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George Lucas apparently plans to do a new Star Wars TV series. Filming starts in 2008. I couldn't be much less interested than I am unless the series title was "The Jar Jar Binks Variety Hour". It sounds like quite a snoozer already. The series, Lucas tells us, covers the adventures of Luke Skywalker as a young boy. Assuming it stays true to the stories told in the movies, how interesting can it be. Didn't Luke complain in Episode IV about how mindnumbingly dull it was living on a moisture farm? (And what exactly would you be "growing" on a moisture farm anyway? I bet it doesn't grow too fast without any MOISTURE!)
My brother suggested that the series episode guide could easily look something like this: - Luke wakes up, has a shower, gets dressed, eats breakfast, and goes to school. Later he comes up, does his chores, and goes to bed.
- Luke wakes up, has a shower, gets dressed, eats breakfast, and goes to school. Later he comes up, does his chores, and goes to bed.
- Luke wakes up, has a shower, gets dressed, eats breakfast, and goes to school. Later he comes up, does his chores, and goes to bed.
- Luke wakes up, has a shower, gets dressed, eats breakfast, and goes to school. Later he comes up, does his chores, and goes to bed.
- Rinse, lather, repeat and repeat about 50 times.
Around episode 50 he becomes a teenager and the routine changes a little. Luke has teenage friends, stays out late, gets in trouble, gets grounded, sneaks out, gets caught, gets grounded, and graduates high school. Occasionally we get some exciting stories like Luke getting his first pimple, going on his first date, or flying around in a T-16 shooting Womp Rats (sounds like redneck fun at its finest). There will also be lots of teenage angst about wanting to go to the academy where all his friends are, too. Oooooh, drama... Somewhere around episode 98 of the 100-episode series, his uncle Olin purchases a gold-plated protocol droid and an R2 unit. At this point Luke meets Obi Wan Kenobi and the series ends. We've already seen what happens when you try to tell the story of a famous adult when he was a child. Remember "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles"? No? Neither do I, really. I'm pretty sure almost no one watched it, except maybe this guy. I think a more interesting series would be the rebuilding of the Republic, telling the story of how Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, and the rest had to bring democracy back to the galaxy. You'd have the opportunity for plenty of battles as the fledgling Republic fights off the last surviving remnants of the Empire. You could show the rebuilding of the Jedi into an elite fighting force, now balancing the light and dark sides of the force to prevent a future rise of the Sith. And if you ever got to the point where all this empire building became ho-hum, you could introduce an alien threat or start talking about exploring the galaxy Star Trek style. No, what we're going to get is another "Star Wars for Kids" project, with a young Luke at odds with his adoptive parents, their attempts to shield him from his father Darth Vader and potential mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi, and all the teen angst you can stand (plus more). Given that Star Trek is on hiatus (or "dead" if Paramount is to be believed), that there's nothing new coming from Babylon 5 yet, and the only interesting sci-fi is coincidentally coming from the Sci-Fi Channel (which somehow still thinks horror movies are a good fit with sci-fi), it's unfortunate that we're going to get yet-another deadly dull sci-fi series.
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