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Star Wars Prequels Television Entertainment

Star Wars Live-Action Show Could Still Happen 126

An anonymous reader writes "According to ABC entertainment president Paul Lee: 'We'd love to do something with Lucasfilm, we're not sure what yet. We haven't even sat down with them. We're going to look at [the Star Wars live-action TV series], we're going to look at all of them, and see what's right. We weren't even able to discuss this with them until [the deal] closed and it just closed. It's definitely going to be part of the conversation.' Not only that, but it's also been announced that some of the 50 completed episode scripts that producer Rick McCallum has previously mentioned have been written by none other than Ron Moore of Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica fame."
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Star Wars Live-Action Show Could Still Happen

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  • Only this (Score:5, Insightful)

    by girlintraining ( 1395911 ) on Friday January 11, 2013 @09:36AM (#42557255)

    I believe I speak for most of the fan base when I say simply: You better not have a writer's strike in season 3, followed by management going full retard as dollar signs flash before their eyes. One series has already paid the price for that. If you ruin another geek culture icon, there'll be hell to pay.

    • by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 11, 2013 @09:42AM (#42557329)

      season 3

      C-3PO's Brain?

    • Re:Only this (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Grishnakh ( 216268 ) on Friday January 11, 2013 @09:43AM (#42557333)

      Oh please. This geek culture icon has already been thoroughly ruined by the Prequel movies. There's nothing more they can do to hurt it at this point, it'd be beating a dead horse.

      I'm really disappointed that Ron Moore wasted his time writing scripts for this turkey, instead of devoting his talents to something more productive and worthwhile. Can the guy not come up with a unique new sci-fi show on his own? Or is he only able to write episodes for someone else's show, or come up with shows that are rehashes of old shows? Don't get me wrong, the new BSG was pretty good and the the writing in the episodes (particularly the earlier ones and pilot; it seemed to kinda fall apart later on) was excellent, but it was still not a unique concept, it was a remake of someone else's older show. But Star Wars of all things? SW has been crap ever since Ep.1. Surely he could come up with a unique new concept for a good sci-fi TV show.

      • by TWX ( 665546 ) on Friday January 11, 2013 @09:50AM (#42557429)
        Have it revealed that some humans are actually droids? Have it turn out that Han and Leia are somehow also brother/sister, or that Han is a blood-relative of the Fett line? Or have Keira Knightley's character return and have Luke go for someone that's too old for him and looks like his mother?

        Don't get me wrong, I like Ron Moore's work more than I dislike it, but there is plenty to dislike and plenty of places that it can go full derp.

        At least Moore has a sense of humor about it. There was an epsiode of CSI set at a convention for a fictional sci-fi show, and the show was "reimagined" in the same vein as BSG and after showing the teaser for it, out in the crowd, Ron Moore shouted, "YOU SUCK!" at the writer/producer of the new show. This was based on an experience that he actually had.
      • by mcgrew ( 92797 ) * on Friday January 11, 2013 @10:33AM (#42557947) Homepage Journal

        Oh please. This geek culture icon has already been thoroughly ruined by the Prequel movies.

        It's been my observation that the only ones who share your opinion were children when EPIV came out. I was in my twenties, and about the only difference I saw was the effects and costumes were far better in the prequels.

        As an adult watching them, the one that ruined the franchise was EPVI. I mean, Jesus... those midgets in the cheezy bear costumes were REALLY lame. I had to forget just how bad VI was to even watch EPI; if that had come out two years after EPVI I probably wouldn't even have watched it.

        IMO, EPIII was excellent, especially the opening scene with the big space battle, and the fight between Obi-Wan and Vader. I see bitching about the "mitichlorians" but you have to remember, these aren't human, they're aliens from another time and another galaxy. That alone demands a HUGE suspension of disbelief -- a race from another galaxy looks exactly like us?? That's harder to swallow than FTL travel.

        • by ButchDeLoria ( 2772751 ) on Friday January 11, 2013 @10:37AM (#42558005)
          Let's just agree that EPVI was the weakest of the origninal trilogy. Doesn't mean that EPI-III aren't still shit.
        • Re:Only this (Score:4, Insightful)

          by niado ( 1650369 ) on Friday January 11, 2013 @12:03PM (#42559119)

          Oh please. This geek culture icon has already been thoroughly ruined by the Prequel movies.

          It's been my observation that the only ones who share your opinion were children when EPIV came out. I was in my twenties, and about the only difference I saw was the effects and costumes were far better in the prequels.

          As an adult watching them, the one that ruined the franchise was EPVI. I mean, Jesus... those midgets in the cheezy bear costumes were REALLY lame. I had to forget just how bad VI was to even watch EPI; if that had come out two years after EPVI I probably wouldn't even have watched it.

          IMO, EPIII was excellent, especially the opening scene with the big space battle, and the fight between Obi-Wan and Vader. I see bitching about the "mitichlorians" but you have to remember, these aren't human, they're aliens from another time and another galaxy. That alone demands a HUGE suspension of disbelief -- a race from another galaxy looks exactly like us?? That's harder to swallow than FTL travel.

          Woah woah wee-woah woah. First off, the human-like creatures in star wars are canonically human [wikia.com]. Theories regarding their connection to earth are diverse, but the connection has not been explained in canon.

          Regarding the movies - EPVI is a personal favorite of mine, though I will concede that many fans (especially those who were adults when EPVI was released) are turned off by the Ewoks. I also enjoyed some scenes in EPIII, specifically the ones you mention. There were actually scenes in all three of the prequels that were well done and thoroughly enjoyable (ref. DM vs. QGJ in EPI). The primary complaints, especially from the more "hard-core" fanbase are with silly plot and lore related changes that were made for seemingly no good reason. Also, casting for some critical characters was worse-than-terrible (e.g. Anakin).

          • by mcgrew ( 92797 ) * on Friday January 11, 2013 @04:59PM (#42562407) Homepage Journal

            First off, the human-like creatures in star wars are canonically human

            Your source is incorrect. It says "Humans were the galaxy's most numerous and politically dominant sentient species with millions of major and minor colonies galaxywide. Believed to have originated on the galactic capital of Coruscant..." but it's supposed to be set "in a galaxy far, far away." Interstellar travel is enough of a stretch, intergalactic is WAY out of bounds. It might have been plausable if set in the Milky Way, but...

            The thing that turned me off about the Ewoks were the cheesy costumes. Honestly, I've seen little kids dressed up for Halloween with better costumes. Odd that they didn't fix this in the digital remastering; that would have made it palatable. Instead they just added whiz-bang to the space scenes and Aniken at the end. Lame.

            Don't get me started on how Lucas raped EPIV when they remastered that one. Not only the "Han shot first" bullshit (and Han shooting first was the least of the damage done to that scene; in the theater it cut to outside and you saw smoke and it looked like Greedo had killed Han. Plus adding that Jabba the Hut scene. Glad I still have the original, unraped tape.

            • by niado ( 1650369 ) on Friday January 11, 2013 @05:36PM (#42562769)

              First off, the human-like creatures in star wars are canonically human

              Your source is incorrect. It says "Humans were the galaxy's most numerous and politically dominant sentient species with millions of major and minor colonies galaxywide. Believed to have originated on the galactic capital of Coruscant..." but it's supposed to be set "in a galaxy far, far away." Interstellar travel is enough of a stretch, intergalactic is WAY out of bounds. It might have been plausable if set in the Milky Way, but...

              Intergalactic travel is certainly implausible, and the Star Wars universe has an interesting sort of reverse deus ex machina preventing most hyperspace travel outside the galaxy. [wikia.com] There are, however, certain encroachments [wikia.com] from outside the galaxy. Nevertheless, everything in canon indicates that the Star Wars humans are intended to be the same species (or at least, an evolutionary variant) as humans IRL. The connection to Earth is currently unexplained, as I mentioned before.

