TV WARS
A brief history of Star Wars on the small screen
It didn’t take long for Star Wars to make the move to the small screen – though the infamous Star Wars
Holiday Special of 1978 was something George Lucas quickly tried to forget. Tenuously based around the Wookiee festival of Life Day (yes, it’s a thing), it was most notable for the first (animated) appearance of Boba Fett. And Carrie Fisher warbling along to the Star Wars theme.
In the apparent belief that small help is better than no help at all, Ewoks were the next flagbearers for Star Wars on telly. After headlining
1984’s Caravan Of Courage and 1985’s The Battle For Endor – two TV movies set before Return Of The Jedi that brought Warwick Davis back as Wicket – they also headlined their own cartoon series. Ewoks debuted with Droids, aka the early adventures of C-3PO and R2-D2, in 1985.
With Star Wars largely disappearing from view in the late ’80s and ’90s (the “dark times”), it did little to trouble TV until the Cartoon Network unleashed Samurai Jack creator (and future Hotel
Transylvania director) Genndy Tartakovsky in 2003 to helm an explosive, stylish, traditionally animated series of Clone Wars shorts chronicling the gap between Attack Of
The Clones and the then-forthcoming Revenge Of The Sith.
If none of the above would become part of Star Wars canon, the CG series
The Clone Wars (beginning in 2008) arguably established more official lore than any of the movies – until it was cancelled by Disney after their 2012 Lucasfilm buyout. (New episodes are incoming, however.)
Another hope soon came in the form of fellow CG series Rebels, which launched in 2014 and detailed the formation of the Rebel Alliance. When that story wrapped up, anime-inspired Resistance – set in the build-up to The Force Awakens – kicked off earlier this year.
Which brings us onto live-action stories, with The Mandalorian in production and another show focused on Rogue One’s Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) and his life as a Rebel spy also in development.
They’re not Lucasfilm’s first dalliance with live-action TV, however. Between 2005 and 2010, Lucas hired many top telly writers for
Star Wars: Underworld, a crimeywimey story set between Revenge Of
The Sith and A New Hope – it never made it to the screen, apparently because they couldn’t square the show’s ambition with its budget. It was later joined in “shows that never were” purgatory by Star Wars Detours, a spoof animated series from
Robot Chicken creators Seth Green And Matthew Senreich – they even completed 39 episodes before Disney pulled the plug...