Star Wars the TV show?.... - Page 4

Why do you assume they'd need a "new" voice for Darth Vader? It's not like James Earl Jones has never done television before...and this would be voice-over acting, which is a lot easier to schedule.

If it's Lucas or Kasdan working on it, fine. If Lucas can get some top-notch novelists and writers working on it, such as Kevin J. Anderson, Timothy Zahn, Keith R.A. DeCandido, the Reeves-Stevenses, Greg Keyes, Dayton Ward, Kevin Dilmore, David Mack, Kevin Ryan, Diane Duane, James Luceno, or Matthew Stover, to name several, it would make a potential SW series really well-written and well-told, the same way that the original Star Trek back in the 60's used the then-top caliber of SF writers and novelists. Smith, on the other hand, would absolutely ruin it and turn it into the butt of an unfunny joke.

I was wondering who might be directing the live action TV Episodes. I bet there will be a quite few famous directors begging for a shot to direct a Star Wars Episode or two. Q.Tarentino was a is a big fan of CSI so they had him direct an Episode. There are tons of Directors out there that have admitted they were Star Wars fans, from James Cameron to even Steven Spielberg. Do you think Lucas will let other famous Directors loose on the TV show? Any thoughts on how cool this could be?

I could see that. No way there will only be 1 director for 100 episodes. Question is, would the BIG directors be allowed to direct. These aren't movies, but the reason Spielberg didn't direct any of the movies is because he's in the DGA, which of course we all know Lucas is not a part of. So the guild might not let the really good ones direct.

"These aren't movies, but the reason Spielberg didn't direct any of the movies is because he's in the DGA, which of course we all know Lucas is not a part of."

Oh, but Spielberg DID direct on Ep. III (the bulk of the last part of the film, especially, according to some). However, he "assisted" with no credit. Lucas assisted in directing parts of Jurassic Park when Spielberg jumped over to Europe for the beginning of Schindler's List's principal photography. This is not unheard of in the directing world, and in this case even less shocking because they're buddies.

Lucas even admitted as such in an interview. He said Spielberg was "whining" to him that he didn't have anything to do before he started on War of the Worlds (or maybe they wrapped WofW way before its release date).

Anyway, the big reason Ep. III was waaay better (still not as good as Empire) than the other two was because Lucas called in the help he needed... finally!!

That seems pretty insulting and quite inaccurate. Ep3 shot well over a year prior to WOTW; Spielberg did some pre-vis work for Episode III but that was the extent of it. Between this rumor and the Stoppard rumor, it seems people are simply unable to give Lucas credit for a generally well-regarded film.

All Spielberg did was tweek some small section of the light saber duel. Now we have people thinking he directed the thing!

That's the kind of thing I was complaining about in one of the other threads.

According to Lucas himself, Spielberg "directed" an animatics scene. Not quite the same as a half hour or hour show. I assume this will be an hour long. Anyway, that was my point, whatever it was Spielberg directed for Lucas, he had to stay uncredited for it.

I don't think the DGA thing will be a concern for the TV show. Wasn't the reason the only non-DGA directors can do Star Wars was because of their unconventional credits? That shouldn't apply to a TV show. A check of the directors who worked on the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles shows plenty of DGA members directed episodes.

My primary concern for the Star Wars televion show is Lucas seems intent to film it in Sydney. I have to question how many of the more reputable names in current TV sci-fi would be willing to relocate there for directing, producing, etc. That's a helluva commute when they want to head back to LA.

Yeah, but on the plus, side, Alex Proyas might direct and episode or three, or they could get Sammo Hung or some of the other folks in Hong Kong for action-intensive episodes.

Still, I seem to recall Lucas being dissatisfied with Sydney during the shooting of Attack of the Clones; has that changed?

Well they seemed pretty pleased with Sydney in the Making of ROTS book. There was a news article floating around in one of the old saga threads about Lucas planning to film there. I imagine it would end up being cheaper so it wouldn't surprise me.

Well that's basically how the animosity started. Lucas wanted all the credits at the end of the movies. They went along with it but when the Lucasfilm logo came up they interpreted that as a credit for Lucas and no one else. So when he did it again for Empire they fined him either 250,000 or a half a million, can't remember which.

Anyway, will Lucas keep the same opening style for the tv show? I would think the Lucasfilm logo is a given as well as the STAR WARS title. Maybe not a crawl for every episode but jumping right into the action and saving the credits for the end?

I'd imagine that it would have the credits superimposed over the opening scenes just like every show. You can still jump right into the action- shows like 24 manage to do it.

Personally, I wouldn't want the traditional Star Wars title and crawl in every episode. With only 45 minutes or less per show I don't want well over a minute devoted to that every week. I'd much prefer the more abbreviated title stuff used on Clone Wars.

Though the crawl would be a pretty cool way to do "Previously on" I suppose...

I don't think that rule is in effect any more, but yes...they used to require credits up front.

The crawl ought to start out the season, or if there is a big arc, it could play the next episode after it is finished.

And maybe Lucas can get the network to not squeeze those end credits over to make room for ads.

That's what Lucas thought.

