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Summer to bring 7th 'Star Wars' film

BY GEOFF BOUCHER

Los Angeles Times

Thanks to CGI animation, the "Stars Wars" saga is coming back to theaters this summer -- but George Lucas said fans shouldn't get their hopes up about any future films that take the epic beyond the point of Darth Vader's death at the end of "Return of the Jedi."

"Whatever it is that happens afterward," the 63-year-old filmmaker said, "that isn't the core 'Star Wars' story that I like to tell."

The stories that do interest Lucas are the ones that take place before Anakin Skywalker dons the ebony mask of Darth Vader, which is why he and his 5-year-old Lucasfilm Animation venture will add a seventh feature film to the "Star Wars" canon Aug. 15 with "The Clone Wars."

The movie has been produced with state-of-the-art computer-generated animation and voice actors, including Samuel L. Jackson, reprising his Mace Windu character, and Anthony Daniels as the familiar voice of C-3P0.

That Daniels is back raises the idea that this new approach could provide a digital fountain-of-youth for other original trilogy actors, such as Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher, who haven't been in the universe of the Jedi since they frolicked with the furry Ewoks on the forested moon of Endor at the end of "Return of the Jedi" in 1983.

"I get asked all the time, 'What happens after "Return of the Jedi"?,' and there really is no answer for that," Lucas said. "The movies were the story of Anakin Skywalker and Luke Skywalker, and when Luke saves the galaxy and redeems his father, that's where that story ends."

The "Clone Wars" film in August will lead into a weekly animated television series of the same title that will air on both the Cartoon Network and TNT beginning in the fall. The new film and series will fill in gaps between "Episode II: Attack of the Clones" and "Episode III: Revenge of the Sith" with stories of Anakin, Padme Amidala, Count Dooku and other second-trilogy characters.

"'The Clone Wars' is a lot of fun for me, because in the normal course of the Skywalker saga, what happened during the Clone Wars is never told -- we see a little of the beginning and a little of the end, but other than that, it's skipped over," Lucas said.

"Obviously, during a war, there are lots and lots of stories, there's action, there's drama, there's heartbreak and sometimes there's comedy. Anakin was a part of the Clone Wars, so it makes a certain sense to tell these stories, because they ultimately do affect him."