Yes, indeed. It is official: even the craziest Star Wars fans are a little tired of a galaxy far, far away, and it is totally logical. In the end, the overdose of Disney+, between The Mandalorian, Ashoka, Obi-Wan Kenobi, The Book of Boba Fett, The Acolyte, and the animated series has been enough to strip the saga of its epicness. And the worst part is that a few years ago they had the chance to change everything… but they didn’t want to.
A very, very distant underworld
Although we have now gotten used to Star Wars, there was a time when it was not like that. In 2005, the same year that George Lucas presented Revenge of the Sith, he announced that he was preparing a series based on Star Wars, and what a series it was! I warn you that the more you know about it, the more frustrated you will be that we will never get to see it.
The director himself announced that he considered it “a different way of making movies”, and that he was working on a process to reduce the budget and make about 100 episodes… for now. In total, it is said that up to 400 chapters of Star Wars: Underworld were planned.
In fact, Lucas hired a good handful of screenwriters to tell stories that took place between Episode III and Episode IV, and up to 50 episodes were written, which began to be developed… until five years later, the director had to acknowledge that the budget had gotten out of hand.
And it’s a shame because everything we know about the project sounds great: fun, with action, lots of dialogue, and a multitude of interconnected characters in a kind of noir film. Oh, yes, and set on Coruscant.
After all, between Episode III and IV is when the Empire rises to power and it is more interesting to know about the suburbs, what is brewing behind the Jedi, the Sith, and the Galactic Senate. After all, Star Wars has hundreds of characters that have never had the time to be further explored, scattered throughout the galaxy and the Shared Universe: novels, video games, comics, etc.
This was a golden opportunity to, before getting into the sequel trilogy, tell all the stories that had been left behind. And in terms of tone, they compared it to The Godfather and Deadwood, so they were not aiming low: a more mature, darker, and serious Star Wars, but full of action. Just the opposite of what we ended up having.
And what happened? Well, what you imagine: dozens of people, hundreds of visual effects, hundreds of sets… And in the end, the money wasn’t enough for all that. However: various subsequent projects have been borrowing from here and there, recycling ideas from the series.
For example, the video game The Force Unleashed, Star Wars: Rebels, The Force Awakens, Rogue One, or even cultural products outside the galactic universe, like God of War (yes, I promise you) or Rebel Moon. The cancellation of this series, which promised to be everything that Star Wars doesn’t give us now, is one of the biggest disappointments in George Lucas’s career, but it did achieve something very important.
Lucas wanted to make television for less money than a movie, but that looked just as spectacular… And he already announced that the technology would take time to arrive. In the end, he did it: Stagecraft, which makes everything much cheaper. Sadly, it arrived too late: enough for us to have to put up with The Mandalorian. George, don’t you feel like trying Underworld again?
