What will the future landscape of the Star Wars universe look like in another couple of decades and beyond? One thing is almost a certainty; it’s going to be completely different. After checking out the trailers for the upcoming animated Clone Wars film that will spearhead the new TV series, I began to realize that there’s going to be a an entire generation of fans that will only have grown up with the animated series and possibly the upcoming live-action series, without the foundation of the first theatrically released Star Wars trilogy, the prequels, and the many properties in between. What will the Star Wars universe mean to them in another 20 years? Will the franchise still hold the same magic as it did for the original trilogy purists or the prequel generation?
Since the Star Wars universe is alive and well in today’s entertainment landscape with future animated films/series and live-action shows, we all know that there’s a deep universal connectivity within the franchise that has transcended time for the past 30 years. Will the connectivity be as strong in the next 30 if there’s a lack of theatrically released films? Can a live-action TV series still create that same spark in fans? Although it’s widely known that Revenge of the Sith is supposed to be his final movie, George Lucas even stated in a February interview with Reuters that the Star Wars saga is far from over with the animated series, "I felt there were a lot more 'Star Wars' stories left to tell... I was eager to start telling some of them through animation and, at the same time, push the art of animation forward." Whether we’ll see another live-action film sometime down the road remains to be seen.
So, what will the Star Wars landscape look like in the future and how will it transform?
Theater Experience:
As much as Star Wars has evolved throughout the years, so too has the theater experience. Given how video technology and the quality of the home entertainment system has exploded in recent years, the YouTube generation and video game revolutions raise the question of whether Star Wars even needs the theater to survive. The fact the George Lucas won’t be directing any more live action feature films any time soon might be the best overall decision to get ahead of the curve. Whether the decision was directly related to the ever-changing video revolution and advances in technology might be irrelevant. It might simply be an organic inevitability. A while back, about a year and a half ago, I talked to longtime Star Wars producer Rick McCallum about how the home entertainment marketplace is quickly overtaking the theater experience. While theater owners have attempted to keep pace with the download generation, McCallum was well aware of what looks to be the dawn of a new age of watching movies, "If the theater owners don't get their act together and really start providing serious quality, the next generation of filmgoers just isn't going to bother to go [to theaters]. They'll be able to download the content, burn it to their DVD, watch it on their 42-inch plasma screen and we're going to see a shift in the whole process of the adventure of going to the movies."
Although the theater experience is a completely unique medium and experience, it feels like it could go the way of the "Drive-in." From a distance, it looks like the future of Star Wars will likely be more in the palm of your hand and in your home instead of sitting with the collective masses in a theater... And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Animated Potential:
I have to admit, the new animated Clone Wars trailer looks awesome. While live action is bound by what IS possible, the advances in animated technology make the impossible now plausible. To a large degree, the Star Wars universe is much better served in animated form. Hell, all you need to do is look at the video game universe. Take all of the awkward live-action moments and characters, the ones that seemed just too goofy to ever buy into (Jar Jar Binks, anyone?), and they potentially become much more effective on a completely different level in animated form. Just on a buy-in level alone, the animated medium seems to be a much better and believable world for some characters to exist in rather than living on-screen as hybrid live-action entities. Would Jar Jar have worked better if The Phantom Menace were an animated movie? Who knows, but I certainly don’t discount that a character even remotely like him might work better as an animated entity set within a completely animated world.
As far as further animated potential, even characters and sequences that worked along the way can only serve as an example of what could be enhanced to amplify a certain coolness. If the lightsabre clash between Obi-Wan and Darth Maul in Phantom was animated instead of live-action, and a few more edge-of-your-seat impossibilities were thrown in, it would have made the entire sequence even better. It’s the ability to amplify what we already think is cool and turn it into something cooler. Although it’s hard to imagine a world without live-action Star Wars films, for the foreseeable future it might be the best thing for the future of the franchise. However, on the flip side of things, if you raise the bar too, too high in the animated world, the only drawback could be that future live-action entities on the big screen might not be able to compete with their animated counterparts. Then again, like I mentioned earlier, the future of Star Wars might not be on the big screen at all.
Animated Tone:
Say what you want, but Star Wars is, and always has been, for kids. It’s likely (if not a certainty) that when you first saw anything Star Wars related, you were a kid. Although, from this writer’s perspective, it’s clear the three prequels were much more overtly directed at kids, what worked for the first trilogy (at least Star Wars and Empire) was its less obvious PG-13 tone. After all, it was a different time with completely different standards and expectations within the world of cinema. Given how the animated medium allows for a much deeper, and possibly darker exploration of the Star Wars world beyond the Force - like the unknown facets of General Grevious and Count Dooku - the new animated series looks like it might appeal to adults, teens, and young kids all at the same time. What hasn’t been fully mined on screen to maximum potential is the rich and deeply complex subtext within the Star Wars universe. Certainly not as much as the comics and novels.
