Star Wars Episode II: September 2000

28 September, 2000

Maybe they were real storyboards after all. Don't bother heading to Aldera.net if you want to check out the storyboards mentioned yesterday. They have been removed following a cease and desist order from LucasFilm's lawyers. If real the storyboards were the property of LucasFilm, making them well within their rights to demand their removal from the website.

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27 September, 2000

Some interesting things have popped up today that are either an elaborate hoax or a huge load of spoiler information. Over at Naboo Online, they have posted descriptions of a series of storyboards that detail a major battle sequence in the movie. They also have images of parts of those storyboards that show three important figures in the described scenes. Swipe the following with your mouse if you want the details of those scenes. Be warned though, these are HUGE SPOILERS. The first battle is between Jango Fett and Obi-Wan and it takes place on the landing platform with Slave-1 (with Young Boba Fett inside) nereby. This is the widely speculated rain battle scene. It involves alot of martial arts and grappling and a section that makes it look VERY Matrix-like indeed.

The second battle is much more complicated. It occurs in and around a huge arena. There is a new major character in this scene as well and a new Alien Species and a new type of Droid. Jango Fett is involved in this scene also. This scene will be heavy on CGI effects with thousands of Droids and quite a few of the new Alien species. There are alot of Jedi also. And best of all, Mace Windu REALLY demonstrates why he is classed together with Yoda.

Meanwhile, over at Aldera.net, they have posted some of the actual storyboards that Naboo Online's descriptions refer to.

Finally, Coming Attractions has received a report that ties in with the previous ones mentioned. It's below and again must be swiped with your mouse as these are MAJOR SPOILERS.

1. There is a new alien character called Poggle The Lesser who is a servant of sorts of Count Dooku.

2. Count Dooku (Lee) is not a Jedi or a Sith and does not cut Anakin's arm off. He is a charismatic count and the ruler of the rock planet where the final battle takes place.

3. Mace Windu kills Jango Fett in an arena.

4. That arena is full of other Jedi fighting droids, droidekas and super battle droids, which are very, very big!

5. There are also massive Rancor like monsters in the arena but they are on four legs. Vicious creatures. At one point there is a scene between Jango and Mace fighting and one of the creatures attacks them.

The three sites in question all seem fairly convinced that the information is accurate. I myself am remaining very skeptical at the moment. If this information is accurate you can be assured that Lucas is going to be furious that it was leaked to the net.

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25 September, 2000

London Features International managed to get a bunch of photos from the set. Most of them are posted below for your viewing pleasure. The actual site they are on is extremely slow otherwise.

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22 September, 2000

Take a look at today's Select Photo. When you're done come right back because we're going to discuss it a bit.

Done? Okay, now you can probably tell that what you're looking at is a lightsaber battle. The person on the left is swinging a red lightsaber while the person on the right is swinging a blue one. Now from the silhouette on the right you can reasonably guess that it is Anakin. The profile looks like a good match for Hayden Christensen. The person on the left however, is obscured by the arc of the lightsaber blade.

That's where the cool part comes in. Playing around with the picture in Photoshop reveals what's behind that arc. Seriously altering the photo's levels makes a face pop out of nowhere. To see what I'm talking about, click here for the altered photo.

What follows is a discussion of who that is, which will contain possible major spoilers. It will be whited out for those of you who don't want to know in advance. Just drag your mouse over the text to highlight it. Okay there are two guesses as to who that person is. One is Darth Sidious but the profile doesn't look quite right. The other guess would be Count Dooku. That's probably the correct guess as the profile looks like a good match for Christopher Lee. Rumors have floated about for awhile now that Anakin loses a hand in a battle with Dooku so this would appear to match that rumor nicely.

Principle photography has officially wrapped. According to the official site, "[Producer] Rick McCallum held the clapper board for the last take of the day as Ewan McGregor performed an action sequence against the familiar blue screen. George Lucas called "It's a wrap" on the principal photography shoot of Episode II at Elstree Studios in London at 1.45pm Wednesday 20 September, one and a half days ahead of schedule."

McCallum commented on the filming saying, "It was a dream shoot and to finish ahead of schedule was just icing on the cake of what has been an incredible experience for all of us. We started in Sydney with our amazing Australian crew, and traveled through three continents and five countries in a 61 day shoot, and to finish early is a real credit to the fantastic people who have been with this production from day one, as well as those who have joined us along the way. Our Australian, Italian, Spanish, Tunisian and English crews couldn't have been better."

20 September, 2000

Up first is a potentially monstrous spoiler from TFN and also very cool. Swipe the following to find out what it is if you want to know. According to an anonymous source, the Emperor (Darth Sidious) will be seen with his lightsaber. It won't be a standard lightsaber though. It will be a single blade but will be curved. Essentially it will be a light scimitar. How this will look or work is anyone's guess.

