Latest / Aggressive Negotiations: A Star Wars Podcast / Issue 331: Animation Domination

Transcript

Issue 331: Animation Domination · Aggressive Negotiations: A Star Wars Podcast

0:00
Hello, then, welcome to the nerd polity. Hi. This is Nick
0:08
Nastasu, story editor on Star Wars, The Clone Wars and Star Wars bad
0:13
Batch, and you are listening to aggressive negotiations. Well, hello, and
0:25
welcome to aggressive negotiations coming at you here from one of the monasteries on Teth.
0:33
This place looks like it could use a cleaning after the battle that's happened
0:37
here. But I'm just one of your hosts. Matthew Rushing and with me
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as he is every single week, is my esteemed colleague. Nay. The
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Jedi of jedis John Mills. You know, I actually think that what we
0:54
should do instead of quote unquote cleaning up, is we should sell these services
0:58
as chaotic redecoration. When a battle happens at your monastery, it's the Jedi
1:03
engaged in chaotic redecoration, and the Force is dictating where things should be laying
1:08
around. Therefore, who are we to argue with the force? You know,
1:12
I like that because it means more Correlian whiskey and less work. There
1:18
you go, see, there you go see. That is the Jedi wisdom
1:22
that you all tune in for right there. Oh my gosh, Well,
1:26
people, could find us all over the place on social media. Please check
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2:19
So John, we as we're recording this, we've hit a momentous event which
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is fifteen years anniversary of the Clone Wars movie, which is crazy. Before
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we get launched into the big part of the discussion, I just wanted to
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kind of ask you, thinking all the way back to, you know,
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the Clone Wars film and its release, did you have any inkling at that
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point that this was going to turn into something as big as it's become,
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to the point where we would be getting a show starring a character that people
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literally hated the moment she came on screen fifteen years ago. No, of
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course not. I don't think anybody expected this, except possibly George Lucas and
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Dave Filoni and crew, because they you know, you want to talk about
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people that always seem to be five steps ahead of where everybody is head was
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everybody else's head was at those are names I would drop. I think that
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the Clone Wars was oddly divisive when it came out, and then it came
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to be embraced and adored by fans as it should have been. And no,
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I mean I went into it. I was going out of a sense
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of obligation. If I recall correctly. You know, as the years go
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by, it gets harder and harder to remember with accuracy. But because of
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course it's Star Wars. I'm gonnago see it. You know, we'll see
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how this goes. And then I was pleasantly surprised by it. I you
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know, and I think we've documented that on a commentary that we had in
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the past. I think you were in roughly the same place right where it
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was like, how is there more Star Wars coming out? I thought this
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was sort of done with, you know, uh yeah, I mean we've
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talked about this before, but I mean, just quickly, for me,
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when this came out, I was very excited. In all honesty, I
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was working at Barnes and Noble at the time. We had a bunch of
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merch for it. We had the novelization by Karen Travers, you know,
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we had other things that and I just thought it looked cool. And I
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remember walking out of the theater feeling like I had just seen a new Star
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Wars movie, regardless of the fact that it was animated, and being very
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excited for the show then to launch on Cartoon Network and I couldn't wait,
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you know, to see what they're going to do next. Now I can't
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lie to you and say, oh, I knew that it was going to
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go the way it was going to go in the sense that we would be
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here for you know, in a week's time, we're going to have the
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launch of the Asoka series and so but I wasn't a hater of the character
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either, you know. And to me, one of the beauties of Star
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Wars animation is that I already saw the way in which the world that George
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Lucas had created and the world that he had in his mind, there were
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basically no limits to what he could do. Even with all of the digital
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technology that he had with blue screens and all of that, there are still
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limitations as to what you can do with animation and all honesty, there really
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are very few limits. Now. I know that it costs money to create
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you know, these digital assets and everything that you use, but comparatively,
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it's nothing to what you know, you get on a big budget film.
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And so this seemed like almost like the perfect home for Star Wars in some
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ways because George could then literally do what he wanted to do as well,
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which is control every single aspect of the animation of the way the characters moved,
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like everything was under his control. And so to me, I think,
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you know, I immediately saw the way in which animation was actually a
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perfect fit with Star Wars, and that's I think what excited me. I
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think the other thing that excited me personally, and I wanted to ask you
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about this. Did you respond to the animation style and the artistic nature that
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they took and almost the way in which this kind of referenced the British show
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The Thunderbirds and the way the characters looked. Did that bother you at all?
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Did you like it? It didn't bother me. I thought it was
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interesting. I came to love it, I think over the course of the
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first season, so I wasn't I wasn't in love with it the first time
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I saw the film, but I thought it was artistic. What I appreciated
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about it from the start was that it looked like art And as somebody who
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grew up reading comic books, I love a pretty picture. And if it's
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an interesting picture and it's prettily done, I'm all in. And you've got
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me hooked, and I will watch I will watch the story unfold, because
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it's just as much fun as anything else in terms of freeing things up.
