With Star Wars: The Clone Wars only days away now, George Lucas is doing the rounds all over the place, explaining this and that, and providing the press with a stream of quotes and information. The latest piece of news concerns why Lucas hasn’t brought back the actors who portrayed the characters in the Star Wars prequels.

The only actors returning to voice their corresponding characters are Samuel L. Jackson (Mace Windu), Christopher Lee (Count Dooku), and Anthony Daniels (C-3P0). But characters like Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Yoda are going to have completely new actors behind them. Why?

Apparently, even if Lucas wanted the actors to return (and pay them lots of money), it wouldn’t be easy to gather them up to make the commitment to the animated feature or to the subsequent television spin-off.

And I am in complete agreement with Lucas about not need the actors for The Clone Wars. He isn’t just pulling a fast-one after the fact; you simply don’t need the actors to come back. You can pretty much always find someone who can do a decent Yoda impersonation; R2-D2 … ; and no one liked Hayden Christensen anyway. The only real missing link is Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan, and I hope that by the end of the movie, I’ll be over that.

[Source: MTV]