TV Discussion The Future of Star Wars on TV

I can see why Han, Luke and Leia would be kept for the numbered saga films, because that's like the flagship of the franchise. But when it comes to the spinoffs and TV. I would have hoped that they would have diversified.

Release some wildly different stories, see how they do. If they are all popular, great. If some are popular and some underperformed, then use that to learn where the audience's interest is.

Instead they have the saga about the Skywalkers. A Death Star movie about the alliances first victory. A TV show about the beginnings of the Rebellion. A young Han movie. A rumored Kenobi movie. At one time there was talk of a Boba Fett movie. A young Yoda movie was rumored to be an idea tossed around.

I.e. a strategy that takes minimal risk.

I had mentioned, probably further back in this thread, that I'm not a big fan of Rebels, but at the same time I feel obligated to support it since even though I don't like it, I'm hoping for a better show in the future.

If a significant body of people want a show about A, but LucasFilm makes a show about B and people don't watch it because it doesn't appeal to them. LucasFilm may just all together see TV as an unprofitable platform and not make further shows. So the people that want A never get it.

If a significant body of people want a show about A, but LucasFilm gives them B and people watch it because "it's Star Wars," not because it's very good, then LucasFilm will see the profitability of B and keep providing B while the fans are still asking for A.

If LucasFilm released some combination of shows/films about A, B, and C, then maybe they'll find that people really love A and C, and B trails behind, in which case B might get released in comic form for a more niche audience while focusing on A and C shows and films.

Right now I feel like LucasFilm is providing B and only B, while I'm hoping for A. But a sizeable number of people want B, keeping it profitable, giving little incentive for LucasFilm to produce anything else.

We might get greater diversity eventually, but I was telling myself the same thing after the first few seasons of TCW.

The only thing that really fits the bill of what I'm hoping for so far is Dr. Aphra, and I've enjoyed her story very much so far.


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I think it's important to remember that since the buy out we've only had 1 animated series - Rebels. Yes, they played it safe, setting in the classic period and showing the start of the Rebellion, but they did feature an all new cast as the leads and they knew Rogue One was coming so there is some synergy there. It could incorporate that classic Star Wars feel and some of the classic characters. It made sense as a starting point.

Let's see where they go next. Yes, between ROTJ and TFA is still in the Skywalker Saga era, but it's almost a completely blank slate for them to cover. A Clone Wars style series (with arcs switching between characters and focus) would have the potential to go almost anywhere. Plus if they want capitalize on the success of the ST and Mark Hamill to voice Luke in the series then it would make sense to do it sooner than later.

My money is on either that gap or The Old Republic right now. I'm edging towards ROTJ/TFA gap purely because I think they might want to launch the Old Republic era with movies after the ST is done.
The only era I don't see them going to soon is the future. I think that will be reserved for film for a long time yet.

 

Heh, fans are just too spoiled nowadays. Never can get satisfied with what they've got.

 

It's not about being spoiled, its about expecting new and original things from Star Wars.

The fact that George Lucas was always willing to experiment and try new things, even when everybody was against him and telling him to play it safe, is the reason why I always enjoyed Star Wars.

Sure, Lucas could have made the PT with Anakin already being Padawan in the beginning, dedicate Episode 2 to Clone Wars, and then have the entire Episode 3 with Anakin as Vader slaughtering Jedi left and right. Lucas even says in one of the bonus feature interviews on the DVDs that this is exactly what his people were telling him to do, when they were working on the PT. But he wanted to try new things.

Same thing with TCW. When Lucas came up with the idea of Anakin having Padawan, Dave Filoni himself was not very enthusiastic about it in the beginning. And "fan" reactions to Ahsoka were horrendous. I still remember how some people were screaming all over the Internet how Lucas ruined Star Wars again with Snips and Skyguy.

I wish today's Lucasfilm would be more willing to take risks and perhaps even produce a movie that would fail, but at least they would try something new and original. But sadly, Lucasfilm without Lucas is just another movie company owned by the largest entertainment corporation in the world. They can't afford to risk and experiment. Each movie has to be a success, otherwise heads will roll and if Lucasfilm would end up with several failures in a row, Disney may even decide to simply disband Lucasfilm and produce Star Wars in-house or hire some other production company.