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What I would say to that is what I think we found over time,
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and I think what we're discovering here is it's the oddest sort of thing sometimes
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where you can look at it, and the animation freed up the storytelling in
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the sense that nobody felt any restrictions in where they could go and how they
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could explore things there. I've talked about this in other forums. Plenty of
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people have, not just me. I'm not being like, hey, look
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at me, I'm saying, like, you know, plenty of people have
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pointed this out where audiences are also more forgiving of animation in terms of acrobatic
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stuff that they're going to pull off or zany antics or explosions will go with
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it a little bit easier, because that's a little nugget in the back of
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our brain that taps into watching cartoons growing up and saying, Okay, I
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expect something slightly more fantastic than if I see a real person sitting in a
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thing. Sure, if I see a real person sitting in a thing,
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I'm putting different limits on what's happening right here. But in addition to that,
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and I would offer this to you, is that in terms of the
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way it freed them up storytelling wise, I think that what it inadvertently,
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And I don't think this was the intent at all. I think everything you
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said is is the intent. Like you know, you can control every aspect.
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You can really really make it what you want it to be. You
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have absolute control. If it fails, okay, but at least you found
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out something new. If it's a success, that's great. And with the
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storytelling style, if there was an episode that people weren't nuts about, guess
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what you could come back a couple of seasons later, attack on another episode
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that tied into it, and then you all of a sudden that whole arc
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is better. But what it wound up doing from my perspective, I want
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to get your thought on this is it winds up being. And I think
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Asoka is extremely uniquely oddly representative of this is it's now wound up over the
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course of this fifteen years being that best way to move the story forward without
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it being a skywalker as the main character. This Asoka show coming up,
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this is the first time where everybody simply accepts, the fans of long standing
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simply accept that this character who she is, where she's been, where we're
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going to go with her. This is not a novel character that comes out
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of left field, might be the general audiences, but to us, we're
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buying in from the get go, and we're on board with a new Star
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Wars arc that takes the story in a direction where a Skywalker is not the
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main character, and it's it's still regarded as quote unquote the main storyline.
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I do think that that's a good point, and I think part of that,
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of course, has to do with the fact that, you know,
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everyone decried the fact that Anakin Skywalker had a pad of one, and we
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all knew that Anakin Skywalker didn't have a pad of one, So how dare
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they, George Lucas, you can't do that, And now, of course
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we just all accept it and love it. And I think, as you
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mentioned, what it's done is it's created this connection to the Skywalker story without
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having to be the Skywalker story, and therefore it has this intrinsic Star warsness
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to it that we automatically, I think, accept and love and look forward
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to. And you know, I think as you mentioned that, which I
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add percent agree with. One of the questions that I was thinking of.
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I was watching through the Clone Wars movie today, I was thinking about Star
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Wars animation in general. And you know, I had tweeted something the other
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day to the effect of that Star Wars animation has been the most consistently good
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Star Wars since it started. Yes, And I think my question then,
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when we're thinking back of fifteen years the Star Wars Clone Wars movie, which
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kicked all of this off, why is that because it's not just the Clone
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Wars, but we think of the fact that we also had Rebels, we
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have the bad Batch, we had Tales of the Jedi, you know,
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and of course the Asoka Show is a combination of a continuation of the Clone
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Wars series as well as the Rebels series. And so what is it about
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Star Wars animation that has made it so consistently the best Star Wars we've been
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getting. I mean, we both loved Solo, we both I mean,
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you like Rogue one enough, I love Rogue one. So it's not as
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though we you know, we both have enjoyed the Mandalorian. So we're not
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saying there haven't been other good things, but consistently, pound for pound,
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nothing has compared to the greatness that Star Wars animation seems to continually give us
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week in and week out. During these series. Okay, I'll go ahead
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and say it. It's because of the wisdom initially of George Lucas, and
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obviously he's since retired and everything in terms of the team that he assembled,
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the people that came together, the creatives that he got together to put these
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things together. This is what happens when you get a group of people who
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are genuinely invested and motivated and care about what they are creating. This isn't
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just a with animation for this time. You never got the feeling that it
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was just a job for anyone. You got the feeling that this was a
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group of people coming together to tell a story, the same way you did
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when Lucas made his movies. And yes, Lucas's name always through the most
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attention, like like bugs to a bug zapper, The press all gathered around
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Lucas, but he very wisely chose the right creatives to be with him every
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step of the way so that when the time came, those creators could carry
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it forward. And I think the important inflection point here is what we are
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seeing happen, and it's been it's been gradual, Asoka is the watershed moment
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as a series, but it's been happening in little bits and pieces along the
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way. What we are seeing go is this idea that a good story idea
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is a good story idea, regardless of the medium it's told in. Disney
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has done a lot of damage to the idea of animation as a storytelling tool
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over the years. Let's just be honest. Yes, they've They've done this,
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damn because they didn't want competition. And I feel blessed to have grown
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up in an arrow when Ralph Bakshi was working, when insane, crazy,
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mildly offensive animation like Heavy Metal came out, when Akira broke on the scene,
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when Robotech really like captured the imagination of a bunch of kids and turned
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us into anime fans, you know by watching it on UHF and stuff like
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that, when story was really running deep. And what I see with Star
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Wars animation is that same tradition of not saying I'm making a cartoon, but
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I'm telling a story, and this is just the medium I'm telling it in.
