October 15 2007

source: aintitcool.com



FILM INFLUENCES

• Television Series set between Episodes III & IV embracing "a little bit of everything in the show" and "embraces the broad scope of the STAR WARS universe".

• Imperials will be everywhere in the new show. Undercover Operatives and Imperial Officers of all makes and ambitions: "nearly all of them will be afraid of Darth Vader".

• Rebel Bases & Imperial Star Destroyers featured.

• Death Star Plans - Unknown extent to which the plans are featured.

• Pod Racers - The characters, shenanigans, and politics the events bring with them.



DROIDS - THE ANIMATED SERIES INFLUENCES

• Thall Joben - Name of a Pod Racer which first appeared in the 1980's DROIDS Animated Series. (DROIDS was set in the era between Episodes III & IV.)



BOUNTY HUNTERS

• Mandalorian Character - AICN source insinuates "at least" one Mandalorian in the course of the series.

• Boba Fett - AICN comments from the source: "Boba Fett… should be in his 20s in this series… angsty… disenfranchised… and simmering".



MOVIE CHARACTERS & RELATIVES OF

• Rebel Naberrie - 20-year old male related to Padme Naberrrie.

• General Papanoida - Either return of the Lucas Revenge Of The Sith cameo character Baron Papanoida or another derivative character.

• Bib Fortuna and Oola - Characters from Return Of The Jedi.



EXPANDED UNIVERSE CHARACTERS & RELATIVES OF

• Rebel General Durron – Possibly father of Expanded Universe character Kyp Durron.



TELEVISION SERIES VERSUS FILMS

• Series will be less “good guy - bad guy” in nature & offer far more insight into characters, why they feel what they feel and where they’re coming from.

• Another AICN source: "Overall tone of the show is rather close to the adventurous nature of EPISODE's IV, V, VI - just a little edgier."

Bib Fortuna ... must be serious if they're brining him back - sounds like a military show at least, that's good news.

Not really sure what to make of any of this. It's just a bit...light on the direction of the show to make a judgement. But I'd imagine there will have to be good guy/bad guy deals going on. Every show needs this tension, it drives plotlines and progresses the series.

TheForce.net also "reported" on AICN's story and added the following, presumabley from one of their sources:



[hr]
UPDATE: Two more bits of juicy information not seen in the Aintitcool.com report from a very reliable, yet anonymous, source:

• They're casting for Boba Fett

• Most of the casting going on is for young actors and actresses with the exception of a couple of middle aged actors.

[hr]

It's like Fall 1998 - Fall 2000 - Fall 2003(4) again: SPOILER SEASON

The use of Film and Expanded Universe related names suggests that the tone of the Live-Action Series maybe in the style of the Prequels. With reports of Lucas interviewing writers from LOST and Heroes, it's going to be interesting how the inclusion of Bib Fortuna, Papanoida, and Thall Joben are going to be featured in "darker and character-driven" episodes.

Boba Fett, more and more appears to be in LAS

Boba Fett in there will be great, for me and anyone else with a Fett-merchandise fixation anyways. I'm kind of surprised they are looking for a different actor for it, though. You'd think with the clone backstory, they would want to go with either Morrison or Logan, or maybe even that other clone guy for the role. If he never takes his helmet off, I guess it wouldn't really matter who was under there. If they ask me really nice, I'll do it for them on the cheap (like $100K/yr, that's cheap right?).

Give me Mandalorians though - Knights Of The Old Republic-Style armour too that would be awesome.

Yeah sorry, but this sounds terrible at the moment. Bib Fortuna? I mean, come on. The "nay Jabba no badda" guy? Who in their right mind thinks that or say, re-using characters from the Droids animated series and Podracers are good ideas?

give me a band of rebels on the run from the evil empire, don't give me podracing bullshit or half-baked OT characters that they're recycling cause they're out of ideas

Guys, its AICN.

So, there's going to be a Boba Fett and another Mando?

This sounds like EU sheep BS. Kyp Durron's father? Really?

AICN scored the first details about Episode III way back in August 2003 and was right on the money. The key thing to remember here is that we don't know how much of a presence some the alleged characters will have in the series. The movie, television, and Expanded Universe characters could be cameos or walk-on parts.

Another noteworthy aspect is that AICN is apparently citing two sources for this report along with TheForce.net adding their own source information. Different websites are starting to say the same things. Still I would prefer not have: DROIDS - The Live-Action Series.

AICN has been right about stuff, but they've also been wrong about so much. I just don't take what they say seriously.

Casting Boba Fett? Wouldn't Daniel Logan be about the right age now?

If you’re talking about the "General Grevious" report: TFN got the information a few weeks before AICN. It was never posted, because the source couldn’t be verified. Once AICN received the same information, they posted it without verification (because that's what they do).

That being said, this info at least sounds legitimate.

I wonder if Boba will be sporting his amour from the THS/Droids? Visually, it’s a good bridge from Jango to the OT Boba.

Well I found AICN's Beginning Of Episode III (web.archive.org AICN link) and the score was more like rumor sent in and labled as such but back then who knew.

At a huge thread was started about the AICN story, Griffen posted something to the effect of TheForce.net either had or was sent this info already. It was then Darth Friday stuff started. (TFN August 2003 Archive).