Their logic was basically, when the Lucasfilm logo popped up on screen at the beginning, only Lucas is being given credit since his last name is Lucas! His response was something to the effect of: my name is no more Lucasfilm than Sam Goldwyn's is MGM. And of course he is right. But all that's ancient history.

Since this is a tv show, I don't think I'd mind credits at the beginning. They are annoying though. I'm always waiting for the "directed by" to come and go before I can get into the story.

I'm probably going to wait for the DVD's to come out before I watch it though. If it turns out to be a really good show (here's hoping) then I don't want to be distracted by commercials, station logos and everything else that spoils a good show being broadcast on tv.

Besides, I'm about to move overseas so I don't know if it'll even be broadcast outside of the states. I'm sure it will though.

I am hoping Lucas really throws in the money and we get a Band of Brothers style of production value. BoB was 150 million for 10 episodes, so it would be costly for a season or more. He of course would have no problem getting advertisers so it shouldn't be a problem. This would be very heavy on plot, story, and characters, maybe more so than the trilogies, but special effects would be crucial as well as cast budgets to get people from the PT and OT occasionally.

My idea, as someone else mentioned before, would be to of course pick up a time after ROTS. I say have several story arcs going on. Some within the Empire, some outside, and maybe even a Jedi that sets some precedence for the OT that is to follow.

The Rebel Alliance name kind of implies that there may have been factions beforehand, all opposed to the Empire but seperate out of mistrust of informants and traitors among them. It would be interesting I think to tell the story of someone, perhaps Bail Organa (get Smits back into the television limelight), who must unite the factions into ONE combined force. There would be several characters of importance in this arc, such as Mon Mothma, Dodonna, and other prominent figures of the future Rebel Alliance.

Another story idea would be two friends who become seperated by political affiliation. One hates the idea of an Empire and joins one of the rebellion factions while the other joins the Empire. They both become pilots and eventually have to dogfight each other. The one who joins the Empire would be particularly interesting because we would see the inner workings of the Empire and maybe a few scenes of Darth Vader. We could also see the advancement of the TIE Fighter. It could maybe even tie in or borrow from the TIE Fighter games which were very well written.

There would be another arc much deeper in the Empire and in this we would see characers such as Piett, Jerjerod, and maybe even Tarkin. This arc would be parallel to the inner political struggles that occured within the Nazi regime and would feature alot of backstabbing and other typical political machinations. In this, we would witness the Empire as it rises completely to power.

For a final story, maybe get a lone Jedi that has been isolated for a great period of time. He returns when he feels a tremor in the Force and his story revolves around trying to discover what has happened to the Jedi and how he can restore their order. He would have to die at the end of the series, or return to isolation.

We could see Vader, the Emperor, Bail Organa and maybe even Yoda occasionally. Perhaps even a young Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa in the background. Maybe show Luke and his early interest in flying and fixing things. We could see Leia watching with keen interest as her father conducts politics.

I think Sydney would fine for a TV show but there may be issues. I don't remember the intimate details but when Baywatch moved Australia was their no 1 choice but it ended up in Hawaii due to (among other things) pressure from SAG and the production unions to keep the show in the US.

Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't Farscape at least filmed in Australia if not completely produced there?

I'm an Aussie so I have some bias but if filming down under would leave more budget to keep the FX closer to what Lucas prefers then I have no problem. I know Lucas is loaded but one of the reasons Firefly ran into problems was how expensive it was to make per episode.

Now I'm sure Lucas can absorb the cost given what he could make on merchandising and Ad's for a new show but if filminf outside the US to reduce costs helps a SW TV show become reality I'm all for it.

I don't think Lucas sets the ad rates. I believe that's up to the networks. And those will be driven by its performance in the ratings.

I do think he might have a case for potentially taking a loss on each episode though. Eventual DVD sales potential is enormous no matter how this show does in the ratings. And, taking a page for Paramount's attitude toward Star Trek IIRC, just having a Star Wars series out there will likely drive sales of all Star Wars related material, like books, games, and toys, up.

Still, I would't expect the budget to be *that* big. Maybe 3-4 million per episode.

Lucas, from Star Wars Insider #82.

The series is getting interesting. Hopefully it'll be more suspenseful and action packed than politically oriented though.

And also I hope there'll still be Jedi around because what's Star Wars without a lightsaber?

I like how he wants the first 100 episodes written before they start filming. Isn't 100 the magic number to get a show into syndication?

Where do you get 100? One season is 22-24 Episodes.

You can't syndicate one season, it's not enough. I think that's why so many people were ticked off at Enterprise cause they shot 98 episodes which is two short of syndication heaven.

But I guess there are exceptions to the rule:

But where did Lucas say that? He said one season not 100 episodes.

I've heard him say 100 episodes at least twice in separate interviews. I don't have anything I can link to at the moment but I promise he said it. I wouldn't lie to a fellow SW enthusiast (geek!)

I heard 100 episodes as well. I'll look around for where I heard it, but I distinctly remember him saying something to the effect of wanting to be involved (or direct/produce) the first season, but have a total of 100 episodes.

Lemme look around...