A 'New Hope' Arises: Lucas' 'Star Wars' Stupidity Might Not Be 'Economically Feasible'

Few things brighten this movie-lover/geek's day quite like knowing with almost total certainty that a recently announced potential George Lucas "Star Wars" live-action television project will probably never happen due to technical limitations and "economic feasability" issues.

Let's be clear here. A bounty should be placed on anybody who develops whatever the technology is that he's looking for to make a "Star Wars" live-action TV series a possibility.

As we reported last week, the “Star Wars” creator (and more often than not it seems, destroyer) sat down recently for a chat with G4’s “Attack Of The Show," where he mentioned that he has an alleged 50 hours of scripts for a gap-bridging, live-action “Star Wars” series.

Luckily, that’s not all he said. Depending on your side of the fence – you know, the crazy one, or the side that knows that this should not happen – it’s good news or bad news that he’s apparently waiting on some significant technological breakthrough that will make shooting the series “economically feasible.”

What on Earth could he be waiting for? Cold fusion? We’re living in the age of high-definition 3D television and digital cable, and that’s not enough for this series? I admit that I’m curious what in the world he could have possibly envisioned this time, but hardly so curious that I would suggest any network throw money at this thing.

But for those who are interested, Lucas also claimed the series would take place between the events at the end of the third prequel, “Revenge Of The Sith,” and the “first” movie in the series “A New Hope.” So I suppose it would be everything between Darth Vader in space watching the Death Star’s construction and chasing down Princess Leia’s cruiser.

He's apparently never noticed that every single time he's tried using contemporary software and technology to "improve" his movies, the fans he's supposedly doing it for have a collective conniption and say they just want the original movies in their original glory.

In capable hands, I think this could actually be interesting. If this were, say, “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” and “Firefly” creator Joss Whedon handling this, I might actually watch. Whedon, after all, has this great mind for storytelling. Lucas, though? I'm convinced almost completely that after "American Graffiti" and the first two "Star Wars" movies, the good-idea well ran dry. Even when talking about the "Indiana Jones" movies, you have to give Steven Spielberg at least half that credit, maybe more.

When Lucas was given essentially carte blanche over the last "Indiana Jones" adventure, we got Indy and aliens and Cate Blanchett's never-quite-right accent and *shudders* Shia Labeouf.

But Lucas? Alone? Who are we kidding? Refrigerators would get nuked. And worst of all, he seems just either completely oblivious to the backlash against his assault on this franchise, or he really thinks something else he could do might save it.

Meanwhile, “Star Wars” will get a theatrical 3D re-release sometime in 2012.

May the Force . . . ah, screw it.

Oh, and just in case you really have no idea what happened the last time George Lucas, "Star Wars," network television and live action mixed . . . here you go. "Enjoy."