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Star Wars To Air As Animated Sitcom
The Bastard writes "As if the Star Wars Holiday Special and Jar-Jar weren't insulting enough to fans, George Lucas has decided to turn the franchise into an animated sitcom. I have a bad feeling about this." The article says that Seth Green is involved, which either sets off your late April Fool's Day alarm, immeasurable dread, or excitement.
From the official site there's an announcement from April 5th. Probably not a late April Fools joke.
... series in both short story and comic book form. I mean, you have a whole invented universe just sitting there waiting for writers to discover new intricacies with it. And, aside from the expanded universe, all we've gotten in approved cannon is three really bad movies and some decent kids shows. Where are the Grand Admiral Thrawns and Admiral Daalas? Where is the fleshing out of a background story for each of the aliens you see in Mos Eisley and Jabba's Palace? Confined to books I guess. I just don't understand why TV writers haven't been solicited to explore the Star Wars universe in the same way the expanded universe books have. Sure some have been trash (Barbara Hambly's Children of the Jedi) but you'd think someone could write a really neat story line with new villains, new force sensitives and new characters that are distantly related to the movies.
After Robot Chicken and Family Guy's parodies of Star Wars, I guess Lucas knows what the fans want: humor. And let's face it, they were funny. At least for me anyway. Star Wars used to be a religion to me until Phantom Menace. I distanced myself and have since had plenty of time to recover. Even though I had read all the expanded universe material in my youth and could recite from memory more about an Aqualish than even Wikipedia would tolerate (hooray for retroactive continuity!), I found Robot Chicken's sketch of Ponda Baba's Bad Day hilarious. Laugh for ten minutes hilarious. Re-enact for my friends hilarious.
And it saddens me that all he has left is humor. I mean, I'd rather see both serious material and humor. Futurama had a great way of making fun of itself but also baking in really serious themes that made me love it. I hope Star Wars manages to maintain some sort of integrity through all this. I agree with what the quotes said about this being a large intricate universe with a lot to work with. And I had always been hoping for a TV show similar to the Tales from
My work here is dung.
The article says that Seth Green is involved,
I'm going to go with "immeasurable dread."
... and then they built the supercollider.
In fact, they covered it in more general terms some five and half years ago.
Seth Green says:
"Let us assure you this isn't going to suck as much as you think it is."
It couldn't possibly.
But it could still suck a great deal without reaching that level.
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
While Indiana Jones may be REMEMBERED, I don't think it's too often associated with George Lucas. As a matter of fact if you told 20 people on the street that he was even involved with that franchise at all I'd bet that 18 of them would be incredibly surprised to find that bit of info out.
The reality is when people think George Lucas they think Star Wars, and not much else.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
It hit rock bottom with the souped-up 1990s rereleases of the first three films. The alteration of the Han Solo-Greedo sequence was a clear shot across the bow that Lucas was going to supremely fuck things up, and he certainly didn't disappoint. Episode I is a trainwreck, Episode II... fuck, I have to think for a minute to even remember what Episode II was about, and Episode III managed to find a way to make Anakin's fall from grace both boring and unbelievable. Capped with probably the most stullifingly dull saber duel in the entire series.
Lucas sucks, plain and simple.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
That's odd... I think of "Howard the Duck"
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
This has long been Lucas's problem. The best of all the films, Episode V, was the best in large part because Lucas was relatively uninvolved. Kershner had a lot more independence, and thus could mute the Lucasisms. As well, there was some outside writing talent on that film which allowed for better dialog and tighter plotting. You get to Episode VI, and all of sudden we're seeing the worst Lucasisms creeping back in; the Ewoks, the crappy plotting which means when you actually see who did what, Luke had dick-all to do with the second Death Star's destruction (I recall the novel tried to explain this by making Palpatine into a Sauron-like figure who dominated and controlled his servants, and his death released that control).
In fact, look at Episode VI, it has a second Death Star. Lucas has such a famine of ideas that he tends to repeat the same Macguffins; Episode IV - Death Star, Episode V - Super Star Destroyer (which really played no meaningful part other than giving Vader the biggest ship), and then another Death Star for Episode VI.
His theme worlds are another big gripe. Frozen world, forest world, gas world, metal/city world, fire world. Lucas is like of those pre-Renaissance painters who could do faces okay, but couldn't do hands and screwed up body proportions. He only knows how to paint in broad strokes, which means that the more involved he is in the writing and directing aspects, the more caricaturistic it all becomes. The plots became pointless, the characters one-dimensional, even the worlds lack any kind of depth. The prequels suffer the most because he was basically running the whole show. Star Wars was better when other folks had some say and could moderate him.
Another aspect of the differences between the two trilogies is the gap. The George Lucas who created the first three films wasn't the same guy who made the last three. The first three had a more mythical quality, the good father turned to evil, the Arthurian son who seeks to reclaim the sword. You could put up with Ewoks and the goofy comedy interludes involving the droids, because there was some sense of a great story unfolding. The prequels were hamfisted attempts at political analysis. The mysticism is mythic qualities are largely sacrificed, and the characters and the story line lose their depth. There's nothing wrong with using SciFi to make comments about politics, Gene Roddenberry did and often did it with great success. But Star Wars wasn't that way in the beginning, and there is a profound thematic break between the original trilogy and the prequel trilogy.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Jar Jar may have been annoying, but he had more personality then almost anyone else in the prequels.
Joss Wheedon's Star Wars is NOT something I'd want to see. Have you never noticed how all the characters with lady parts are awesome, and all them with man parts are tragically flawed? In every single Joss production? Skywalker would be a total train wreck, Amidala would end the Clone Wars single-handedly, and Yoda would be an impotent clown.
Joss's work can be great, don't get me wrong, but he selects the stories he does for a reason. There's also a reason why his stuff gets canceled. It simply strains disbelief for too long for general consumption that the genders would be so lopsided and the characters so one-dimensional.
If he does go on a gender-bending spree, it would easily make his version of the Star Wars prequels WORSE than Lucas's, and that's saying a lot.
Everything you said is spot on, except that the actors aren't bad: their performances were. All the leads in the prequel trilogy have proven in other films that they are in fact quite talented. I've posted a couple times in defense of Hayden Christensen, who showed off his acting chops in "Life as a House" and "Shattered Glass", and it's a shame that he turned in a crappy performance in such a high-profile film. I also posted about the fact that Lucas is not an actor's director. Blame him for their performances as well.
The best actors in the world couldn't have saved those turkeys. The story, script, and direction were insulting, laughable, and incompetent, in that order.