Yesterday's release of astonishing gameplay footage from STAR WARS 1313...
...evoked the spectre of that long-in-development STAR WARS UNDERWORLD television series about which we keep hearing teases and snippets. 1313 is set in the "criminal underworld" of the STAR WARS universe...a setting similar to the proposed TV show as well. To be clear, it has not been specifically stated that the game and the TV show are in any way interconnected - I'm just noting the apparent similarity of thematics and setting. Now we're seeing material from the game (and damned impressive it is), but what of the show?
Den of Geek recently had a very interesting discussion with Rick McCallum, the entirety of which can be found HERE. Their conversation touches on many elements Lucasy, and naturally pings the status of UNDERWORLD. Choice McCalllum snippets include...
The episodes are too expensive and…well, we’ve got two things going on. Firstly, we’ve got television as we know it about to implode. You’ve got network TV, which is really where we should be because it has the dollars to pay for this and an audience, but you’re burdened by the fact you only get 42 minutes for an hour because of commercials. And then you’ve got cable, which has the most provocative and daring programming, but has audiences of 1 or 2 million people. They also have a very limited amount of money they can spend without wanting some sort of say or control over the material, which is absolutely repugnant to us in terms of the way we work.
[EDIT]
Our biggest problem is that these stories are adult. I mean…these are like Deadwood in space. It so unlike anything you’ve ever associated with George before in relation to Star Wars. These aren’t for kids
It's hard not to appreciate the irony here. For many years Lucas has gone out of his way to more or less rip the balls off of STAR WARS in terms of its content and energy. and now that he's interested in growing it up again, doing so is proving an obstacle / challenge as opposed to the asset many of us might deem it to be.
The mind reels with numerous "could haves" and "should haves" regarding how the franchise might've been handled differently over the years - and it's easy to assert that "this wouldn't be such a big problem if Lucas hadn't pussified STAR WARS to begin with!" - but even a more consistent and less aggravating franchise to date wouldn't address the economic and technical challenges which are apparently hamstringing the series' progress at the moment.
Interesting matters to be sure, and as frustrated as I've found myself with STAR WARS over the years, I'm truly hoping we someday get to see this show. McCallum has previously indicated (paraphrasing) that each ep of UNDERWORLD would, in essence, be a STAR WARS movie on television. That's a rather mind bending concept when you step back and think about it...from the technical standpoint, at least. And I wanna see what that would be like. I suspect I'm not the only one...
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