In March, George Lucas spoke with ComingSoon.net about what fans can expect from the tone of the upcoming animated film, which might bring all of the Star Wars fans together as one universal audience, "It's unusual for an animated film, because it's not really hardcore like say Beowulf and it's not a Pixar movie, so it kind of falls in between in this funny world where Star Wars is, which is kind of hard-edged but not really, sort of on the verge of PG-13, flips over once in a while, but sort of the high end of PG." If anything the trailers for The Clone Wars look a lot more serious and sinisterly cool in a Japanese Manga type of manner. If Clone Wars is half as serious in tone, story and character as the many Asian Anime properties, exploring the religious, sociological, and philosophical subtext within Star Wars, fans will be in for one hell of an awesome ride. What some fans believe was lost in story and meaning along the way with the live action films, might be found in another medium that serves the characters and universe much better.
The Video Game Galaxy:
Although the video game industry predates Star Wars by 6 years, with Pong invented in 1971, both have grown up in chorus with one another. Given the soaring revenues generated from the exploding video game market, the future of Star Wars will always include games. Although all 6 feature films have generated billions at the box office, the video game market is outpacing and surpassing Hollywood like never before. With recent first week sales of Grand Theft Auto IV totaling upwards of half a billion dollars, it’s safe to say that the upcoming September release of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed will be a windfall for Lucasfilm, especially on the heels of the animated Clone Wars as a marketing lead in. At last count, over 60 Star Wars video games have been released over the years since 1982. While fans might be longing for more feature films, the video game industry has proven it doesn’t need the big screen to be successful. When the animated film and series hit the scene in the near future, along with the planned live-action series, the future of Star Wars in the gaming world will be stronger than it ever has been.
Live-Action Longevity - The Law & Order Factor:
Now that the franchise is three decades old, how will Star Wars cater to its aging fan base? It very well might come in the form of the upcoming live-action series slated for 2010. As much as I believe many deeper aspects of Star Wars would be better served in animated form, so much can be explored in a live-action TV series if done right. Still, anything live-action on TV comes with certain confines and restrictions. If the future doesn’t include live-action feature films, making the franchise accessible to a mainstream audience via television on an ongoing basis is the best possible move to ensure live-action longevity. As well, it certainly opens up the franchise to explore uncultivated dramatic layers through various characters, sub-plots and arcs that wouldn’t (or couldn’t) be explored in a live-action feature film. That’s not to mention the many new characters and storylines that could also be spun-off into other shows and to other mediums. Think about it, with 120 minutes to work with in a film, only so much ground can be covered. In a long running TV series, all corners of the galaxy can be explored.
Since many Star Wars fans are now adults, the upcoming live-action TV series might be the perfect bridge between a new animated series, the video game universe, and a lack of feature films. In 2007 at Celebration Europe, producer Rick McCallum elaborated on the live action TV series, its tone and target audience, "As I said before, it’s a much darker, much more character-based series, much more adult, and we’re hoping that it will go on for up to 400 episodes." Assuming that we could expect at least 20 episodes a season, 400 episodes would mean 20 years of Star Wars on the small-screen. If there’s any one property in the entertainment world that could outlive Law & Order and Gunsmoke as the two longest running shows in TV history, it’s without a doubt Star Wars. From an economical standpoint, at $1 million per episode, it would take at least 10 years to even come close to the budget of one live action feature film. In terms of the affect on future generations of fans, a 20 year live action Star Wars series could have a much greater impact across several generations than any of the films, original trilogy or prequels.
The Verdict:
If you have any doubts whether the Stars Wars franchise will still hold the same magic as it did for the original trilogy purists or the prequel generation, think again. In its current state, with big plans for the future, Star Wars might have an even bigger impact on future generations. Although the first trilogy kick started the franchise and the prequel trilogy continued the saga for a new generation of fans, giving them their own trilogy, the future of Star Wars looks brighter than ever. What wasn’t explored in the first 30 years will undoubtedly be harvested for up and coming generations to enjoy. It’s staggering to think that if the live-action series does end up running for 20 years, the entire Star Wars landscape will be transformed into something we’ve never seen or known. In many ways, the up and coming future fans are lucky. Like Obi-Wan told Luke in the first film, which is relevant to every fan’s experience with the Star Wars franchise, "Your destiny is different than mine."
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment