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Star Wars TV Show Tainted By Memories of Jar Jar

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the that's-a-lot-of-taint dept.

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."

2 of 474 comments (clear)

  1. It's far too late... by fuzznutz · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I was a huge fan of Star Wars until the abomination that was episode 1. I watched episode 2 at the theater we affectionately call "The Welfare Flicks", a second run theater. For the third, I just rented the DVD and that was just for closure. Now, I have no more interest in Star Wars. He f*cked up the originals, and I just don't even care anymore if he ever releases a decent DVD of the originals.

    As for my kids, their only interest in Star Wars is a video game with little characters made out of Legos. They couldn't care less about the movies. If they run any of the movies on cable, their attention span is about 15 minutes.

    George Lucas killed Star Wars.

  2. Re:The first is still the best by curare19 · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I'm in a very rare group. I saw both sets of movies as an adult - within two years of each other. Although I love sci-fi, I grew up with parents who had zero interest, and somehow got through high school and college without ever having seen Star Wars. I think it never even occurred to my friends that I hadn't seen it.

    I went to see the first set of Star Wars when it was re-issued to movie theaters. When Leila kissed Luke, someone in front of me said "Ewwww! They're siblings!" I said "WHAT?! They are?? Thanks for ruining it!"

    At that moment, my friends came to the realization that I had never seen the movies before. At subsequent movies, they announced to the surrounding moviegovers that I had NEVER SEEN IT and to make SURE to not reveal any upcoming secrets (including the "big one").

    It was great, actually - my friends, who were born around the time of Star Wars, were super excited to see someone's first reaction to the movies.

    Anyway, as a perfectly controlled experiment, I agree that the first set of movies was far superior to the second set. The prequel seemed hacked together in order to resolve things from the first set, and over-reliant on special effects and lame jokes to the exclusion of the storyline.