Season Five.
I can hardly believe it. When I first arrived at Lucasfilm and George and I had our first meetings to discuss the The Clone Wars, he spoke of doing at least a hundred episodes. Well, in Season Five we will pass the 100 episode mark, and keep right on going. At the time, back in 2005, it was hard to imagine 100 episodes; we had a very small staff back then, and barely an idea of what the show might look like, or how we would achieve some of the ambitious visuals we were exploring.
We always talk about how we have explored new ways to make the show, how we started to write the episodes with a more serious dramatic tone. How we started to follow live action cameras and filmmaking techniques more directly. We changed our thought process for how we did everything on the series from Season One to Season Five. With every opportunity we had, we would try to improve and expand the universe of The Clone Wars, to try and emulate the Star Wars films we all knew and loved. But through all the years, and all the ideas, there has always been one consistent element in The Clone Wars, and that is a talented, dedicated, and highly creative Team of people who come together each day to tackle the challenges we face, and make this show the best it can possibly be.
A director can have vision. I can know exactly how I ”want” something to look, but without the collective imagination and dedication of the Team nothing will happen, and the stories cannot be told. I cannot begin to tell you what a privilege it is to work with the crew of The Clone Wars every day. I ask a lot of them, and they give me their all; they sacrifice a tremendous amount of time to make every aspect of The Clone Wars work, because they believe in these stories. They work as a team, and they have pride in what they do.
Besides the Crew that works directly with me on Clone Wars there are a vast number of people at Lucasfilm that are a part of getting the episodes out to the viewers. It takes an enormous amount of collaboration and communication to make it all work. And let’s not forget the Team at Cartoon Network who we have been with now for Five Seasons, and the tremendous job they have done working with us.
Throughout Season Five I will do my best to bring you interesting information and stories about the series, but today I just wanted to tip my hat to my crew and my company, Lucasfilm Ltd. It was a dream of mine to get to work here one day, and I will never take that for granted, and I will never be able to say thank you enough, to the people here that make it all work. Enjoy these pictures, which are just a look at some of the amazing people that have created The Clone Wars over the years.
And one last thing -- there seems to be a sentiment, or a feeling, that Season Five is somehow an end. That because we hit the magic number of 100, we are somehow at the finish line. Well, I can tell you that is not so. I think of Season Five as a beginning, a beginning of the best stories and animation we have ever done. We are only now beginning to reach our potential creatively, and my Team and I have no interest in stopping. Truly, the best is yet to come. Happy Season Five, Star Wars fans!
