Takei Voices 'Star Wars: The Clone Wars' Villain

With his work as the voice of the new villain Lok Durd on Star Wars: The Clone Wars, George Takei will be breaking new ground.

As reported by Newsarama, Takei was the first actor to work for both Star Trek and Star Wars. "I don't consider it jumping ship," explained Takei. "The 'Star Trek' philosophy is to embrace the diversity of the universe, and 'Star Wars' is part of that diversity. I also think 'Star Trek' and 'Star Wars' are related beyond both having the word 'Star.'"

Takei admitted that there are differences between the two franchises. "'Star Trek' is science fiction," said Takei. "'Star Wars' is science fantasy. Based on the episodes I worked on, I think with 'Star Wars: Clone Wars' we're starting to see a merging though. It does deal, philosophically, with some of the issues of the time, which is always something 'Star Trek' was known for. War, peace, technology, humanity, sacrifice and courage; these issues. I found that engaging."

Working with animated Star Wars was different than working on animated Star Trek for Takei. "When we did the animation for 'Star Trek,' they were actually trying to be accommodating by setting their schedules around ours," said Takei. "So we came in individually. So it was often the case that when I was coming in, Leonard [Nimoy] was leaving. When I went into the recording booth, they would have the script with my lines underscored with a colored pen. I would just read my lines according to how that scene was played. I never played with Leonard. Then when I was leaving, Jimmy Doohan would come in and do his lines." But for Star Wars, it was different. "The other thing I found is in doing the 'Star Wars' animation, especially when compared to the 'Star Trek' animation, it was really working as an actor. I was actually working with other actors. When we did the recording [for Clone Wars] they had the entire cast there. So we were able to bounce off of each other. You get a better idea of the characterization that way, the vocal rhythms of the other characters."

To read more, head to the article located here.

Discuss this news item at Trek BBS!
 Add TrekToday RSS feed to your news reader or My Yahoo!
Also a CSI: Crime Scene Investigation fan? Then visit CSIFiles.com!