Recently, a disturbance was felt across the internet as George Lucas boasted he'd completed fifty hours of the live-action Star Wars TV series, but that they were "sitting on a shelf." Millions of nerds cried out in anticipation, and were suddenly silenced when the truth sank in.
As Star Wars prequel trilogy producer Rick McCallum explains (and what most of us figured out anyway), no actual footage of the hotly-anticipated series has yet been shot, but rather the fifty hours in question exist as "third-draft scripts." So then, what story do the scripts tell, and when might we Star Wars geeks ever see them realized on the small screen?
According to McCallum, "basically, it is like The Godfather; it’s the Empire slowly building up its power base around the galaxy, what happens in Coruscant, which is the major capital, and it’s a group of underground bosses who live there and control drugs, prostitution." And while Luke Skywalker would exist as a teenager in the scope of the show, "it has nothing to do with Luke."
Well that's all very well and good, but how long do we have to wait? Says McCallum:
"The problem we have is there is a lot of digital animation; we don’t have the technology yet to be able to do them at a price that is safe for television. Since we would be financing them, it would be suicide for us to do this [now]. So we are going to wait three or four years."
Of course, that's assuming network and cable television as a medium hasn't "imploded" by that point, as McCallum feels that in four or five years time "we’re not really sure that we can release a dramatic one-hour episode because it is all reality TV now." Right. Do they even still have hour-long dramas on TV?
I forget...
McCallum also revealed that should the series ever shoot, production would likely take place in the Czech republic given Lucasfilm's past work there, and the available film crews and talent.
Oh well. A nerd can dream, though. A nerd can dream. And remember, there was once a time when the prequel films were a distant possibility as well. What are your thoughts on the Star Wars TV series? Force-push your opinions below!
