San Diego, CA write up of various comic-con SW panels.

for those who missed some of the Star Wars related panels, i am writing them up...

here is the New Jedi Order panel (which i also posted on the tf.n lit boards):

moderated by R.A. Salvatore who gave these little nicknames to: panelists Matt (Mr. Think and Cringe) Stover, Greg (Briar King is so cool), Aaron (loud shirt) Allston, Troy (Team Player) Denning.

there was a bit of fun banter about how the books were divied up, and how Greg Keyes was given the role to make Anakin Solo look good in order to make Troy Denning look bad for killing him. Bob Salvatore definitely empathized with Troy on having to kill off a character. Bob also commented that fans kept emailing him "they never found Chewie's body"

Matt Stover, when asked about Shatterpoint -- his first storylines were not as dark.. but eventually he did change to a plot he pitched as a "heart of darkness" or apocalypse now set in the SW universe. (They wanted an All Quiet on the Western Front.. but Matt pointed out that everyone dies in that book). "I did not set out to write a dark novel" Matt quipped... bob thought that was a joke... Matt retorted that "I have a sense of humor"...

a few times the authors were brought together to the ranch to work on the plot and divy up the writing assignments (Who [author] gets to kill who [character]?)
Somebody lucked out in getting to kill Ganner.

someone asked why anakin had to die -- Troy responded that LFL told him to do so, and it wasn't his call.

i asked Troy about the post-NJO trilogy. He commented that he had lots of discretion on that, and it is set 5 years after the end of the NJO, and it will star whoever is still alive after NJO.

they then moved into how the NJO developed and each author spoke in order of when their book(s) appeared.

the other guys recognized bob for having to write the tough book Vector Prime -- basically setting up the exposition for the series.. having to introduce the Vong, and give screen time to all of the main movie characters, plus Mara, and also kill Chewie and give an early victory and put in hooks for the later authors to play off of.

greg keyes picked up on some of those hooks in Edge of Victory, fixing Mara's illness, and having Ben's birth as well as building up Anakin's role and developing the Shaper caste.

troy spoke about reaching the midpoint of the series, and hitting key checkpoints. he did have to rewrite the first 400 pages of his book because of changes from the first version of Balance Point and the final version. he commented that there was a discrepancy in how worldships work between his book and balance point, but that's ok since worldships are fairly unique and so two can work differently.

Aaron felt that he didn't have a whole lot of plot to cover in his duology.. bascially how the New Republic reacts to the fall of Coruscant.. and his skills in humor helped to build the emotional rebound. he talked about setting up the bastion for the NR-- a new defensive point while the NR and the main families answer these two questions: where are we now? where are we going? Jaina was meant to be the emotional centerpoint of the story.

Matt Stover jumped in to talk about the Jacen-vergere relationship in Traitor, as Jacen deals with Vongsense. "like turning Hamlet into Qui-Gon Jinn" he twisted the relationship of mentor and learner by adding the factor of "what if we don't know which side Vergere is on" he described Traitor as the classical hero's journey through the underworld and commented that people complained about the terror in that book being too graphic, when it is actually the terror created of the reader's imaginations.. all the talk is of Jacen's pain, but we actually don't see how the Vong are torturing him, just see him reacting with the pain. He was glad in writing Traitor that there was no exposition -- it's like writing an episode of Buffy.

When asked who Shelly Shapiro is, the crew responded that she was the editor at Del Rey, and they all praised her for her skills and attention to detail, and remarked that she was

 

From the LucasArts / Lucas Online panel:

Galaxies -- the skill level is set for the casual gamer, someone who plays perhaps 10 hours a week. while this allows for ppl who are on all the time to reach levels much faster, it keeps the game accessible to the casual player.

Knights of the Old Republic -- coming out to PC in November, which possible additional features.

Paul Ens talked about how Rick McCallum has been supportive of having Pablo Hidalgo on the set, writing daily set diaries and having the webcams.. Rick, Nick Gillard, and some others have been known to hijack the cameras to show off different things..
Paul also plugged the new contest for Hyperspace members to win a trip to the set and write a set diary.

