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Lack of Technology Puts Star Wars Series On Hold
adeelarshad82 writes "It was back in 2007 when we first heard about George Lucas making a live-action TV series focusing on characters from Star Wars. Almost four years later, it seems the idea of ever seeing this live-action show is still living in a galaxy far, far away. In a recent interview, George Lucas mentioned that the technology to produce the show in a cost-effective way doesn't exist yet, and that the cost of producing an episode is about ten times of what it should be."
Funny how other Science Fiction series manage to incorporate all the special effects they need to tell a story without blowing the bank's budget. Apparently George wants movie-grade FX on a TV budget.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Thank God for that.
I'm guessing the holdup is that there still has to be people involved in the production at some step and he was hoping to do it all with robots. Simply treating actors like robots didn't work out in the prequels.
I read the internet for the articles.
Ok, let's think for a second here: back when the only Star Wars movies/media that were any good at all were produced, visual effects were both vastly cruder and more expensive(per unit bang, I'm sure the ceiling price has continued to climb...).
Therefore, if they are "too expensive" now, either Lucas has wandered off the ranch, so to speak, and is insisting that it be shot in 100053459348p 512Hz 3HD or and vastly more likely the plan was to shovel a bunch of straight-to-TV/DVD kiddie-schlock and they aren't sure that they can recoup the cost of visual effects that wouldn't be laughed at.
It sounds like the world is on track to be spared an atrocity here.
You know what would be really cool - a show all about han solo, where he and his rag-tag crew jet about the galaxy in their decrepit but well loved ship, taking on any smuggling job, facing danger together, serving out home-style justice when it serves their pocketbooks, wooing space-ladies.
Oh wait, they already made that show, it's called firefly, and it got cancelled.
Sorry to get your hopes up george
He still doesn't get it. For whatever reason, he continues to equate incredible special effects with incredible results. Even if he were to spend that massive budget for each episode, I strongly doubt the result would be anywhere near as good as something like Battlestar Galatica, Babylon 5, etc.
If you somehow haven't seen them, I recommend Red Letter Media's review of the Star Wars: Episodes 1-3, which does a better job of explaining why those films are miserable piles of crap than I could ever hope to do myself. Also relevant clip from an episode of South Park.
That's all this is. He can't need the money. He's desperately trying to pretend he has still got something to contribute to the arts.
Pioneer One tells a compelling story with essentially zero FX and a budget that wouldn't pay for nose-candy on most movie sets. Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning was rendered in the film-maker's kitchen. The Hunt for Gollum manages to produce a digital Gollum (ok, for a few seconds...) that's not too far off the best results of WETA Digital. Give Seth Green a handful of Star Wars figures and a digicam and he could probably come up with something that stayed within canon in about 20 minutes.
But George Lucas, with all his years of experience, skill, contacts and vast gobs of cash can't make a couple of seasons of a watchable TV show because the technology's not there yet? Absolute bollocks.
He would do it on time, under budget and make a better story to boot.
You can't take the sky from me