Kevin Rubio (born December 20, 1967) is an American filmmaker who is best known for his Star Wars parody film Troops .
Rubio studied theater and photography throughout his high school years in California, and made his directorial debut at the age of 17 with a stage adaptation of Robert Redford’s Ordinary People . He spent the next two years directing musical theater in such productions as You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat, earning several awards for these productions. From 1984 - 1988, he apprenticed in the field of lighting, set design, and directing under George Costa, director of the San Jose Civic Light Opera House.
In 1988, Rubio attended Long Beach State University with a major in film. He almost graduated in 1991 and spent the next three years doing various production jobs.
In 1992, Rubio wrote and directed Re-Animation, an animated Frankenstein short that attracted the attention of the Fox Kids Network. Based on the strength of the short, Rubio was hired to design animated characters for their Saturday morning line-up, and eventually headed up their cel animation art department.
In 1996, Rubio produced his first feature film, the low-budget Movies ‘til Dawn, but his biggest success to date came in 1997 with the internet release of Troops , a Star Wars /COPS parody that has been credited with starting the Internet short film craze. The film was later recognized by Lucasfilm with the Pioneer Award at the 2002 Official Star Wars Fan Film Awards.
Rubio has made a living since as a freelance writer and award-winning promotion producer, and has written comic books for Dark Horse's successful Star Wars Tales line. In 2001, Lucasfilm asked Rubio to create a two-part original comedic story for the Star Wars comic line, and he delivered "Tag and Bink Are Dead", which has gone on to critical and financial success. His compilation trade paperback: "Tag and Bink Were Here" was named one of the top trade paperback books of 2006 by The American Library Association.
His list of writer/director credits includes a pilot presentation for the Sci-Fi Channel (Alien Hunter - a sort of Crocodile Hunter in space), Colossor (a pilot for MTV), Action Man for Fox Kids, and Storm Watch, a pilot for the USA Network.
In 2006, Rubio was inducted into the 501st Legion as an honorary member during the 501st dinner at Comic Con International in San Diego. [1]
In 2007, Rubio was contracted by G4 to help integrate Attack of the Show with an online webcam from the site Stickam. He can be seen on the aots webcam talking to fans.
In 2015, Rubio released a Star Wars fan film titled Ackbar's Eleven. [2]
Year | Title | Notes |
---|---|---|
2008 | Star Wars: The Clone Wars | Episode: "Bombad Jedi" |
2012 | Power Rangers Samurai | Episode: "He Ain't Heavy Metal, He's My Brother" |
2012–2014 | Ben 10: Omniverse | 7 episodes |
2013 | Green Lantern: The Animated Series | Episode: "Babel" |
2015 | Avengers Assemble | Episode: "The New Guy" |
2015 | Thunderbirds Are Go | Episode: "The Hexpert" |
2017 | Justice League Action | Episode: "The Goddess Must Be Crazy" |
Year | Title | Notes |
---|---|---|
1996 | Movies 'til Dawn | Producer |
1997 | Troops | Also voiced Trooper HK-888 and Radio Dispatcher |
Jar Jar Binks is a fictional character of the Gungan race from the Star Wars saga created by George Lucas. Jar Jar appears throughout the Star Wars prequel trilogy – as a major character in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace and with a supporting role in Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones and Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith – as well as having a role in the television series Star Wars: The Clone Wars. The first fully computer-generated supporting character in a live-action film, he has been voiced by Ahmed Best in most of his appearances, who also acted out the character with prosthetics prior to the CGI work. The last mention of Binks is in the 2017 canonical novel Aftermath: Empire's End.
