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Animated Star Wars on Cartoon Network
NeoCode writes "There were rumours and speculations first. Now it looks like its a done deal. Harry Knowles, of AintItCool.com has reports on an animated version of Star Wars set after AOTC but before episode 3. This series is produced by Genndy Tartakovsky (Dexter's Lab, Powerpuff Girls, Samurai Jack). The cartoons will be a series of short films. Could this infuse Star Wars with a new life or is this just another merchandising plot? Nevertheless, this could be quite interesting."
Yeah look what good Ewoks & Droids did for the SW universe ;)
Hmm. Well, this could be a boon to the Star Wars franchise (which of course has done amazingly well anyhow ;) ) or it could just throw the chances of any sequels (Episode VII, anybody?) into the toilet.
It's simple, and I'll illustrate it by the example of Back to the Future. BTTF was a successful trilogy with many fans (among whom I am one), but then they introduced an animated TV show, and did a ride at Universal Studios: Florida, which used a plotline set after (fourth-dimensionally-speaking) all three of the movies. Both of these things added quite substantially to "the canon", as they were all officially blessed by the producers of the original BTTF trilogy.
Every episode of any official "Star Wars" cartoon that's even remotely related to the Skywalker clan or other key figures from the series has the potential to -greatly- complicate the Star Wars "canon", and making another series of movies that fit with the sum of the existing canon that much more difficult...
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
The animated Trek lasted two seasons, which finished the "five year mission" that the live action series promised even though NBC canned them after only three. (Now, there's an example of a short-sighted network move...)
Mr. Lucas has specified many times that the storylines in the deritative books, comics, cartoons and all other spin-offs are 'non-canonical'. The only plotline which matters is that of the movies. Which means all those bad Timothy Zahn books will not be determining the plotlines of episodes 7-10 if a third trilogy were to be made.
I guess George wanted the merch money from a million tie-ins, knowing people will gobble it up.
From the Star Wars Literature Compendium:
"According to the premiere issue of the Star Wars Insider, the only works "canonized" have been the movies and their respective screenplays, novelizations, and radio drama adaptations."
Iopha
William Shatner, in his book, said that Star Trek was done in by the primitive Nielson ratings of the day. At the time, they only looked at overall numbers, and other shows pulled higher overall numbers.
These days they break the numbers out by demographics, and look at numbers within various categories. Star Trek appealed to some of the very desirable demographics: college-age people, for example.
Had the studios been using more sophisticated ratings systems, Star Trek would have been seen as a success, and would have been around longer.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely