I’ve been watching a fair amount of Star Wars Rebels lately, the new animated show effectively replacing Clone Wars as the go-to for kid friendly Star Wars TV entertainment. Like Clone Wars, Rebels demonstrates a surprising maturity, more so than the prequel films, and it exists as an interesting bridge between the old generation of Star Wars and this new Disney-owned version which ventures into uncharted territory beginning with Episode VII.
As such, Rebels still takes place before the events of the original trilogy, 15 years after Revenge of the Sith. That means it offers no insight into the future of the Star Wars universe, and we won’t really know anything about the upcoming direction until JJ Abrams reveals his vision for Episode VII. I’ll have more to talk about regarding Rebels once I fully catch up with it, as it definitely deserves its own article, but today I’m more curious about the potential future of Star Wars on TV.
It’s well known that before George Lucas sold Lucasfilm to Disney, he was working on a live-action Star Wars TV series, and had even reportedly completed dozens of scripts for the project. But his vision was too grand and too expensive, and now obviously whatever did exist now has to be scrapped for good now that the series is moving in an entirely new direction.
And yet, even with Disney’s focus on creating all these new upcoming films (what is it, one a year or something crazy like that?), I think they would be remiss to not consider a live-action Star Wars TV show, even if Lucas’s own vision for one never materialized.
While I appreciate the existence of a show like Rebels to appeal directly to kids (and select, open-minded adults), I think there is a huge market for a Star Wars TV show that’s Game of Thrones-level of epic. In fact, I even think it should be on HBO.
No, I don’t choose HBO because I want to see cursing or nudity in Star Wars. I actually think that a potential Star Wars show should stick within the bounds of PG-13, even if it did end up on a channel like HBO, and I think this would be a good partnership as a result.
HBO has always been viewed as the “adult” channel for grown-up dramas and comedies, but what if they could get a show that would mean kids were begging their parents to get an HBO subscription? A live action Star Wars show would do just that.
And yet, I think you need that HBO touch which is more than just gratuitous nudity and violence; it’s quality, and knowing how to make a budget work. They already have the most expensive show on TV with Game of Thrones, yet they make it look like it costs three times as much as it does through its effects. And they’re masters at casting as well. All of these things would greatly benefit a potential Star Wars show.
The obvious temptation would be that, since this is a Disney venture, to throw a Star Wars show up on ABC, a Disney-owned network. But there’s just something about network shows, where there’s a roughly 80% chance they’ll be infected with a virus, that makes them campier and more procedural than they need to be. There are rare exceptions like Hannibal and DC has done well on The CW, but they aren’t the majority of cases.
But with that said, if it comes down to a live-action Star Wars show on ABC or none at all, I’ll take the one on ABC.
I just think this is something that needs to happen given how important TV has been in recent years for telling powerful stories. And now it seems like there’s going to be a sci-fi resurgence between Syfy getting back to its roots and HBO making both Westworld and Foundation TV shows, so the time is ripe for Star Wars live-action to come along and destroy everything. If they don’t, we may see a new Star Trek show beat them to the punch. But honestly, I’d love it if we had both.
[Photos via Disney]
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