A live action and a new animated SW series?? (From the Marketing meeting)

I am very, very dubious about a live-action TV series. There is no way a TV show churned out every week can match the quality of the movies which take 3 years to make. Most space shows on TV are full of actors standing around on the same sets every episode spouting technobabble. A SW show would cheapen the franchise. There is no way any TV show could match the movies. As a rule, I think TV is best for more realistic, character-based dramas like ER and Six Feet Under, while cinema is more suited to epics, and Star Wars has always been that.

 

A TV series set between episode 3 and ANH could have merit.

Focussed on Vader's Jedi Purge, naturally.

 

And yet here we are in a Star Wars TV forum. And we all own Star Wars videos and DVDs...

Only because we all don't have movie theaters in our houses, silly!

And I clarified my comment by saying an animated show might seem more appropriate for the medium of television, which I think it does.

Anyhooo, I'm excited for the 4 minutes we'll get tonight!

 

Sorry, but I would never, ever support a live-action TV series, sure I'd watch it, but I wouldn't go about begging for more.

If a live-action series is made, trust me, it would be too much like Star Trek. People have a hard time telling them apart anyway, despite having almost nothing in common.

 

I liked Babylon 5 for its first 3 seasons, but the idea of Star Wars being done as a bigger-budget B5 or Farscape scares me.

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy was filmed back to back, as were The Matrix sequels. There is no way those films or the Star Wars prequels could have been done for TV.

 

hrmmmmm

this talk of a live action TV show 'devaluing' the star wars franchise as a whole ...... I would point out that Lucas isn't making any more SW films, or if he is, it'll be decades away...... so, unless there is some new venture into TV, there'll be nothing to devalue anyway

re: production standards, and the 'star trek' syndrome.
Because its vaguely sci-fi, some of you are presuming live action Star wars would have to be a forty episode drag (with optional guest appearances by Whoopi Goldberg)

Could it not be a prime time mini-series like Band of Brothers ?
That semi-cinematic format would seem like an ideal vehicle for Lucasfilm to make the most of the Star Wars licence.

re: NJO, pre-TPM, Darth Bane, Sith Wars etc etc etc
Maybe some day, fanboys, but the first live action TV star wars will be 'Han and Chewie -the Pirate Years'

// places $10 on table

 

Does Lucasfilm really need something new on screen to keep the franchise popular? Between Jedi in 1983 and the SE in 1997, all we got were the Droids and Ewoks cartoons and the Ewoks TV movies, and they did the franchise no favours at all. The comics, novels, games and merchandise were coming out for much of that period and were doing very well without a new movie or TV show to promote.

 

I am very, very dubious about a live-action TV series. There is no way a TV show churned out every week can match the quality of the movies which take 3 years to make.

Episodes of a TV show take a long to make too, and it has to be said that I've seen lots of TV shows much better than theatrically released films.

Most space shows on TV are full of actors standing around on the same sets every episode spouting technobabble.

Unfortunately the same can be said about AOTC

 

Well since they wasted the Clone Wars on 3 minute shorts I'd hope for a full animated NJO series.


!snap

 

Hmmm. Doesn't seem like many on this thread have even seen the Young Indy series. Probably even fewer have seen the english comedy series 'Fawlty towers' where John Cleese and Connie Booth wrote a whole series of scripts before filming (so they were happy with the quality), and then filmed as normal. It was a weekly show.

On that note, I heard months ago from a friend working on Ep.3 that they were already thinking about a live-action series. I know that's easy to say now in retrospect, but there you go. I reckon at this point that it might be GOOD to let other writers and directors have a go rather than George himself. It's not like there aren't a bunch of top-flight directors and writers who'd jump at the chance to work on it. It's a pretty rich world to play in.

 

If its going to be live action, it better have a good story

not something like a program on Scfi

and Live action plus a starwars themed show, is very very expensive

 

Afterall, shows like Babylon 5/Crusade, Farscape and SG-1 have pulled off cutting-edge FX in the past, for bugets not much over 1 million an episode

If anyone has followed a show like Babylon 5 (which I have), they did all of seasons 1 and 2 on an AMIGA! I mean if we could see cgi that today still holds up as great stuff, we could get a sw live action tv series! In my opinion if gl let the franchise out to other writers, he'd still get credit because it's his world but it would probably help the sw universe alot! I don't think sw should die after ep3, there's alot history to explore and we deserve it as loyal fans, hell we sat through ep1 for god's sake!

 

I would LOVE to see a live-action Star Wars show, but only if it didn't involve characters we've already seen before (in the movies), it would just look wierd to have someone else playing our beloved Han and Chewie, Darth Vader, or any of the non-alien prequel Jedi.

 

Troops: The Series, that would indeed rock!
Okay, the joke might get old after like three weeks, but it would be damn funny until then.

I think a live action series set a thousand years prior to TPM, telling the whole fall of the Sith could show some promise.

Animated, I would say just expand the Clone Wars idea to 30 minute episodes. Stick with what works.