Galaxies - the newly created content is driven by the development team, to fit game design -- they were given a basic structure but the specifics are made by the team, and then taken back to Licensing who checks for continuity.

upcoming game Republic Commando is essentially a first person shooter, using the Unreal engine, coming in late 2004.

recently there was a re-organization at Lucasfilm, bringing more cohesiveness between the different divisions.. one of the benefits is that LucasArts can turn to other divisions for help.. such as for Bounty Hunter, the sound was done by SKywalker Sound.

Sam and Max game coming out in early 2004.

galaxies: relationship between LucasArts and Sony -- more than just typical publisher/developer since SOny also handles the servers and accounts (the subscriptions)

? to Paul Ens: are you satisfied with the response to Hyperspace? "it is exactly on the anticipated subscription numbers" -- they hit their prediction. he is also happy to "make it cool" -- this fall they will be getting the Clone Wars cartoons for hyperspace members, as well as DVD commentaries. talking about the episode 3 production, he commented that there is a chat with someone every week from down under, he noted that the webcams have a limit of 300 feet from the nearest network socket (length of cable issue) so that not all parts of the set can be seen.. he did note that recently they showed the fitting of Peter Mayhew, as well as talks with Rick M. and Nick Gillard. someone suggested that they post a schedule of upcoming things or a list of recent highlights and Paul mentioned that they already do that..

someone asked how to be a jedi -- answer: buy Jedi Academy or KOTOR.. or unlock the secret way in Galaxies.

Galaxies: vehicles should be introduced in 3 to 6 months

galaxies: someone complained that were too many creature handlers. Haden noted that while it is fun to have a pet, they would adjust other professions to make them as fun, rather than 'nerf' creature handling (make it more difficult)

Full Throttle sequel: it was suggested that they somehow re-release the original with it.

someone asked if Jedi Spazz (aka the SW kid) of internet fame would be in Episode 3.. apparently the kid and family do not want to be contacted.

a Mac version of Galaxies has not been ruled out, but they are focusing right now on bumping up the play in the PC version, and keeping it stable.

upcoming for Galaxies: 4 new playable species -- Sullustan, Ithorian, Chiss, and Falleen.

Server issue -- the server people have stability as their priority..

it was verified that there are no badges yet

other topics of discussion -- player cities upcoming.. (although a player city has already formed on Tatooine on one server.. Mos Quito.), resource replenishment issues (building a harvester only to have the resource disappear way too quick) and monthly events...

they asked about the recipe for creating a force sensitive character -- the recipe is different for each player, so that it would be hard to simply learn the secret and pass it on.

in the continuity panel, they hinted that a Boba Fett game has been considered as they were elated to find that Boba survived the sarlacc and they wouldn't resurrect him themselves..

upcoming SW games:
Republic Command

 

the Dark Horse panel:
panelists: Haden Blackman, Dave Land, Randy Stradley (Paul Chadwick, "Empire" could not attend)

as i mentioned earlier, Empire's End will be coming out again in trade, and will contain the Dark Empire Handbook to help thicken it up.


Republic: Jabiim --> lots of death. There will be one issue of Anakin's adventures and new villains.
Jan and John will be working on some later Republic, as well as focusing on Jedi (aayla secura, and count dooku) Randy commented that they are trying to get a first name for Dooku, which will probably not be Donny. October will see the Dooku Jedi issue as well as the new Republic arc of Anakin and A'sharad hett having some quality time together. Dooku is confirmed to be the last issue of Jedi (they want to have only so many titles out at a time)

as i mentioned earlier, DH will be doing an adaptation of the Clone Wars cartoon series.. starting in Jan 04, in a style similar to the cartoons. they will be only doing adaptations, and not adding extra stories. Ben Caldech (sp) will be working on that.

Quinlan Vos is not going away... they joked that he appears so much in Jediooku that they might have to rename it...

Tales: in September is the Dark Side issue #17 (they were giving out posters of the cover art, which i got signed)
#18 is the Fett issue, including a NJO story.
#19 is more free form, with a Han Solo story by Haden
#20 is the last issue being edited by Dave Land, (21 will be by Randy). #20 will have a Tony Millionaire drawn story.

