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New Star Wars TV Series Confirmed
merauder writes to tell us BBC News is reporting that the new Star Wars TV series is set to run at least 100 episodes. From the article: "The series will be set between episodes three and four of the film saga. It would cover the 20 years in the life of Luke Skywalker growing up that remains a mystery to most film-goers. McCallum said there would be 'a whole bunch of new characters' and the series would be 'much more dramatic and darker.'"
It would cover the 20 years in the life of Luke Skywalker growing up that remains a mystery to most film-goers
I thought the whole point of the opening on Tattooine was that Luke was bored to tears on his home planet, and that his whole life up until this point was a choice between tendin' to the vaporators and picking up power converters at Tosche Station.
That said, if he hated his life enough to consider signing up for the Imperial military, why would it be of any interest at all to us?
luke just hung out on his uncle's farm. if he actually did anything interesting, that would fly in the face of everything he says and does in ep 4.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Star Wars stopped being "art" when the first Star Wars Happy Meal was sold.
I agree with this wholeheartedly. What do people NOT like right now about the franchise: Lucas' tinkering. With this show, he's going to probably have little if nothing to do with the daily content. I'm excited about this. I loved the books, especially the stuff with Thrawn, and while I know this is not the same time period plot-wise, it would be cool to see something along that same thematic idea. I'm excited for this and would give it a shot. (And NO, I'm not a fanboy. I like star wars, but have never dressed up as one, never owned a lightsaber (even the plastic toy ones), and don't even own all the films. I just like good fiction, and a lot of the "expanded universe" took the best things about the early films and gave them more and new life.
of... what exactly?
20 years of Luke growing up? Call me crazy, but Episode IV points to Luke's childhood being quite boring, comparatively. It sounds as if he raced a lot, argued with his parents, and generally did "kid stuff" with little to no understanding of precisely what the force was and only the ocassional trip beyond the confines of his farm to spice things up. His caretakers obviously were not on the run to avoid detection, as he was dropped off at the same place he grew up and left in Episode IV.
I think this will turn quickly into Lucas's "Smallville" and, as such, fail to connect with "true" fans.
Each episode of the new starwars movies was supposed to be 'darker' then the last, and each one was ridiculous.
Still, if it means that someone else will be doing the directing, it will have to be an improvement.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Indeed. Not only that, but the true story arc of the Luke character can't really even begin until Ep4. Too much of the character's development in ANH starts with the premise of Luke as an inexperienced farmboy. To have him do anything beyond shooting womp rats with his T-16 or wasting time at Tashi Station with his friends would bugger the existing canon. Not that I'd put it past Lucas to do just that...
Conclusion: the Empire squashes the Federation like a bug. Accept it.
I wish they would just leave the entire storyline of the movies out of it. The universe he has created is so textured and interesting- why do we need to see Young Skywalker? Can't we just go to a new world and witness all new characters struggle with life under the Empire? More forced connections to the films just makes the narrative clumsy and self concious. Let's see an action series about a rebel resistance group, or the exploits of a Han Solo type anti-hero/outlaw (Oh wait, that was Firefly).
Rather than post and post, about why this is a fucking stupid idea. Lets just all post the words:
Worst. Idea. Ever.
And mod each other +5 insightful.
http://skeptobot.blogspot.com/ - A site for the Renaissance man and woman
Why not track the story of how Leah became a key player in the Alliance. More on her and her family on Alderan would be more entertaining than anything about Luke.
Or Grand Moff Tarkan and the construction of the Death Star.
Or Han Solo and Chewey smuggling and fighting bounty hunters, or AS bounty hunters. Throw in a little Lando. Works every time...
Or Boba Fett's adventures as a bounty hunter, and perhaps an akward relationship with Vader.
Or the further slauter of Jedi by Darth Vader. Have him track down Jedi and kick the crap out of them. Show him get more and more evil. This can be be supplimented with yoda training a few of the better Jedi that are fugitive.
Any of this is better than tracking Luke or Obi-Wan. Putting Luke into forced adventures on Tatooine will really ruin the whole story, it doesn't fit well with A New Hope.
>Kevin J. Anderson & Timothy Zahn could write a story. Agree 50%, but not with the Kevin J. Anderson bit. I would rather have Michael A. Stackpole work with Timothy Zahn, he is better than Anderson. They are the best writers that has worked on the Star Wars novels, their respective works are in a class above all the others. And they already have experience working thogether in the Star Wars universe. The 'Side Trip' story from Tales From the Empire, are one of the best short stories in the series.
I wonder if there will be an "amnesia" plot device that has made the E4 Luke forget all the "Young Indiana Jones" mis-adventures set for this series? I mean wamp rats and moisture farming on a desert planet would make such an interesting show and all, but they're gonna have to punch it up and figure out a way to tie into "A New Hope."
Maybe Lucas can just finally move on to another universe outside of Star Wars now that he's milked it dry.
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
What? You think the series will have no Jedi action whatsoever by Luke or Obi-Wan? No cameo visits by Yoda? I can only admire your faith in Lucas.
What's he going to learn? He could barely pull his saber to cut himself free of the Wampa at the beginning of Empire. This is supposed to be before ANH, when he barely even knew that Old Ben lived out in the desert.
Nah, this is just Lucas proving that he could mold a pile of dog crap into a sculpture of Darth Vader and people would kill each other to own it.
And yes, sadly enough, I will probably watch it.
Windows isn't the answer... it's the question. NO is the answer!
