Yoda, Anakin to appear in new cartoons

LOS ANGELES, March 19 (UPI) -- Hollywood filmmaker George Lucas said his new "Clone Wars" animated movie and TV series will feature familiar "Star Wars" characters like Yoda and Anakin.

Lucas told Entertainment Weekly he also is planning a live-action TV series that would be set in the "Star Wars" universe, but feature a new cast of characters.

Asked where the live-action series would fit into the "Star Wars" narrative, Lucas told the magazine, "It's completely separate.

"('Clone Wars') has all of the characters that everybody knows -- everybody from Yoda to Anakin to Mace Windu to Obi-Wan -- everybody's there," he explained. "The live-action has nobody there, because it's after 'Episode III,' so everybody's dead, basically, or hiding somewhere. You hear about the Emperor, just like you do in 'Episode IV,' but it's mostly about a whole different world. I mean, there are a million stories in the big city -- you've only seen one of them."

The animated "Clone Wars" film is scheduled to open in North American theaters Aug. 15, while the "Clone Wars" series of 30-minute cartoon "mini-movies" is slated to premiere on Cartoon Network this fall, with episodes of the animated show to be rerun on TNT.