The New Star Wars Series; They're Missing An Opportunity Here.
I have in the past gone on and on about the potential for a Star Wars TV series. I've posted on the bendis board and over at theforce.net about this once before they announced that both series they were going to be working on for TV were going to be set in the war period before the Galactic Civil War. (GCW = Episodes 4 - 6) It was gonna happen. TV was the next logical step. Lucas wanted to tell smaller stories anyway, right? They have a wealth of beloved characters in the Expanded Universe (EU = Books, Novels, Videogames, Fanfilms, Cartoons, RPG's, Comics) that they would have all manner of writers, directors and actors willing to write, direct and play them. No shortage of plots or established backstory. I'd rather hoped we might get an anthology series composed of short arcs that concentrated on a few different characters for each.
Why must we be limited to the events surrounding the 'holy' canon of characters here?
One week, we get a Boba Fett bounty hunter story. The next we get some golden age of the sith stories with Exar Kun. The next we get the New Jedi Praxeum on Yavin IV post-GCW. Then we get Kevin Rubio to show up and do Tag and Bink. Then we get a Vader Story. Then a Mara Jade. Then a Luke... Or an Anakin Solo and his siblings. Intersperse these stories with tales of characters we didn't even know. Or ones we saw in the movies for a moment, but they were walk-on's or walk-off's. Like the Force Aware astromech, R5-D4. (Destiny demands I must blow my motivator so that kid buys the R2 unit over there... NNNGH!) Or some other bounty hunter.
Or how about stories from the videogames as well as the comics and novels? You've got all that good stuff to do with The Exile and Darth Revan. Or Kyle Kataarn and his stories from Dark Forces. They don't even all have to be live action. With an anthology series, you could have filmmakers choose to go the animated route for their episode of Star Wars, like they did with The Family Dog for Spielberg's 'Amazing Stories' (The animated episode there was so good, they tried to spin it off as its own series.)
Nor do they all have to be serious action. With an idea like this, you can expand outward into comedy, romance, Horror, drama, crime drama. We've already done straight action/sci-fi and fantasy. Is Star Wars just a one trick pony? Or could you do other KINDS of stories as well? And unlike shows like Trek, which eventually give out under the stresses of what Berman called "Concept Fatigue", you'd have kind of a new concept or story to tell every week. Without being limited to those same old characters week in and week out. And of course, when you strike gold with a new character that really resonates with the viewers, you can expand on them later.
I'm not sure someone's tried to do a themed sci-fi anthology series. Yeah we had the Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, Amazing Stories and that kind of ilk. But for the most part, those were all random sci-fi and horror meant as stand alone stories. This would be centered around the Star Wars theme and mythology. I'd really love to see some established universes get opened up, new characters get introduced, and the storylines broadened with anthology series like the sort I'm proposing here. There's a few other ones that could benefit from this treatment too. (Looking at you, Star Trek. Looking squarely at you.) And this doesn't even get into the oft-despised marketing end. Imagine an action figure for every episode and you have to wonder why the toy conglomerates aren't champing at the bit for this one.
Think of what might happen with some newer writers and directors getting to do their own story arcs for a show like that? Bryan Fuller? Joss Whedon? Joe Straczynski? Kevin Smith? Neil Gaiman? Steven Speilberg? Peter David? Kevin Rubio? Ronald Moore? Stephen King? Kevin Anderson? Zack Snyder? Bryan Singer? Warren Ellis? Brian Bendis? Tim Burton? I'd be excited to hear that any one of these people were doing their own Star Wars story for an episode of an anthology series.
It could've been glorious. Someday it still might. That's the good part. This can all still happen. All we need is someone to realize the potential at the right place at the right time. Me? I'm still crossing my fingers.
Why must we be limited to the events surrounding the 'holy' canon of characters here?
One week, we get a Boba Fett bounty hunter story. The next we get some golden age of the sith stories with Exar Kun. The next we get the New Jedi Praxeum on Yavin IV post-GCW. Then we get Kevin Rubio to show up and do Tag and Bink. Then we get a Vader Story. Then a Mara Jade. Then a Luke... Or an Anakin Solo and his siblings. Intersperse these stories with tales of characters we didn't even know. Or ones we saw in the movies for a moment, but they were walk-on's or walk-off's. Like the Force Aware astromech, R5-D4. (Destiny demands I must blow my motivator so that kid buys the R2 unit over there... NNNGH!) Or some other bounty hunter.
Or how about stories from the videogames as well as the comics and novels? You've got all that good stuff to do with The Exile and Darth Revan. Or Kyle Kataarn and his stories from Dark Forces. They don't even all have to be live action. With an anthology series, you could have filmmakers choose to go the animated route for their episode of Star Wars, like they did with The Family Dog for Spielberg's 'Amazing Stories' (The animated episode there was so good, they tried to spin it off as its own series.)
Nor do they all have to be serious action. With an idea like this, you can expand outward into comedy, romance, Horror, drama, crime drama. We've already done straight action/sci-fi and fantasy. Is Star Wars just a one trick pony? Or could you do other KINDS of stories as well? And unlike shows like Trek, which eventually give out under the stresses of what Berman called "Concept Fatigue", you'd have kind of a new concept or story to tell every week. Without being limited to those same old characters week in and week out. And of course, when you strike gold with a new character that really resonates with the viewers, you can expand on them later.
I'm not sure someone's tried to do a themed sci-fi anthology series. Yeah we had the Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, Amazing Stories and that kind of ilk. But for the most part, those were all random sci-fi and horror meant as stand alone stories. This would be centered around the Star Wars theme and mythology. I'd really love to see some established universes get opened up, new characters get introduced, and the storylines broadened with anthology series like the sort I'm proposing here. There's a few other ones that could benefit from this treatment too. (Looking at you, Star Trek. Looking squarely at you.) And this doesn't even get into the oft-despised marketing end. Imagine an action figure for every episode and you have to wonder why the toy conglomerates aren't champing at the bit for this one.
Think of what might happen with some newer writers and directors getting to do their own story arcs for a show like that? Bryan Fuller? Joss Whedon? Joe Straczynski? Kevin Smith? Neil Gaiman? Steven Speilberg? Peter David? Kevin Rubio? Ronald Moore? Stephen King? Kevin Anderson? Zack Snyder? Bryan Singer? Warren Ellis? Brian Bendis? Tim Burton? I'd be excited to hear that any one of these people were doing their own Star Wars story for an episode of an anthology series.
It could've been glorious. Someday it still might. That's the good part. This can all still happen. All we need is someone to realize the potential at the right place at the right time. Me? I'm still crossing my fingers.