Last week, the news broke that Star Wars: The Clone Wars was coming to an end and that Season 5, which just ended, was the final season for the series. There are other episodes produced however, which will be released in a manner yet to be revealed.
A couple of days after the announcement was made about the series ending, I spoke to one of the show’s stars, James Arnold Taylor, who had released a statement the day the news broke. Taylor, the voice of Obi-Wan Kenobi on the series, talked about saying goodbye to The Clone Wars, the episodes still to come and his thoughts on the big events of Season 5.
IGN TV: I saw your statement, but now that a couple of more days have passed, how are you feeling about the show coming to an end?
James Arnold Taylor: You know, it’s one of those things that I’d love it to not be the case. I’d love to finish it the way we all imagined it would be done, and I think that’s probably the biggest bummer for all of us on the show or anybody working on it is we envisioned it would go a certain way. And any time something doesn’t, you just have to kind of deal with the consequences of that emotionally. I think it’s more so that other really than the thought that there isn’t any Clone Wars; just that it isn’t going to be the way that we thought. I really liked your piece as well. I thought it was a nice, positive look at that, for fans of Clone Wars, in that it shows everybody that there is more to come.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars' Obi-Wan Kenobi, as voiced by James Arnold Taylor
IGN: Thanks very much. Obviously, everyone was assuming we’d see a Season 6 in the traditional sense, right?
Taylor: Yeah, we recorded Season 6, basically, the whole season. So yeah, your assumption is, “Okay, it’s going to run as a season.” But now knowing all of the things that we did, I just really want to make sure that all those get out there. I think my biggest -- I don't even know the right word -- but maybe "issue", was calling it “bonus content.” I think that could really make people feel like, you know, bonus content we think of as extras on a DVD or little snippets on the web. But we don’t think of it as maybe a full episode or as a DVD release on its own or a season anywhere. So I think perhaps if they consider changing the wording of it to just “more Clone Wars” and “finishing the saga of The Clone Wars,” that will appease fans maybe a little bit more than just the name that they came up with immediately.
IGN: We’ve been teased with a little bit of footage - not just the clip put out the other day [see below], but even some of the clips that were out last summer with Clovis, from a storyline that ended up being held from Season 5. Suffice to say, you're looking forward to fans seeing that material?
Taylor: Yeah, very much so, because I was excited about it before all of this. I thought, “Wow, I can’t wait for this next season.” Clone Wars is a unique show in that, while I agree with shows going on more than five seasons -- and usually, you kind of hit these downward spirals of ideas running out and stuff -- it was a very unique show in that, because it explored other aspects of Star Wars and other characters and didn’t always maintain the Obi-Wan/Anakin/Padme/Ahsoka arcs, there was still a lot of story to tell, and really brilliantly. I think the writers really hit their stride. Again, we were five seasons in, but it felt sometimes like we were two or three seasons in. I think the show really came alive and found its footing and our supervising director Dave Filoni really found his comfort zone in the third season. To go to maybe seven or possibly eight seasons would have been really cool, because we hit our stride… I don’t want to say “late in the game,” like the other episodes weren’t great. They were great, but they weren’t exactly the same storytelling, the same artwork, the animation, the style -- everything hit a stride around Season 3. That’s where there’s that change and that shift in our thought process and my excitement for what was to come in Season 6, because it was some really masterful and classic Star Wars storytelling. I think that when we do get to see it, you’re going to see stuff that you always wanted to see with these characters. Without giving anything away, I think that it goes without saying that you see more of Anakin and Obi-Wan together, which is stuff that I was really excited about.
IGN: What was your conversation like with Dave the other day, finding out the news?
Taylor: Bittersweet. I had been in Japan, and I was supposed to be at a record session. During that time we were going to have one, and then it got postponed because of my trip. Then I got a call literally as I was getting my luggage out of LAX, and I was like, “Oh, this is a bummer.” And I think that Dave and Cary Silver, our producer as well, there was not a tone of happiness per se, even though there is more Clone Wars to come. It was just kind of like, “Wow, yeah. This is a bummer.” Dave also had the very difficult job of having to call, contact, and speak to his whole staff and crew on that day. It was not a fun day, I don’t think. It was a day of taking it all in. So he was so gracious and very kind to just talk about the work I had done and how much he enjoyed it and how much we’ve grown as friends and family throughout all these eight years that we’ve been working together. So it really is kind of a trip to think that, while everybody else has only experienced five seasons of Clone Wars, we’ve been working for eight years now on this adventure.
IGN: So you were going to be recording more Clone Wars before you got the news?
Taylor: Yeah, yeah. We had episodes that were being plotted and planned and written out and ready to record. I’m sure there will be little pickup sessions here or there for ADR, but as far as new episodes go, I believe we’re completely done.
IGN: It must be interesting and in some ways quite gratifying to see the fan reaction. You go from the show launching, where there was skepticism, with people saying at first, “I don’t know about this,” to now, where people are very upset and sad to hear the news.
Taylor: Yeah, it really is a touching, heartfelt, wonderful thing to read people’s posts and comments on social media outlets and blogs. To get that outpouring of people saying how much they believed in the show and how they loved it and shared it with their kids and families. It was an introduction to Star Wars for their children at ages when they might not be able to really show them things like Revenge of the Sith just yet. They could show them Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and that was really a great introduction to these characters for kids. I find it fascinating, whether I’m in Ireland or Japan or here in the states -- anywhere I go -- people are saying they’re growing up on Clone Wars. To be talking to soldiers in our military that say, “Oh, yeah. I watched Clone Wars when I was a kid,” I’m thinking, to me, that was just a couple years ago when we started all this. But to look at an 18 to 20-year-old soldier, someone in the military -- an adult -- they did grow up with this show, and they did learn so much about Star Wars from this show. I think that’s a wonderful credit to Dave Filoni, but also to George Lucas for having a vision that was deeper than just the films, that went into this area of television and allowed him to explore characters in a way that he never got to in the films.
Continue to Page 2 for Taylor's thoughts on Season 5 and what he's most excited about fans to see in the upcoming episodes.
Source : ign[dot]com
No comments:
Post a Comment