Boba Fett is a fictional character in the Star Wars franchise. First appearing in the Star Wars Holiday Special (1978), where he was voiced by Don Francks, he is an armored bounty hunter featured in both the original and prequel film trilogies. In the original trilogy, the character is a supporting antagonist and was mainly portrayed by Jeremy Bulloch and voiced by Jason Wingreen. Notable for his taciturn demeanor and for never removing his helmet, Fett appears in both The Empire Strikes Back (1980), employed by the Galactic Empire, and Return of the Jedi (1983), serving the crime lord Jabba the Hutt. While seemingly killed in Return of the Jedi after falling into a sarlacc, he has since appeared in Star Wars media set after the film, confirming his survival within the new canon, portrayed by Temuera Morrison. Daniel Logan plays a preteen Boba in the prequel film Attack of the Clones (2002), which reveals the character's origins as the genetic clone and adoptive son of Jango Fett, also a famous bounty hunter. Morrison appeared first in Star Wars media playing Jango. The animated series The Bad Batch further reveals Boba to have been born Alpha, and to have a biological twin sister, Omega. The series also reveals that he has another sister named Emerie Karr.
Fleet Admiral Gial Ackbar is a fictional character from the Star Wars franchise. A member of the amphibious Mon Calamari species, Ackbar was the foremost military commander of the Rebel Alliance, and he led the attack against the second Death Star in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (1983), the final entry in the original Star Wars trilogy. Although his time in the film was brief, Ackbar became a prominent character in other Star Wars media, including novels, comic books, video games, and television shows, and later made appearances in the sequel trilogy films Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) and Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017), and the television series The Clone Wars.
Ahmed Best is an American actor, comedian and musician. He is known for providing the voice and motion capture for the character Jar Jar Binks in the Star Wars franchise.
Star Wars: Clone Wars is an American animated television series developed and directed by Genndy Tartakovsky and produced by Lucasfilm and Cartoon Network Studios for Cartoon Network. Set in the Star Wars universe, specifically between the Star Wars prequel trilogy films Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, it is amongst the first of many works to explore the Clone Wars. The show follows the actions of various prequel trilogy characters, notably Jedi and clone troopers, in their war against the droid armies of the Confederacy of Independent Systems and the Sith.
The Official Star Wars Fan Film Awards was an annual contest put forth by Lucasfilm and AtomFilms to showcase and acknowledge the growing genre of fan films made by, for, and about fans of the Star Wars saga. The inaugural contest in 2002 was the first time Lucasfilm had officially sanctioned the genre. In 2007, the contest was renamed the Star Wars Fan Movie Challenge. In 2012, Lucasfilm announced that the contest was being discontinued, and that the company was looking for "new ways for fans to share their creativity".
Troops is a 1997 short mockumentary film directed by Kevin Rubio that debuted at San Diego Comic-Con International on July 18, 1997 and was subsequently distributed via the internet. The film is a parody of COPS, set in the Star Wars universe. In the film, Imperial stormtroopers from the infamous Black Sheep Squadron patrolling the Dune Sea on the planet Tatooine run into some very familiar characters while being filmed for the hit Imperial TV show Troops. In a Reddit AMA in January 2018, Rubio stated that Troops is acknowledged by George Lucas as a canonical installment in the Star Wars franchise.
George Lucas's science fiction multi-film Star Wars saga has had a significant impact on modern popular culture. Star Wars references are deeply embedded in popular culture; references to the main characters and themes of Star Wars are casually made in many English-speaking countries with the assumption that others will understand the reference. Darth Vader has become an iconic villain, while characters such as Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia, Chewbacca, C-3PO and R2-D2 have all become widely recognized characters around the world. Phrases such as "evil empire", "May the Force be with you", Jedi mind trick and "I am your father" have become part of the popular lexicon. The first Star Wars film in 1977 was a cultural unifier, enjoyed by a wide spectrum of people.
Giancarlo Volpe is an Italian-born American animator, director, producer and comic creator.
Tag and Bink are the main characters in a Star Wars spoof series of comic books that parody the films. The characters were created by writer Kevin Rubio and artist Lucas Marangon. They are a pair of minor characters whose activities deliberately or accidentally influence the events in the first and second film trilogies in ways that explain some of the implausible events of the series. The title of their initial appearance—Tag & Bink Are Dead—is a reference to the Tom Stoppard play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, itself titled after a line from Hamlet.
Henry Alan Gilroy is an American film and television screenwriter and producer. He is best known for co-writing the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars is an American animated television series created by George Lucas. It is part of the Star Wars multimedia franchise, and is set predominantly between the events of Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones (2002) and Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005). Lucas, who closely collaborated with supervising director Dave Filoni on the series, called it a continuation of the previous Genndy Tartakovsky-produced 2003 Clone Wars series. The series began with a theatrical feature film that was released on August 15, 2008, and debuted on Cartoon Network two months later on October 3, 2008.
