The silence surrounding George Lucas’ long talked about live action Star Wars series has been deafening over the past year. Fans have been somewhat sated by the animated Clone Wars series (which is actually very well done), it’s true, but what everyone is really curious about is the flesh & blood adaptation.
The proposed series is purportedly to deliver a story set somewhere between Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope and feature a multitude of new characters.
It’s likely that with Lucas himself overseeing the project, there’s been a lot of conceptualizing, brainstorming and bouncing of ideas — perhaps even some behind-the-scenes creative attrition taking place — but either way, we’ve been left with what amounts to an information vacuum concerning a series that’s been promised since 2007, but as yet undelivered.
Until now that is.
While discussing the legitimacy of up-converting the ‘Star Wars’ films to 3D with G4, Lucas revealed some key pieces of information about the live action television show, and why it’s actually been sitting on the shelf for the time being.
According to Lucas, he has over 50 hours of the planned series already scripted—meaning about two seasons’ worth (assuming 22-23 episodes per season, which is the standard amount for the major networks).
So why the delay? According to Lucas, technology. As good as CGI has become, the Star Wars major domo claims it’s still not good enough to meet the demands of a weekly series with the sorts of visuals that the Star Wars universe requires — and here’s the important bit — on a TV budget.
Lucas added that he is waiting for a “different technology” that will allow the show to be realized economically. And apparently, once they’ve accomplished this goal, they believe they will also be able to make FX heavy films more cost effective, as well.
A noble goal, perhaps, but it sounds a bit like stalling to us. VFX technology will continue to evolve and improve (witness what is already possible in both film and television) and it seems a bit unusual that he would delay Star Wars on television just so that he can lessen the cost of VFX for feature films as well. Unless his plan is to patent or license new technologies that can then be sold to help finance the Star Wars series.
Presently, according to Lucas, VFX-laden films cost around $150-$200M. The solution he and his team at ILM are developing could reduce that to the $50-$60M range. A significant reduction, to be sure.
In any event, he waits. And so do we. all of which means we really can’t be sure when a live action Star Wars series will arrive on television.
You can listen to what Lucas has to say about all of this, and about converting the ‘Star Wars’ films to 3D, using the player below.
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