I don’t know what is going on over at LucasFilm. First it was word that Lucas was going to build low income housing on his land, then Star Wars 1313, and now Lucas is set to retire soon. On top of all that is still the question of, “What is going on with that Star Wars television series, Star Wars: Underworld?”
In an interview with Rick McCallum, it looks like the series could be more adult than what network television could handle.
Our biggest problem is that these stories are adult. I mean…these are like Deadwood in space. It so unlike anything you’ve ever associated with George before in relation to Star Wars. These aren’t for kids. I mean, we hope they’ll watch, but it’s not being targeted at 8-to-9 year old boys. The situation we have is that each episode – or if you put two hour long episodes together – is bigger than any film we’ve ever done. It’s on the Avatar level and we’ll only have about $5-6 million we can spend on each episode.
We know that there is over 50 hours of scripts written, and there is still another year of production before shooting even begins. Lucas is loaded with money, so he should be able to absorb any cost – and I understand this is going to be a very expensive series to get off the ground – but who would pick it up? HBO? ShowTime? What about Hulu or YouTube?
Personally, I would love to see an adult-oriented Star Wars, where language wasn’t a problem, and if an occasional Twi’lek boob appeared it wouldn’t be the end of the world. Heck, at this point, I think I’d be happy if the show didn’t have a single fuzzy puppet created only to merchandise the series… but then again, it is Star Wars.
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I was going to say that you don’t take a property that’s geared toward kids and make it all adult, grim and gritty, but then I remembered that comic books have been doing that for decades
you gear Star Wars too much for adults it wont last.
You know, Star Wars (A New Hope) and The Empire Strikes Back were never geared for kids! It was only when Lucan started pulling in millions and millions of merchandising dollars selling crappy action figures, lunch boxes and underoos that he forgot his premise of intelligent and enjoyable sci fi and turned it into a kiddie show – and thats when we got things like Ewoks and Jar Jar Binks inflicted upon us. They want to do a mature Star Wars show, good for them! Back in the 60s, Star Trek was definitely NOT for kids. Far to much romance going on for that, thanks to Capt. James Tiberus Horndog. Kids watched Lost in Space instead. Like Lucas, Roddenberry forgot who his core audience was and inflicted Wesley Crusher on us in order to attract the younger set.
Yes, Empire was fairly dark, but the darkest bits were always still what would be by today’s standard a PG rating. There were very few “mature” – ie sexuality, racist, or realistic, gritty violent – themes in Empire. Its story and themes were still mythic adventure-type stuff that kids could relate to. I think that’s more the idea, that we are going to be seeing the dark underbelly and reality of “life on the fringe” of Star Wars, if the Deadwood comparison is actually accurate.
I was a big fan of Deadwood (first season anyway), but I don’t think I want that format applied to Star Wars. Keep it PG.