CLASSIC IMAGE: CAD'S CUNNING ESCAPE!

The daring ingenuity of the despicable Durosian bounty hunter Cad Bane shines once more when, disguised as a Clone Trooper, he escapes from under the noses of Republic forces and Jedi Anakin Skywalker and Ahsoka Tano in THE CLONE WARS Season Two episode CHILDREN OF THE FORCE.

BIG LIPS SINK HUTTS!

Jail-breaker Ziro the Hutt gets some quality time with his girlfriend Sy Snootles in THE HUNT FOR ZIRO.

With her great introductory musical opening number (deliberately reminiscent of Kate Capshaw’s ANYTHING GOES from INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM), and a now revealed relationship with Ziro the Hutt, Jabba the Hutt’s prized singer/entertainer Sy Snootles turned out to be one of the true stars of THE HUNT FOR ZIRO episode of THE CLONE WARS shown last night in the US. The episode was a fun, fast paced tale of intrigue and action, and was also a fine introduction to a more audience friendly version of rogue Jedi Quinlan Vos, whose Han Solo-ish attitudes worked well with Obi-Wan Kenobi by the book intelligence. And what about that superb fight with Vos and Kenobi against Cad Bane, eh? This was the kind of action Boba Fett should have had in the Classic Trilogy!

In celebration of lippy Sy’s return here’s a classic shot of her best live action visual incarnation from the original version of RETURN OF THE JEDI. With thanks to Chris Baker for the image.

And here’s a link to the MTV released pop video for the original 1983 JEDI song from Jabba’s Palace, LAPTI NEK, put together by John Williams and his son, which includes the film's Second Unit director David Tomblin's footage of Jabba, and his den of dangerous acolytes, that never made it into the finished film:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iZFZRCCLIU

"THE CLONE WARS" SEASON TWO. SWA's TOP FIVE EPISODES. NO 2: "CARGO OF DOOM"

Jedi Trap! Ahsoka Tano: prisoner of Cad Bane in CARGO OF DOOM.

"Almost there!"

Yes, Red Leader's words are in our heads as we're about to reach Pole Position as to the Top Five episodes of Season Two of THE CLONE WARS (out on UK DVD and Blu-ray from 15th November, from WARNER BROTHERS), and it was a toughie to make the final selection, but CARGO OF DOOM, despite much worthy consideration, is ultimately Number Two.

1. Cad Bane. At his most intimidating, dangerous and cunning, this Bounty Hunter without remorse is ruthlessly and efficiently determined to fulfill his current mission for the Separatists, and he proves one slippery customer for our brave Anakin and Ahsoka in trying to corner and battle. Its a shocking moment later in the episode when he captures and electrifies Ahsoka, then threatens to blast her into space if Anakin refuses to co-operate. Voice actor veteran Corey Burton truly brings this unique character - who would have been marvellous in a live action STAR WARS film - to animated reality, whilst the Durosian Bounty Hunter's overall design, with that amazing DEADWOOD-style hat, is superb.

2. Death of a Jedi. The grim, tortured demise of Rodian Jedi, Bolla Ropal, is quite a shocking and sad moment in the series, subtly underplayed and sensitively handled for the series younger audience by the production team. Despite Bane's lack of concern, even the Battle Droids in the episode join us in our sorrow at his loss.

3. Zero G battle. Kudos for the inspired opening space conflict with the Republic Walkers on the Separatists cruisers hull, but its the superb Zero Gravity battle interior sequence that is the highlight for me, which apparently proved quite a challenge to choreograph and edit to the right length during the production process. Love the moment when Skywalker almost has Bane and the stolen Holocron before Artoo restores the hangar to normality, the ceiling walking Clone soldier with the heavy weaponry and the balletic but deadly movements of Ahsoka.

4. Amping up the tension. George Krstic's script is a winner: full of incident and building up the menace and the threat of the damaged and destructing Separatist cruiser as the episode progresses. Its an action/ adventure set within a race against time disaster movie, as Anakin and co. have to rescue Bolla, get the captured Holcron and Kiber crystal, capture or take out Cad Bane if they can and get off the exploding enemy vessel. And there's that great ending where everybody presumes Bane is dead. Think again. CARGO OF DOOM is pure STAR WARS, executed with style and visual flair by the much missed Rob Coleman. And on the humour front, how can we not make special mention of the fun little moment where Captain Rex bangs his head ala the Stormtrooper in EPISODE IV. Nice touch!

5. The Jedi Holocron/Kybur Crystal. They've been the stuff of legend in the Expanded Universe (with the Kybur Crystal having been at the very dawn of the printed STAR WARS world with 1978's Alan Dean Foster fun tale, SPLINTER OF THE MIND'S EYE), and here we get a brief but intriguing look at how they operate, demonstrated in a mysterious and fascinating scene (with nice accompanying sound design) involving Anakin's forced opening of them. I imagine we'll see more of these devices, and what else they store, at further points in the continuing series.

STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS Season Two, available in the UK on DVD and Blu-ray from November 15th.

THE CLONE WARS RAGE ON. SEASON THREE - SECRETS REVEALED!

Let's hope we see a lot more of Yoda in Season Three

Its not long now- mere weeks- until UK viewers get to see the brand new third series of THE CLONE WARS exclusively on SKY MOVIES PREMIERE and HD. In the meantime, SKY has very kindly sent AFICIONADO some great new LUCASFILM ANIMATION images from the new series as a little taster.