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It's just like when a truly gifted writer sits down. Frank Miller creates
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The Dark Knight Returns, or they create Superman Red Sun, or they create
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Kingdom. Come. Does it matter that those are graphic novels slash comic books,
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not one bit. What matters is the story was interesting and that just
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happened to be the medium that Watchman was written in, or League of Extraordinary
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Gentlemen, and the storyteller said, I'm going to make this medium work.
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That's what's happened with Star Wars animation. I think that you really have hit
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on something there, because, you know, in rewatching the Clone Wars film,
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I was really struck by the way in which George Lucas, even though
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the prequels, you know, everybody's like, oh, you know, they're
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made for kids, and that at the same time, he pulls no punches.
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You know, you have the movie starts with, you know, the
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chatter of the clones. You know, there's there's not even any picture yet,
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it's just the chatter of clones during wartime. You know, you have
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all of these scenes where clones are being shot down, you know, and
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and then of course, you know, the hard part about that is is
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that we're going to get to know them as we move forward, so it's
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going to be more and more difficult to watch us lose them. And so
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I think the brilliance here is that, like you said, Lucas never approached
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this as if animation was a different medium. Really, he approached this as
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if he's just continuing to tell Star Wars stories the way that Star Wars stories
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have always been told, regardless of the medium that they're in. This is
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what makes good Star Wars stories is you don't try to dumb down or change
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the type of story you're telling. You just tell a Star Wars story.
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And that I think that's You're absolutely right when you talk about the fact that
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he then chose people to be on the team who understood that that's what they're
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doing. But another interesting thing I want to throw out there is the Clone
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Wars movie comes out. Obviously it's setting the stage for the show, but
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there are people that you and I both know that we talked to, and
18:07
their whole attitude is, oh, I want to break Star Wars. I
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want to see what I can do to subvert what people expect Star Wars to
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be. And you mentioned the opening of the film. It opens like no
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other Star Wars movie, chatter of the Clones, different different approach the opening.
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It's completely different, but right at the same time, and also what
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I want to throw out there is we might be throwing love on Asoka,
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and Asoka's our breakthrough character. We're bringing Harrow over and everything like that.
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Can you imagine a world without Captain Rex. That's the beauty of animation is
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that, you know, it not only open up the opportunity for us to
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have new characters. Of course, you know Ahsoka recks all of these types
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of characters, right, but it allowed us to then even fall in love
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with characters that we already did know even more. I mean, I think,
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you know, my wife became a massive fan of Anakin Skywalker in the
19:11
Clone War series because of the opportunity to be able to spend more time with
19:17
him. You know, I think there are other characters I think of an
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animation that you barely saw on screen now are some of my favorite characters of
19:25
all time, like Yaddle because of the tales of the Jedi you mentioned,
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you know Rex, how pivotal he is to the show. You think of
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the opportunity to learn more about and we've talked about many times Qui Gone Jin
19:38
and his journey and that Yoda Doku. I mean, the end of the
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list is endless and then, like you said, it's not just the new
19:49
characters like a socar Rex, but you had then rebels come in and create
19:56
a whole family you felt in love with, you know, with Kinan and
20:00
Harrah, Ezra and Sabine zeb Chopper, you know. And then of course
20:07
the bad batches come along, and we've got all of those characters that we
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all love, right And so I think that the brilliance of animation again,
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and I think you just pinpointed this so well, is that it's mimicked Star
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Wars in the perfect way, in the sense that it's given us these characters
20:27
that we are able to latch onto, but then it continues to deepen our
20:34
relationship with those characters through every episode, so we just care more and more
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about them, you know. So we've done that with characters like Anakin and
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Obi Wan and the Clone Wars, but we did that with brand new characters
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we had never met before, like Harrah and Caanan, which is you know,
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I think one of the reasons actually that the Mandalorian itself became successful because
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I think it actually mimicked the way in which good Star Wars storytelling is done
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that had been done in the Clone Wars and the rest of the animated series.
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It mimicked that very closely, and that's why we fell in love with
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those characters. So to me, the reason you know these shows are so
21:23
successful and continue to be the pinnacle of Star Wars these days consistently is because
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they have found a way to tell Star Wars stories weekend and week out.
