The Clone Wars: Episode 5 - Rookies

    We have another new Clone Wars episode this week, this time featuring all clones, and no Jedi!. Click here for information on this weeks episode: Rookies...

The spotlight of STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS shifts to the clones themselves this Friday, Oct. 24, with the debut of “Rookies,” an all-new episode in the hit animated series premiering at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Cartoon Network.

The episode finds a group of clones standing guard alone at a distant listening post. Clone Commanders Rex and Cody must inspire their rookie unit to believe in themselves to stave off a Droid Commando invasion.

“Rookies” director Justin Ridge (“Avatar: The Last Airbender,” Seth MacFarlane’s upcoming “The Cleveland Show”) says the essence of the episode was establishing the clones as individual, and the difficulty came in creating unique personalities for each. Ridge credits the combination of Steve Melching’s script, the storyboard artistry of Steward Lee, Bosco Ng and Le Tang, and supervising direction from Dave Filoni in making “Rookies” a fascinating episode of Star Wars-style storytelling – without a Jedi in sight.

“The script was a lot of fun and really solid, showing how the clones talked and interacted with each other, and giving us insight into how these guys really are individuals who have to figure out how to succeed and survive on their own,” Ridge says.

“The four main clones are fresh off the assembly line, so it was fun getting to create personalities for these new characters that worked well in this unique predicament,” Melching explains. “They’re sent out to this listening post in the middle of nowhere, and they feel all their training is being wasted. They want to get into the action. Instead, the action comes to them.”

The opportunity to direct an all-nighttime episode also had special appeal to Ridge.

“There’s a creepy, uneasy feeling to the base where the troops are stationed,” Ridge says. “From a directing standpoint, it was nice to be in one location, so the audience can feel like they're stranded on the Rishi moon with these guys, wondering how they're going to get out of this mess. Without spoiling too much, I was also excited with the introduction of a new type of droid from the Separatists, which we felt we needed to give the clones a real threat in this environment.”

Clone troopers are dispatched to a distant listening post – and forced to defend against an attack by General Grievous – in “Rookies,” an all-new episode of STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS premiering at 9 p.m. ET/PT Friday, Oct. 24, on Cartoon Network.

Dee Bradley Baker performs a virtual one-man-show by bringing to life an entire troop of clones in Rookies

Baker is a veteran voice actor with hundreds of credits ranging from “American Dad” and “Avatar: The Last Airbender” to “Ben 10: Alien Force” and “My Friends Tigger & Pooh.” For STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS, Bradley finds himself performing an altogether new concept of “range” – voicing all of the clones and embuing them with unique identities and slight variations. Bradley says the not-so-simple trick is to make all of the clones sound the same ... but different.

“We start with a basic core voice like Rex, then we take into account the personality traits that are built into that character,” Baker says. “Some are younger and rougher around the edges, or older and more cynical. So we attach an adjective or two to each one, then we record each one separately, giving each character a different feel.”

While Baker already has a library of thousands of voices in his head, he says it’s not difficult adding to the catalog and quickly referencing those intonations – even when there are so many clones, each of whom is subtly different.

“As you go through the recording sessions, you become familiar with the different feel of each character, so they really become individuals and it’s surprisingly easy to recreate each one once you’ve done it for a while,” Baker says. “When you paint a picture or write a book, each character you create becomes this little polished thing, so when you come back to it there’s this immediate familiarity. To that end, voicing all the clones is not as difficult as it seems.”

While most of Baker’s clone characters are recorded separately, he sometimes voices multiple clones at once, depending on the complexity of the dialogue and the number of clones in the scene. Baker says he wants to ensure there is enough separation for the viewer to make the distinction between the characters’ voices.

“It’s a great acting challenge to give these guys an individual sense of humanity,” Baker says. “One of the outstanding things about this series is that we’re giving the clones a sense of identity that they never had before. I think humanizing the mass of soldiers is  really interesting and a wonderful addition to the storytelling.”

Clone troopers are forced to stave off an attack on a distant listening post – without the help of the Jedi – in “Rookies,” an all-new episode of STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS premiering at 9 p.m. ET/PT Friday, Oct. 24, on Cartoon Network.