              (sorry for the nerding-out here)

              The thing that turned me off about the Ewoks were the cheesy costumes. Honestly, I've seen little kids dressed up for Halloween with better costumes.

              I like the ewok costumes, but that's just me.

              Don't get me started on how Lucas raped EPIV when they remastered that one. Not only the "Han shot first" bullshit (and Han shooting first was the least of the damage done to that scene; in the theater it cut to outside and you saw smoke and it looked like Greedo had killed Han. Plus adding that Jabba the Hut scene. Glad I still have the original, unraped tape.

              Agree :(:(

              • by mcgrew ( 92797 ) * on Saturday January 12, 2013 @10:02AM (#42567295) Homepage Journal

                sorry for the nerding-out here

                Hey, this is slashdot. It's refreshing to see a real nerd among all the high school dropouts who have infested this place lately. Notice that whenever some dufus is corrected, the correction gets modded down but not the idiocy that's being corrected?

      • by linebackn ( 131821 ) on Friday January 11, 2013 @10:40AM (#42558043)

        I don't know about anyone else, but one of the reasons I enjoy watching sci-fi shows is to explore the universe someone created. When the universe is thoroughly explored or the consistency is shot to hell, then it just might as well be any show.

        The problem is that big corps prefer to take the "safe" route and put money behind things that are already well known and tested, even if they are mediocre.

      • by JeanCroix ( 99825 ) on Friday January 11, 2013 @11:08AM (#42558419) Journal

        Oh please. This geek culture icon has already been thoroughly ruined by the Prequel movies. There's nothing more they can do to hurt it at this point, it'd be beating a dead horse.

        I'd beg to differ. Hokey CGI comedy relief characters >> angsty tween romance characters. Have you *seen* the previews for the spate of crap coming out soon courting the Twi-hards? There are depths the Star Wars folks have yet to plumb; let's pray they don't.

        • by Grishnakh ( 216268 ) on Friday January 11, 2013 @11:14AM (#42558507)

          Well to be fair, I'm not comparing the SW prequels (or any other possible spin-offs, even if they're specifically written to have dialog just as "high quality" as Lucas's best) to the absolute worst imaginable dreck coming out of Hollywood, I'm just looking at it on its own merits. At some point, stuff gets so bad that it's kinda pointless to compare how bad it is. Is the Twi-hard-courting-crap better or worse than Gigli, for instance? Or how about Battlefield: Earth? Who cares? There's a lower cut-off point at which it ceases to matter, because you're just not going to bother going to watch it, unless perhaps you're planning to make a MST3K-like episode.

      • by spire3661 ( 1038968 ) on Friday January 11, 2013 @11:26AM (#42558649) Journal
        "They look like us, and they have a plan" Yeah, excellent writing there. Im sorry but when taken as a whole, BSG was utter trash.
      • by GodfatherofSoul ( 174979 ) on Friday January 11, 2013 @12:47PM (#42559617)

        Ruined for you maybe. I really liked the prequels. It's fun for geeks to slam them, but they sure do draw a hell of a lot of sales and eyeballs. You're going to find out what "ruined" means when Disney starts milking the franchise for whatever it's worth.

      • by chrismcb ( 983081 ) on Friday January 11, 2013 @07:52PM (#42563887) Homepage

        I'm really disappointed that Ron Moore wasted his time writing scripts for this turkey,

        I am sure he didn't waste his time, as he probably got paid handsomely for his effort. Or do you only do work that might see the light of day?

      • by Hentes ( 2461350 ) on Friday January 11, 2013 @08:15PM (#42564037)

        The new BSG had little in common with the old one to be honest. Come to think of it, the old one was very much like a Star Wars series, especially the intro.

    • by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 11, 2013 @09:45AM (#42557385)

      Only one series? BSG is when it started, but since then every fucking series that could possibly have had potential that syfy has produced has suffered the same fate.

      Pay attention ABC! Do this to star wars and there's going to be a fucking riot.

