A Star Wars series is a great idea, so long as they pitch it at the 20+ somethings, and not at 8year olds. Not that I hate children (far from it), but it really would be a waste to do a kiddie Star Wars show when you consider the LEGION of adult fans who are willing to spend time and money on things that'll satisfy their Star Wars cravings. A childish Star Wars show would be a direct slap in the face of those fans, much like Episodes 1 and 2 were.
As for themes and thrusts of the show, there are easily dozens of ways it could go. Depends on which timeframe within the Star Wars universe they want to use. Presumably and hopefully, they'll go with the 'modern' era within Star Wars (i.e., post Episode 6 aka ROTJ).
If they slot it into that timeframe, they could detail the rise of the New Republic on whatever scale they wanted. They could follow grand political and inter-racial machinations through the reassembly of the Republic Senate; these stories could stay “top down” in that they’d follow the Senators and other top political and species leaders as they reassemble the political, legal and mutual defense (military) frameworks that would makeup the New Republic. Or they could “drill down” through the layers and have episodes that start “wide” by showing a certain problem and it’s place against the broad backdrop before zooming in to follow that problem as it’s dealt with (successfully or not).
Example: a certain region has problems with rogue Imperial elements raiding the member planets in that area, who are thusly threatening to withdraw from the Republic unless something can be done to provide defense against the attacks. After showing the top level interactions that would basically scribe out the problem and it’s scope, the storyline could follow a New Republic team (of diplomats, of technicians, of soldiers, of Jedi, or a team combining one or more of these elements) who are dispatched out to the region to investigate and resolve. The Top layer provides grand scheme, and then the drill down offers the action/adventure elements we know and love within the Star Wars universe. Resolutions of situations would lead naturally back to the top down layer, and could easily be woven into sequences of connected circumstances or multiple-clues that point to even larger situations (like Sweeps weeks type situations to get folks excited about watching)
The best would be for the show to follow what I think of as the Babylon 5 model, in that the storyline for a season (and hopefully across MULTIPLE seasons) would be over-arcing. The storylines should not be “episodic”. We’ve all seen episodic t-v, and it generally is rather poor. Other shows have used non-episodic (or at least semi-episodic) techniques to great commercial success, including Buffy the Vampire Slayer and 24.
Ideally, the show would not focus on just a small set of characters; there should be some central characters that are fixtures (some Senators, some key military or rebellion figures, some key Imperial Remnant figures, some Jedi, etc…); but characters need to rotate in and out as they’re dispatched out to handle certain crisises. There certainly need to be some fixture Jedi, more than one, not more than four or five though honestly. To focus the show exclusively on the Jedi would ultimately be a mistake, as there’s not as much material in a Jedi-centric show as there would be in a Star Wars show (one that uses the whole of the created universe as fuel for its storytelling). It would also be a mistake for Jedi to always be involved in everything that was happening in the storylines, just as it would be an equally large mistake for Jedi to NEVER be involved.
There’s room for a broad mix. Some episodes should be political or leadership oriented, staying with the moving and shaking within the New Republic’s top echelons as they struggle to reform the Republic. Others should go into individual citizens’ problems (planets and orbital stations, and races/cultures, recovering from the heavy heel of Imperial rule for example), or follow traders/smugglers as they dart through fringe areas trying to make their ends meet. Some episodes should be military centric, dealing with such crisises as pirate or Imperial Remnant raids, or interventions within armed conflicts (border disputes, paybacks for past problems, etc.. ) between two or more New Republic members. Some of the episodes should have little or no Jedi involvement, others could certainly use the Jedi as central figures in the plots (fighting and peacemaking the issues to further the New Republic). And of course, some episodes would deal with New Republic vs Imperial Remnants, or in the rebuilding of the Jedi Order following the demise of the Emperor and Vader in ROTJ.
Yes, I have a lot of ideas. I honestly don’t see how or why it’d be so hard to do a Star Wars show that was wildly successful *and* extremely well done. There’s literally decades of material there at the rate a 22-26 episode per year show could work through. Shows like Babylon 5 and FireFly have shown what level of production quality can be put in front of the c-amera for a million or two per episode (while sad shows like the last 3 Trek series have shown how easy it is to piss money away on crap). With a budget of 3-4mil per episode, surely a Star Wars show would garner top ratings and thus the advertising dollars to make studio and network happy, all while making cash. Oh yeah, and along the way providing actual entertainment for starved Star Wars fans.
But for God’s sake, if you green light it, leave it the f#!k alone for at least a full season so it can settle itself and find the groove. What’s the point in green lighting a series you yank within 13 episodes? (ahem, Firefly, ahem).
And it would be perfect if they could get Michael Stackpole in as the writer. And of course the only name that could fit the show would be "Rogue Squadron"
