George Lucas is moving forward with his film Red Tails, the story of the first all-black fighter unit that flew during World War II, as he announces today two principal cast members.

This is going to be favourite territory for Lucas as it will most likely require plenty of CGI for the aerial combat sequences. However it does raise the question of whether it will be any good and whether there is life for Lucas outside of another Star Wars project.

News in reveals that George Lucas has cast Cuba Gooding Jr. and Terrence Howard as the leads for the film with Bryan Cranston, Nate Parker, David Oyelowo, Tristan Wilds, Method Man, Kevin Phillips, Rick Otto, Lee Tergesen, Andre Royo, Ne-Yo, Elijah Kelley, Marcus T. Paulk, Leslie Odom Jr., Michael B. Jordan, Jazmine Sullivan, Edwina Findley, Daniela Ruah and Stacie Davis following up in the rest of the cast, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

It's not a huge cast, but there are some notable names, but what the interesting thing will be is to see George Lucas directing Red Tails on his own and on a film that has nothing to do with Star Wars.

Well, that's actually not strictly true, you can see the similarities with Star Wars, a group of closely knit fighter pilots in big battle sequences, yes this won't be too far from his comfort zone, but different enough.

The fighter squadron, Lucas claims, was actually created as a publicity stunt to win the black vote for President Roosevelt during World War II. They were given minimal training and no seasoned pilot as part of their squadron. They had to learn things for themselves and actually turned out to be a pretty successful squadron.

What do you think? It certainly sounds an interesting enough story. Can Lucas pull it off? Is the film really that different if we consider his love for CGI and for Star Wars and the similarities here with Red Tails?