There has been no official word out on how the Writers Guild of America strike has impacted George Luca’s plans for developing both an animated and a live-action television series. However we can easily determine a few things:

First of all, the 3-D CGI Animated series The Clone Wars should not be affected at all, since Lucas reported that 40 episodes are already completed in their entirety.

However, the Live-Action series development will certainly be delayed some, since Lucas was on his way to Los Angeles to recruit freelance “writers of real significance” in late October when the strike talk was already hot and heavy.

The plan was to bring these writers to Skywalker Ranch to hatch out ideas for the first 13 episodes, but since the strike began Nov. 5th that meeting my or may not have happened. Those writers according to the strike would most likely have to decline, however who would turn down an invitation to the Star Wars capital of the galaxy Skywalker Ranch - so there is a good possibility it did happen, just no one is talking about it.

However, even if this first writer’s session was canceled it shouldn’t delay the actual 2009 release of the television show. The only fear of that would be if this strike lasts much longer than the 1988 writer’s strike that lasted 5 months, but that seems highly unlikely.

StarWars.com recently published an interesting interview with Kilian Plunkett, the character design for The Clone Wars CGI Animated series expected to find a home on television sometime in 2008.

Two things stood out in the interview, first was Plunkett’s take on drawing Star Wars for thirty years, since he started as a childhood fan:

“I was like pretty much every other kid and just enjoyed drawing for its own sake, but I never really stopped. I still have a copybook from when I was seven that has a bunch of Star Wars drawings in it. There’s a lot of stormtroopers and Vaders in there, as well as some X-wing and TIE fighter action over the Death Star. They’re all pretty crude drawings but I had fun doing them. So not much has really changed between then and now.”

The other, was Plunkett describing the “unique Star Wars aesthetic”:

The universe that George came up with is one of those very rare creations that is different to the world we know but feels like a real place. You need to try and absorb the look and feel of the movies so that you can see the shapes and colors that show up over and over. Watching the movies is the only way to really ‘get it’

Read the complete interview here:
http://www.starwars.com/theclonewars/blogs/f20071005/

Be sure not to miss the second half of the interview here:
http://www.starwars.com/theclonewars/blogs/f20071005/indexp2.html

The official sneak peek video of the upcoming 3D CGI series “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” was released by Lucasfilm.

The 3D animation of the faces are a little too plastic looking for me - especially Obi Wan’s beard - but the ships and other elements look great. I am much more excited about this series after seeing this clip - it should be a great warm-up for the live-action show that will likely not come out until the animated series has had about a year or so on the air.

I will keep a running tally of all the information for the 3D animated series, The Clone Wars, so you don’t have to read every blog post to catch up:

• Expected to air in 2008
• Each episode will have a running time of 22 minutes to fill a half-hour time slot
• There will be at least 100 episodes produced, 40 are said to be finished already
• Kilian Plunkett referred to the character designs from the 2003 2D series when designing the characters for the 3D series
• There is still no television network yet signed up for the series
• Anthony Daniels will voice C3-PO
• Several show topics have been mentioned: “Episodes with nothing but stormtroopers”, “an episode just about Kit Fisto”

In the not so distant future, in a galaxy not so far far away…

Star Wars is coming to television with not one, but two different television series. Both are currently being developed to hit the air waves in the next couple years.

George Lucas, having wrapped up the final installment of the Indiana Jones saga, has started work on a live-action television series set in the Star Wars universe. The series will not feature any Skywalkers, Darth Vader, Han Solo or any of the major characters from the original movie trilogy or the prequels. However, the series may include some Expanded Universe characters at some point.

Lucas of course remains secretive about the show saying only that it’s about “the life of robots” - whatever that means. Hopefully not a revival of the Droid Series.

Meanwhile, a 3D CGI series called Star Wars: The Clone Wars is being produced by Lucasfilm Animation and is expected to debut in 2008. The animated series will be set in the same time period as the 2D animation version that aired in 25 chapters from 2003-2005 on the Cartoon Network.