Coming soon spotted a LEGO Star Wars poster at at the Licensing International Expo that promises a TV special for Fall 2011. They also mention “a second animated series” with “a completely new and fun direction” that could be either this or the Seth Green comedy show. I don’t even know anymore.
What is Star Wars Detours?
George Lucas was on CNN’s Connect the World yesterday. In the video, he mentions, along with The Clone Wars, a TV show called Star Wars Detours. From the transcript:
But there’s a lot of different aspects of it that have been quite amusing and fun to be a part of. Like amusement park rides, and it’s — I really enjoy it. Now, I’m working on television shows, “Clone Wars” and another show called “Star Wars Detours.”
I would lay even money on Detours being the comedy show that Lucasfilm is doing with Seth Green and Matt Senreich, which from what little we’ve heard does sound like it could be something of a detour. But I’m not expecting we’ll get much more anytime soon. OR WILL WE? Hell, it’s probably just a working title. Oh, George!
Lucas also said that after Red Tails he’ll “probably move away” from Star Wars and “do my own personal kinds of movies.” Never heard that one before….
Report: Life On Mars co-creator wrote for Star Wars live-action series?
Den of Geek is claiming that British writer Matthew Graham, co-creator of the BBC shows Life On Mars (not the U.S. remake) and Ashes To Ashes, may be one of the writers on the Star Wars live-action series.
We got in touch with Matthew Graham and asked him whether the news was true. All he would say to us was that he had done some work out at LucasFilm during 2008 and 2009 “on something unbelievably cool”, and that his contract “had come to an end”. “I hope one day I’ll be able to talk about it,” he told us.
Possible? Possible: Rick McCallum said in a 2008 Star Wars Insider interview that two of the show’s writers were British.
Graham also wrote a recent Doctor Who two-parter. Other high-profile Brit genre TV writers have been approached: Russell T. Davies, who spearheaded the current Who revival, said he down an offer from George Lucas.
The Star Wars scripts are currently shelved; Producer Rick McCallum recently said they hope to start production in “three or four years.”
Rick McCallum: “Three or four years” to Star Wars live-action series
Producer Rick McCallum, in an interview with Czech Position, says that the live-action series is several years away.
“The TV series is on hold, but that has nothing to do with the Czech Republic; it has to do with [the episodes being] so ambitious,” McCallum told Czech Position. “We have 50 hours of third-draft scripts, but the problem we have is there is a lot of digital animation; we don’t have the technology yet to be able to do them at a price that is safe for television. Since we would be financing them, it would be suicide for us to do this [now]. So we are going to wait three or four years,” he said.
In addition to giving us a tentative production timeline, he reiterates a few things about the basic premise of the series.
“Basically, it is like ‘The Godfather’; it’s the Empire slowly building up its power base around the galaxy, what happens in Coruscant, which is the major capital, and it’s [about] a group of underground bosses who live there and control drugs, prostitution,” McCallum said.
So… By Celebration VII, then? Maybe.
The fandom minute: Dispatches from the forests of Endor
Eric Walker, who played Mace Towani in the made-for TV Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure and Ewoks: The Battle for Endor, is raising money to release Growing Up on Skywalker Ranch, a book documenting his “adventures in the Star Wars universe” and other behind-the-scenes tidbits. Interested? You can pledge funds at the link.
- The logo on the Celebration 6 teaser site is now gold. What does it mean? Sorry, but fool me once…
- On Etsy: Han and Leia wedding bands.
- Threepio, Chewbacca, Vader and a stormtrooper carved crayons.
- Death Star garbage masher cake and more from the blog Kitchen Fun With My Three Sons.
- The U.S. Army’s “walking truck” concept from the 60’s: a real-life AT-AT?
- On Tumblr? You’ll want to check out Lit and Star Wars and Texts from the Millennium Falcon.
Has Lucas already shot footage for the live-action show?
George Lucas was on Attack of the Show this evening. He mostly talked about 3-D and 3-D conversion, but also quite a bit on the live-action show.