    • by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 11, 2013 @09:47AM (#42557405)

      Obligatory:

      Yeah, a million nerds will cry out from their parents basements!

    • by wonkey_monkey ( 2592601 ) on Friday January 11, 2013 @10:14AM (#42557707) Homepage

      If you ruin another geek culture icon, there'll be hell to pay.

      They're quite capable of ruining Star Wars* without a writer's strike.

      *again

    • by wonkey_monkey ( 2592601 ) on Friday January 11, 2013 @10:16AM (#42557737) Homepage
      Also:

      If you ruin another geek culture icon, there'll be hell to pay.

      No there won't. There'll be a few angry nerds that no-one in charge will care about because they're already picking through next season's must watch TV. Monkey Tennis, Cooking in Prison, and so forth.

    • by Hoi Polloi ( 522990 ) on Friday January 11, 2013 @10:34AM (#42557973) Journal

      Please make it a musical, please make it a musical...

    • Re:Only this (Score:4, Insightful)

      by DerekLyons ( 302214 ) <fairwater@gmGINSBERGail.com minus poet> on Friday January 11, 2013 @10:39AM (#42558021) Homepage

      If you ruin another geek culture icon, there'll be hell to pay.

      if by 'hell" you mean "more nerdrage on blogs and forums by a meaningless minority that will have no detectable effect on the bottom line", then sure. Otherwise, not so much.

      Get over yourself. Nerds don't pay the bills, never have. never will.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 11, 2013 @09:39AM (#42557281)

    it retroactively made all other Galactica episodes suck. It killed the DVD market for the series.

    Hopefully, he won't do that to Star Wars. Lucas has done enough in that area.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 11, 2013 @09:42AM (#42557327)

    The fact that a script has been written by Ron Moore doesn't mean much here. The evidence lies in the entire third and fourth seasons of Battlestar Galactica, as well as innumerable episodes of Star Trek: TNG.

    The latter provides an especially effective example because he was restricted by a world that was someone else's design, in much the same way he would be in a Star Wars series. Moore's work was nothing special.

  • by crazyjj ( 2598719 ) * on Friday January 11, 2013 @09:45AM (#42557381)

    I do not see this relationship ending amicably.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 11, 2013 @09:48AM (#42557411)

    i grew up with Star Wars, i saw Return of the Jedi in the theater when it was first release and my childhood was filled with all the accompanying hype associated with a Star Wars release i.e. endless piles of Star Wars licensed crap. Now that I'm older and ware of the crass commercialism of the enterprise it's pretty gross really. I still like the original movies but I have basically zero interested in seeing or buying any Star Wars branded junk, sorry.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 11, 2013 @09:50AM (#42557431)

    30-40+ year old nerds, just remember this will not be aimed at you, just like all of the movies, it will be aimed at children.

    Star wars is a kids franchise.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 11, 2013 @10:04AM (#42557581)
  • by RivenAleem ( 1590553 ) on Friday January 11, 2013 @10:11AM (#42557665)

    Are we going to get to see Thrawn?

  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 11, 2013 @10:14AM (#42557709)

    This time aimed at 0-5 year olds...

  • by marquis111 ( 94760 ) on Friday January 11, 2013 @10:18AM (#42557767)

    As fan who was there from the beginning -- I came in from summer break to hear my classmates talking about Dark Vader and the Jet Eyes, and after my brother came down with tonsillitis, I got to go see it in all of its original glory at the theater, sans the "Episode VI". I've been a fan of the story of Luke Skywalker, not the tragedy of Anakin Skywalker. I collected the figurines and watched the Christmas Special. Empire blew me away, and Return left me with an "eh" feeling. Han shot first, and the first image of the Emperor had monkey eyes superimposed on a woman's face. I've read and agree with "The Secret History of Star Wars."
    My conclusion? Disney and whoever else can't possibly do any more damage to Star Wars than Lucas already has. The first two movies, VI and V of course, were masterpieces in spite of Lucas, not because of it.