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It's that simple. In the tradition of the serials that inspired George Lucas to
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begin with short stories, quickly told, efficiently constructed, and you can have
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arcs, but you never give the audience a chance to get fidgety or restless.
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It's I think it's a recognition. I think, if anything, it
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embraces the fact that audiences are inherently impatient. I'm not saying that as a
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knock, and I'm not saying that there's any problem with the show or anything
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like that. I think that what it unlocks here is, especially in the
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era of electronic devices and how quickly we consume information now, it doesn't try
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to keep people rooted to the way it was done before. At the same
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time, it shows in a sense how as things progress, it truly does
22:45
refresh itself and we wind up just back to the old cereals that started the
22:48
whole thing to begin with. So as we go into this new territory with
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animation, it's embracing the very thing that would be considered out of date,
23:02
and we find out that it's just that audiences go through cycles of how they
23:06
want to consume things, and Star Wars animation embraces that and preps us to
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you to move us along so that we're not expecting Asoka story to be resolved
23:19
in two hours. We spend a lifetime with her. Yeah. Well,
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and I mean, in some ways, I think that the truth of that
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is that you know Star Wars, and I think this is where the animated
23:37
series really got this. And really what it came down to is that the
23:41
people behind the animated series really understood this is Star Wars is one continuous hole,
23:48
and every part of Star Wars is building into that hole wherever it is.
23:56
And so you have to find a way when you're telling that story to
24:02
tell that's the story you're telling the best of your ability, and to do
24:06
it really well, but that there is then relevance to the rest of the
24:11
saga because it's all connected, right, and Star Wars is one of those
24:17
universes which when you forget that things are very connected, because this is a
24:23
story about all these families, right, and it's it's not just the Skywalker
24:30
family, but it's it's the Jedi family, it's the family that we have
24:33
on the Ghost, it's the characters that we meet in and or it's the
24:37
family we've created in the Mandalorian. You know, it's all of these families.
24:42
And it's it's this sense that the galaxy itself is made up of these
24:48
pockets of families, and it's how those stories all interact that create this larger
24:53
hole. And I think that there's something so beautiful about that at and then
25:00
when you don't deny that, that's what helps create really good Star Wars storytelling.
25:07
And I would say not to knock anything specifically, but where Star Wars
25:11
storytelling in the last you know, maybe ten years might not have lived up
25:17
to what we had hoped is usually because it's failed recognition of the fact that
25:25
it's part of a larger hole. Yeah, I think that's a I think
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that's a very very fair comment. And I think it's we've definitely tipped our
25:33
hands that we're both very much looking forward to the Asoka series. I know
25:37
that this is unquestionably the most excited going into a Star Wars project that I've
25:44
been since the Bad Batch premiere. So I'm really looking forward to it.
25:52
I know you're looking forward to it, but I know really truly what you
25:56
are supremely looking forward to, and that's people reaching out to you online.
26:02
So where can they find you out there? Well, I am absolutely looking
26:06
forward to that, and I hope they will do that. They can find
26:07
me all over social media under the name Matt Rushing zero two. Here on
26:11
the network, I do have a show that's completed called Owl Post. I
26:15
did that with Drea Kaufman and we talked about every single chapter of the Harry
26:18
Potter series, one chapter at a time. You can also find me over
26:22
on the TFM network talking about a bunch of different things. The best place
26:26
to find me over there is the six O two Club talking about all of
26:30
the fandoms that we love. John's a frequent guest over there. It really
26:36
is a blast, so please do check that out. You can also find
26:38
me doing the orb or five Literary Treks, Saddle Up and the Artificial Tango
26:45
over there. But John, you know when you're not just trying to find
26:48
the best place to buy some Corelian whiskey here on teth Where can people find
26:55
you? Well, gosh, you can find me out there is Kessel Junkie.
26:57
And if you don't want to find me out there, kestl Junkie,
27:00
I won't take it personally. You can also find me here on the network,
27:03
co hosting a show called house Lights with Darren Moser and Tristan Riddell,
27:07
where we it's gonna blow your mind. We talk about movies. I know
27:12
this is an innovative idea for podcasts. Well, it's never been done before.
27:17
I know. It's crazy. It's crazy. Y'all are like the only
27:19
ones I know. We're like the best kept secret out there. I don't
27:23
know why nobody else does it. It's it's nuts. But hey, we
27:27
have fun. We hope you will have fun too with us. But in
27:32
all honesty, I gotta go get my admiral thrown fan club jacket on so
27:38
that. Oh wait, did I just tip my hand as to who I'm
27:41
really cheering for in Asoka? I think it's time to closing these negotiations.
27:45
John, negotiations are closed. Join the Revolution, Join the nerd Party,