Where is is? “It sits on the shelf. We have 50 hours and we’re just waiting to figure out a different way of making movies: A different technology we can use that will make it so it’s easy enough to make it feasible to shoot the show.” That’s pretty on line with what he’s said before.
You want a money shot? Here’s a money shot: “Right now it looks like the Star Wars features,” Lucas said. Looks like? Actual footage? Just tests? Effects? And what does that mean for those ’50 hours?’ We’ve assumed, in the past, that they were talking about scripts and concept art and the like, but this puts a whole new spin on things. I’m guessing it’s mostly for test purposes, but still, this puts things much further along than we suspected.
UPDATE 05/27: io9 contacted Lucasfilm about the whole ’50 hours’ thing, and they confirmed he was referring to the scripts. Could there still be test footage? I suppose, but I doubt LFL is going to say and none of us can be sure in any case.
“We have to figure out a way of making it for about a tenth the cost of the features, because it’s television,” Lucas goes on to say. “We’re working towards that… We will get there at some point, but it’s just a very difficult process. Obviously when we do figure this problem out it will dramatically effect a lot of movies.”
The fandom minute: Jon Stewart analogizes the president, ‘The Phantom Reviewer’ returns for Sith
Politics corner. The Daily Show went epic last night by comparing the president to Luke Skywalker. I laughed, I laughed, then I cried because I was laughing too much. Jon Stewart, you are such a nerd.
Plinkett returns. ‘The Phantom Reviewer’ concludes his skewering of the prequels with Revenge of the Sith. Per usual, it’s not for everyone and still very much NSFW. But what can I say: I LOL’d.
So you’ve experienced a blizzard… Why not enjoy some impromptu Photoshopping?
Wait, what? Scotland has a Jedi police officer. She “admits to using Jedi mind tricks” but denies using “‘The Force’ to influence what suspects say or do.” Okay then.
The blogside. Cambridge University librarian Andy Priestner is not pleased with the state of the Jedi Order’s library.
Nice trolling. Suvudu has a ‘casting call’ for Luke Skywalker. No, seriously.
Robot Chicken Star Wars III debuts tonight!
Robot Chicken Star Wars III is on tonight! The past two are some of the best professional parodies around, and this one is one of the year’s most highly anticipated events. (For this fan, anyway.) Get yourself hyped up:
- Seth Green sings the praises of Prune Face (Matthew Senreich sticks to Zac Efron) at StarWars.com.
- Green tells Entertainment Weekly that he wants to redeem Jar Jar. Well, if anyone can…
- Senreich tells Underwire that “Star Wars is above and beyond any other property that is out there.”
- Watch a clip of the Emperor being kind of a dick at io9
Video: Seth Green on Conan
Green makes the Robot Chicken Star Wars III rounds out to TBS to talk about his wife, his childhood acting career and his trip with ‘Conan’ to New York and Robot Chicken toys. (There are Robot Chicken toys?) There’s an actual clip in there somewhere!
He’s also getting ink over at Hero Complex, where he reveals that a Mara Jade joke was cut out of the show. Now what will I laugh wildly at? NOW WHAT?!?
UPDATE: And again (with Matthew Senreich) at Big Shiny Robot.
Star Wars in the news: Seth Green, Ben Burtt, Lucasfilm Singapore, and TOR’s ten-year plan
Anamayhem. Seth Green talks Robot Chicken: Star Wars III and the comedy show that he and Matthew Senreich are doing with Lucasfilm. Which we’ll hear about in two years. Yay?
The audience is listening. A ten-minute segment on NPR this weekend featured J.W. Rinzler and Ben Burtt on – what else – The Sounds of Star Wars. You can listen or read about it! Oh, glorious text!
Upsizing! Lucasfilm’s facility in Singapore gets some love – and do I spy a hint at that World War II fairy musical we’ve been so wildly anticipating?
And in your gaming corner… EA CFO Eric Brown said at a gaming industry event that they hope Bioware’s upcoming The Old Republic MMO will last ten years. With even the less-than-wildly-successful Galaxies still (technically) up and running 7 years on, TOR making it a decade can’t be that far-fetched.