Star Wars is primarily about making money now, not about creativity and trying to tell a good story with meaning. Maybe after 2020, when Lucasfilm/Disney feels like they've made their audiences accustomed to the Star Wars universe enough, they'll start experimenting more and will give us movies and TV shows set in the Old Republic era or about completely new characters that have nothing to do with the original Saga, in a similar way that Marvel started experimenting with Guardians and Doctor Strange, but until then, its going to be all revolving around the OT era and characters, with occasional nod or two to the PT, so fans don't attack them again that they're ignoring it on purpose.

 

Dude.

It's literally always been about the money. George Lucas isn't some benevolent god, doling out stories to us. He is a business man. Its why he licenced the **** out of Star Wars after ROTJ. It was to make money. Why else would he have sold it to Disney?

And, I'm sorry to tell you this, but some people still don't like the PT.

 

Nah, it hasn't always been primarily (important word in my sentence which you decided to ignore) about money. Watch and read some stuff about how the original trilogy, especially ANH, was made. Also stuff about how Lucas made THX and Graffiti. It was about telling stories and showing themes that were important to him. He was making movies because that's what he wanted to do, not because he wanted to be rich.

Sure, he wanted to make some money as well, who doesn't, you gotta eat after all, but that wasn't his primary motivator. Same with the PT. Lucas already had enough money to last him several lifetimes even before he made the PT. With the PT, he wanted to push forward movie making technology and in this, he succeeded spectacularly. You may bitch and complain about the PT all you want, it still showed Hollywood just how far CGI and digital effects advanced. Lucas was also behind forcing cinemas to adopt digital projectors.

And his sell of Lucasfilm to Disney is pretty obvious. He wanted to retire and Disney is the ideal choice to continue with Star Wars. Doesn't matter who he would have ended up selling Lucasfilm to, they would end up making new Star Wars movies, so he might as well sell to a company that has lots of experience with large franchises. The only other option would have been to end Lucasfilm and he obviously didn't want to do that.

Also, don't know if you realise this, but Lucas and his wife pledged to give most of their fortune to charity after they die. Not to mention all the charity work he has done during his life and the fact that he's using his money to build museum of narrative art.

And the fact whether some people like or don't like the PT is completely irrelevant to my original post. Read it again, maybe you'll understand this time.

 

I don't think Marvel is a good comparison to make to LucasFilm. Beyond their strategy of releasing movies every year, I think strategies of story telling are different.

Marvel's films are based off of comic books and they could look to the sales of comics to judge which heroes to start with. Spider-Man and X-Men were perhaps Marvel's biggest properties by the late 90s, and Sony and Fox had already down the profitability of those characters on screen.

It was already proven that super hero movies could be successful and so Marvel played their hand with the Avengers who were probably the most recognizable characters outside of Spider-Man and the X-Men.

All of the associated Avenger movies were successful, and so they branched into lesser known characters like Guardians of the Galaxy, Ant-Man, and Doctor Strange.

But every super hero movie is based on a very different character. Getting an Iron Man film and then getting Hulk, Captain America, Ant-Man, etc are all very different films.

If someone really wanted to see Captain Marvel or Inhumans, it's true they have had to wait close to a decade, but all the while they could see that Marvel was exploring their catalogue of heroes. So when someone today asks for Nova or Captain Britain or some other obscure character, it seems almost a given that they will get to them in some form, whether it be TV or film.

With Star Wars, there isn't that inherent diversity between characters.

A rag tag group with faith in the Force fighting the Empire for the Death Star plans isn't inherently different from a rag tag group with faith in the Force fighting against the Empire to use said plans to destroy it.

Edwards did give his film a radically different tone to set his film a part, but filling in gaps of the Rebel vs Empire conflict is still more of the same fight, just different faces. Rather than completely different characters with different antagonists.

