Star Wars: Tales of the New Republic - CG Animated

[Dan M]

No idea exactly what this is: http://www.talesofthenewrepublic.com/

[Dan M]

From TheForce.net:

As we reported earlier, a website called Tales of the New Republic has popped up on the internet, advertising what appears to be a CGI Star Wars cartoon. The full site is due to go live on Friday 25th Mayâ€"which, as I'm sure you don't need to be told, is the thirtieth anniversary of Star Wars.

The obvious question is whether this is official Star Wars stuff, or if it's simply a high-quality fan-film.

Here's what we've been able to work out so far.

* The style of the cartoon is the same as that of the official Gentle Giant character maquettes, which you can see here (that connection seems to have been made first on the Slashboing blog).

* In addition, the "Star Wars Animated" logo that appears on the website also appears on the packaging and bases of the maquettes.

* So either some film-making fans are being very cheeky and stealing the logo and visual style of the official maquettes, or else the maquettes were some very sneaky advertising for the series.

* The animation uses LightWave 3D, and is headlining the news ticker on the software's official site. From a quick browse, it seems clear that much of the site's content is tied up with high-level professional use, on movies and TV series like 300 and Stargate: Atlantis, but I don't know if that would exclude a fan-film.

* Attempts to track down the ownership of the URL talesofthenewrepublic.com takes you from InterNIC, via TUCOWS, both standard registration sites, to a company called Perfect Protection LLC, who seem to specifically exist to prevent people ID'ing the real owners of URLs. Again, I don't know if this would exclude the possibility that this is a fan-film.

* The images in the trailer feature Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, and Wedge Antilles, but not Han Solo. Now, a few months back, we reported on a rumour that Harrison Ford had turned down some sort of Star Wars sequel, which would fit in with Han's apparent absence. The report was quickly dismissed, however, and this could easily be just a coincidence.

So, what's the final analysis? This certainly could be a real new piece of official Star Wars storytellingâ€"there's nothing in all this that conclusively rules it out; but as yet, it would still be pure speculation to suggest that's what it was.

The alternative, of course, is that this is the work of some creative fans, perhaps trying to be deliberately mysterious in the hope of generating some hype about their new fan-film....

We'll bring you more on this story as we have it!!

[Geekyfanboy]

Can't wait to find out what this really is.

[Rico]

WOW!  This is looking very cool - whatever it is!

[Rico]

Another cool shot from this:

[Geekyfanboy]

Still nothing from this site...

[Dan M]

Updated yet again in the last hour or so, the second time today.

So many different characters and environments.  I'm having a very hard time thinking this is a fan-film.

The anticipation is killing me.

[Geekyfanboy]

Wow... more awesome pictures.. I'm with you Pickard.... I can't wait.

[Dan M]

I collected all the pictures posted so far, here: http://www.danmartin.net/swa/

[Geekyfanboy]

Thanks for that Pickard.. I missed the first few.

[jedijeff]

Those pics look incredible, regardless if it is official or a fan film, I am so interested in seeing it

[Geekyfanboy]

I wonder if this is some sort of joke or promotional thing... it's now past 10pm on the east coast and still nothing. They have two more hours before it's 5/26/07

[jedijeff]

On The Official Star Wars site, they mention an annoucement 11:30 PDT on Sunday, and they have a picture of what looks to be an animated Yoda, so I assume this is about the Clone Wars cartoons.
They have never mentioned anything post Original Trilogy in the New Republic era, and a lot of the screens are of OT characters. So I wonder if this may be a fan piece of work, maybe covering some of the expanded universe stories.

[Geekyfanboy]

This is driving me crazy... still nothing :(

[Geekyfanboy]

Yay.. something is happening.. There is a quicktime up now.. .taking forever to download.