TV Discussion Official Live Action Series Discussion Thread

Honestly, I would rather never see this show happen than having it be of inferior quality. People will already be iffy about it because it is drama-based, and giving them a low-quality product will definately turn them off.

 

Agreed...

 

If this is the most amazing show ever it is still not going to live up to everyones standards, so I guess they should just scrap the whole idea.

 

Either they want to blow us away at CV, or else they're really in trouble.

I'd almost rather they just abandon the concept at this point.

 

I wouldn't care much if they cancelled the project. I'm not interested in the concept in the first place, and besides, we have the new
animated comedy show. I like that concept even less, though.

 

Who knows about that comedy show. To be honest, I won't care about that. Mainly I think that was a bold, but generous move by Lucas to donate half of his money. But it sort of endangered the live-action series funding.

 

Lucas: 'Star Wars TV series on hold'

 

I remember reading an article about Lucasfilm and the financial crisis. I can't find it because I can't recall enough of the details unfortunately. Lucas stated that his money and Lucasfilm's money aren't the same thing. Now, we could always just assume Lucas could have used that money to fund his show. But I don't think it's about procuring the money as much as it is about making the money back. I'm sure Lucasfilm could make 16 episodes at a bajillion dollars apiece but they wouldn't be profitable. I think that's the issue at hand.

This is something I've been curious about regarding The Clone Wars on television. How profitable is the series?

 

I honestly wish they would just drop the comedy idea. It just doesn't seem like enough people would get into it for it to be profitable.

 

Although I would much rather see the LAS come about than the comedy, I have to respectfully disagree with you on this. Never underestimate the fanbase of Star Wars.

 

This new really makes me feel meh....

The LAS is all I ever wanted. Screw everything else.

Star Wars - The Dark Times

How cool would that be? Over the years the bits of information have got me really hyped, but I've always been afraid it would be cancelled.

Star Wars underworld shizzle - I'm SO there!

Bleh [/rant]

 

Does the whole "we don't have enough money" [to finance the LAS] stance from Lucas bug anyone else besides me? A successful Sci-Fi TV series with a loyal following can generate incredible revenue in advertising, syndication and DVD sales, with X-Files and Star Trek being just a few examples. What happened to the visionary who believed in Star Star Wars enough to finance the second film almost entirely with the profits he made from the original movie?

 

The situation was a bit different after the first film came out though, since that was the only Star Wars there was. In some ways, Lucas had to take the risk of financing the sequel if he wanted to continue the story and have the control he wanted. Now though, there is a whole load of things controlled by Lucasfilm and they're all making their own money. So there are more things to consider than just using the latest profits to perpetuate the franchise, as it was in the earliest days. Unlike the films, a prospective TV series is not a necessity for Star Wars.

I'm sure that Lucas has the money to make a TV series, and even quite an expensive one, but it seems like the project as it has been conceived at the moment has turned out to be more expensive than expected. So some things have to be rethought. Lucas could spend heavily on the series but he doesn't want to waste money, even if the series was to be highly profitable. Although he might be the head of the company, I doubt he can just throw money at whatever project he wants on the understanding that it will inevitably turn a profit because it's Star Wars - he has to justify the expenditure. And I suppose he cannot do so at the moment for something like a TV show. So now he must be either rethinking the content of the scripts, or trying to work out cheaper ways of doing what's already been written.

 

Since The Live Action show is on hold,which was said a few months ago and re-affirmed with this article I wonder what the BIG Announcement at CV this week will be?????

 

A very reasonable and well thought out response, but I have to disagree completely with your premise.
Who does George have to justify the expenditure to besides himself and his heirs? Lucasfilm is a privately held corporation with 100% of the shares owned by GL I believe. George has changed so much since the OT era, you could not recognize him for the man he was back then. He has changed his focus from his craft to a CEO mentality of doing things cheaply as possible and making the maximum profit, as with the foreign animated Clone Wars cartoon. Sadly, I have come to believe that a man I admire so much, has become so profit oriented that he has completely lost sight of what made him the great man he is - making best possible product for his audience, and trusting that once this is accomplished, that the finances will take care of themselves.

How about investing a bit more in writing and script supervision, to ensure a successful live action series, even if it does cost more than he was hoping for? This isn't the Dresden files appearing on Syfy for one season, its Star Wars for pete's sake. FOX or some other major network would pick it up for sure unless its total crap. If you get some quality writing and decent acting talent you are virtually guaranteed a smash hit series. George is no long treating Starwars as his passion in my view, its just another piece of intellectual property to be farmed as cheaply as possible.

 

They'll figure it out, eventually... I'm sure when we finally get it, it'll be fantastic. Maybe it'll be another decade when the technology catches up again.

