Genndy Tartakovsky’s Star Wars: Clone Wars was the first time that George Lucas trusted someone with his precious IP for another on-screen project. It was also one of those rare instances at the time when a live-action project received an animated spinoff. Tartakovsky’s little Cartoon Network project worked out pretty well for Lucas & Co. who suffered a setback from the mixed receptions for their prequel trilogy.
The Clone Wars was mentioned once in the first Star Wars film and took place between the events of the prequel trilogy films, Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. Interestingly, Tartakovsky released the animated series in between these two films.
Genndy Tartakovsky Is Proud Of His Series From George Lucas’ Star Wars Universe
George Lucas offered Genndy Tartakovsky a chance to create an animated series for Cartoon Network, that explored the clone wars in the Star Wars universe. It was the first time that Lucas had passed the baton to someone else to create a screen project. Tartakovsky did justice to the project and believed that the project still resonated with the audience.
Speaking to CBR about the project, Tartakovsky shared that it had been nearly 20 years since the project was released and it was incredible that people are still talking about the project. The Primal creator mentioned how a new toy line was developed based on his series. He added that people still loved the characters created by him for Lucas’ universe. Tartakovsky shared with CBR:
“That was, what, 10 years ago, more? 20, almost? I think it was 2003 or 4, so we’re coming up on 20 years since we did it. And that people still talk about it and it still resonates and they just made a new toy line about it — that’s, you know, that’s incredible. It’s not just us, obviously, it’s the characters of the universe that everybody still loves. But what we did still resonates and it still holds up, which is incredible. So I’m extremely proud of it.”
During another interview with Polygon, Tartakovsky explained why no one could do animation like him for Star Wars: Clone Wars. He shared that he first tried to understand the essence of the world created by Lucas. He had to communicate the same feeling to the audience that he felt while watching the original Star Wars films during his younger days. He shared with Polygon:
“We had to ask ourselves, what is Star Wars? What is the essence of Star Wars and what is that feeling that we’re trying to communicate? We were trying to give you the same feeling as we did when we were younger. So directing is that thing, is trying to communicate a feeling.”
Tartakovsky’s Clone Wars aired 25 episodes in total from November 7, 2003, to March 25, 2005. The series won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program for both Volume One (consisting of Seasons 1 & 2) and Volume Two (third season).
George Lucas’ Idea To Offer Clone Wars To Genndy Tartakovsky Worked Out Well For Him
Genndy Tartakovsky shared with CBR that he also took credit for the series changing a few things in the Star Wars universe for good. He shared that Clone Wars may have loosened things up for George Lucas and allowed him to approach other people’s ideas for his universe with a more positive attitude. The Dexter animator told CBR:
“I think maybe in some weird way to take a lot of credit for everything, maybe it did loosen things up, the way George thought about stuff, and that maybe other people’s approach to his amazing ideas and property would be okay.”
The animated series helped audiences to stay connected with the universe at a time when hatred spewed towards the poorly written and badly executed films in the prequel trilogy. Lucas could take a lot of flak off his back with this series. He was so impressed with the series that he created a continuation CGI series of the same name in 2008 without Tartakovsky. Dave Filoni served as the supervising director of that project.
Star Wars: Clone Wars is now available for streaming on Disney+.