Empire:
artist Doug Wheatley showed up -- he will also be doing the Episode 3 adaptation. after the Biggs Darklighter arc is over, we will go back to seeing thigns from the empire's point of view.. with a stormtrooper as the main character, reflecting on being a clone and the training, etc.
there will be a 3 issue arc showing these grunts in battle.

Infinities: having trouble finding a suitable plot for ROTJ:Inf -- since they don't want to do a plot breakpoint involving the final duel on the DSII. Adam Dallardo is working on it.. coming in November with the subtitle "Now with 99% fewer ewoks"
they would like to continue the infinities run of movies by eventually doing the prequels.


Haden is working on a secret project.. which was later revealed to be the pre-episode III series which will be 10 issues, one per month leading up to ep3. republic will not be the segue into episode 3, rather this new line will be. Brian Cheney will be doing art for it

i asked why the clone wars always seem to be fought in the mud and rain... but was reminded of the lava planet, and later on will be desert planet (not tatooine) where anakin and a'sharad go, and then also Rodia and Asajj Ventress' homeworld.

one-shots..
there is a possibility of a NJO era..
they are trying to balance the prequel vs classic movie era titles.

we may see more x-wing adventures under the Empire series.

also in the works:
a Luke and Mara romance

Randy talked about the problem of making a "lighter side of SW" TPB that might include Tag and Bink, but issues of canon vs infinities in one book killed that..

someone asked about the UK Marvel comics being collected.. Randy was unaware of them.. they did remark that most of the marvel stuff would either be reprinted or deemed so bad that it wouldn't.

someone also complained about the lack of X-wing: Rebel Opposition as a TPB

- - - -

The continuity panel:
Del Rey: Dave Shaffel (editor of the SW nonfiction), Dark Horse (Randy), LucasArts, Lucas Licensing (Michelle who focuses on the continuity from RPG and magazines).

it was noted that the Del Rey license ends in 2005 but renewal discussions are ongoing.

there was a lot of talk about doing crossovers between novels/comics/games...
it is much easier to maintain cohesion within one medium because of the common editor and lead times.. the development cycles for games are much longer than for novels or comics. crossovers are usually done by the individual author...

games are designed to

 

hasbro panel -- whew.. the last one.. sorry it's been so late getting things back to everyone...

on the panel: Brian Parrish, Jeff Popper, Audrey Desimone.

they started off answering a few questions while they wrangled with the projector and computer situation. it took them about 15 minutes to get that fixed, before they started their powerpoint.

someone asked about jedi master points (presumably the same guy as last year who presented a bag full of them asking what we could do with them). they responded to hold on a bit and wait for the presentation.

someone else asked about getting a sculpt of ROTJ Luke where the belt is on top of tunic, and also the screwup of the wrong hand being gloved on the new ROTJ Luke. that was mistake that was done by the production in china and it was too late to fix. the initial sculpts by hasbro had it right.

someone asked about any upcoming Ultimate 12 inch figures (like the Jango Fett and 100th figure Luke).. but these folk don't work on the 12 inch line and couldn't answer.

the panelists asked the audience how they felt about the Playskool line -- and found that most people had bought them, & in multiples (many indicated that they bought 3 - one for keeps, one for their kids, one for the adults).

someone asked about a rumor of getting the silver fett using jedi master points.. they indicated that the presentation might answer that.

finally, someone asked about the issues of getting figures to the stores. the problem of not finding figures is mostly on the retailer's side.. hasbro gets them the product but the retailers aren't as good as getting them to the shelves..

finally the presentation started:
1. Jedi Master Points -- hasbro has teamed up with Ebay to put on special auctions on starwars.hasbro.com using jedi master points (the proofs of purchase from all toys 1999-present). It will be launching in september where users can bid for special items using Jedi Master Points as currency. it will be a 3 month trial, and possibly the only time that the points will be useful.

they mention they would put up hard to find items such as Toy Fair Vader and Jorg Sacul. they don't have any vintage stuff. they will also have theme bundle sets, such as an arena playset with the 3 different beasts (nexu, reek, acklay). receipts are not needed, but can help authenticate the points. auctions will run for one week, with multiple auctions happening at the same time. it will be open to US residents only, but they will evaluate the non-US markets.