I was in a similar boat, but with Trek instead of Wars. Bought and read every single paperback that came out, starting with Blish's novelizations of the TV eps, then moving to Alan Dean Foster's novelizations of the animated series, then all the other paperbacks up to about #100 or so, when I finally gave up.
Some of these, especially later ones, sucked really REALLY hard. But there were some landmark books in this series with some solid writing and adult tones and themes.
FASA latched on to some of this material for their Trek-based role playing game, but Paramount explicitly ignored it when they did Next Gen... and it was around that time that the quality of the writing did an absolute nose-dive and they became downright juvenile.
Shortly thereafter, I "grew out" of Trek, and with a couple of exceptions (a few Next Gen eps, and most of DS9) the quality of the work being produced validated that decision.
Somewhere I've got a big box full of Trek paperbacks. I wonder what they'd fetch on EBay?
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
Timothy Zahn came first, and wrote that part of Vader's history, and Lucas screwed it up.
Oh yeah, George Lucas really screwed things up by not having Anakin in his 20~30's when Episode 1 came around. Timothy Zahn is a great storyteller, but in terms of timeline continuity, you can't fault George Lucas for overriding Timothy Zahn.
Pre-Episode 1, 2 and 3 stories + Anakin != Blame George Lucas
Seriously, the guy places his stories PRIOR to Episodes 1, 2 and 3 and you blame George Lucas for the inconsistancies? Timothy Zahn flat-out screwed up in using Darth Vader in his stories. Anyone who watched the original Episodes 4, 5 and 6 knew Episodes 1, 2 and 3 would simply be 'how it all started' stories. (Where did the Emperor came from? What happened to the Jedis? Where did the stormtroopers come from? How is Darth Vader Luke's father? Etc.)
Firefly cancelled after one season (okay before the end of the first season)
Babylon 5 struggled each and every season to get renewed
Farscape killed off before its time
Enterprise got killed off as it started getting reasonable (the last episodes were shot when they knew they were dead, and it showed)
And don't get me started on Birds of Prey
Why would this series run that long?! (Yes, I know - it's the hype that surrounds a new series and all, but really - 100 episodes. Maybe they expect that Jar-Jar will be a big draw. Tune in next week to Meesa Binks get incinerated ... )
Preparing to be slaughtered by the Sith/Jedi moderators, I don my blindfold and light my cigarette ;-)
.. paranoid crackpot leftover from the days of Amiga.
Yes, but the key difference is that a young Indiana Jones DOES have adventures (and is proven directly by Last Crusade's prologue). GP's idea is that a young Luke Skywalker is not supposed to have any jedi-like adventures, or anything having to do with the Force.
I shudder to think that he might attempt to write all 100 episodes without the help of coauthors.
I think we're probably safe on this. I don't know anyone who would be willing to write 4,000 pages of screenplay on the same story. The volume of work required demands a team.
Yeah, whatever. When the prequels were in the queue, this is what they said about them. They'd be more dramatic. Darker. Lucas was even going to pitch the familiar theme music and do something different. It all sounded wonderfully original and artistic until somebody said, "George, nobody wants that. People want the same score, the same movies all over again." So George, 20 years older and basically living off the technology royalties from ILM, having not written anything worth watching (note that Indiana Jones is basically a really awful movie that is saved by an enchanting combination of a fun score, the kinetic influence of Spielberg, and chemistry among the actors), writes Episode 1. I don't want to rehash the myriad complaints about Star Wars, but Episodes 1-3 were supposed to be "much darker". Well, the watered-down scene where Anakin kills the Tusken raiders elicited a yawn from me. I still get uneasy watching the scene of Han Solo of being tortured for no reason other than the Empire delights in torture. "They never even asked me any questions." Yeah, they do'nt care, they just enjoy inflicting pain and suffering. Then Lando walks through the corridors of his city arguing with Vader with the sounds of Solo screaming in inhumane pain behind him ... that's dark. Nothing about Anakin's fall from grace was dark. It barely even made sense, nor did Padme's perplexing passion for him. The films were written by a guy in his 60's who has clearly forgotten whatever he once knew about the passionate love of youth.
So now they're going to make a "darker" TV series. Well, bullshit. Sorry. Their last attempt at "darker" gave us the slapstick antics of Jar Jar Binks flopping around a virtual soundstage and spouting sentence fragments and stepping in crap and tripping over shit and basically irritating the hell out of everybody.
There's also a tendancy among bad writers to assume that "dark = deep". If I'm really depressing and dark and morbid and whatever, it means I'm deep and insightful and consumed by the pain that wracks our world in shuddering convulsions, blah blah. This misattribution of insight to misery is probably what fuels the Goth kids. Easy to sit around hating the world and thinking you're above it all simply because you're unhappy. Anyway, when I read, "this is goign to be dark" I hear, "weighty subject matter is going to substitute for insightful writing."
But I'm cynical.
"I have never won a debate with an ignorant person." -Ali ibn Abi Talib
I'm not sure why anyone expects Lucas to worship the original canon. I mean, he made it. There's no reason why he should respect it if he believes he can do better now. (He can't, but that's not my point.)
Actually, I can think of an even worse idea: 101 episodes.
I, for one, find peoples lack of faith disturbing.
A bad analogy is like a leaky screwdriver.
Isn't that missing the point that vadar built C3PO? I'd recognise everything I ever built. Even if I built it from a kit that half a million other kids used. There's always a scratch or badly done part that I'll recall a story about or something.