Star Wars Sequels
George Lucas on Star Wars at TVGuide.com
TVGuide.com has an interview with the maker himself, and he drops us some nice bits about what we can look forward to in regards to the future of Star Wars. Yes, my title was misleading for the uninitiated: No, there will not be Episodes VII, VIII, or IX. As many fans know, and some message board regulars might remember, Lucas has been planning 2 Star Wars television series for some time now. One is to be animated and take place between Episodes II and III, while the other will be live action and takes place between Episodes III and IV.
On the animated series, Lucas said: “Unfortunately, it doesn’t fall into the realm of what animation [typically] is, which is either adult, kind of off-color humor or kiddie stuff. This is, like Star Wars, sort of in between those two things. It’s a lot of battle stuff, and it’s obviously the Clone Wars, so it’s a war picture. So it’s kind of a PG-13 animated TV series, which is something that has never been done before and obviously doesn’t fit in any of the conventional slots that these things fall into. In that, it’s very different, and I think it’s very exciting. It’s got a very, very sophisticated look to it. It’s very much like the features. We’re still trying to figure out how to put it on the air.” Lucas went on to say that they’re on episode 40 right now, out of 100, and will look to put it on the air once they’ve arrived somewhere between 50 and 60 episodes. He also said that it wouldn’t be a Saturday Morning Cartoon, and because of the content, will most likely air after 9 o’clock at night. As this is well into production, the official Star Wars website has an area dedicated to the show, currently with teaser video.
Regarding the live action series, Lucas said they’ll first start writing it in about a month from now. He continued: “The live-action [series] is not the movie. It’s the Star Wars universe, but it’s characters from the saga who were [previously] minor, and it follows their stories. It’s set between [movie episodes] III and IV, when the Empire has taken over. It’s like Episode IV in that the Emperor and Darth Vader are heard about - people talk about them - but you never see them because it doesn’t take place where they actually are. There are stormtroopers and all that, but there are no Jedi. It’s different, but I think it’s very exciting because I get to explore a part of that universe that I haven’t been able to explore.” As far as episodes go, like the animated series, they’re shooting for 100.
What I’m most surprised (and quite admittedly excited) about, is the 100 episodes for each series- that’s quite a bit of Star Wars galaxy in our future. You can follow this story in our ongoing thread on the message boards.