Particularly cool is a quick piece of footage from SithNet that actually shows a scene being shot in Seville. The very short clip shows Natalie Portman and Hayden Christensen walking past a columned building. They appear to be wearing the same costumes seen in yesterday's photo. You can download the footage (550k ASF format) here.

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19 September, 2000

Here is an excellent shot from the filming that occurred in Seville, Spain. That's Natalie Portman and Hayden Christensen shooting a scene in the photo.

13 September, 2000

Who magazine article and photos

6 September, 2000

With principal shooting in Australia now complete, filming for Episode II moves to Italy. George Lucas held a press conference at the Royal Palace in Caserta for the start of filming there. You might remember this palace as the spot of filming for scenes in the Royal Palace on Naboo.

This will be a fairly quick location shoot according to Lucas. "We are supposed to be shooting here for two days. We have been in Italy for a little over a week. We have been in the north, around Lake Como." He also mentions why the location was chosen for the movie. "Well primarily we were interested in the beautiful gardens of Como. We shot on some various locations of villas. It was really, again, a part of this planet of Naboo that we have created and it is incredibly beautiful up there. There are many places here in Italy that are unlike any place else in the world. It is not just the natural beauty that we are looking for, it also cultivated beauty of the culture. "

Lucas was asked about the emergence of digital photography and computer animation possibly leading to the elimination of the need for actors. "The advance of cinema into the digital world is just a normal transition that is taking place in the world of cinema. Just as we went from silent films to sound films and then eventually from black and white films to color films, this is a transition and an addition of the tools we use to create our art. It is very much like the transition from fresco painting to oil painting. Fresco painting was very difficult and it demanded a lot of people to be involved, a lot of technology in terms of learning how to mix color, and what color they were going to dry into. It was a very difficult process for the artist. Oils were invented to free the artist up to work outside, to come back tomorrow and paint some more over what he had already painted, if he changed his mind, and to know that the color he was using was going to stay that way. So it didn't mean that frescoes were less an art, it just simply meant that we had progressed into another whole realm of technology that allowed artists to express themselves.

"The role of actors in this new medium is exactly the same as it was in past mediums of black and white films and silent films and the photochemical process of film. The issue that comes up sometimes about using a digital actor, is people forget that acting is an art form. You can't just take the likeness of a human being and make them act, no matter how you do it, it takes actors. It takes actors to do the voice, it takes actors to do the animation, it takes actors to create the characters. I see digital technology as being a boon for actors and giving more work to more actors, rather than replacing actors."

He gives a bit of a glimpse into his thoughts on making these movies. "Star Wars is a human saga and about the struggle that we have between what is good and what is evil and also deals with other more personal issues of growing up, and family, and politics. I have tried to bring together a lot of the ideas that have existed over the last few thousand years and put them into a new story primarily for young people, to understand the human heritage, not just of one particular country, the human heritage that we all share."

He stated the movie's budget as being around $115 million.

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5 September, 2000

Today's big topic is the registering of domain names. LucasFilm in the past has made a habit of registering domain names relating to characters, places and events in the movies and linking them back to the official site. This keeps other people from using their trademarked names. Well it appears that a large number of domain names have been recently registered relating to the movie. The big question though is who registered them? Before continuing you should be aware that numerous potential spoilers exist below. Don't keep reading if you don't want to know too much in advance.

A number of these have been registered by LucasFilm. However many of them have been registered by John Koening who at one point was a contributor to Star Wars Insider magazine. The rest were registered by Jill Hutchinson who is apparently an employee of LucasFilm. Hutchinson registered domains on August 21 with Koening registering on August 22. The rest were registered by LucasFilm over a week later. Is it possible that these are the same people who were trying to sell a stolen Episode II script to various websites last week? When that failed could this be a new attempt to make money off of that script?

A number of these names are particularly intriguing. For instance the names Cliegg Lars and Shmi Lars are fascinating. A report on Dark Horizons says that Jack Thompson recently revealed that he will be playing Anakin's stepfather. We already know that Shmi is Anakin's mother so it would seem the two get married. If Cliegg is Owen Lars father then Luke Skywalker's Uncle Owen would appear to really be his uncle.

Keeping with the family theme, you'll notice that there are several names in the list with the last name Naberrie. This was Padme's last name so it seems reasonable that as speculated earlier we will be seeing her family.

Another possible family is the Fetts. Two names with the last name Fett appear on the list, Ambu and Jango. The name Jango Fett has been bouncing around for awhile now and this appears to confirm it. These could very well be the parents of Boba Fett.

The name Count Dooku has appeared before in rumors as possibly being the name of Christopher Lee's character. The name will be used but we still don't know for certain if that is the name of his villain. Speaking of villains, did you notice Darth Tyranus and Lord Tyranus on the list? Sounds like the name of our new Sith apprentice to me.

The term clone trooper appears here as well. Is this confirmation that stormtroopers are in fact clones?

Finally, the phrase Rise Forth appears here. Could this be the movie's title? Or maybe an important piece of dialogue?

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