    • by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 11, 2013 @10:26AM (#42557865)

      It's weird that so many people don't like Return of the Jedi but I love it. The taxonomy of weird creatures packed into Jaba's hideout and the Ewok forests were like the forests I would play in as a kid so it seemed super exciting to me. Also Jedi was released just when I was grammar school age so I was still the right demographic for it. I think people who first loved A New Hope were already too old for Star Wars by the time Jedi came out and didn't like it. It's so awesome if you were the right age for which leads me to believe that the more recent Star Wars films may not suck as bad as all the old nerds have proclaimed.

  • by eksith ( 2776419 ) on Friday January 11, 2013 @10:23AM (#42557835) Homepage

    Like Blade the Series. Execution is everything with shows and budget is only a small part of the equation

    I'm not gonna rag on the prequels; it's been done to death already. They were made, done, deal with it.

  • by hal2814 ( 725639 ) on Friday January 11, 2013 @10:39AM (#42558027)
    I just hope they get the right Ronald P Moore. Despite what James Callis says, the Ronald P Moore in the Portland phone book is NOT the same one who did Battlestar Galactica.
  • by Nidi62 ( 1525137 ) on Friday January 11, 2013 @10:52AM (#42558169)
    "Two students enter their first year at the academy. One wants to be a storm trooper, the other a Rebel pilot; and now they're roommates! Watch hilarity ensue as they both try to survive freshman year and fight over the cute girl who's father wants her to be a Senator even though she dreams of being a bounty hunter! Special appearance by Billy D Williams as the gruff commandant with a heart of gold! Coming this fall to ABC!"
  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 11, 2013 @10:54AM (#42558199)

    A Star Wars live action show. Let's hope it's as good as the SW Holiday Special.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 11, 2013 @10:56AM (#42558259)

    I have nothing to add except nobody has even mentioned the Star Wars Holiday Special. Please place all jokes referring to the Star Wars Holiday Special in this thread.

  • by dugancent ( 2616577 ) on Friday January 11, 2013 @11:09AM (#42558433)

    Instad of rehashing the same old stuff. Same goes for Star Trek.

    Give it up and be creative for once!

  • by Wingfat ( 911988 ) on Friday January 11, 2013 @11:27AM (#42558659)
    anyone want to help make them ;-) lol I always thought that there should be a Star Trek Academy Show. So I wrote my own after playing Bridge Commander way back in the day.
  • by White Flame ( 1074973 ) on Friday January 11, 2013 @12:14PM (#42559235)

    Are you sure you don't you mean "Two robed guys walking in front of a green screen, discussing politics for 80% of the time" again?

  • by Animats ( 122034 ) on Friday January 11, 2013 @12:28PM (#42559389) Homepage

    This franchise needs to die. It's been 35 years now. Enough already.

    There's plenty of modern hard SF out there that could be made into movies. Most of David Weber or John Ringo's works would translate well into action movies or TV. A Snow Crash movie or series would work. ("Dark Angel" came close, but they lost the plot in Season 2.)

    Trend: At Barnes and Noble, there are now fewer bookcases of "Teen Paranormal Romance", and more of "Teen Survival". Most of the latter consists of Hunger Games clones. Vampires and werewolves seem to be on the way out.

    If you like bad franchises that just won't stop, Police Academy 8 [imdb.com] is currently in development.

  • by GodfatherofSoul ( 174979 ) on Friday January 11, 2013 @12:50PM (#42559651)

    Both trilogies had great endings. RotS really tied things up well. A live action show will only reduce the series as TV can't compete with cinema. This isn't like Star Trek upscaling to the movies. Downscaling a franchise based on otherworldly special effects can only lead to disappointment.

  • by goddestroyer ( 2747001 ) on Friday January 11, 2013 @02:20PM (#42560635)
  • by Dabido ( 802599 ) on Monday January 14, 2013 @06:22AM (#42580511)
    Wish they had Alan Moore writing it ... but, then it wouldn't be Star Wars, it'd be something unique like Watchmen or V for Vendetta! :-)

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