"Robot Chicken: Star Wars" is a 2007 episode of the television comedy series Robot Chicken, airing as a one-off special during Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block on June 17, 2007. It was released on DVD on July 22, 2008.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars is a 2008 American animated epic space opera film directed by Dave Filoni, produced by Lucasfilm Ltd., and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, becoming the first Star Wars film to not be distributed by 20th Century Fox. It is the first fully animated film in the Star Wars franchise and takes place shortly after Episode II – Attack of the Clones (2002), at the start of the titular Clone Wars. In the film, Count Dooku and Jabba the Hutt's uncle Ziro orchestrate a plan to turn Jabba against the Galactic Republic by framing the Jedi for the kidnapping of his son. While Anakin Skywalker and his newly assigned apprentice Ahsoka Tano attempt to deliver the child back to his father, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Padmé Amidala lead separate investigations to uncover Dooku and Ziro's plot.
Captain Rex is a fictional character in the Star Wars franchise created by George Lucas. He was introduced as a main character in the animated The Clone Wars 2008 film and the related television series of the same name. Rex is a clone trooper of the Grand Army of the Republic, cloned from the Mandalorian bounty hunter Jango Fett, and serves the Galactic Republic under the command of Jedi General Anakin Skywalker and Jedi Commander Ahsoka Tano. Since his introduction in The Clone Wars, he has also appeared in the 2014 Star Wars Rebels television series, the 2021 Star Wars: The Bad Batch television series, the 2022 Tales of the Jedi television series and various spin-off media. Like all clone troopers in The Clone Wars, Rebels, The Bad Batch and Tales of the Jedi, Rex is voiced by Dee Bradley Baker. In Ahsoka, Rex made his live-action debut in the episode "Part Five: Shadow Warrior", voiced by Temuera Morrison in sequences set during the Clone Wars.
David Filoni is an American director, producer, and screenwriter currently serving as the Chief Creative Officer of Lucasfilm. He directed multiple episodes of Avatar: The Last Airbender, before being hired by George Lucas to oversee direction on the television series Star Wars: The Clone Wars as well as directing and writing numerous episodes, including its theatrical film. He was the creator of follow-up series Star Wars Rebels, and served as a supervising director, executive producer and writer.
Laugh It Up, Fuzzball: The Family Guy Trilogy consists of three episodes of the American animated sitcom Family Guy. The episodes are a crossover and parody retelling of the Star Wars original trilogy, consisting of the films Star Wars (1977), The Empire Strikes Back (1980), and Return of the Jedi (1983). The first episode, "Blue Harvest" (2007), was released to commemorate the original film's 30th anniversary. Due to its success, it was followed by two direct-to-video sequels: "Something, Something, Something, Dark Side" (2010) and "It's a Trap!" (2011), which were subsequently aired on television in edited versions, omitting most profanity and sexual references. The trilogy was released on Blu-ray and DVD in the United States on December 21, 2010. Its title comes from a phrase Han Solo said to Chewbacca in The Empire Strikes Back as the latter was laughing at the former.
Star Wars Detours is an unaired American animated comedy series. It is differentiated from the other Star Wars animated series in that it is a parody of the franchise. It offers a comedic take on what happened between the prequel trilogy and the original trilogy. The series was produced by Lucasfilm Animation in collaboration with Robot Chicken creators Seth Green and Matthew Senreich. Although 39 episodes of the show have been produced, their release has been on hold since 2013, following Disney's acquisition of Lucasfilm.
Star Wars: Tales is an American animated anthology television series created by Dave Filoni for the streaming service Disney+. Each installment consists of six shorts that explore different characters from the Star Wars franchise. The first, Tales of the Jedi, explores Jedi from the prequel trilogy era, while the second, Tales of the Empire, explores characters related to the Galactic Empire. The series is produced by Lucasfilm Animation, with Charles Murray as head writer and Filoni as supervising director.