Source: The ForceCast | Wikipedia
Not sure how this big news story slipped under the radar, but it seems like hardly anyone on the web has reported this. Perhaps Star Wars fans are in denial.
Apparently, last May George Lucas attended a charity screening of The Empire Strikes Back at the Chicago Field Museum, and also took questions from the audience, according to the The ForceCast. One person in attendance asked him to give an update on the Star Wars live-action TV series. According to “the maker” himself, the series is “kind of on hold.” Read on to find out more details.
Here’s the quote from George Lucas (from Wikipedia):
“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.”
So, it sounds like it all comes down to the epic scale of the stories Lucas wants to tell in the series and how much it’ll cost. It seems funny that a company as huge as Lucasfilm would have such a difficult time trying to find a way to finance the show, but it appears that this is exactly what is going on.
For those of you not in the know, George Lucas first announced both the The Clone Wars CG-animated TV series (which as already aired two seasons on Cartoon Network) as well as the Star Wars live-action TV series back in April of 2005 at the Star Wars Celebration III Convention in Indianapolis, IN. The live-action series would take place in between Episodes III and IV of the movies, telling the stories of other characters that perhaps we’ve seen before in the films but don’t know much about. One of the characters that was revealed in more recent years was none other than Boba Fett – the famous Bounty Hunter who captured Han Solo.
There were rumors in the past of the series being put on hold, but now it is official. This really bums me out, especially since Lucas basically said that the stories are so huge that even he can’t afford to make them! Makes me wonder even more just what is in those scripts!
Sure, this doesn’t mean that the series won’t happen, but it does mean that it won’t be premiering on TV any time soon. I was really hoping to catch a glimpse of something to do with the series at the next Star Wars Celebration convention in Orlando, FL this year too [grinds teeth…].
If it ends up being that it never happens, I’m always cool with the idea of telling three stories in the form of a new film trilogy set between Episodes III and IV (hint, hint George)…
You can check out the full audio here (at about 1 hr. 20 mins. in). In the meantime, I guess we can still enjoy the phenomenally awesome Star Wars: The Clone Wars series, as well as the upcoming Star Wars cartoon comedy series (some have called it “Squishies,” but currently the series has no title). Can’t wait to see what that’s all about!
