by: Chris Eaton source: G4/ AOTS
The Beard drops a well known bomb.
It’s been six years now since Lucas announced both the Clone Wars animated series and the long in gestation live action series that would take place between Sith and Hope. While Clone Wars has been running (now) strong into their upcoming forth season, word has been mum on the live action series. With rumors of Bobba Fett centric episodes and what sounds like an expanded universe style story telling akin to the books and comics, the curiosity factor is through the roof. So what’s going on then?
Lucas spilled some beans to G4 while pimping the relaunch of Star Tours:
G4TV: Switching gears just slightly, it was about a year ago that you said the live action Star Wars show was going to be on hold. Where is the show now? Where does it stand?
GEORGE LUCAS: It sits on the shelf. We have 50 hours and we’re just waiting to figure out a different way of making movies, a different technology that we can use that will make it so it is economically feasible to shoot the show. Right now it looks like the Star Wars features, but we have to figure out a way of making it for about a tenth the cost of the features, because it’s television. And we’re working toward that and we’re continuing to work toward that and we will get there at some point. But it’s just a very, very difficult process and obviously when we do sort of figure this problem out, it will dramatically affect a lot of movies, because a lot of features now that are costing $150-$200 million, we’ll suddenly be able to make them for $50-$60 million
So basically, it’s too damn expensive at the moment. Even with his own FX company, George Lucas can’t seem to find a feasible way to bring the universe to the small screen. Which is a shame, as Clone Wars, even in it’s weaker moments, is really fucking awesome. Part of that success is due to OTHER folks besides Lucas telling Star Wars stories. Back when George announced the TV series, there were rumors of guys like Kevin Smith possibly directing and writing episodes. The Smith portion being very unlikely now due to his oncoming retirement. But the idea that fan filmmakers would have a crack at the Star Wars universe sounded outstanding. Now it’s one of those things that’s pretty much too good to be true.
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