“There’s at all times a little bit little bit of fact in legends,” Ahsoka as soon as mentioned on “Star Wars: Rebels.”
That line was a little bit Easter Egg to followers to assuage them about how the pre-Disney takeover “Star Wars” tales — instructed in decades-worth of novels, comics, and video video games — may nonetheless stay on within the official canon. It additionally applies a bit to the present “Star Wars: Underworld,” George Lucas‘s formidable, however in the end scrapped live-action TV sequence he was growing within the years after “Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith” hit theaters in 2005.
Little bits of data have leaked in regards to the present through the years. One factor was sure: Per its title, it was set within the demimonde of the galaxy far, far-off, amongst its scoundrels, and smugglers, and bounty hunters and various different criminals. However now Rick McCallum, the producer finest related to the “Star Wars” prequels, who oversaw the manufacturing of these movies at Lucasfilm with Lucas himself directing, is opening up a bit extra about what the sequence would have represented.
On the “Younger Indy Chronicles” podcast — McCallum entered the Lucasfilm fold as a producer on the ’90s present, which arguably bears many tonal similarities to the prequels — the producer mentioned that it “would’ve blown up the entire ‘Star Wars’ universe and Disney would’ve undoubtedly by no means supplied George to purchase the franchise.”
IndieWire’s request for remark to Lucasfilm about this podcast have gone unanswered.
A part of which may have been merely as a result of value. He mentioned on the podcast that they couldn’t determine how you can do every episode for lower than $40 million (and if we all know something, the cost-conscience Disney isn’t keen to take a position an excessive amount of extra in reveals that go over funds — simply take a look at “The Acolyte”). “The issue was that every episode was greater than the movies,” he mentioned. “So the bottom I may get it all the way down to with the every [installment] that existed then was $40 million an episode.”
McCallum additionally mentioned that “These had been darkish. They had been attractive. They had been violent. They had been completely fantastic, difficult, difficult scripts.” Through the years “Star Wars: Underworld” had been known as Lucas attempting to do “The Sopranos” in “Star Wars.” And as time has elapsed for the reason that present merely proved too costly to make and a broadcast companion was by no means lined up, extra particulars have emerged right here and there.
Amongst them, “Star Trek” author and “Battlestar Galactica” showrunner Ronald D. Moore, who went on to showrun “Outlander” as an alternative, was one of many writers on “Underworld” — given the extraordinary complexity he gave “Galactica” in addition to episodes of “The Subsequent Technology,” “Deep House 9,” and his all-timer of a script with Brannon Braga for “Star Trek: First Contact,” the thought of him being concerned in “Star Wars” is a “may have been” for the ages.
McCallum went as far as to say that they had 60 episode scripts to at the very least the third-draft stage — it’s believed Lucas deliberate for the present to run over 100 episodes, a lot as he had deliberate for the “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” animated sequence that launched in 2008 — it achieved that feat, in the end clocking in at 133 installments. He departed the corporate following the Disney acquisition in October 2012.
Getting again to the which means of that Ahsoka quote that followers have at all times embraced: That the tales developed in “Star Wars” earlier than Disney have at all times discovered a means of effervescent again by some means — simply take a look at how the non-canon Grand Admiral Thrawn, launched in a well-liked sequence of books in 1991, made his means into the official canon within the “Rebels” present after which “Ahsoka” itself. It’s believed that components of “Underworld” could have popped up within the Disney properties which were produced since and we simply haven’t identified it.
We do know “Rogue One” was a venture pitched by VFX wiz John Knoll at Lucasfilm pre-Disney… may it have primarily been deliberate to be an elaborate “Underworld” installment? (Yahoo Leisure claimed it was.) Germain Lussier at Slashfilm mentioned “Underworld” would have explored Han Solo’s origins… may which have morphed into “Solo: A Star Wars Story”? Even the thought of specializing in the prison underworld is one thing “Underworld” had in frequent with “The Mandalorian,” whereas “The Dangerous Batch” animated sequence and “Andor” went on to discover the identical time interval “Underworld” ostensibly would have.
“Underworld” looks like an unimaginable misplaced alternative that was a couple of years forward of its time. However we would have watched extra of it than we understand.