2004 line -- it will be one collection (not like the current two collections) with a new wave every month, with 3 or 4 new figures in each wave. these figures would be a theme. the deluxe line will have only 7 figures, all coming out in the spring only.

here are the themes for the basic figures:
wave 1: hoth -- the deluxe figure will be the wampa, and there will be a new Luke
wave 2: Tatooine
wave 3: Jabba's Palace -- deluxe figure is Jabba, and there will be a Jedi Luke.
wave 4: battle of yavin -- captain dodonna and captain antilles.
wave 5: Star Destroyer -- deluxe figure will be Dengar with extra gear.

they covered some of the late 2003 line. The Clone Wars line will only be in 2003, and not 2004. The Clone Wars multi-packs will be at all main retailers except WalMart. there are 5 different versions of the multi-packs (i think the clonetrooper pack will have the 5 versions).
They mentioned some new figures: Bail Organa with a holographic obi-wan, Padme Tatooine gear, Janus Greejatus, and the McQuarrie art stormtrooper with lightsaber. (to see some of these figures, go to my photos i posted on the previous page.. most of the action figures are at the end of the album)

they confirmed that there will be a silver clonetrooper figure available in the UK, but it has not been finalized yet.

someone asked about the Jorg Sacul figures being put onto the auctions.. were they being remade? and does that break the exclusiveness of the figures that were supposed to be from celebration II only... No,

 

Lucasfilm + licensees panel
I didn't take much notes on this since a lot of the information presented here had been presented by the licensees in their own panels but here is what i remember:

Steve Sansweet opened it up with a few commercials for the upcoming saga of a hero who has father issues and is constantly facing off against the forces of darkness:
Indiana Jones coming on DVD in November!!
-- awesome stuff!!

then he introduced a video clip of George Lucas saying Hi Comic-Con, im busy in australia right now and im sitting in the palpatine's throne room (looked like supreme chancellor's office to me). then a video of anthony daniels guiding us around the set of episode III, including a few of the shooting stages, a bicycle run-in with Nick Gillard, a peek at the props shop with a bunch of Artoo-Detoos and Threepio's head, and a visit to the costume shop with Trisha Beggar.

Paul Ens gave a powerpoint about starwars.com, and promoted the new look as well as the Hyperspace pay content service. he showed us the Flash promo from June, as well as some of the highlights of the webcam, and mentioned that last thursday was when Peter Mayhew was caught on tape during his fitting. he talked about Pablo's set diaries and the webcam and the upcoming content of Clone Wars cartoons... he also plugged the new Hyperspace contest to win a trip to the set, and be pablo for a day.
all in all, i dont think i learned anything that i had heard that morning in the LucasOnline panel.

Lisa Stevens talked about Paizo and the Official Star Wars Fan Club.. with powerpoint, she highlighted the topics of some upcoming issues of the Insider, mentioned some of the upcoming topics of Bantha Tracks, talked about the success of Fan Club Breakfasts and finally introduced the cool figure coming out in October through the fan club: Holiday Yoda (based on the mcquarrie christmas card image). this figure will be sold first to fan club members, who could sign up for a Lightspeedpass which would give them a particular time and date to purchase (like a fastpass at disneyland). i have two pics of the holiday yoda in my album..

Dave Shaffel from Del Rey talked about the upcoming novels and non-fiction, nothing that i hadn't heard in the NJO panel that morning or the continuity panel i would go to in the afternoon....

Randy Stradley talked about the upcoming comics and trade paperbacks from Dark Horse, and used powerpoint to show off covers from upcoming issues. he made the same joke about trying to find out from LFL what Dooku's first name is, and it not probably being Donny. he mentioned the Clone Wars adaptations and the pre-episode III series. other than the cover art, it was stuff covered more in depth by the DH panel that morning.

at this point my hunger was getting to me, so i started to leave... but stayed for a moment as the Lucasarts team showed a few videos of upcoming games... the Republic Commando video was quite cool.. clonetroopers rushing into an empty geonosian building... finally they reach a room that is quiet, and then the room's walls and ceilings are covered in geonosians and the shooting starts...
they may have also showed clips of Rebel Strike (Rogue squadron III) and jedi academy (Jedi Knight 3.. or is that Dark Forces 4? hehe) and KOTOR.. i can't remember anymore.

