TV Discussion Official Live Action Series Discussion Thread

He probably doesn't watch TCW though. :/

 

Wait a minute?

How is this not a fresh idea, they are taking Star Wars in a different direction by exploring the underworld.

 

I don't like it because the first thing Rick said was "it's basically Godfather", which means they couldn't think of anything themselves and decided to ripoff all the classic movies for 'inspiration'.

 

You are grossly exaggerating, Rick said it was like Godfather not that it is basically Godfather, what he said is no different then Lucas saying TCW was like Band of Brothers and MASH.

 

The last few pages of this thread have been an exercise in jumping to conclusions.

We've known that this series will be about the underworld, crime bosses, gangsters, etc. It's foolish to think that this is all going to a "rip off" of the Godfather, which is what some people are acting like this will be, when Rick was certainly just drawing a comparison. This will be no more of a rip off of The Godfather than the original Star Wars was a rip off of Flash Gordon. The Godfather is probably the best known epic crime/gangster drama, he likely only referenced it because it was something we know of. George has compared it to Deadwood in the past.

As for CGI costs and George hoping they will decrease, we have seen how much television has been changed by CGI in recent years. There are a number of effects heavy shows on tv of late, like Battlestar, which couldn't have been done in the late 1990s. Who knows what things will be like in another 5 years. And who's to say that what they've learned on the Clone Wars won't play into this.

We've also known that the intent was to write this series, then shoot it, much like they did with Young Indy. The primary reason for this is to keep costs down, by getting your talent and scheduling them for one extended period of time. They could currently be working on pre-production, like concept art, for all we know.

George wants this to look and feel like Star Wars without compromising it for a TV budget. He will, as he has always done, do it his way and change the industry in the process. While I hate the wait, I know it will be worth it.

 

They shot Revenge of the Sith in Sydney, did anything in the movie look like it? They're obviously shooting on a sound stage in Prague, maybe because they get tax breaks on the production. I imagine most of the shooting will be done this way, with minimal shooting on location ala the prequels.

 

Because Star Wars never has been based off of classic franchises before. Oh no, there has never been references to Arthurian legends like Merlin, The Last Fortress, The Good the Bad and the Ugly, Gone With the Wind, Doctor Who, Flash Gordon, a few ancient Greek myths... And that's just the original trilogy. TCW references lots of films, obvious ones being Godzilla, The Seven Samurai and The Hunt for the Bismark.

In the world of Star Wars film references aren't new. And that's assuming that any comparisons to The Godfather are obvious in the final product. All Rick McCallum was doing was pitching the tone of the project to the audience.

 

Its moved a long way away from the space opera/sci-fi fantasy of the OT though...

this live series doesn't seem my cup of tea :/

 

I see, so you're saying that because they've been doing it for so long now, that therefore makes it acceptable? I don't like them admitting that their scripts or the basic premise of the show is heavily based on something, whether it's a timeless classic like Godfather or Most Dangerous Game doesn't matter. You can call it 'setting the tone', I call it 'unimaginative'. If there's subtle references to something else, then they shouldn't mention it, because that cheapens the impact. And if it's a blatant ripoff of something else, then whoever wrote that script needs a talking to.

 

Stop putting words in their mouths, they never said the script was "heavily based on The Godfather". Rick said it was "like the Godfather." For all we know the only thing the two shows may have in common is they are about crime lords. Seriously, I know the popular thing for Star Wars fans these days is to complain, but some of you guys are seriously jumping the gun.

 

No, what I'm saying is if the franchise has built itself off of references to other works then why are we as fans of the franchise expecting, let alone demanding, anything different from the next instalment?

George Lucas has always been forthcoming with the fact that Star Wars was based off of samurai movies and westerns and that he researched mythology in advance of writing the script to make sure he got all the classic archetypes correct. And the above TCW examples I gave are constantly referred to by Dave Filoni on the DVD extras and in interviews.

I was never expecting something original from the LAS, although if it was original I was never going to complain. I was expecting the usual twist on classic storytelling styles that the franchise has delivered from the very beginning.

But ultimately taking these words as gospal is silly. Remember the promise of a dark and realistic, PG-13 TCW? Before we ended up with burping huttlets and farting Trandoshans? It's silly to get worked up by salesman's patter.

 

People draw comparisons like what Rick did all the time. In fact, if you were to pitch an ORIGINAL movie or television idea to executives, they would ask you "What would you compare it to?" They're not asking what you're ripping off, they're asking what your project most resembles so that they can wrap their heads around the concept.

Exact same thing here. "Like the Godfather" speaks in three words what it would take three sentences otherwise to get the point across.

 

I'm trying to reconcile "Coruscant underworld" with "Prague".

 

Star Wars is almost to the point where it needs a fork stuck in it...