Now with the Han Solo movie, Ron Howard teases on Twitter things that we've already seen elsewhere to hype people up, and it frankly doesn't hype me up.

Rebels and the Star Wars comic have already shed light on what Obi-Wan was doing on Tatooine, which is why the thought of a Kenobi film doesn't excite me in the least. I guess they could de-age McGregor or recast Obi-Wan and tell a story earlier in the timeline, but a feature film about him looking after young Luke in hiding, just seems boring to me.

It's Star Wars. Tales of smuggling or caretaking in an age where the Galaxy isn't at war seem like odd decisions to me.

The films, comics, TCW and Rebels have alluded to ancient wars. Mandalorians sacking the Jedi Temple, Sith ruling the Galaxy before turning on themselves, a group called The Ordu Aspectu rebelling against the Jedi, other full scale wars prior to the formation of the Republic, etc.

But most everything is concentrated around GCW or TCW to a lesser extent.

Marvel took risks inherently with every new character. DC couldn't even get Batman and Superman into a well received movie. Fox's X-MEN has produced a few duds, Fantastic Four hasn't found traction of any kind.

No super hero is a sure thing. So in those early days, there was always the possibility that Thor could flop, or Guardians, or Ant-Man.

I recall a lot of people being like "Guardians of the Galaxy? Ha. There's no way that will work." And yet they've become immensely popular. And by this point, Marvel probably has proven the competency of its team to pretty much make any MCU character successful.

I know someone on Twitter had tried to present Pablo with a petition for a KOTOR show and he basically dismissed it off hand as being a fruitless endeavor that the number of signatures was insignificant and that companies don't really make decisions based on petitions.

Pablo is right, but that petition probably still had more signatures than the number of sales of the Guardians of Galaxy gets in a given month. Yet Marvel Studios looked at that relatively unknown property, took a chance on it, and made it into what are now popular films.

That type of risk taking/diversification needs to come from the top down, fan demand from the bottom up isn't really going to do anything.

And I just don't look at what LucasFilm has done and see the same kind of risk taking that Marvel has done.

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My goodness this turned into a bit of a complaint thread all of a sudden. I think we need to remember that Disney Star Wars is still brand new. It hasn't even been two years yet since their first movie was in theaters and the new canon just started three years ago come September. The branching out will come but as others have said we just need to have a little more patience than we currently have right now.

They will get to the Old Republic stuff but right now they are waiting for the movies to give us our first glimpses of it. I think we will be getting a fair amount of lore in TLJ. And if we do get a good bit of lore you know they are going to start expanding on those ideas through other media and potentially future movies as well.

Let's just look at the EU as a comparison and what it did when it was still around. The EU was active for about twenty five years (from 1991-2014) and the vast majority of its content took place within about a forty year period after ROTJ (I believe the final series that they did took place in 43ABY). Yes it had a couple comic series that took place about 150 years after ROTJ but that was pretty much all the EU had after 43-45 ABY. In the 25 years it was around the EU only had 37 Adult and Young Adult novels take place prior to the movie era. While it had a 107 Adult and Young Adult novels take place from 5 ABY to 45 ABY. The rest of its books took place during the time period of the six movies.

The Disney Canon currently is only three years old and it is already at 34 ABY. By the time it gets to be 25 years old it will be far far further into the future than the old EU ever was and it will likely have far more than just 37 books that take place prior to Phantom Menace.

 

Expectations have changed heavily since the EU. Ever since Marvel's success with its films, other companies like Fox, DC, and LucasFilm have drastically increased the volume of films and TV series for their respective franchises.

How these franchises are run is very different than back in the 70s, 80s, or early 90s.

I no longer am waiting 3+ years between films, or decades. I'm getting a new film a year. Two in the case of Marvel. I think DC has similar output to Marvel. And Fox is growing multiple X-Men shows while its film output isn't as quick.

Of what Star Wars has produced:

Rebels - I just don't like the show, but then again I'm not the target demographic. I wasn't for TCW either, but that kept me entertained, so it was a bonus.

