The Star Wars TV series will be the Next Big Thing in genre TV

I'm foreseeing Star Trek: TNG-level popularity here. A regular TV series
set in the Star Wars universe has incredible potential.

I can't wait.

Atlas Bugged...

Unless a miracle happens, it will languish in the shadow of BSG, which is
only the second show (See S:AAB) to ever get the concept of war in space
correct. SW should be animated and on Saturday mornings, where it belongs.

Mike H...

Always has, there's a rich universe of potential out there, the diversity
of the EU stuff shows that. I could easily see a "Young Han Solo
Chronicals" and an "X-Wing Squadron" series. Heck, "Troops" wouldn't be a
horrendous idea, look how popular cop shows are (at least to network
brass).

Anybody...

Try: "The Adventures of Young Boba Fett" and I *think* you're probably
going to be right - it is just my guess though. :-)

Chris Basken...

Young Indiana Jones didn't completely suck when it focused on the
teenaged Indy (some episodes were very good). It was when Lucas
couldn't resist and gave us shows featuring 5-year-old Indy -- a
precursor to his adolescent Anakin -- that the show elicited groans. Or
worse, elicited no response because people stopped watching.

DaffyDuck...

Are we noticing a trend yet, that spans Lucas' creative 'career'?

Are we?

Do we start to realize how the Star Wars TV series most likely is going to be?

(Hint - Lucas made most of his money with merchandise licensing, and he
certainly wll plan to do s, hence the show will most likely be
short-running commercial for whatever toy tie ins)

Mike H...

Could work, and after all, fan support of the character played a part in
Lucas' decision to add his back story to the prequels.

Rich Handley...

Well, since none of us have seen the show yet, "could" is the only word we
CAN use.

David Chapman...

Egad, sirrah, you appear to have struck upon my point.

Bozo the Evil Klown...

"Voyager" had incredible potential. Let's see what the "Star Wars"
series does with it's potential. The report I read that it will be
another prequel doesn't fill me with warm fuzzies.

*****

The Joker in the Eeeeeeeeeevil Cabal deck of cards.

"You're a figment of my imagination- the *least* you could do is take
your top off!!"
Rodney McKay to his hallucination of Samantha Carter

DaffyDuck...

This is all dependent on:

The Human Briefcase...

Um, the Star Wars prequels were great. I think people only criticize
them because they think it's the cool thing to do. Either that, or they
are perceiving the original Star Wars movies through the rose-colored
glasses of nostalgia and can't see that the things they hate about the
prequels exist in the original movies as well.

Chris Basken...

Especially that Jake Lloyd. Man, can he act! And Jar-Jar was like unto
an entertainment god! I would have watched 3 2-hour movies just about him!

Paul in Toronto...

"When I first met your father, he was already the best starpilot in the
galaxy." -- Obi-wan Kenobi, Episode IV.

David Chapman...

You're conflating with another quote where Obi-Wan does say that Anakin as
the best starpilot in the galaxy, but that was later on. The actual quote
is "When I first met your father he was already a great pilot, but I was
amazed how strongly the Force was with him".

There *are* inaccuracies concerning Anakin in that conversation, but they
concern his wanting Luke to have his lightsabre and Owen wanting him to stay
on Tattooine and not get involved in the Clone Wars.

That implies that by the time Obi-Wan and Anakin met for the *first* time,
Anakin had had a vast amount of practical experience behind the stick of
some sort of space craft, be it a freighter or a fighter or a personel
carrier, or whatever... Jake Lloyd should not have been cast to portray
Anakin in the *first* meeting between him and Obi-wan.

David Chapman...

OTOH, this I do agree with. Anakin should have been around 14-16 in the
first movie - or better still as old as Luke was in Episode IV, for the
mirroring effect of hero and villain that was later expanded on by Luke
losing his hand.

Chris Basken...

Episode 2 should have been Episode 1. The animated Clone Wars series
should have been Episode 2.

David Chapman...

People keep saying this, but I must disagree. Episodes II-VI are about a
Dark Age. Dark Ages are preceded by Golden Ages, and Episode I is about
that Golden Age. It's the last gasp of an era where slaves are well treated
(and worth as much as a high-performance race car, no less) and a
non-violent planetary blockade is about as serious as wars become. Without
getting to see how things were before the Clone Wars, the fall of the Old
Republic wouldn't mean half as much as it does.

Any sigificant events in Episode 1 could have been condensed into a
couple of lines, and the entire thing would have been tighter.

Anybody...

Ummm ... you might want to get the quote right before complaining about
it being supposedly wrong.

Paul in Toronto...

Um... Thanks for the clarification... It's been a while since I
saw the movie. Still... Even if he didn't say "first met" and did in fact
say "He was the best star-pilot in the galaxy, and a cunning warrior," a lot
of what I ranted about still applies. you can't become the best star-pilot
in the galaxy without training and lots of experience, no matter how good
your instincts are. A pod race and an "oops" moment do not the best pilot

David Chapman...

No. It took the ten years of training and experience that Anakin got
between Episodes I and II to make him the best pilot in the galaxy.