 

Almost?

 

Then I guess you should stop investing so much time in it, shouldn't you?

 

If you mean to wake it up again, I'm totally with you. SW has been really lukewarm lately and, IMO, it just needs a jumpstart to get it to be great again. The SWU needs to get out of the creative slump its in and have some fresh life breathed into it. It's been done before, it just needs to be done again!

 

If Star Wars can stylize drugs and smugglers, then it can stylize prostitution.

And besides, this is the perfect opportunity for some more cross-species relationships that everybody loves! Or a Mon Calamari going in and shouting "It's a Trap!"

 

Good grief, the negativity on here - all based on a couple of throw away sentences from Rick McCallum - Is quite astonishing!

 

Indeed.

 

People are now complaining far too much- i don't think we see any more wild prostitution and use of drugs as we see in saga and as said we see both in it..... even in TCW we have had drugs (at least lots of alcohol and that thing weequays used to dru the jedi that was also a plothole but anyway....) and twi'lek dancers in every cantina are close enough to prostitution- probably we won't see any more extremem than that.... still i cannot imagine how they even could ruin SW by making it too "adult" damn it has big fat slugs and other odd beings it is so unrealistic it cannot even be "too mature" cannot imagine how that would be even possible

 

I dunno. Why do people think this will be a rip-off of the godfather? Just because Rick compared it to it? It's normal in the showbusiness to name your inspirations, and every work is inspired by some other work. That doesn't mean it will be a blantant copy or not include something unique.

I'm more worried about the focus on CGI. Weird priorities. People won't watch the series because of the best effects ever, on a tv screen it doesn't matter that much anyway, but for the story.

 

Indeed, many high effects series bite the dust. Many shows have been sunk because of their outrageous budgets that cannot possibly be offset because there's only so many viewers any one series can draw.

Wanna know why reality television is so common? Because they're dirt cheap, making it very easy to make a profit. If the show is a complete bust, it's only a small loss. If it takes off, like say Jersey Shore, the profits are massive. Big effects, big budget shows are a huge risk, their potential for massive bust is high and their 'boom' isn't quite high enough to make it worth the risk.

 

I'm more worried about the focus on CGI. Weird priorities. People won't watch the series because of the best effects ever, on a tv screen it doesn't matter that much anyway, but for the story.


It's not really weird - GL wants the series to be on a par with the films, and not compromise the style of SW for the sake of bringing it to TV. The point of having it on TV will be to take advantage of the medium by telling more stories over a longer period - but it seems GL feels that the style of it should not be any different than people are used to from SW.

Now though we can also appreciate that his ambitions for the series are allied to other factors like reducing the overall cost of doing visual effects in films and TV, which is why the series is not going to be made for a while yet. If Lucas wanted to just make a 'Star Wars TV show' then he could easily do so - he's already got the scripts apparently - so it wouldn't be too hard to rewrite them a bit to make it feasible for a TV budget. But he doesn't want to do that because he doesn't want to compromise the look of Star Wars. So instead he is going to use the series as the impetus to improving effects technology and bringing the cost down.

People might watch a show for the story and not the effects but an SW show would need to have that same scale as the films. And if GL and his people achieve their ambitions then the audience figures will matter less because the show won't have cost any more than any other comparable shows. And if new technology does become available in TV and films then it will be of benefit to many productions, and not just effects-heavy things like SW. Cheaper and easier CGI that looks good would benefit even 'normal' shows who would only use it occasionally.

It seems like a lot of people wrongly assumed that the series was going to be going into production as soon as the project was announced - and that's despite the absence of any news regarding it. They might have been keeping it quite secret but like the films, surely there would have been more announcements and details about it if it was anywhere near to actually being made. So it was fairly obvious that it was still a way off when absolutely nothing more was said about it ? ie it was still being developed. And given Lucas?s recent comments we know that is because he is trying to do something different with it ? ie doing SW on TV rather than scaling it down. And that will be a great benefit to the whole industry if it means other films and TV shows can do more of what they want for less money ? it won?t mean every show has to be like Star Wars, but more shows will be able to take advantage of new technology and do things in ways that in the past would have been prohibitively expensive.

So Lucas is insisting on doing more ? especially in terms of effects ? and taking his time because that is what it will take to drive the process forward to a new level. For the PT he insisted on doing more and challenging his team in order to bring more of what he wanted to the screen and make it possible for others to do those things later on. I also think though that although at the moment people are talking about the cost of the live action series, it may also economise in a lot of ways. If you look at the PT, although there might have been a whole load of visual effects and many new techniques used, but the budgets were seemingly considerably less than other films with a lot of CGI.

 

I might have to go to Prague sometime, Czech out the filming site.

Let the 's commence.