The Force Awakens - Pretty much a carbon copy of ANH. I was unimpressed given that Abrams pretty much did the same story with Star Trek in 2009. There's enough new characters that Rian Johnson can hopefully take the saga in an exciting new direction.

Rogue One - Probably the best of the three. I felt like the film was fairly predictable. There is novelty in that the film moves away from archetypes. I do applaud it for trying something new, but even more so than the prequels, I felt like it was a movie I basically knew the ending to and the characters weren't likable. Having just watched Hacksaw Ridge recently, I can look at that as a good war movie. At least the characters are established as likable before being thrown into the conflict. The cast of R1 had little chemistry IMO and were pretty much just jerks to each other right from the start.

We haven't gotten much insight into the Han Solo film, and I'll treat Kenobi as a rumor given the lack of official word from LucasFilm, but given the behind the scenes drama of the prior, along with my lack of interest in his back story, a Han Solo film just doesn't excite me.

They have the quantity, but I'm unimpressed with the quality thus far. The saga can hopefully turn around for the better with TLJ, but the spinoff announcements and rumors are consistently disappointing to me.

I feel that both TCW and Rebels started out childish and "grew up" with the audience, which I think alienates potential adult viewers as opposed to the films that stay at a more consistent level of appeal to all ages. I thought TCW was going to suck. The fact that it was even OK in the beginning exceeded my expectations. I put up with it and as time went on it became good in its own right.

My expectations for Rebels after TCW were high and it fell short. There were some good episodes. Notably the Season 1 finale and some episodes of Season 2. Season 3 I felt was the worst. But overall I've found it mediocre. Nothing praise worthy.

So for the future of Star Wars TV, I would hope for a show that encompasses everyone, not particularly kids, right from the beginning. If a writer suggests a plot about fetching fruit, he should be let go. If SW TV is to remain in a cycle of being kiddie in the beginning to serve as jumping on point for younger kids, then perhaps it's just not for me at all. Having shown my girlfriend's 5 year old daughter all the saga films, I can say that there's no reason to patronize kids to such a degree. ANH was enjoyable as is.

And I hope it finds its own footing with a new conflict, not necessarily new war, but new conflict beyond Rebels fighting the Empire. For instance it could be a show about bounty hunters with their own issues with the backdrop of the GCW, or characters in the Unknown Regions with their own conflicts with the GCW seeming like something different.

But Han, Luke and Leia in between OT films is best left to the comics, IMO. I feel like bigger conflicts should be the realm of TV and film.



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TaradosGon I guess that is where the wide range of differing opinions come in. I have actually really enjoyed Rebels (and like it even more than TCW). I feel they have done a real good job of showing how the Rebellion came together over the course of the five years before ANH. Also think the development of the main characters has been good. Yes there definitely have been a few underwhelming episodes but overall it has been a pretty high quality show in my opinion.

I have also liked the books and most of the comics have been very good so far (especially the Vader and Aphra series).

If in five years (after the ST is complete) they are still doing what they are doing now then I will begin to question it as well. But for right now (just three years into the new canon and before the ST is even complete) I will hold off on the criticism that they havn't really expanded the universe a great deal yet and enjoy the stories they are telling within the time periods that we are familiar with.

 

Or maybe they simply just haven't nailed down how best to bring in stuff like the Old Republic or any other new time period.

And I maintain the view that fans are just too impatient and spoiled. You want new things? We actually got new things in the new canon, it's just that many don't appreciate them unless they're obvious to the face and completely different than what came before. Fans are just like Anakin, whining and bitching about how they don't get what they think they deserve while not appreciating what they've already got.

 

Quite awhile back, I had mentioned that my thought was that a subscription streaming service was perhaps the best place to put a live action TV show as it allows for higher budgets.

CBS launched their own subscription service and are using it as a platform for Star Trek: Discovery



I feel it looks really good as far as a work of sci fi without a film budget.

I had speculated that perhaps an ABC streaming service (if one doesn't already exist) would make a home for a Star Wars TV show, and speculated that if Discovery were successful it might get the ball rolling more seriously on a Star Wars show.

