The Jedi Master hit Sin City to send the latest Star Wars hype into hyperdrive.
George Lucas made a surprise appearance Thursday at ShoWest, the annual movie exhibitors' confab going on this week in Las Vegas, to plug the upcoming computer-animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
The 'toon, which unspools Aug. 15, chronicles the intergalactic adventures of Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi and a host of familiar and new additions to the Star Wars rogue's gallery, battling each other in the Clones Wars, the epic events taking place in the period between Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones and Star Wars: Episode III—Revenge of the Sith.
Clone Wars will also serve as the kickoff to a live-action TV series of the same name, which is set to debut on TNT and the Cartoon Network in the fall.
"I think it can live up to the live-action movies," Lucas said before screening a five-minute clip of the highly stylized animation for theater owners at the Paris Hotel. (Of course, Phantom Menace didn't exactly raise the bar.)
Lucas added that all the major characters from the prequel trilogy will be present and accounted for—from Yoda and the Emperor to Mace Windu and Boba Fett (though they won't be voiced by the film actors). Among the newbies: Anakin's young apprentice, a female Jedi by the name of Ahsoki.
For the 63-year-old filmmaker, plunging into a new Star Wars adventure after spending the past eight years making fans happy (or not, depending on whom you ask) by making his long-promised prequels was a pleasant surprise.
"You've got the whole assembly line built, and then you say, 'Hey, we can make up something,' " Lucas told the Associated Press. "It was like old-time moviemaking. What I love about television, it's like Monogram Pictures or the old studio system, where a couple of guys come to work, and they sit and have some coffee and go, 'Why don't we make a movie about such and such? Okay, fine.' And at the end of the day, it's pretty much on its way."
The Star Wars mastermind likened Clone Wars to "Band of Brothers in space, with Jedi."
"You can tell lots of stories. They come up all the time," he said.
As for his planned live-action Star Wars TV series, Lucas has said relatively little, except to confirm that it will take place during the years between Sith, which ended with Darth Vader's rise to power and the first Star Wars film, A New Hope, when the rebels are on the run from the Empire. The live-action show will not, however, focus on the Skywalker clan, instead introducing new characters to the Star Wars universe.
Lucas is also supervising all scripts for both series, since they are considered part of the official canon and must adhere to the existing mythology.
After all, those fanboys and girls can be awfully picky. We know.