Cad Bane makes an appearance at Jabba's Court. Does this signal the start of the Hutt Clan war?

A Republic gunship heads towards Tipocca City with urgent news.

Keep checking the AFICIONADO blog for more THE CLONE WARS updates.

CELEBRATION V: THINGS WE LEARNED...

Originally, THE CLONE WARS Supervising Director Dave Filoni had planned that the previous 2003 and 2005 CARTOON NETWORK CLONE WARS animated character of Durge was to have returned and been a major enemy in Season One and Two, but instead George Lucas wanted to have a new and different villain, and introduced the cooler bounty hunter, Cad Bane, instead.

Filoni has prepared a time line for the events of THE CLONE WARS, incorporating events from the previous CARTOON NETWORK animated seasons, which will eventually be released to fans.

THE CLONE WARS voice actors were often very surprised at some of the things they signed for fans at CV. There were limited edition cast and crew pieces handed to them that they had actually never received or knew of, and that they now really wanted to have! Some members of the cast had not even seen the UK theatrical release posters for the one and only (at least so far) animated movie! Additionally, all of the actors love their characters, and some would love to contribute more dialogue and story material for the series, but at the end of the day its Lucas's universe and he decides the ultimate direction of story and characters in the lead up to events in EPISODE III.

Ben Burtt worked on the sound design for the original ALIEN, directed by Ridley Scott. He recalled that he met Scott in a limo one late night in Los Angeles-it was the only time the two could meet then-to discuss the creation of a terrifying and highly disturbing noise for the alien space ships distress call which is picked up by the human crew of the Nostromo. At the end of the day, despite lots of work, the sound effect was not considered successful by either Burtt or Ridley Scott and, by that time of its completion, the scene where the transmission is played would be cut from the film (though the completed sequence is on the deleted scenes of the DVD release, and I personally think its a pretty good sound!).

The "Wilhelm" scream, as far as Ben Burtt can track it down, may have come from an actor from an old-time WARNER BROTHERS adventure film, whose character is attacked and eaten by an Alligator.

As has been previously established, the sound of the Garindan snitch at Mos Eisley for STAR WARS was the voice of John Wayne speeded up. At the time in 1976, Ben Burtt had access to a movie studio sound vault and managed to sneak his voice from one of these films into the first movie.

When Sound Designer Matthew Wood had completed his work on REVENGE OF THE SITH, Lucas and Producer Rick McCallum asked him to stay on with his STAR WARS duties for what was originally planned as eight test episodes of what would become STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS.

Carrie Fisher revealed that her Bounty Hunter characters of Boushh had no name when she was filming JEDI. In all likelihood the name was given for the PALITOY/KENNER toy figure release in 1983.

Apart from the white droid later known as CZ-3, Anthony Daniels did not play any other background droids in the original STAR WARS filming of 1976.

Ben Burtt revealed that the sound of the Talz creature heard in the Mos Eisley cantina for STAR WARS was originally planned for the treadwell droid that breaks down in the first introduction to Luke Skywalker, in the Tatooine desert, for STAR WARS.

At THE MAIN EVENT, Lucas confirmed that Darth Sidious did indeed kill his master Darth Plagueis prior to the events of EPISODE ONE, which the character, as ever brilliantly played by Ian McDiarmid, alluded to Anakin Skywalker during the opera scene of REVENGE OF THE SITH.

The title of THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK was thought up by Gary Kurtz during an Italian press conference for STAR WARS. He told the press then that STAR WARS II would have a B-movie esque- title in homage to that genre, and THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK simply rolled out of his mind. The title stuck-at the time, Ben Burtt was surprised at the choice.

The most difficult sound design that Ben Burtt ever undertook for any of the STAR WARS films is still Artoo Detoo-due to the worries in providing a unique sound effects voice for the character that audiences would be able to relate to. It was a task that took a long time-over six months-to achieve successfully. He still has many sound effects recorded for the original STAR WARS from 1976/77 that haven't been used, that are in his personal archives and at LUCASFILM, which may one day be used elsewhere.

Presumably due to Anthony Daniels not being available for a short period, Tom Kane was the voice of Threepio for a little bit of one of the episodes of the CARTOON NETWORK animated micro-series in 2003.

John Morton (who played Rebel pilot Dack and, for one scene only, Boba Fett in EMPIRE) no longer acts-instead he works in a position of organisational work linked to US Homeland Security. He still visits the UK from time to time and is a keen sports rowing expert and aficionado. He worked on EMPIRE for several months at ELSTREE (including the scene of the assembled pilots seen with Princess Leia in the hangar bay) and enjoyed it. His filming work was done in between bouts of shooting for SUPERMAN II-where he played the US Astronaut inside the Earth lunar vehicle destroyed by the Kryptonian super villains-of which the first batch was shot by director Richard Donner, and the next, a year later, was by replacement director Richard Lester.

Talking to dealers at the event, it looks like there will be very little merchandise or celebrations for STAR WARS Thirty-fifth anniversary in 2012, with the next Celebration geared for THE CLONE WARS and, most likely, the Thirtieth Anniversary of RETURN OF THE JEDI in 2013.