With news now that Disney is to remove content from Netflix and move it to a new streaming service of its own, I think a live action show would be most likely on such a service, not on network.

While I would love a Netflix show or a show on TV, I feel like the former is unlikely due to splitting profits, and the latter would force a compromised budget.

I'm not eager to buy a CBS subscription for Discovery, but as a Trek fan, I'll give it a chance. My hope is that if CBS can make a high quality, profitable Trek on its own subscription service, then Disney would do the same with Star Wars.



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TaradosGon it is very possible that that is what Disney is planning to do with their own streaming service is to start up their own live action Star Wars tv show. However at the same time you can tell from the trailer that you posted that a Star Wars story based around a live action tv budget would look far different than what we have gotten used to seeing in the movies and through animation. They would have to be far more limited in how much space travel they do than they are in the movies and in animation projects like TCW and Rebels (if they tried to do it too often it would end up looking a little cheap and likely take people out of the experience) and they might have to avoid space battles all together.

It would have to be a pretty small scale story that would take place largely on one planet. A lot of planet hopping would require a lot of added expensive sets that would be needed. Could be done and would definitely be quality tv if it had a good story but it would definitely look different from what we have seen thus far.

 

I am guessing that footage from Discovery is from the first couple episodes. It doesn't show the main character aboard the titular ship. I don't know where they will go location wise. The older series had no shortage of planets to visit, they were usually studio sets though, so there was a feeling of "crampedness."

A couple things I consider though are:

Even in Rebels, the crew didn't spend much time away from Lothal at first, and there was a heavy reliance on recycled characters due to budget. And when they did venture from Lothal, it too was usually to relatively simple locations or small settings.

So I think that issue will arise in both animation or live action.

The other is that the recent Star Trek movies really didn't do all that great, despite getting good reviews. Meanwhile TFA and Rogue One both surpassed a billion dollars. And even the worst reviewed prequel did better than Abrams' well received (critically) 2009 film.

Trek, just isn't the phenomenon that Star Wars is. A lot of the uber Trekkies got put off when Star Trek became an action series under Abrams, and I guess marketing was not able to bring in enough new viewers, despite good reviews, to offset that. Whatever Discovery is able to do on CBS' budget, I think LucasFilm could do that and more. A reason why I could reasonably see Discovery flopping, even if it is reviewed well. Star Wars could probably do the same thing and experience much greater success.

Plus, for things like alien costumes, Star Wars could have the advantage of borrowing from the films' wardrobes.

As far as the aesthetic. It will never live up to the films due to the huge difference in budget. But it could probably come reasonably close. Even if it was of the quality of Star Trek Discovery's animation, I could live with that.

Especially in the US I really don't see a SW cartoon reaching a broad range of adults. Its target audience is kids, and when they do the next cartoon, I figure they'll keep it on DisneyXD. I know that there are many adult fans that like it too, but I feel that's incidental to any Star Wars product.

The films pull in the huge audiences, but are limited in their runtimes. Someone watching Game of Thrones for instance will spend more time with those characters, even after just a couple seasons, than they will with Luke across the entire Star Wars saga.

I feel a live action show would benefit from appealing to a broader audience, as well as allowing for grander stories at the cost of looking a little less pretty. But the difference today isn't nearly as bad as say comparing Star Trek First Contact with an episode of Voyager.

With shows like Breaking Bad, Orange is the New Black, Game of Thrones, Walking Dead, etc becoming huge as TV and subscription based programming become more ambitious, I would think that sooner or later LucasFilm would back a live action show.

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I think we should get a tv and movie anthologizes of sith in hidden sight from the time of Darth Bane threw the 1000 years leading into and passing to Darth plaquis. We and I estimate have a better chance for an old republic show.

 

I think a show that followed Tar Vizlsa would be amazing. Just seeing the dark saber in action is good enough for me.

