From the latest issue of the TV Guide... The worlds of Star Wars and Star Trek collide when George Takei leads his big basso voice to The Clone Wars. The former Sulu will play a Neimoidian general Lok Durd, a nasty, power-crazed tub o'lard who creates a form of nuclear warfare that destroys all living matter but is harmless to the droids of the Separatist army. The kickoff of this two-parter (January 16 and 23) finds Jedi heroes Ahsoka and Anakin crash-landing on the grassy planet Maridun. There they meet a race of pacifists known as the Lurmens (thiink lemurs with an Irish brogue) who won't take sides in the war and refuse to shelter the Jedi from the approaching Separatist forces, even though Durd plans to test his new weapon on their planet. (The Lurmens were inspired by characters George Lucas dropped from "Revenge of the Sith.") Notes surpervising director Dave Filoni "These two episodes raise a very interesting question about the Jedi: Can they still be considered keepers of the peace now that they are soldiers in war?" http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_RrObyQ3Xz...AAsT8/WZVPrHtpwas/s1600-h/scifi+preview+3.jpg
VERY good match. I can actually picture a Neimoidian speaking with George's voice already. I personally LOVE that Takei is getting all this work in his later years. A VERY nice man who actually deserves it, as well.
But he'll never get Shatner to suck his...er, um..manhood. (if you've seen the Shatner Comedy Central Roast)
Yep - seen it. Even by roast standards I thought some of that stuff was pretty out there. Don't get me wrong - it was hilarious, just that when you know the history between the Shat and Takei, some of it was cringe-inducing at how "close to the bone" it was.
isn't this offensive racial stereotyping? I mean the over the top Asian accents.... ...the only rationale for those was as a backlash to "Why do the Imperials speak with Recieved Pronunciation English accents?"
Which nobody asked or cared about - slantly eyed aliens who like money and speak with a "Japanese speaking English"? you might as well have had characters called the "Jewos" who had hook noses...
"You rang-o?" You're wrong that nobody cared about it, though. Back in '99, there were groups that were really unhappy about this shit, and made sure they were heard. I love Star Wars, all of it, but this stuff is ridiculous. Between the Neimoidians, the Gungans, the Toydarians, the butchering of the only female character's storyline in the prequels, and (with the advent of The Clone Wars) multiple villains with voice work modeled after gay celebrities (namely Ziro the Hutt's Truman Capote impression, and Greivous' doctor with his Paul Lynde inflection), I've gotta wonder if the folks at Lucas realize that anyone who's not a white straight little boy actually watches (and wants to enjoy) this stuff?
^^Well, not all the "ethnic"-accented characters are bad guys. On last night's episode, Phil LaMarr played Kit Fisto, a distinctly heroic character, with a mild Jamaican accent. (Basically, it was like Samurai Jack talking with Hermes Conrad's accent.) And of course all the clones have a New Zealand accent.
You're right. The Clone Wars has done a lot in that regard, and also in giving us more women and girls to root for (as well as restoring Padme's kick-ass nature). If they could just knock it off with the "effeminate man = evil" shtick... The weirdness wouldn't be gone, but at least it would be balanced out a bit.
Not all effeminate males in Clone Wars are bad guys. Who's the most effeminate male in all of Star Wars? C-3PO, of course!
On a different note, I love the design of Takei's character. We don't see a lot of physical diversity among alien species in filmed sci-fi, so it's been cool the way The Clone Wars has been playing with their aliens' body types between characters like Lok Durd and Gha Nackt. There's supposedly an episode featuring the Twi'lek homeworld coming up. Maybe we'll see some attractive Twi'lek males there for a change.