Hasbro was up to talk next, and then Genndy for the Clone Wars cartoon series, but since i had already heard hasbro's panel and was planning to see the Clone Wars cartoon panel that evening, i made a dash for the pizza line.

while i applaud them for trying to promote the complete SW universe, through the difference licensees all in one panel, the slickness of Steve Sansweet's presentation overshadowed the triple powerpoint boredom. it would have been wiser if LFL took all the latest info from the licensees and did a cool video presentation of it all to keep the audience energy level up..

 

Clone Wars panel -- this rocked... Genndy and his crew kept everyone entertained and revved up. They talked about how they first got the idea to do it, and asked Lucasfilm.. Lucas being the father of Samurai Jack fans agreed. then they got nervous as they realized that they had to do star wars. they showed a not quite finished first episode it was missing some of the sound effects, alhtough it had a score and dialogue)

the details of the show: 20 episodes... 10 in November, 10 in february (sweeps months both). three minute episodes... which they discovered was longer than they thought. most of the episodes stand alone or fit into a short story arc. the main arc will focus on Anakin and Obi-wan, but side stories might include Padme, Mace, and Kit Fisto. villains will of course include Dooku, Durge and Asajj. the violence level will be about where the movies are... there may be deaths, and i asked about if characters from the movies might die.. they kinda evaded the answer asking "Who wants to see Jedi die?"

they talked about the voice talent.. Anthony Daniels does Threepio, but the rest of the cast are sound-alike actors. at first Genndy thought that sound-alikes wouldn't work, but was very impressed with the results. they also discussed blending 3-d animation (the spacecraft) with 2-d animation (characters, hailfire droids)

spoilers from the intro episode, which they showed twice:
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which sets up the story -- first we see the clone wars being fought -- battle droids marching and fighting, hailfire droids, etc. then we see little snippets of jedi in action... mace jumping over a troop of super battle droids, saesee tiin in the cockpit of a jedi starfighter after strafing and bombing the droids with his fleet of jedi starfighters (in all different colors), kit fisto swimming with a lit lightsaber underwater. obi-wan in battle. ARC troopers with their capes. meanwhile yoda is narrating how the clone wars have progressed.. how more systems are joining the separatists (focus on Dooku and asajj on a cliff over water)-- not only are the wars progressing, so is the power of anakin (we see him use the force to push back a mob of SBDs surrounding him, then he ignites his saber which casts a dark reflection on him with his droid hand.

then a story starts... yoda, obi-wan and anakin are in palpatine's office. obi-wan is to take an army to muunilist. anakin or palpatine suggests that anakin handle the space battle. obi-wan wants him by his side (anakin frowns) and yoda agrees that it should be that way but... then palpatine interrupts and says the that matter is settled and anakin will be leading the air battle. yoda and obi-wan aren't looking happy.

then we see the troops massing... clonetroopers marching, climbing onto ships (reminded me of Star Wars Gangsta Rap for a sec) and clonetroopers getting into new fighters.. sort of inverted Lambda class shuttles -- wings fold down instead of up, and dorsal fin flips around behind to go down. obi-wan removes his cowl and climbs onboard a ship. anakin flips off his cloak, which flies onto threepio, who with artoo is standing on the platform of anakin's souped up starfighter. anakin climbs into the cockpit and the craft ascends up along the towers of coruscant while the rest of the fleet is lifting off behind him. he pauses the ship outside padme's apartment and puts his flesh hand to the glass of the canopy. padme (who someone commented looking like Cindy-Lou-Who) raises her hand to her window as the theme of ep2 plays.. then the ship takes off, with a shot reminiscent of the final scene from ESB.. padme and the droids staring out a window as the fleet leaves for war.

continuity error: threepio and artoo are down on teh landing platform in one shot, then somehow get into Padme's apartment in the same time that it takes Anakin to fly up to her apartment window.


they also handed out a sketchbook to all panel participants which says that the cartoons are five minutes in length (incorrect i think), but it has a few other spoilers... but these are sketches,