Anybody...

Exactly.

As we've already established, Obi-Wan didn't say anything about when
they first met. He was reminiscing about the Anakin he used to know
over ALL of those years before he became Vader.

David Johnston...

Eventually he got those things. That's a point better dropped.

Anybody...

It's a point that never even existed in the first place. Just the
failing memory of an oldie ... like me. :-)

Paul in Toronto...

Geez... I'm only 30... Time to break out the DVDs and tapes...

Anybody...

30 *is* old. :-)

The human being is only designed to live to about 40 (at best). It's
mostly thanks to medical intervention and replacing worn-out parts that
people can now live to around two to three times that.

...

LOL! I do believe you're serious.

Robert J. Kolker...

Longevity is not favored by natual selection. Historically, humans have
done their reproductive thing by the time they are forty, so there is no
increment to reproductive fitness from living longer. Some people live
longer, some do not. It is a matter of (mostly) luck and sometimes genes.

If humans had to defer their reproduction to (say) the fourth of fifth
decade of life they would either become extinct or natural selection
would favor the long lived.

Bob Kolker

Paul in Toronto...

Yeah. You're probably right. Point dropped.

in the galaxy make.

I haven't got the movie here to double-check, but according to the
script Obi-Wan never actually says anything about "first met him". The
actual scene is:

LUKE
You fought in the Clone Wars?

BEN
Yes, I was once a Jedi Knight the same as your father.

LUKE
I wish I'd known him.

BEN
He was the best star-pilot in the galaxy, and a cunning
warrior. I understand you've become quite a good pilot
yourself. And he was a good friend. Which reminds me...

While in the novel you get:

"I wish I'd known him," he finally said.

"He was the best pilot I ever knew," Kenobi went on,
"and a smart fighter."

"... the best starpilot in the galaxy" implies experience and training
(military or otherwise) in addition to raw talent. It does *not* mean raw
luck in a pod race or an "oops" moment in the hangar bay of a trade
federation cargo hauler just before accidentally blowing up the main
reactor.

Portraying Anakin as a pilot in the Naboo air force would have been a much
more credible way of introducing the character.

Lucas didn't seem to read his own stories to refresh his memory before he
made Episode 1.

Stephen Fairchild...

Obi Wans failure to recognize R2D2 in episode 4. I don't seem to remember
ever owning any droids, IIRC. Contrast this with the prequels where R2D2
is ostensibly his.

Aside from that quibble, the prequels were alright. It was a pretty good
story, and they would've been much better if Lucas had hired real directors
and writers instead of doing everything himself. He can tell a good story,
he just can't write or direct character moments very well, it seems.

Anybody...

Since that quibble appears to be non-existant (one of many false
memories people have about the original movies), you should now be
happy.

The Human Briefcase...

True, Jake Lloyd was about on the level of... um... Mark Hamill.

Chris Basken...

Hamill was not Alec Guiness, but Lloyd was out and out horrible. Even
Lucas' own casting people hated him. They picked someone else.

The original movies relied more on imagination and less on CGI. Lucas

The Human Briefcase...

There was no CGI when they were made, silly! But they sure used a lot
of costumes, mattes, muppets and stop-motion animation.

Chris Basken...

Incorrect, you saw CGI in Ep 4 when the rebel pilots are watching the
wireframe animation that shows their trench-run path. Lucas said they
could have even solid-shaded it but audiences wouldn't have "gotten" it
was computer-generated.

Regardless, what I meant was, Lucas relied more on imagination than
visual effects in the original movies.

DaffyDuck...

The whole mantra of the original movies was "do not rely on technology,
trust your feelings" - clearly, Lucas did a 180 on a pretty nice
philosophy once he got stinking rich, and no longer had to listen to
anyone.

Hence, we were introduced to midichlorians - thanks George, you asshole!

ruined them with the Special Editions (with some exceptions, but for the
most part he should have left them alone). He violated his own creative
approach, which was (and he described this explicitly at the time) to
only show glimpses of fantastic things and let the viewers' minds fill
in the details.

Also, Eps I-III lacked a Solo-esque "everyman" character, which was
essential to the success of the original movies.

I agree with you about TNG season 1, though. Very underrated,
especially given the state of TV SF at the time.

And the first season of Star Trek: TNG gets a bad rap unjustly. The
episodes people criticize most from season one are usually the ones most
like original series episodes. The show had to bridge between old and
new, and find its own ground along the way, which it did. The first
season was successful in doing this, it was very highly rated, and the
ratings grew steadily until the 5th season -- after which they dropped
steadily. If the early seasons were so bad why did people keep
watching? If the later ones were so great, why did people stop watching?

- who produces it.
- when the time frame is, that it takes place.
- how much Lucas intends to further screw it up.

The Human Briefcase...

I can't think of one example of this in Star Wars. They showed
everything! Was Lucas talking about THX-1138 when he said that?

Chris Basken...

Watch the original (pre-Special Edition) movies again. You'll see a
number of cases, especially in the first one, where Lucas "hid" the fact
that he couldn't afford to make something a complete effect and only
showed us a glimpse of it.