What makes this somewhat detailed AICN report somewhat believable (to me at least) is the history of incorporating DROIDS into the Prequels. Although what's not mentioned are characters Lucas and McCallum themselves always mention: X-Wing Pilots and Tie Fighter Pilots.

What would be cool is if some of the other planets and locations not used in the Prequels would appear in the Live-Action series. You know Corellia, Mandalore, Kessel Spice Mines, maybe some of Order 66 locales. Get into the lifes and cultures of the ship builders and the Bounty Hunters.

In regards to Boba Fett, I would like to see Logan return to his role and the reports of them casting for a new person are

At least Fett is looking to be in the show.

If we're going all underworld with these series, we might get our first glimpses of Hutt Space, and maybe Nal Hutta or Nar Shaddaa as well.

Wasn't it AICN that gave us the title of Episode 3 as "The Creeping Fear"?

I also enjoyed how Harry saw an early screening of AOTC and declared "Star Wars is back!!!11!11" only to trash the movie and prequels in general any chance he got later on. But hey, who cares about credibiility when you have to stay cool wit da kids, right?

Yes, they got General Grievous right. I'll give them that. But like my old compatriot fox, I just can't take anything they say and report on seriously.

Regarding Boba Fett, I always thought a TV series that showed his coming of age, set against the rise of the Empire backdrop, would make for a rich area to mine stories from. I hope there's some Fett somewhere in there. In order to make the show appealing to a wide audience, there *has* to be some easily identifiable character somewhere in there. Fett is a strong candidate for this.

My worry is that Fett has such a built up image, can Lucas live up to what we all love about the mando?

I agree, the implementation is key but Fett’s still got to be in there. My main concern is why they’re considering focusing on old hoover head (Bib Fortuna); he’s definitely one of my least favourite characters in the whole saga. I couldn't give a monkeys what he was up to prior to him taking an admin job at Jabba’s palace. I recently sold my Ex Sideshow of him on the BAY (Christ knows why I bought him in the first place). Don't even get me started on f****** Oola (who was only ever good enough for the Rancs to eat, damn, started…)?


I’d quite like to see Greedo strutting around other landscapes though but the subtitles would be on overload. As SW fans would agree, it’s a visual experience not a reading one. So, err. scrap that one.



I hold Biggs aloft on a magnificent gold chair and sing with him (in a quite remarkable duo - think Elton John and George Michael but less camp...hopefully) to the sky “do a KOTOR show as well!”. I don’t care that I’ve narrow-mindedly missed the bigger picture here i.e. the cost and time implications of producing two separate shows.

I'd be happy with Drew Karpyshyn as a writer....KOTOR & the 2 Bane books are good enough for me.

An article found in last Thursday's Toronto Sun




As always GL's grand marketing scheme for this TV series will incorporate aspects/elements to satisfy all demographics

Even though in the article it implies that - he jokes, Y'know that's gonna be a part of the marketing campaign

I doubt the day to day life of a robot in the Star Wars universe is going to appear alltogether mundane. I think that was actually just an off the cuff joke, though. And if it isn't, I doubt that will be the focus of the series. It could have been worse.

Like the nightmare it would have been to end up with seeing the "day to day life of Ewoks", or "Jar-Jar becomes a man, well, for a Gungan". Allthough if they wanted to explain what the hell he meant in TPM when he said "You say boomdegasser , then crash into boss' headgiver", I would at least stop wondering wtf that was all about.

I could see - and wouldn't mind - a Droids-style adventure segment at some point.

Excuse 4 this small Off-Topic Q?

Topeka - Who is she? (your avatar)

Didn't we have a whole cartoon series based on droids that did do so well?

Well, that, and the first 25 minutes of ANH. Until they met Luke, the whole first part of it is a "Day in the life" of R2 and 3PO. Maybe not a 'standard' day, but still, the focus was on them for quite a while.

... GL has stated (amongst other things) that the saga has been told from the POV of the droids (why would he change that now)
we may not always (or maybe even NOT) see specifically 3po/R2 , may even be introduced to some new droid main characters

- He has (shown much love for) stated that his favorite character is Artoo

I agree, it won't obviously be the focus of the series, but Robots/Droids will definitely have it's part ( and I will most welcome that part of it)

FYI. Below is a recent pic of Daniel Logan.

I want a life in the day of RA-7! Let's here it for the deathstar droid!

Another somewhat recent picture of Logan:

Capt. thanks for the heads up about Lucas and his "robots" comment along with the newspaper scan. I hope you don't mind that it was merged with this thread because was already droids talk and the "robots" comment comes off a joke to me.

Also, I have learned a little bit of news from a reliable source that shooting of the Live Action Series may not be shot entirely in Australia. LucasFilm is in the process of renting out and/or renovating hangars at one of the San Fransisco Bay Area military bases and/or the Presidio. The Presidio, of course is now home to Letterm Digital Center which houses ILM, LucasArts, etc.

If some Live-Action Series shooting is done in San Fransisco, it would be much easier for Lucas to oversee from Skywalker Ranch. However there is a television writer's strike looming, so the series could still be exclusively shot at Australia's Fox Studios.