There probably will be more Star Wars films. Despite the fact that he was supposed to be done with the Star Wars universe after the Prequels, George Lucas has been unable to leave well enough alone, and there’s a live action TV series in the works to go alongside the currently airing Clone Wars cartoon. But what will this movie be?
The question is raised once again, this time by musician Thomas Dolby – yes, the guy who sang ‘She Blinded Me With Science.’ On his blog he talks about hanging out with a Lucas guy. Here’s the pertinent quote:
My host is friend and former collaborator Paul Sebastien, who over the years has worked for Xbox, Playstation, and now LucasArts. Last night he was telling me a little about the forthcoming Star Wars-related TV show, movie and online games—very cool indeed.
There are a lot of things this could mean. It could mean, quite simply, that Sebastien spilled the beans to Dolby about a super secret return to the cinema for Star Wars. Possible, but highly unlikely. The folks who work at Lucasfilm and LucasArts don’t spill beans. Maybe Dolby is breaking a major confidence here, but that sentence doesn’t read like he’s telling tales out of school.
So Dolby could just be plain old wrong – there are no Star Wars movies in the pipeline. Or he could be confused: maybe Lucas is planning to kick start his live action show with a movie. Lucas took the first few episodes of Clone Wars and jammed them together into a film; it would be easy to do the same with the first two or three episodes of a live action show. But then again, maybe there’s no theatrical component at all and Lucas just wants to start his new show with a two hour TV movie – basically a double sized episode.
This raises an interesting semantic question, though: do you count the Clone Wars movie as a Star Wars movie? Are there seven Star Wars films in your personal canon, or just the six? I bet more people would count a big screen version of the live action show as a real movie than the CG Clone Wars.
At any rate, it’s going to happen. There will be a new Star Wars movie, a real one. Maybe even one that grows out of the end of the TV series. But I think we’re some time from that happening.
In the meanwhile, check out this video of David Lynch recently discussing meeting with George Lucas about directing Return of the Jedi. It’s pretty funny.