 

I'm certain a live action series is simply a matter of when at this point. Maybe once the ST is done if they want to give films a short break (yeah right ) they might focus on TV a bit more. Or once the ST is done things will just be easier to do in general as their big launch trilogy will be complete and they'll feel more comfortable opening up to new medias (like live action TV) and other eras.

Being able to reuse film props, sets and digital assets will be a huge cost saver for any potential live action show, so the more films the do, the more stuff they'll have to use for any potential show.

 

A repeat of Rebels is what im worried about for the next TV production.

A show that gives us another "Ezra" with the maturity level of its predecessor.

One where the budget is limiting and the main cast practically can't be killed.

Villains that are not fleshed out and often die without good character development.

Plots that seem very repetitive (i.e pretending to be Imperials)

Only episodes from perspective of good guys (Maul's final fate would have benefited without Ezra and chopper).



I think a mix between clone wars and early dark times era is a good idea if the Old Republic eras are off limits for the time being.

Here is a pitch for a new series.

Have the main characters not be film/TCW ones. Instead follow 2 new Jedi Knight characters and a squad of Republic Commandos in their adventures.

We later see last days of the war and the fall of the Republic and the dawn of the Empire from new eyes. One of the Knights could be shown trying to survive from the new Empire. Unlike Rebels their is no gaining a young apprentice nor kicking the Empire in the teeth. We see various parts of the galactic civilization (underworld included) from the perspective of this survivor. Maybe the lower levels of coruscant. It could create the "last of the Jedi" vibe. Unlike a young Kanan, the future is very uncertain for this character, and he is in more danger of being killed off then the Rebels cast. He could even choose to abandon the jedi path.

Sometimes we see more of his past as well. While seeing his story, we also see the other knight. Captured by the Empire and turned to the darkside. From him we see the inner workings of the Inquisitor Origination and his rise amongst its ranks and hunting Jedi survivors. The former Republic Commandos now are apart of the Empire and we get more of their stories, including Imperial battles with CIS remnants.

Sure we are already seeing early dark times with Vader's running comic series, but their is far more to see of this period then just from the eyes of a Sith Lord.

This idea sure would not work with Rebels rating, but I wish at least we saw again an animated series that was at the maturity level of late TCW.

 

John Campea today answered a viewer question about what he thought the next Star Wars series was going to be after Rebels. He played it off in this video as pure speculation but when he was still with Collider he mentioned that he actually knew a lot about the next series but wasn't allowed to talk about it yet. Now that he is just running his own podcast he may not be held to the same rules that he had while working with Collider so his statements may have some fact to it. He 'speculated' in this video that the next series is going to be a post ESB series. Again he supposedly was only speculating in this video but he did say a while back while working at Collider that he did know a lot about the next series. Now I couldn't say if the guy is a complete B'Ser or not but at the same time you might be able to take his statements as a little more than mere 'speculation'. They have pretty well stayed clear of the post ESB time period up to this point and if they do plan on putting an animation series there that may have been the reason for it.

Go to the 11 minute 45 second mark where he begins talking about this.

 

The budget for any future animated SW show will be the same as it was for rebels. Lucas film won't want to drain the money

 

Exactly. And honestly the animation for Rebels isn't bad at all but fans just got used to seeing TCW style animation. TCW was not a profitable way of doing things though. Only reason we saw TCW style graphics was because there was a multi billionaire willing to put his own money into the show.

 

If we say that each episode coast 1.5 million that means George spent about 275 million dollars of his own money for the show

That means 1 out of 18 of his 5 billion dollars was spent on the show or a bit over 5 percent

 

He used a lot of the money he made off the Clone Wars theatrical release on the show. In fact that may have been his reasoning for releasing that thing in theaters.

 

That is possible since he was always adamant about controlling how long the show lasted

 

I wish that wasn't the case. Besides not getting large ground or space battles (I've wanted to see battle of coruscant again) it also limits story's from not bein set on coruscant. Since that planet is not only a big deal in modern Star Wars but also in the ToR eras. Without an increase in budget its hurts the potential for ToR animation. Though if we get more 2D works, that would be cheaper.