George Lucas has been talking about doing a live-action STAR WARS TV show ever since REVENGE OF THE SITH bowed in ’05 and it’s been a while since we’ve heard much about it. He was saying it’d hit airwaves sometime between this year and 2012, but it’s been a while since there have been any official transmissions, so to speak, about the show. Apparently, this is because Lucas is trying to figure out how to actually pull the thing off. Rebelscum collected some comments from him during an anniversary screening of THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK at the Chicago field museum (which I incidentally used to valet at and, let me say, they have a splendid taxidermy collection.) The screening happened in May, but said comments have been resurfacing lately at places like Techland.
I’m almost speechless over Lucasfilm having problems getting anything off the ground, least of all something STAR WARS-related. The company and brand always make me think of this dialogue about a “golden mountain” I read about in Philisophy 101. Basically, it's a rhetorical concept of something that's superlative in every single regard. To whit, STAR WARS has always existed on its own level - - it can pull off anything because the rules that apply to the rest of the entertainment business just don’t apply to it. Seriously, anything with the STAR WARS logo - - movies, games, toys, comics - - has basically been an excuse to print money. Thus, when Lucas was making the bold boast that this show would be able to make $1 million-budgeted episodes look like $100 million productions, I was inclined to believe him. So seeing him bite off more than he can chew here is like, I don’t know, seeing Superman buckle under the weight of a car. You almost can't wrap your mind around it. I can’t help wondering if this show might be yet another victim of that enduring global bogey man, the recession.
Anyway, here were Lucas' exact words...
The live action TV show is kind of on hold because we have scripts, but we don't know how to do 'em. Because, they literally are Star Wars, only we're going to have to try to do them...a tenth the cost. And, it's a huge challenge...lot bigger than what we thought it was gonna be.
Ah well. We all still have CLONE WARS in the meantime.
Tom Pinchuk’s the writer of HYBRID BASTARDS! & UNIMAGINABLE. Order them on Amazon here & here.