 

You know, even knowing it's on hold I feel more hopeful about it. I haven't followed the news on it all that closely and for the longest time I though the problem was that they were having problems getting scripts for it together. The creative process can be a really hard one and if you hit a dead end with it, the series goes nowhere.

Now seeing the news today, I know it's more due to budgetary concerns, which for Star Wars, means they're trying to figure out how to make good visual effects and set designs without it looking cheesy or repetitive (ie original Battlestar Galactica). That's a technical issue and technical issues can be resolved in time.

So I can be patient awhile longer.

 

If budget issues are the main issue holding the show up they could always just do 6 to 8 episodes a season, like British television. This way each episode has more time and money spent towards making it a quality product, instead of trying to stretch the money over a longer season.

 

Less time means less character development in a thing like Star Wars. The way these things are made, it's cheaper to do more on a built set than build a set, use it for two scenes and move on. Also, if they did it that way, the story they want to tell would never be told. It would take them 16 years to tell that story the British way.

 

Not new but still disappointing.

I thought the whole idea behind doing a TV show (and not more movies) was to do a story that's a more character driven drama. If they're going to write up a story that requires a ton of special effects and such, then why not just do more movies? The hope for me was that this format would force GL to go back to the characters and storytelling that made the originals so great. The kinds of things he got away from in the new trilogy. (Well that and he wouldn't be writing/directing them directly...another plus).

If the Sci-Fi (or SyFy) can afford to put together a quality show like BSG, then Lucasfilm should be able to put together a quality space drama with slightly better special effects than BSG. It's silly.

AGAIN...if it's that special effects heavy, make another movie. Otherwise, write good stories in the Star Wars world. That's what a bulk of fans want anyway.

 

Yes, and he rapes the childhoods of aging goateed Gen-Xers, too! Magical childhoods of magical innocence and heart!

 

Well said.
My best guess is that GL is not confident that a LAS will be a hit to the extent he recoups his investment, and he consequentaly want to invest as little as possible.
If there is this great shortage of capital at Lucasfilm, one has to ask why there weren't any budgetary issues with the PT films?

 

I wonder if it's really a matter of that or if he just lost interest in this project. I don't necessarily agree that GL cares that much about making as much money as possible. I think he places a higher priority on things he's interested in. Lately he seems to care about two things - children, and technological advancements (this isn't "lately" I guess). We all know that quite a few Star Wars related projects in recent years have been geared towards the kids.

I have to wonder how much the recent 3D revolution has intrigued GL. You've got to think he's interested in using that technology in some way. Now that would be great if he used it for the Star Wars franchise, but it could be something totally different. Or it could be another Clone Wars movie in 3D (which would combine both his interests).

In the end, I question whether GL cares much for telling good, complex, character-driven stories. If it's not for kids and it's not using the shiny, new technology, I'm not sure he cares. Too bad we do.

 

It's def. not all about the money for George. I don't know if you guys heard but he recently announced he was giving away half of his wealth to charity because of the poor economy.

 

I've said it before the animation is the best way to go. Period. Look at what the clone wars has done. I know many of you here are very jaded with the series and the content, but, never the less it has been a super success. Much like The Force Unleashed. The live action series was a bust to begin with. When RM started talking about 4 possible branching shows, I knew he was full of crap. That kind of story telling belongs in novels and comic books. The ratings would drop after the first several shows. Serious. Why? Becuase, how many bounties can you have? How many lets run from the Empire and lets make a change before it gets old can you have? Their probably ain't going to be jedi and if they are, they either have to die anyway or disappear to the point that they are never seen again, unless your into the EU. We can't assume that everybody reads the EU cause if they did, then the comic books for example would be continously in the top 100, and last check they wreren't. Heck not even Legacy 49 crossed the Top 100 mark.

I don't know if money might be the issue, but, all things being equal......The clone wars tv series has a tremendous amount of mercahndising. Something that I could very hardly see happening with the live action. Not unless you introduce super duper bounty hunters that ain't Boba Fett cause we already getting a lot of him between the animated show, comic books, etc. So maybe it id about markeability and porfit. Maybe the stories good onto themselves, might not be that great as a whole.

One thing that makes the clone wars very good, besides the fact that you have all that animation and the advances in them, is the inclusion of all the characters that many have been following for many years. You also have a lot of intrigue, story, and unbeleivable action. This makes good for toys and profits. The live action just .............might not do it. Sometimes, we the fans think that the name Star Wars makes everything invincible and unfortunately it does not.

Yes Celebration V is coming but if you look at the programming. There is nothing out of the oriddinary. The only thing that makes that interesting is information on TFU II, TOR, and season 3 of the clone wars couopled with the opprotunity to ask GL questions as to whats going to happen to star wars and how many seasons does he expect to give us with the clone wars coupled with news of the second animated comedy show.