For example, the trash-compactor creature. He wanted to show more of
it. In ESB, you never really get a good look at the wampa creature that
captures Luke, you just get glimpses of him. In the Special Edition,
Lucas decided to show us a full-body shot of him after Luke cut his arm
of, thus reducing something that only existed in our imaginations (and
was therefore genuinely frightening) to a guy in a fur suit. Go George!

The Cantina scene worked, despite some pretty silly costumes, because
wisely never lingered on a given alien. We filled in our own ideas
about what was going on there.

The Human Briefcase...

What about Jar-Jar? He wasn't handsome by human standards, but he was
both heroic and flawed like Han. I identified strongly with Jar-Jar.

Chris Basken...

I pity you.

The Human Briefcase...

Meesa sorry!

l...

I especially liked the way Jar-Jar pulled off that heroic rescue of the
princess, and later, rogueishly dared her to kiss him.

Her secret passion for him was unmistakable.

wdstarr...

Five words no one should ever say.

DaffyDuck...

I think no more needs to be said about and your sense of 'quality',

'nuff said.

The Human Briefcase...

So because I liked Jar-Jar and you didn't everything else I say is wrong?

DaffyDuck...

Uhm, yes, isn't that what I said?

That flies in the face of logic, buster! Go back to logic school!

DaffyDuck...

Funny coming from a 12-year old.

Chris Basken...

This hits near the truth with me. Jar-Jar ruined my first viewing of Ep
1 because I knew he was a plot gimmick and he'd have his one "important"
line. Problem was, first time through, you don't know when he's going
to say it so you kinda have to pay attention to him. And he was
annoying because he was *annoying*. "Icky icky poo-pooh!" Yeah,
quality entertainment there. Even Lucas acknowledged it when he reduced
(eliminated, basically) Jar-Jar's role in Ep 2.

The second time seeing it, I knew when his important line was coming so
I could ignore him completely, and I could tolerate the movie better.
Unfortunately, there was still the Lloyd problem...

Yes, Hammill was amateurish in the orginial. But at least you had Ford
to keep you company. McGregor just wasn't there enough to do the same
in Ep 1 and Neeson was, frankly, just about as wooden, and they had to
neutralize both Jar-Jar and Lloyd. And there's something particularly
teeth-setting about a bad child actor.

Episode 1 sucked. And for those of you who appeal to the majority, the
IMDB ratings (which record popularity) are:

Ep 1: 6.4

The Human Briefcase...

Um, that only is based on 100,000 votes and the voters are
self-selected, not randomly chosen.

Those people also hated Independence Day, and that was a cinematic
triumph. IMDB ratings are completely unreliable!

Chris Basken...

You funny guy.

Anybody...

IMDB.com as a whole is completely unreliable. It's a waste of Internet

Atlas Bugged...

"As a whole?" I can't begin to agree with that.

space thanks to all the garbage that's posted there as "fact". It ain't
called "IMaDumbBum.com" for nothing. :-\

Chris Basken...

But its ratings are based on simple popularity, so that's pretty much
spot on. IMDB's users might not represent a good cross-section of a
movie's audience, but I bet it's not too far off. As HB says, it's
self-selected, but so is a movie's audience.

Atlas Bugged...

It's a little wiki-ish in terms of the idea that people can post lots of
wrong stuff. But the basic ability to get the 411 quickly and easily from
one source is pretty valuable, in my view.

And there's lots of bonuses. Many collections, for example, of photos of
your favorite actresses (or actors.)

And how often is the basic info about the film wrong? I don't recall a
major error of that sort ever on IMDB.

I can't imagine what you're complaining about. You demand perfection? I'll
e-mail you a few pix of my gal.

A friend asked me about both (1) a music version and (2) a decent
alternative to IMDB. For those seeking either, I recommend:

But I'd still go with IMDB for film and all motion visual products.

Lio Convoy...

ID4 was a fun movie, but it was FAR from being a cinematic triumph. Will
Smith's character was 2 dimensional, Bill Pullman did well, but he was too
whiny. The writing was stolen from so many different movies....

The whole thing was one big cliche.

l...

OMG, I just blew half a can of Pepsi through my nose!

"Cinematic triumph", he said....

Keep those gems a-comin'!!!!

Ep 2: 6.9
Ep 3: 8.0
Ep 4: 8.8
Ep 5: 8.8
Ep 6: 8.2

The Human Briefcase...

Exactly! And it was supposed to be a continuation of the original Star
Trek, not a complete abrupt departure. Sometimes I think people who rip
on it have never seen the original Star Trek or something.

Patrick Joseph McNamara...

I suspect the ratings will be high initially because there's so much
curiosity about it. But it's a matter of time as to whether it will maintain
the ratings. STTNG had the benefit of syndication and the backing of
Paramount, so that even if the ratings dropped it would continue. It also
had the benefit of fans of the old show hungry for new ST no matter how bad
it was. Has STTNG been completely original (no original series and it's
popularity) and had been tied to a network, it never would have lasted as
long as it did.