractu, Draik, Dressel, Duron, Echnos, Eedoq, Eeyyon, Eiattu, Eidoloni, Elbara, Elriss, Enarc, Endor, Endor Gate, Endovan, Enferm, Eres, Eriscot, Euceron, Evas, Fait d’Fait, Farquar, Farseen, Farstine, Farwell Station, Fendry, Ferijia (was Ferjia), Feris, Firrerre, Fodurant, Forntay, Fradian, Freda, Frithia, Fusai, Galboron, Gallion, Gammalin, Gansett, Ganzik, Garcornia, Garos, Gascon, Gavryn, Gazzari Minor (was Gazzari), Geal, Gendius, Gerinia, Geris, Gerres Gule, Geska Prime, Gestron, Ggy-ynt, Ghishi, Gilatter, Glee Anselm, Gosfambling, Graador, Grakouine, Grimwald, Gultanna, Gwar, Habassa, Hallitron, Halm, Haluria, Hapuntep, Har Binade, Harpori, Haruun Kal, Haseria, Hathrox, Haurgab, Herdessa, Hewl, Hirsi, Hitaka, Holess, Homana, Horos, Houche, Hoylin, Hurd’s Moon, Hypotria, Iast, Ichtor, Ilimardon, Ingo, Iridia, Iska, Iskalon, Iskin, Italbos, Ixtlar, Jabor, Jaloria, Jante, Japai, Jendiria, Jeyell, Jiann, Jidlor, Jmin, Jolia, Joralla, Jutrand, Kabray, Kaelinn, Kalaan, Kaliida Nebula, Kaliida Shoals, Kalkovak, Katanos, Katarr, Kaump, Keitum, Kem Stor Ai, Kholes, Khorm, Killaniri, Killisu, Kishpaugh, Kiva, Klaymor, Koba, Kolos, Kordu, Korvaii, Kostra, Kreeling, Kril’Dor, Kriselist, Krnay, Kromus, Krykas, Ksiczzic, Kuna’s Eye, Kuna’s Fist, Kuna’s Horn, Kuna’s Tail, Kuna’s Tooth, Kwannot, Kyrska, Lahsbane, Lannik, Lanos, Lanthe, Leresen, Likasha, Linuri, Lisal, Lofquar, Loken, Lomabu, Londor, Lopor Station, Loposi, Lorahns, Lorista, Lorta, Low’n, Luuq, Mackar, Maerdocia, Maltorian, Manda, Maro Della, Marzoon, Masgen, Masposhani, Masterra, Mauk, Maya Kovel, Medepiest, Medth, Meedis Minor, Mektrun Cluster, Mendacia, Mengjini, Meruud, Mes Cavoli, Meshakia, Metalorn, Mhatma, Mis-Tenek, Miztoc, Moer, Mon Torri, Monastery, Monsua Nebula, Morado, Mordis, Moro, Msst, Muntuur, Murk, Myomar, Naalol, Nanth’ri, Narrant, Nath Goordi, Nativum, Nauton, Necr’ygor, Nelvana Gas Cluster, Nerrif, New Holstice, Nexus Ortai, Nibiru, Nicandra, Nilash, Nilg, Nilgaria, Ninzam, Nirellia, Nixor, No-ad, Nooli, Nopsin, Notak, Nuala, Null, Nuralee, Nuvar, Nyarikan Nebula, Nymalia, Nyriaan, Obica, Octavia, Ogden Minor, Old Mankoo, Ookbat, Ooo-sek, Opari, Opatajji, Opiteihr, Oranessan, Ord Dorlass, Ord Dycoll, Ord Namurt, Ord Segra, Ord Tiddell, Ord Varee, Ord Wylan, Oriolanis, Orkellia, Orleon, Orocco, Osskorn, Ovise, Paradise Station, PDC3141-02, Peluchia, Pendal, Peregrine’s Nest, Peridon’s Folly, Petabys Station, Phaegon, Phibia, Phr’sha, Porchello, Pothor, Primtara, Pugal, Pyjridj, Qeimet (was Qeimat), Qina, Quadrant Seven, Quaensan Prime, Quamar, Quilan, Randor, Ragna, Raquish, Rathalay, Regulgo, Remmon Nebula, Resilon, Retep, Rettna, Riflor, Roche, Rodis, Rokaria, Romin, Rustibar, Ryndellia, Ryyk Nebula, Sabrash, Santheria, Sanyassa, Sarka, Sayblohn, Sedesia, Seltos, Semag, Serenity, Sev Tok, Shador, Shalm, Sif’kric, Silvestri (was Sivestri), Sinded, Sinton, Skorrupon, Skuumaa, Somov Rit, Sorotarr, Space Station Trenchant, Starlyte Station, Surcaris, T’olan, Tabiid, Talay, Talcene, Talesia, Tantajo, Tao-Grant, Tarchalia, Taronda, Tartaglia, Tascollan Nebula (was Tascollen), Tashtor Seneca, Tay’ah’loo, Tendo, Thairwsthis, Thaldo, Thape, Tharados, Theal, Thennqor, Therenor, Thodia, Thokosia, Thonner, Threfal, Thrynka, Tibrin, Tirac Munda, Tomark, Torrad, Toskhowwl, Tourani, Tramanos, Trasse, Traval-Pecor, Triffis, Trindello, Turak, Tyan, Tyria, Tyus Cluster, Uba, Ubertica, Ultaar, Umgul, Upell, UR-1060, UR-2650, UR-3741, UR-8827, UR-9353, Uridia, Ursellin, Urun, Va’art, Vaced, Varvva, Vasha, Vectinia, Velmor, Velossia, Venaari, Vendusii, Vensor, Ventran, Veron Minor, Verossia, Vessitoar, Vex, Vidicx, Viidaav, Vishay, Vogel, Vondarc, Voniss, Vorkaa, Vretha, Vulta, VV-99-7JE-2N71, Wen’he’dinae, Werta, Whinndor, Wyveral, Xal, Xanas, Xoemefel, Xorao, Yagara, Yankirk, Yartiga, Yde, Yeshocq, Yout, Zchtek, Zelos, Zeolosia, Ziost, Zorbia, Zuliria, Zygia

  • The visions that Ahsoka has feature the same distorted effect as Anakin’s visions in Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith .
  • At one point in early story development, Ahsoka visited Boba Fett in jail to ask for details about Aurra Sing.
  • Among the criminals on Ahsoka’s computer screen in the library are Bannamu (“last seen on Rodia. Wanted for armed robbery”) and Maysano (“last seen on Rodia. Wanted for murder”) and Aurra Sing.
  • The dejarik holographic chess game makes a return appearance in The Clone Wars. It is also seen in the episode “The Deserter.”
  • The helmets used by the Alderaanian guards have a similar tear-drop shaped domes later seen on Rebel Alliance fleet troopers aboard Princess Leia’s blockade runner in Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope.