Star Wars TV Show Tainted By Memories of Jar Jar

bowman9991 writes "Can George Lucas' new Star Wars TV series, the first Star Wars spin off with real actors, atone for the flawed follow-ups to his original classics? Producer Rick McCallum calls the new series 'much darker,' a 'much more character-based series' and 'more adult,' while George Lucas himself calls it more like the first Star Wars film. The new TV show takes place in the 'dark times' between the last prequel Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, when most of the Jedi and anti-emperor politicians were hunted down and killed. The characters of Boba Fett, C-3PO, and the Emperor Palpatine will return, and casting has now begun. Mark Hamill, the actor who played Luke Skywalker from the original movies, believes George Lucas lost his way, 'making it bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger until you're just exploding with special effects all over the screen like some fireworks display,' but thinks the new show is a 'positive' step forward. Hopefully George Lucas can wipe the memory of Jar Jar Binks, Anakin and Padme's romance, his shameless merchandising, and some lame attempts at humor from everyone's minds once and for all."

Comments

Latter Canceled. Need New Avenues.

[eldavojohn]

We want sequels to Return of the Jedi. Wasn't he originally going to do 3 sets of trilogies: with the 3rd set later on, and the only common characters would be the 2 droids?

Yes, those were the initial plans. Although there was a very important if in their plans. From what I've heard through rumors, Lucas had two trilogies he could tell and he picked the stronger of the two (prequels) to do first. If that was financially successful and well received then he would continue with the sequels. I think this strategy changed with the release of the first or second episode and the latter sequel was canceled altogether.

Keep in mind that Harrison Ford turned down a Han Solo spinoff and opted instead for Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (with a fifth shaping up).

I don't want later sequels. If anything is done in the Star Wars universe, I want the Timothy Zahn Trilogy done as three movies. Thrawn is badass. I want a TV series that takes stories like the "Tales" series of SW books and brings them to life.

Personally I think the characters in Episodes I, II and III were so weak that we need new characters that aren't supposed to fulfill some other plot line's obligations.

Re:OMG, Luke Skywalker is right!

[Rary]

Hopefully, this show will get it right, and have a little bit of depth to it.

Well, for starters, it is set in the best possible time frame. Rather than the time of the wooden Jedi Council and the useless Senate holding endless meetings, it's set in the time of the rise of the Rebel Alliance. There's so much potential for a good show in that era.

Also, George plans to hand the reins over to someone else after writing and producing the first season. So, it might have a slow start, but the possibility of a decent series growing out of it is actually fairly high — depending, of course, on who takes over in season two.

Re:Latter Canceled. Need New Avenues.

[Rary]

As I understand it (and most of this is, of course, rumour and speculation), the original trilogy was supposed to go on much longer than it did, with ROTJ not being the last episode. Darth Vader (intended to be a somewhat minor villain) was to be killed, while the hunt for the real villain, the Emperor, would continue in the subsequent episodes. Han Solo was supposed to be killed off, paving the way for the love affair between Luke and Leia (the brother/sister idea was only thrown in at the last minute).

Unfortunately, with Lucas' failed marriage weighing on him, he got sick of making these movies and decided to just wrap everything up quickly and not-so-cleanly in ROTJ.

If he had plans later on to attempt to create a sequel trilogy (of this I have no doubt), it was more of a "milk the cash cow" idea than even the prequels were, because there really is no story left to tell after the destruction of the second Death Star and the death of the Emperor. At least, not a particularly relevant story. I really hope he doesn't ever head down that road.