Also, I remember reading that RM hinted at a convention about a Shadows of the Empire animated (or cgi) movie, as well.

 

If they do a live action show, I'm hoping it will be just a one-shot deal like the Holiday Special was. But way better of course!

 

funny, the only place i would want to see a live action star wars show is on Sci Fi. smaller network whose ratings it would help, instead of on a larger network where the ratings are going to be a big factor in whether it stays on the air or not.

that said, i think that the cw cartoon is proof positive that a star wars cartoon could be done extraordinarily.

 

I was always a proponent of a Rogue Squadron show... But a Purge show would be incredible. Perhaps told primarily form Vader's perspective? "Vader, the Jedi Slayer." lol

 

Of course they could do like the Star Wars Tales comic book and kind of make it an anthology program. I could really dig that.

Second my vote there... each story could dip into differnt 'pieces' of the universe... Pre TPM, Saga era and Beyond...

My only concern would be making the story fit the time allotment (i.e. each story MUST run 1--15 minutes) as apposed to letting the tale dictate the leangth...

Also, you can mix up the formats as well. A little animation, a little live action... gods, I would be in SW Geek Girl heaven.

 

Okay I liked Taken on the SciFi channel and I agree that Fox killed my favorite scfi show The X-Files. I believe that ABC is the way to go. It is owned by Disney who already has a long standing relationship with Lucas.

And about the live-action show NJO or Sith Wars would be nice. Animated show would have to be Han and Chewie.

 

the only problem with abc or any of the other major networks is that if a star wars show didn't pull the ratings they wanted, whammo, canceled. disney doesn't care about star wars, they care about how much money they can make, and if star wars (or anything else) doesn't produce the numbers they want, the axe will fall. one of the smaller cable networks would be better because they won't have the ratings expectations one of the major networks would have.

although, how great a night would sunday be if after alias there was a live action star wars show instead of another stupid lawyer show. oooohhhh, shivers!

 

Fox pre-emps for sports waaaay too often, and that has killed other sci-fi shows on the network in the past (including the Rogue Squadron-ish "Space: Above and Beyond").

Let's not forget putting the very expensive, very critically acclaimed Firefly (which is the closest thing to what a Star Wars-ish space western would be like on the small screen) on Friday night, death night for TV shows.

Sci-fi Channel is being run by complete morons and, with exception to the Battlestar Galactica miniseries and, to a degree, Stargate, have been moving away from "space shows", focusing more on paranormal/fantasy/horror shows. I mean, they CANCELLED Farscape (backing out of a contract to do so), which was the single show that put the channel on the map to begin with. How stupid do you have to be to do that?

Well, honestly, Farscape was just too damn expensive. Same with Firefly. Everyone's talking about how these shows were so great with their movie like production values, but that's exactly what killed them. They were too damn expensive to keep in production. That's why I think an animated series is a much better idea. Plus, I want to see Luke, Leia, Han, Yoda etc again without having to look at receding hairlines and deaging makeup or replacement actors. (Yeah, I know, Yoda's always been old )

Live action sounds fun at first, but you'll never get ILM quality effects (TV shows don't have that kind of budget). You'll never have the EPIC SCOPE of Star Wars. CGI/animation gives practically unlimited scope, unlimited imagination, unlimited guest appearances (Mark Hamill needs a ***damn Star Wars gig!!!), greater production value and would be the best format for an Anthology format. And frankly, I find live-action TV Star Wars being an insult to George's movies. Ask yourself, would you rather have full-on Clone Wars type stories with Jedi performing super-human feats or some 20-yr-old cast as Wedge Antilles talking for an hour? If you choose the second one, you should be watching Enterprise right now.

My favorite idea has always been a Star Wars: New Republic cartoon that (loosely) follows the events of the books and comics that take place between ROTJ and NJO (f-k NJO!). I want Mara Jade, Thrawn, Luke starting up the Jedi Academy. Leia becoming Chief of State (Supreme Chancellor?) of the Republic.

 

Considering that Sci-Fi only picked up half the bill on Farscape ($700,000 an episode?), they weren't doing to bad. That show was cancelled because of a bad game of chicken between two megacorporations. Stupid. Anyway, it's coming back soon, so let's not fret over that particular issue.

And all of thses are great ideas. Anthologies would be good, because of the ability to tell any kind of story and not REALLY have to stay in any chronological order with your episodes - though you could have duologies or trilogies of episodes for the bigger arcs in the saga.

And the Rogue Squadron idea is still very good, IF done right and on the correct network at the correct time. ABC could work; but not on Friday nights. That's the night o' death. Even on Fox it could work. Just never on Fridays.

And Troops, The Series? Ah, now that would definitely be fitting of Fox. A Star Wars "reality" show parodying one of their own shows? Sounds like a low they're soon to hit anyway.

Hmm. Just my two cents. I just love the idea of almost ANY SW after Episode 3. Unlike some others, I am an optimist.

 

I'm telling you that with the Alias and MI-5 shows being large and moderate hits one of the shows you might end up possibly seeing is SpecOps: Page's Commandos.