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Star Wars Television Series Moving Forward
merg717 writes "George Lucas has confirmed that work has begun on a live-action Star Wars television series. This is the companion piece to the Clone Wars animated series, focusing on entirely new characters outside of the frame of the six movies. 'Lucas joked that the series would be about "the life of robots" but wouldn't let any details slip about the true premise. The "extended universe" of "Star Wars" has come to life already in Lucas-sanctioned novels, comics and games that chronicle the history of the Jedi and tell the tales of bit players in the films, such as the bounty hunters from "The Empire Strikes Back."'"
Young Indiana Jones used horrible contrivances to get Indy to meet various famous historical figures. Expect any Star Wars TV series to do the same with characters from the movies. Oh and lots of phony CGI.
As was briefly touched on in TFS, the stories of the bounty hunters from ESB actually make for an interesting read. Skip all of the "Expanded" crap, and take a look here:
Tales of the Bounty Hunters
ISBN-10: 0553568167
ISBN-13: 978-0553568165
Misery loves company. Online misery loves unsuspecting random strangers.
Not that I don't love the iconic characters from the OT, but this is exactly what I've been hoping to see in live action. If Star Wars Revelations is any indication, these kinds of stories could be done on a modest budget with talented and under utilized actors that could elicit the fan response of a Han Solo -ish character while staying low-key enough to allow viewers to be swept up into the absolutely huge and mysterious setting. I think it would be an absolute blast to throw some of the Empire's more obscure minions into the spotlight as a foil to some rebellious or independent spacers on the fringe (a la "Firefly"), similar to some of the plots in the old animated "Star Wars: Droids" from the 80s.
Battlestar Galactica has proven that it's possible to create cinema-quality special effects and atmosphere on a TV show budget these days.
Unfortunately for Lucasarts, anything they're likely to produce probably won't turn out half as good as Battlestar - which is kind of ironic considering that the original Battlestar Galactica really began as a Star Wars ripoff (or at least was discounted as such by critics at the time).
Really, though, BSG really beat the Star Wars prequel at their own game - the vintage tech and mannerisms give the Battlestar Galactica universe the old-school, 'epic' feel that the original SW trilogy had and the prequels lacked.
The kid in me really wants to see some Star Wars in the flavor of the original trilogy, though. Perhaps being constrained to a TV budget will actually help it meet that end - real props instead of 100% CGI backgrounds and 50% CGI characters; plot-and-character-driven instead of flashy lightsaber battles, etc.
McCallum is interviewing writers for the live-action series. Here's a tip for you, Rick: Stop the interviews. Hire Timothy Zahn as the head writer. Then hire any combination of Michael Stackpole, A.C. Crispin, Kevin Anderson, and Kristine Kathryn Rusch as his staff. There. Done. Let Lucas cast the vision, but leave the rest up to Zahn and his team. And for the director, get Joss Whedon. Seriously. I can't stress this enough. He would do it exactly right.