New Star Wars animated show "Rebels" coming fall 2014

The last thing i think of when i see Filoni is Hollywood.

 

It would be a stormtrooper one.

 

Or a mandalorian one? I mean it certainly accounts for why Boba seems to keep the helmet on in public.

 

That, plus the intimidation factor of the "mysterious, unknown hunter who always gets his prey." Much like Vader, Boba's hidden visage helped propagate his legend, notoriety and aura. Who's behind the helmet's visor? A man? An exotic alien? A droid?

It's not a bad selling point, really: not only is this guy the best in the known galaxy, but he looks very mysterious when he's doing it.

 

A new clip has been released. Short and sweet.

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8uJXFxfmiE[/yt]

I'm really liking what I've seen so far. Really captures the feel of the original trilogy and I really appreciate how they're using a lot of Ralph McQuarrie's concept art as a central aesthetic touchstone and not just a sorce from which to pilfer unused designs.

Incidentally, I've been reading some of the early drafts for the original movie and I think there may be some inspiration drawn from here too. Can't quite articulate why, but there's something about the group dynamic that feels very reminiscent.

 

I just saw that over on Facebook. For what it is I really liked it and I'm going to remain open-minded about the new series. I'm kinda glad they used a fairly original sound for the Ghost's main cannons instead of recycling the old, familiar blaster sounds we've been hearing since 1977.

 

Hmm... the character animation seems a little bouncy for my tastes. And I still hate the droid's "voice," which sounds to me like some guy going "wuh-wuh-wuh" through a ring modulator.

 

In Weisman we trust.

 

Oh, I trust in the writing, but that doesn't mean I'll like everything about the show. I mean, I never cared for the character design style on Spectacular Spider-Man even though I loved the writing.

 

I agree that the animation looks a little too busy and the droid's dialogue doesn't sound right...but at this stage I'm not about to start nitpicking the details. I had similar thoughts when I first saw some footage for TCW and it wasn't long before I got used to the style. Now I can't imagine it being any other way.

To be fair, the droid's voice is a catch-22 situation. On the one hand they need it to be articulate, totally distinct from R2 but still clearly droidspeak and the best way to do that it to modulate a vocal performance. On the other hand they have to start pretty much from scratch and can't draw from Ben Burtt's extensive library of R2 beeps and boops.

Bit of an odd observation, but one thing I did notice that felt very much OT was the explosion effect of the TIE. They look like comped explosions rather than the more dynamic simulated CG explosions from the PT. Also the music queue they used felt right out of ANH with the old high-octane swashbuckling adventure vibe. In fact I'm pretty sure it is one of Williams' compositions from the Death Star assault.

[EDIT]

Speak of the devil.
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtxExG9QW8c[/yt]

 

i for one am glad they are moving past the prequel/Clone War era. really, since Ep 2 we've had two animated shows about the Clone Wars. tons of comics and several books. none of which you can line up and really make sense of. time to explore new territory.

 

Really enjoyed the clip. I can already see the alot more of an OT tone to this one just from those few minutes.

 

It's likely because the cast of characters in Rebels are basically riffs of the characters from ANH.

Ezra - Luke
Sabine - Leia
Kanan - Obi-Wan
Hera - Han
Zeb - Chewbacca
Chopper - R2

 

And since Lucas has always liked his characters and situations to "echo" others that live and happen earlier or even later in the SW timeline I'm sure the producers deliberately designed the crew of the Ghost to parallel the main heroes of A New Hope. Which I'm fine with so long as they're written competently.

 

I wasn't talking about the archetypes so much as the group dynamic and personality types.
The characters in the earlier drafts have significantly different personalities than the ones that ended up on screen.

For example, despite still being the maverick of the group, the original Han Solo was a totally different character from Ford's Solo. Aside from being a big green alien with gills, he as also nowhere near as mercenary, nor was he a potential love interest for Leia. Indeed, he was more the level headed old veteran with a roguish sense of humour. Think Gurney Halleck, but with gills.

Indeed, in this instance, I get the feel that Zeb has more in common with original Han than he does Chewie. Also, Kanan feels much more like Annikin Starkiller than Obi-Wan or "General Luke Skywalker" (as opposed to farmboy Luke Skywalker--yes, the recycled names can get confusing!)

 

According to SoundCloud, this is the theme music to the new series.

 

Annikan is much more rogue-ish imo he is probably a combination of what eventually became Han and Luke in the final draft. I don't think Kanan is much like him at all, he seems to be more straight-laced from what we've seen. Still a jedi at the core. Annikan openly flaunts the Bendu's orthodoxy towards relationships.

 

If so, it sounds like this show will actually be getting a title sequence.

I thought Annikan was actually pretty close to how Anakin ended turned out in Ep2 & 3; more of a brash youth than a rogue. Yes, I am hair splitting, I know, but I think there is a subtle distinction there.

Of course these are just impressions based off a few seconds of out of context pieces of footage. It may turn out we're both way off as to his character.

 

Hard to tell much from the short clip, since we don't really know who these characters are yet, but it at least seems to have a sense of fun about it. And I love the very OT-style space battle as well.

I'm not too bothered by the animation, although it's definitely a bit more Disney-ish than we're accustomed to with TCW.

 

I didn't like the animation style of TCW when it first premiered but it slowly grew on me over time and as I enjoyed the content of the series more and more. So far I don't mind what I've seen and it's about what we could expect from the folks at Disney.