SDCC: Clone Wars Panel Highlights

Star Wars: The Clone Wars panel was on my list of panels I had to attend at Comic-Con. I got in line over an hour before the panel to find it was already long. I got in the room though, and I'm so glad I did. It was packed with news and clips!  Pablo Hidalgo, Dave Filoni, and Cary Silver gave us a lot of news about the upcoming season. Here are the highlights:

- The first three episodes of season four will be an arc involving the Mon Calamari. Much of the episodes take place underwater. It's not as challenging to do underwater as it is to do the surface of water (like Kamino). The hard part about these episodes was creating the Mon Calamari civilization. The animation was also challenging because all of the models have to move/be animated in an entirely different way.

- Hidalgo asked Filoni what the tagline for season four, "Battle Lines," meant. Filoni answered: "Lots of things go boom."

- Filoni confirmed that it is Captain Ackbar we are seeing in the season four preview.

- Filoni said he designed the new scuba clones just to see the 501st Legion walk around the convention in flippers.

- We'll visit a new planet in season four: Umbara. It's always dark there. Clone troopers fight a battle on this planet against a humanoid force that is allied with the Separatist. We'll be seeing a lot of Rex in this story.

- A clip showed Adi Gallia fighting General Grievous.

- Bounty hunters will be around in the 4th season. Cad Bane, Bossk, Boba Fett, and Dengar will make appearances.

- A space battle clip showed Headhunters, the predecessors to the X-Wings.

- Another clip showed Lux and Ahsoka alone together on a trip of some sort. They are surrounded by members of the Death Watch, one of whom is a female. She is voiced by Katee Sackhoff. Jon Favreau will be back as Pre Vizsla.

- Yet another clip (this one wasn't rendered) showed the Nightsisters fighting battle droids.

- Team Unicorn came to the panel dressed as Nightsisters:

Check out IGN's wrap-up of the panel; they included lots of details about the clips that were shown.